Thoughts on Shuttle XPC SX38P2 Pro?

SimonMaltby said:

Hi -BA- I warned you about the noise on these. Its mainly those fans above the power supply, I have used the combination you describe on your machine before. With regards GPU... there is no issue using a molex to VGA adapter, the Shuttle PSU's don't have many rails so it does not really matter where you take the power from.
What is it about the 260 that does not fit? I'm sure I got a reference 260 to fit, but had to remove the black plastic CPU fan funnel first... no wait, did I have to cut a little of the 260 cover to go round the CPU power plug?

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I think it is cutting the bottom corner that I would have to do to fit around that plug. But my worry is whether it will run just as hot as the 4870x2. I know the 4870x2 had a shocking rep for running hot but will the 260 be a lot cooler?

I have run it with the 4870x2 and it was crazy hot. No way I would want to make it a permanent addition so if the 260 isn't going to run much cooler then I am looking at a new card and just as well scrap the deal and start over with a new build.

Afraid I can't recal how loud the 260 was... I think I decided the thing was generally too loud and upgraded to the SH67H3 and now the SZ68R5... You really should have gone sandy bridge tbh, my review setup is just about perfect with the 2600K @ 4.8GHz and the 570GTX graphics... I know its a lot more money, but it really is worth it in my opinion.

Yeah I am thinking it may have been for the best but I have now got the 260 in there after butchering the bottom corner and tidying it up. Seems to be coping ok for now going to give it a go. If it sucks after the weekend it is going back.

Well after a day of use and leaving it on overnight to see how loud it was, I must say, I find it reasonably tolerable. On SMART fan it doesn't seem to put it into INSANELY LOUD mode and whilst it certainly couldn't be classed as silent, it is bearable. Happily goes into S3 sleep by itself if left inactive and comes out of sleep with a touch of the touchpad on my diNovo mini. Seems to be coping ok with transcoding to my Touchpad and 1080p playback via VLC and XBMC is fine. Eve Online looked fine in 1080p although I might lower that for more intensive gaming. Installing Dirt3 over steam at the moment so will test that later.

Temps aren't horrific with idle CPU temps of 48°C and GPU temps of 56°C. These rise to high 50s on the CPU and high 70s on the GPU when under load. The GPU fan doesn't seem to be going over 1700rpm though so I am going to install RivaTuner to see if there is any room for altering it higher if necessary.

For £130 it has given some old gear a new lease of life. I did spend an extra £115 on an SSD of course but that would have had to be factored in on a build with new gear anyway.

Simon, if you read this, I wonder if you wouldn't mind checking on your SX48P2 Pro for me. I am not sure if it is the same case or not but I notice that there is a small slot above the 5.25 drive bay and the plastic at the front is smoky but see through. I am wondering whether I might be able to mount an internal RC6 IR receiver. The mainboard doesn't have an IR jumper but I have found an internal one that plugs into an internal USB header.

I think my only concern is how dark plastic can be before the IR signal won't pass through. It would be great to have IR functionality that is well and truly hidden.

I think mine is different, I cant find a section of plastic that can be seen through at all.

Glad your feeling happy with the machine though

Hold on a sec, I have just found a CIR jumper. Should that work with the CIR model instead. Does the mainboard need to recognise specific protocols like RC6?

-BA- said:

Hold on a sec, I have just found a CIR jumper. Should that work with the CIR model instead. Does the mainboard need to recognise specific protocols like RC6?

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I think most shuttles have the CIR header and you should fine there is a enable/disable in the bios for it. No idea on how it all works, its on my list of things to get hold of to try, so please let me know how you get on, at the moment i'm using an external USB IR and would love to get it internal.

Will do...

Excuse the poor quality of these two photos but this is the bay I am talking about where the sata hdd bays sit on top. The other shows a pic of me shining an led torch through the smoky plastic.





Reckon it could be a goer?

Lol at the swarthy me frowning

Oh ive been wanting to downgrade myself to this Chassis for awhile, very tempted to buy it for that price

SimonMaltby said:

I think most shuttles have the CIR header and you should fine there is a enable/disable in the bios for it. No idea on how it all works, its on my list of things to get hold of to try, so please let me know how you get on, at the moment i'm using an external USB IR and would love to get it internal.

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Just to update you on this Simon. I have had a reply from CoHaus about the receiver. I think I can discuss them as they don't seem to sell anything that competes with OcUK.

many thanks for your request.

