[OLD GOAT] A refresh on a 775 SFF

[deegee]

The Aim?
So the aim of this project is to update an old PC i've had since 2008. It will remain to be a socket 775 but will get a CPU, GPU and cooling refresh with a new look!

The Background
I bought this PC back in 2008 as I thought it would be a cheaper alternative to a full desktop, I was wrong. In the end the cost was about the same, but it was small. However I felt, and still feel that the inconveniences of its small form factor far outweigh the pro's. Shuttles have come a long way and are much better now. A work colleague swears by them but they aren't for me, at least not as a desktop, a HTPC however it fits perfectly and suits my entertainment needs to a tee! The transition from Desktop to HTPC was just a GPU swap, this rebuild will see another GPU swap.

Table of Contents


PC Hardware
2008 - 2010

• CPU: e8400
• GPU: Nvidia 9600GT
• RAM: 2x2gb Corsair DDR2
• Mobo/PSU: Shuttle proprietary
• Cooling: Standard Shuttle "I.C.E. Cooler"

2010 - Current

• CPU: e8400
• GPU: Nvidia GT520
• RAM: 2x2gb Corsair DDR2
• Mobo/PSU: Shuttle proprietary
• Cooling: Standard Shuttle "I.C.E. Cooler"

This Refresh

• CPU: Q9550
• GPU: EVGA GTX750Ti FTW
• RAM: 2x2gb Corsair DDR2
• Mobo/PSU: Shuttle proprietary
• Cooling: CoolerMaster Glacier 240L with XSPC Universal GPU block.

Mods
Fabricate chassis frame for radiator, pump and reservoir
Painting chassis and motherboard
Acrylic front panel and window
Vinyl wrap graphics
Cabe sleeving
LED lighting
IR power switch install

First things first, lets have a look at the Shuttle in its current state:

This is it, a SG33G5 Shuttle. Measuring in at a small 310(L) x 200(W) x 185(H) mm. After 2 house moves and travelling through 3 states the poor chassis is looking a bit rough.

With the 1 piece cover off exposing the beast that is, a Nvidia GT520! This is a completely passive model, no fans but notice. Do to the unique way that shuttle configured the PCI-E to the outside of the case I had to err... 'modify' the heatsink so it would fit.

As much of the internal covering as possible was wrapped with some sound deadening foam. It seemed to do a good job but you can see the GPU fit is tight, touching and depressing the foam.

Now a view from the top, lol a DVD drive, to be honest I forgot it actually had an optical drive at all! I've never used it at all. It puts into perspective how small this case is.

Underneath the optical drive is space to mount a 3.5" drive. I have a 120gb SSD in there at the moment. 2 Screws and the whole mount slides out to reveal!

The "I.C.E." Cooling system. basically a CPU mount, heatpipes and a heatsink located at the back which sucks air from the front/side of the case and then exhausts it straight out the back, quite a clever arrangement actually.

Mmm dusty... not a lot of maintenance goes on in here.

the heatsink is quite thin so does a very good job considering. I prime95'd just before this and max temp after an hour was 54 degrees.

The RAM, at least I had good taste in memory, even back then!

had to include a screenshot of these bastards. I'm not going to lie, this Shuttle hasn't been without its quirks. And it seems that afetr any hardware change, it will decide not to POST for a while until you check and reconnect, seat, switch, plug everything and then for no reason will start to work again but this takes the cake.

this is the set of jumpers that must be changed to tell the mobo to use the PCI-E card for display and not onboard. 12 jumpers, dear god. Seriously? These gave me issues for years (and I no joke mean years) where when booting up I would have no display. It turns out the jumpers when in the correct way don't have a good pinch on the pins resulting in some not touching, meaning it was confused as to boot onboard, or PCI-E.

The fix?
Put them on upside down. Good god.

The current CPU. Core 2 Duo - E8400

 

[Dicehunter]

Subbed, Loved the 775 days ^_^

Had my E6600 running at a buttery smooth 3.60GHZ 24/7 game and bench stable, Gave me many hours of joy

 

[deegee]

Well as I have at least 1 sub lets not update this badboy with a bunch of goodies!

A new CPU! I picked up this Q9550 for $60AUD which I think is awesome. It will help with my Ambilight set up as its basically running a constant screen capture of 200 zones of my display. To get what I mean have a look at the YouTube video below.

The Q9550 Rawr!

My Ambilight Configurations using 200 LEDs
http://youtu.be/bGsr1XwG39w

This little gadget!

For those who don't know what it is, its basically a IR Receiver that can be programmed to any IR signal. It gets wired directly into the PSU for remote on/off.

Next some not very exciting Dust Filters.
These are Silverstone FF123's which are 120mm, magnetic

A 40mm NoiseBlocker "Black Silenet Fan" XM-2, this is top replace the current PSU fan but I might try and mod a larger fan in id possible.

As ill be putting a new front panel in I got a new power switch

The fan controller from my Define R4 will be perfect for the fans in this case, super small fan controller!

