A Home-Grown Mini-PC: Tough Competition for Desktops & Notebooks
The article first appeared in Tom’s Hard News email newsletter.
Time to junk those obsolete, elephant-like desktops! From the five-and-dime around the corner to Circuit City all the way to K-Mart, almost every merchant has been pushing the latest PC systems still cloaked in the passй fashions of the 90’s. Meanwhile, it appears that a new trend is slowly captivating the PC market – ultra compact PC cases from Southeast Asia offer a taste of what the immediate future might have in store. Their message is clear, and by no means new – get rid of that boring, enormous, hospital gray box, and get yourself a chic, lightweight compact case. And by the way, a system built on one of these cases most certainly fulfills all the functions required by the average user.
It doesn’t get any more compact than this! PC technology is reduced to a minimum: a board with graphics, sound, network capability, FireWire, and room for a 1100 MHz CPU and 1024 MB RAM.
Fully equipped board with all the components and cables.
A Home-Grown Mini-PC: Tough Competition for Desktops & Notebooks, Continued
From the processor to the graphics adapter to the motherboard, almost every component has gone through a rapid succession of changes in recent years, except for the PC case. Most users own a big tower case whose size alone poses a considerable obstacle when deciding where to put it. Often, the ugly metal boxes are smack dab in the middle of the room, wasting space and trying the nerves of everyone in the room with their whizzing fans and grinding hard drives. Little do most users know that today’s technology offers something much better.
Here’s the box in which Shuttle delivers its bare-bones SV24 system.
Compare the size: on the left, a conventional PC case with a water-cooling system; on the right, an ultra compact Mini-PC (Spacewalker SV24).
Using the basic Spacewalker/Shuttle system as an example, we’ll show you know to put together your own individual and ultra compact PC in relatively few steps. Unlike conventional PC systems, all the components in this computer have been squeezed together to fit in the tiny case, so assembling the system requires much more care. The target market for this system clearly consists of users who work predominantly with office applications or who plan on using the sleek system as a multimedia device. There won’t be any problems integrating it into a network or hooking up digital cameras. Configuring and assembling this little mini-PC was a real joy for us. Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement in the design.
Package Contents: Case, Board, Power Supply and Miscellaneous Hardware
The SV24 barebones system was delivered in this package.
Front view of the compact PC. The housing and panels are made of aluminum.
Bare-bones case with an installed motherboard and micro power supply.
The package contains the PC case, motherboard and umpteen miscellaneous parts, and additional aluminum panels. You can start building your own individual system right away.
Even without components, things are pretty tight inside the computer.
Rear view of the system: you can see ports for the mouse, keyboard, monitor, VGA, USB, FireWire, network, printer and audio.
Opened bare-bones system with its aluminum housing.
The system comes in this configuration: only the motherboard and the power supply come with the case.
Flex-ATX: Basis for Ultra Compact PCs
Comparison of all the different form factors: ATX takes the most space, while Flex-ATX gets by on just 57 percent of the same space.
In order to have such a small case, a motherboard in the Flex-ATX form factor is an absolute must. Although this standard was created about two years ago, it hasn’t managed to make much progress in the market. Basically, Flex-ATX indicates that the common ATX form factor has shrunk by 45 percent. In other words, a board that uses the Flex-ATX format only requires about half the space a standard ATX board uses. And the PC case for the board can be built to be substantially more compact than the more common tower versions. In addition, the CPU cooler and the power supply used in a Flex-ATX system have to meet special requirements. There are also very strict guidelines concerning the temperatures within the PC case – they shouldn’t exceed 50 degrees Celsius. Because all the components are squeezed together on a smaller board, the fan and heat sink have to be of very high quality. There are even design guidelines on this subject as well.
View of the motherboard in Flex-ATX format. Despite its minimal dimensions, this board contains all the important ports and components.
The only expansion slot: the PCI slot will hold an additional component, such as a video editing card. The picture shows the wrapped adapter included with the case.
The wrapped adapter has been installed in this picture, allowing a PCI component to be installed.
Considering the rapid progress made by almost all PC components, the ATX format is obsolete and ought to be overhauled. This is the only way that PC systems could be built to be smaller, more compact and more lightweight.
The processor was installed with the heat sink included with the case.
Chipset: VIA/S3 Pro Savage PL133
North and South Bridges of the VIA PL133 chipset.
A Realtek chip has been included on the board to ensure network functionality.
The board is based on the VIA Apollo PL133 chipset, which uses the S3 graphics (S3 Savage 4) in its North Bridge. Don’t expect it to work any wonders with graphics, though – memory is reserved by RAM (shared-memory system). The South Bridge (VIA VT868B version) contains an Ultra-DMA/100 controller in addition to the four USB ports. Because space is so tight, you can only install a maximum of two IDE devices in the case. The integrated graphics permit a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, albeit only in 16-bit color. If you prefer 32-bit color, you can set the display to a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels with a maximum refresh rate of 100 Hz.
Processor and RAM: Max. 1100 MHz and 1024 MB
Installation of the Intel Pentium III/1000 in a Socket 370.
The case comes with an extremely flat cooler. Standard models are much too tall and have no room in a Flex-ATX case.
