The killer on the shuttles have always been the power supply. With 40mm fans, you're always going to have that high pitched fan whine. The x58 moves to a 50mm fan, but that really isn't a whole lot better. The ICE cooling system uses 92mm fans, and these are PWM in the newer machines, so that should...

http://shop1.frys.com/product/5855663?s ... IN_RSLT_PG

I've bought these at the store (not online). They're fine for SSD since it's a hard mount. Wouldn't use them for regular HDs, though.

I just received a PC62 today. I've dropped it into a Shuttle to test it, and it works great. It's a 20 pin ATX connector, so using it in a non-Shuttle would require a 20-24 pin adapter. Not a huge deal, because the cables are measured to fit the Shuttle: ie, they're really short, so you would need e...

I just received the Shuttle PC62 power supply. For those not familiar with it, it uses the 200W external power brick similar to the famous (infamous?) Dell Y2515. In conjunction with a passive DC/DC converter to produce 5 and 3.3v rails, it creates a totally passive power system for most G series Sh...

Well... The major reason that I never finished the thread is because of many of the same reasons that you've all found. The power supply is clearly a problem area, and while I did toy around with the PWM-200 module (it does work), my fabrication skills aren't good enough to produce something within ...

Hard drives can draw as much as 20w on power up. (Some SCSI drives can draw upwards of 30w). It's one of the reasons that SCSI allowed for delayed spin up so that you didn't have upwards of 10-14 drives all trying to spin up at the same time and blowing the power supply. Also factor in ~80% efficien...

It's neither of the ones you mentioned, but I'm selling a Gigabyte 7600GT passive card. Take a look in the For Sale forum.

- Ken

I finally received the 2.5" hard drive today, and got a chance to test it out. The default drive in my XPS is a Seagate 7200.9 160 GB drive. The 2.5" drive is a Fujitsu MHV2060BH 60 GB drive. The 2.5" is noticably quieter than the default 3.5" drive, which is to be expected. The 3.5" drive spins at ...

The 900 series processor does work. Before I attempted it, I updated the Dell Bios to the latest (A05) rev. The box came to me with the A04 rev. I do not know if the A04 rev will support the 900 series, but the A05 definitely does. I have not left the box on long enough to get really warm, so I don'...

I didn't get as much time today as I had hoped.

I was able to test the ADD2 card, and it works great. The one I have is from Molex, part number 795305007.

Unfortunately, that's all I had time to test today. Maybe I'll get more time tomorrow to do some other stuff.

- Ken

Well, how casual is "casual gamer?" If you do more of the simulation/strategy games where frame rate isn't as important, you can get an ADD2 card. It provides DVI output while using the onboard video (Intel GMA950). I have an extra ADD2 card at work, so I'll try it out in the XPS200 tomorrow to make...

Digilight, It has been a pleasure so far to finally give back to a community that I have gained so much from. To answer your questions: The power supply is a form factor that I have never seen before, so I doubt it is any standard. The buzzing is definitely coming from the power supply. It sounds an...

Well, Dell came out and replaced the power supply. The problem is that the second power supply has the same buzz as the first, so this is clearly a design/manufacturing defect. Now I have to decide if the buzz is acceptable. In the workbench area where I started, I have a lot of other noise which ma...

After a little back and forth with Dell, they have agreed to send out a replacement power supply. Hopefully, I do have a defective unit, rather than the standard unit suffering from poor design. The replacement should be on site by the end of the week, and we'll see if it improves anything. On the h...

The XPS 200 arrived today. It's a very compact box; amazingly tight fit, in fact. After playing around with it for a couple hours, two things stand out. It's actually quieter than I expected it to be, though far from acceptable. The hard drive is a Seagate 7200.9, and the seek noise is clearly audib...

Shadowknight,

Thanks for the link. I just posted over there as well. We'll see if Mike's interested in the Dell SFF as opposed to the full size 400 or 600 series gaming rigs.

- Ken

Mike, I just picked up an XPS 200 (should be arriving this week). I live in Seattle, WA, just a couple hours south of you. I was planning on doing the modding myself as a challenge, and I intend on documenting the entire process. If you really want to give it the full treatment in your lab, I could ...

I've read horrible things about this box in regards to sound, but it's such a nice looking small box!... So, I picked one up for cheap, and I'm going to see what I can do to make it quiet. Has anyone attempted/succeeded doing this? I'll document everything as I go. Wish me luck! Here's the details: ...