We took a look in the manual of the Shuttle SX38P2 Pro and found the following configuration of the CIR-Header:

The configuration of the pin of this header does not match to the connector of our CIR-receiver.
Our CIR-receiver is designed for the CIR-header of Intel mainboards. This header has 7 pins. The pin-configuration looks like in this picture:

That’s why we don’t know, if the CIR-receiver would work on your mainboard, even if you would reconfigure the connector to fit with your header.

If you would like to take the risk, please let us know.

The answers of your questions:
1. During the next week we await a new charge of CIR-receivers. This charge has longer connection-cables for the receivers. Sadly we don’t know, how they will be – we have to figure out after arriving of the delivery.
2. The receiver works like a normal IR-receiver. That’s why you also can use smoky glass for covering. Sadly we can’t say, how strong the level of the darkness could be.

With best regards,

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I don't think that is going to work out unless I start playing around with pinouts and really not sure I am confident enough for that.

They do however do an internal USB RC6 IR receiver which is this one. Now I need to fit a card read and am looking at this one but it has a 10pin header on it so needs an internal USB to itself. If I do that I only have one spare that is currently being used by a 4pin connector from the front USB slots on the Shuttle. I am therefore considering using a 10pin to 2x5pin internal splitter cable that should let me connect the front USB 4pin and the USB RC6 IR 4pin to the spare 10pin socket at the front of the mainboard. I have emailed them to see if they think this is viable.

Will keep you updated as it would really top off my Shuttle to be able to use my Harmony 900 and have it all nicely hidden away inside the case.

Had a reply from CoHaus and he doesn't seem to think I will need the splitter as the internal USB receiver uses a 4 pin and should therefore just connect to the spare 5 pins left on the other side of the 10pin socket shared with the front USB.

Well the receiver arrived today and I spent the afternoon trying to find a decent way to fit it in the location I needed. It is a bit of a Heath Robinson build but as it is such a small circuit board, a little bit of double sided sticky tape seems to be adequate (bit like Blue Peter).

I am pleased to say that the signal is strong enough to pass through the smoky plastic at the top of the fascia and you can barely see the red led when you press a button.

I have now set it up with my Harmony 900 for use with XBMC and all seems well apart from I need to work out how to get the remote to launch XBMC rather than MCE. I found a link for someone who has done a registry tweak but am a little reluctant to apply it. Anyone know whether it is legit? This is the link .

-BA- said:

...I need to work out how to get the remote to launch XBMC rather than MCE...

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Hi!

If you want to start XBMC instead of MCE with the "GreenButon" (Logitech = MediaCenter) you also can try this solution: click.
Have a lot of fun!

Best regards, CoHauS

That launcher worked perfectly thank you!

I now have full control of my Shuttle in XBMC with my Harmony 900. Result

Can you post pics of the new IR board inside your shuttle? Mine is arriving on Monday so I want to know where I can tinker with it.

OK here are a few pics. The quality isn't great but they should give you an idea of what I did. I bought the mounting bracket but couldn't really work out a way to get it to fit so I put it in a vice and flattened it. *EDIT* - I know the DVD drive is well manky but was designed to be a temporary affair until I am ready to put a BluRay in it. Just needed it to get Windows on.



It effectively acts as a bridge from the case chassis to the foam pad that I have stuck on the inside lip of the fascia. You can see a slight gap between the top of the pad and a small protrusion of plastic around that window. The metal bridge slides nicely into that gap once the fascia is pushed into place to everything does actually sit rigid. I wanted to use the mounting bracket because I didn't want to run the risk of a short with the chassis.



Below shows the circuit board sitting in place just ahead of the first hard drive tray. The cable fits nicely underneath the tray and isn't under pressure from the edge of the tray.



You can then see the cable coming out the side hole where the SSD is powered. I then fed it along the top channel and down the little cut-in on the chassis.



Through the cable clip and into the spare 4/5pin of the USB6 (see manual) header that shares with the 5pin USB of the front USB ports.



The reason I did it this way is because I wanted to keep USB7 (nearer the back of the mainboard) free for a card reader/hotdock which takes a 10pin USB connector. I haven't tested the front USB ports but see no reason why they shouldn't be working as I left that cable in place.

Just make sure you line up the power connector right when you plug it in.

Sorry the pics aren't amazing but I hope it gives you an idea of what to do or maybe even a better way of doing it. I don't move the case around like some would for a lan party so it only needed to be safe and reasonably steady.

Signal is strong enough from my Harmony 900 to pass through the smoky plastic to the receiver.

Good luck and thanks to Tino at CoHaus for some guidance, it really helped me.

Thanks, I will do that kind of mod myself later in the summer, want to get everything set-up before I start playing with mods!

Hey BA

Is this system capable of taking any itx motherboard or are these not the chassis or one of the model numbers that can do so?

Thanks