View of the board with an installed processor and cooler and 512 MB RAM.
Because the board is equipped with a Socket 370, we were able to install older Intel CPUs and the VIA C3 models. We chose an Intel Pentium III/1000 and 512 MB RAM for this test. The board is supplied with the VIA PL133 chipset, so we couldn’t use the newer Pentium III and Celeron processors with the Tualatin cores. We would have needed a VIA PL133T chipset for that. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for Shuttle to consider this when developing new boards, particularly since users would be able to combine a VIA PL133T chipset with an inexpensive Celeron 1200. But the more recent version of the VIA chipset, the PL133T, can’t just be plopped into the board. The layout needs to be changed somewhat beforehand.
The additional PCI component we used was a Soundblaster Live card from Creative.
Side view of the assembled PC.
Installing a DVD Drive or a CD/RW Burner
It’s up to you – either a DVD drive or a CD/RW burner can be installed in the free 5.25″ bay.
There’s only room in the case for a single 5.25″ drive, so you’ll have to be circumspect about choosing what goes in there! If you don’t use DVD media, you really ought to install a fast CD burner with 24x write speed. Fans of DVD videos, on the other hand, may prefer a DVD drive or even a DVD burner. The latter are still very pricey, though, and don’t offer many benefits over a CD burner other than their higher capacity. You won’t be able to copy DVD movies, in any case.
Basis for Digital Video: FireWire Port
Setting this PC system apart from its miniature competition are the two FireWire ports. The interface is wonderful for attaching digital video cameras (DV cameras) or hard drives quickly and without much hassle. Attaching a DV camera would allow you to copy video and audio data to the hard drive without losing any of it. You can also send sequences to a camcorder using special editing software. If you’re in the market for a perfect video editing solution, however, you’ll have no choice but to get a special video editing card from Pinnacle, Canopus or Fast. These cards are based on special DSP chips that use specific hardware routines to process the data.
Hard Drive: 100 GB Is Enough
The hard drive is kept in a kind of drawer and is a snap to install and remove.
Installing the hard drive is a piece of cake – the drawer where the hard drive is stowed is held by two knurled screws. The same considerations come into play with the hard drive as with the DVD or CD drive – the small dimensions of the case make it impossible to install another hard drive. So the best choice would be a high-capacity model. These days, hard drives are available with 100 GB capacity for a song.
We used a 30 GB drive from Maxtor in our test system.
Ergonomy: The hard drive is simply pushed in and attached using the two knurled screws.
Limitations: No Powerful 3D Graphics
Despite a host of positive features, there is a downside to this system. Ambitious gamers won’t enjoy it that much, particularly if they prefer 3D games. The S3 graphics chip integrated on the board is a fairly weak renderer of 3D objects. The first problem is that the slow graphics memory takes a bite out of the performance, which can really spoil gaming fun. To make matters worse, the chip doesn’t support many graphics features. In the area of 2D graphics, however, the board’s performance is more than satisfactory.
This screenshot of the Control Panelshows all of the installed devices.
The integrated S3 graphics allow you to feed out video signals via a TFT display or a television.
The WCPUID tool reads out all the important processor data.
Conclusion: The New PC Style – Not Maxi But Mini!
We’re sold on this ultra compact, bare-bones system. We installed an Intel Pentium III/1000 and 512 MB RAM (SDRAM – PC133) on it, producing a powerful, home-grown, all-around PC. And the best thing is: the stylish, aluminum-paneled case is a sight for sore eyes after years of looking at those elephant-like , conventional cases. Even its weight is astonishing. The entire PC, components and all, weighs about ten pounds. And it takes up exactly a quarter of the space a comparable standard system does. Thus, the mini-PC is stiff competition for both classic desktop systems and modern notebooks.
There are numerous ports to communicate with peripheral devices. The TV-out port (in S-VHS and cinch formats) serves to feed the picture to a television or an additional monitor. It uses a different system from conventional graphics cards – when a TV is attached, it automatically switches to the video output. There are also two FireWire jacks for a digital video camera, so you can transmit audio and video data. But if you want real video editing capabilities, you’ll have to get an additional video card. Thanks to the integrated network card, this small PC can easily be included in a network.
It’s no surprise that this system can’t quite provide the same functionality as a high-end, big tower. One of the limitations is the number of peripheral devices that can be included – there’s only one PCI slot, while the RAM slots max out at 1024 MB. The board is based on the VIA PL133 chipset, so you won’t be able to use Intel processors with Tualatin cores. Shuttle really should consider replacing the VIA PL133 with the PL133T, because only the new chipset supports newer CPUs with Tualatin cores.
So what’s the bottom line? Our home-grown system, based on the Shuttle SV24 kit, is ideal for office use. It also plays DVDs or MP3 audio files with no glitches. Add to that its ability to rip DVDs to the hard drive/CD-R and then convert them to MPEG-4 files. In fact, the system only has one true weakness – real fans of current 3D games will be disappointed to hear that the S3 graphics only support low refresh rates at low resolutions and few details (effects). One way to solve the problem would be to integrate a GeForce chip on the board or include an AGP slot. This would make a mini-PC system just about unbeatable and refute any arguments in favor of getting a large tower.
