This is a real simple project, inspired by others, put here as an reference in the hope it might help someone.
My trusty Shuttle SN41G2 was a good semi-portable gaming machine in it's day, but the ITG performance has long since whittled down to "minecraft" level, and even maxed out with an Athlon XP 2800+ and using a FX5200 AGP card (fanless), it can't cope with modern games.
I still have a yearning for ITG, looking at the Intel HD2000/3000 didn't yield much hope, but the AMD Llano range gave me an idea.
The kids love Dawn Of War, so I got the bargain package from Steam including DoW II, but haven't been able to play it on this or any of their "pocket calculator" Dell Laptops. It seems to be a power hungry monster for a simple RTS game.
So, Project Ork Fusion was born, to refit something into the ageing Shuttle, that must be (a) cheap and (b) use as many of the original parts as possible.
Purchases
1x AMD A4-3400 CPU
1x AsRock A75M-ITX Motherboard
1x SATA III 500Gb HDD
1x SATA DVD/RW
1x 20 to 24 pin power lead converter
1x 4 pin power lead extension
Using existing 2x 2Gb PC1600 OCZ RAM
So, one empty Shuttle SN41G2 chassis, now devoid of innards and 8 years of dust:
The PSU, not the original, but a replacement 250W silent version when the original popped one day:
I had no intention of using the slot for a card, relying on the ITG, so I decided to use an existing riser, which meant using the trusty Dremel to saw off one riser in the way, and re-using the original CPU heatsink risers to form the other three:
The traditional sawing off the rear panel:
The motherboard fits nice and solid:
The rear is okay but very open, and the connectors have no support, got to be careful plugging things in (even the audio):
One CPU, I am using the stock cooler which is quite low profile:
Now for a test, hopefully the foam is non-conductive:
Working!
The drive tray, with DVD/RW, Card Reader and HDD:
The PSU was a close fit, I had to remove the cooler to slot it in, it's about 2-3mm from the RAM and the power lead converter just about folds under it, the PSU is very secure so no chance it can fall:
The original rear fan, in its housing, which would have held the original heatsink, could still fit, but the very short lead meant it had to be turned 90 deg to reach, it has become CPU Fan #2.
I tried using the original internal leads, the Front Panel and Audio FP were fine but the Front USB lead was about 10mm too short!
The original PSU had a double SATA connector but one plug was broken so I had to use a molex-SATA converter, temporarily extracted from another build.
The finished product, the nice thing about the Shuttle chassis is there are lots of routes to wire around neatly, it looks crammed but there is plenty of space:
The thick black wire is from the Card Reader, to the internal USB connector:
The rear is too exposed, part two will have to be modifying the IO shield to cover it up and provide support:
The rear fan is very noisy, I may replace it with a spare 120mm I have.
Installing Windows XP on this took longer than building it ! I had to slipstream SP2 into my install to get it to recognise the 500Gb HDD, and the network drivers didn't work properly, but eventually Windows XP SP3 and Steam and DoW II were running happily at 30 FPS at 1280x1050 recommended settings (which is quite high on most of them), currently held up on Games For Windows Live before I can get a game going.
My trusty Shuttle SN41G2 was a good semi-portable gaming machine in it's day, but the ITG performance has long since whittled down to "minecraft" level, and even maxed out with an Athlon XP 2800+ and using a FX5200 AGP card (fanless), it can't cope with modern games.
I still have a yearning for ITG, looking at the Intel HD2000/3000 didn't yield much hope, but the AMD Llano range gave me an idea.
The kids love Dawn Of War, so I got the bargain package from Steam including DoW II, but haven't been able to play it on this or any of their "pocket calculator" Dell Laptops. It seems to be a power hungry monster for a simple RTS game.
So, Project Ork Fusion was born, to refit something into the ageing Shuttle, that must be (a) cheap and (b) use as many of the original parts as possible.
Purchases
1x AMD A4-3400 CPU
1x AsRock A75M-ITX Motherboard
1x SATA III 500Gb HDD
1x SATA DVD/RW
1x 20 to 24 pin power lead converter
1x 4 pin power lead extension
Using existing 2x 2Gb PC1600 OCZ RAM
So, one empty Shuttle SN41G2 chassis, now devoid of innards and 8 years of dust:
The PSU, not the original, but a replacement 250W silent version when the original popped one day:
I had no intention of using the slot for a card, relying on the ITG, so I decided to use an existing riser, which meant using the trusty Dremel to saw off one riser in the way, and re-using the original CPU heatsink risers to form the other three:
The traditional sawing off the rear panel:
The motherboard fits nice and solid:
The rear is okay but very open, and the connectors have no support, got to be careful plugging things in (even the audio):
One CPU, I am using the stock cooler which is quite low profile:
Now for a test, hopefully the foam is non-conductive:
Working!
The drive tray, with DVD/RW, Card Reader and HDD:
The PSU was a close fit, I had to remove the cooler to slot it in, it's about 2-3mm from the RAM and the power lead converter just about folds under it, the PSU is very secure so no chance it can fall:
The original rear fan, in its housing, which would have held the original heatsink, could still fit, but the very short lead meant it had to be turned 90 deg to reach, it has become CPU Fan #2.
I tried using the original internal leads, the Front Panel and Audio FP were fine but the Front USB lead was about 10mm too short!
The original PSU had a double SATA connector but one plug was broken so I had to use a molex-SATA converter, temporarily extracted from another build.
The finished product, the nice thing about the Shuttle chassis is there are lots of routes to wire around neatly, it looks crammed but there is plenty of space:
The thick black wire is from the Card Reader, to the internal USB connector:
The rear is too exposed, part two will have to be modifying the IO shield to cover it up and provide support:
The rear fan is very noisy, I may replace it with a spare 120mm I have.
Installing Windows XP on this took longer than building it ! I had to slipstream SP2 into my install to get it to recognise the 500Gb HDD, and the network drivers didn't work properly, but eventually Windows XP SP3 and Steam and DoW II were running happily at 30 FPS at 1280x1050 recommended settings (which is quite high on most of them), currently held up on Games For Windows Live before I can get a game going.
