Project: Shuttle [IT]X

[almoststew1990]

[size=+4]Shuttle X to ITX[/size]

Hello and welcome to my first ITX build and first Project Log! I am going to be modernising a Shuttle X PC from 2004 to ITX form factor and hopefully refresh its look too.


[size=+2]The Start[/size]

I bought the PC from the Members Market for a tenner and was consequently the proud over of this 'treasure trove':

-Pentium 4 2.8GHz
-A FlexATX Socket 478 Motherboard.
-2x 512mb of DDR RAM (not pictured)
-A sound card of some sort,
-A TSX PSU

It was upgraded at some point with a Radeon 9600XT which seemed to bring back memories for lots of people in the GPU section!

A bespoke cooler design that I actually quite liked and seemed to work well with some fresh thermal paste.

Anyway, this leaves me with this shell to work with.

[size=+2]The Plan[/size]
My plan is to put something like the following in:

ITX Motherboard
Haswell i3 CPU
4GB RAM
Nvidia 650 sort of performance : heat GPU
128GB SSD.

I will also give it a new finish of some kind. Either painting it black or treating the existing aluminium. I would like to add some kind of Mass Effect related Logo too.

I intend to go for a reasonably sized air cooler, and add a 140mm fan (inhale) to the top of the case. I will add an 80mm fan to the middle hole on each side of the case to get some flow through the case.


[size=+2]The Problem[/size]

There are several problems making this less than straight forward:

Drill mounting holes for ITX. The original Flex ATX board uses m-ATX holes whilst ITX uses a subset of ATX holes. I've always thought m-atx holes matched up with ATX but whatever, at the end of the day an ITX board won't attach to the case as it is.

The power switch uses a weird kind of motherboard connector that looks like it will fit over a USB2 'slot'. New switches probably required.

The front panel uses a very strange connector. I'm not sure what to do about this just yet.

No specific place for a SFX Power supply.

Screwing an SSD shelf or straight to the underside of the roof of the case.

In terms of dimensions, this is my plan (top and then side):

I'll update this as my components arrive!

 

[almoststew1990]

Ow wow nice! Love the chimney like fan out the top

How did you get the front panel to connect up?

 

[almoststew1990]

Ah I might try find some way to fill them in or find some use for the holes. I might invest in a 5.25" or 3.5" front panel of some kind as ill be USB-ily challenged.

It's good to know it is definitely doable though!

 

[almoststew1990]

My motherboard arrived, yay!

It doesn't fit in the case, boo!

Failure at the first hurdle ! The rear I/Os don't fit in the Rear I/O gap!

Looking at CtFs thread he seemed to have had the same problem. Did you mount the motherboard slightly higher up like my picture, or did you cut some of the case to make room for the sound outputs?

I'm not too perturbed as I'll be drilling the case anyway but is a bit annoying that I missed the I/O sizes. I thought there was only one standard for size of I/O area...

 

[almoststew1990]

after a long hiatus I've started doing a bit of work on this; namely drilling the mounting points and gluing (used some strong adhesive beginning with A that my Dad told me to use) the standoffs in place as the aluminium was too thin to provide any sort of grip for the threads of the standoffs.

The motherboard is now in, with three of the four standoffs aligning- the fourth was right next to an existing standoff so I knew it wasn't going to play ball.

I picked up a 5770 single slot on the MM, which is much more powerful than I was aiming for which is a bonus! However, the GPU is now too high as the old standoffs were quite low.

I've now realised I need to spend £50 on an SFX PSU that doesn't really have a proper place in the set up.

However... I can spend £50 on a proper ITX case that can accommodate an ATX PSU I have kicking around. So maybe i'll just dump the project and get a proper case!