The GPU, A Galaxy GTX750Ti OC Slim (for single PCI slot

Because I am being a silly sausage and I got carried away with a tape measure (deja vu of the Define R4 of mine)

Gee a 240mm rad would almost go in there...

Wait! What!?

We cant neglect the GTX750Ti as well though can we

 

[MadShadow]

Love the idea of this, subbed!

 

[SuB]

wow, it's nice to see so much work going into an htpc instead of just slapping it in and hoping for the best.

That ambilight just makes me think of 'bloom' from early HDR lol, does it really 'help' ? I'd find it annoying?

 

[deegee]

wow, it's nice to see so much work going into an htpc instead of just slapping it in and hoping for the best.

That ambilight just makes me think of 'bloom' from early HDR lol, does it really 'help' ? I'd find it annoying?

Thanks, this old PC has been around a long time and served me well, I'd almost say it has sentimental value now. I'm not sure how long it will breathe more life into this machine but, it will be a fun exercise none the less. That radiator is going to be a tight fit!

A lot of people mention that they would find it annoying. Id hard for me to give an accurate response, i like it, but I built it...

I think if you have limited zones say... anywhere from 1 - 10 it could be distracting because it isn't replicating an accurate colour for that part of the images, its all just 'generalised', if that makes sense? With this I have 200 LEDs 200 zones, basically about every 19mm there is an LED around the border of my TV so the colour replication is pretty good I think. It just gives a sense of peripheral vision, if my borders weren't 2 inches thick, it would look a lot better.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Same its going to be noisey. That cooler is terrible

 

[deegee]

Same its going to be noisey. That cooler is terrible

Its all good! I have some Gentle Typhoons to remedy that! 2150rpm versions. They should be spot on at 5v/7v

 

[tinytomlogan]

Its all good! I have some Gentle Typhoons to remedy that! 2150rpm versions. They should be spot on at 5v/7v

If you had read reviews you would know its the pump..... Its terribad. I hated it, Gary hated it too.

 

[deegee]

Well... where do I start...

The Galaxy GTX750Ti OC "Slim" has caused me some problems... basically the mounts around the GPU die are squashed, not like other 750Ti's see below...
This is reference 750Ti

this is Galaxy 750Ti "Slim"

I stewed over this for a while... even thought of ways to make it work but in the end it was far too elaborate. I sold the card off...

And bought this instead!

IRONICALLY... the GPU waterblock doesn't fit this card either...

However, in a pursuit of true modding gusto I could have waited for the EK block that is coming, or a generic Koolance block that could have fitted or I could be retarded and ghetto this block to fit.

I chose the last option...

This is the waterblock flipped next to the PCB of the 750 FTW, the screws for the bottom of the waterblock that hold it together line up perfectly with the holes on the PCB, so we'll have a look at that idea...

Havcing a close look at the waterblock its a normal tapered M3 screw, seems simple enough.

So how To I make something that holds the waterblock together, but stems through the PCB... Hmm some M3 nuts, and a file!

30mm M3 buttonhead bolts and a dremel!

Thread the M3 nut/cones onto the M3 post, looks about right!

Throw on a motherboard standoff so I can grip the rod (thats what she said) and do it up tight.

First one in! and looks like it might actually work.

Now all 4! settle down things are getting out of control in here...

The GPU Waterblock kit came with some plastic washers, I threw 2 on each post but had to reduce that to 1 plastic, and 1 fabric washer for the block to adequately touch the die.

Using the tensioning springs that came with the GPU and some washers this is what the backside looks like.

And the top... errr bottom... err front... whatevs...

Now I just have to remove the PCI bracket and cut it down to single slot

 

[deegee]

If you had read reviews you would know its the pump..... Its terribad. I hated it, Gary hated it too.

Don't do it to me Tom, don't do it!

Maybe i'll be lucky?

I really wanted a Swiftec H220 but I couldn't find one ANYWHERE...

If its so bad I'll look at other options but it cant be worse than the 80mm fan that's in there now and a stick 750Ti fan...

Time will tell I guess.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Its horrid mate, even with a fan speed reducer its just as loud the pitch just changes. You should have just got a custom set up really or gone H100i and a GPU that doesnt need water.

The MSI GTX750 Ti uses the GTX760 cooler & pcb so its sooooo quiet!

Thing is thats what these forums are for, learning about stuff and not being affraid to ask. I dont like to put your rig down but if I dont say it then it will be worse when you moan about it all later

 

[deegee]

Its horrid mate, even with a fan speed reducer its just as loud the pitch just changes. You should have just got a custom set up really or gone H100i and a GPU that doesnt need water.

The MSI GTX750 Ti uses the GTX760 cooler & pcb so its sooooo quiet!

Thing is thats what these forums are for, learning about stuff and not being affraid to ask. I dont like to put your rig down but if I dont say it then it will be worse when you moan about it all later

Ah well not much I can do from here. Unfortunately when asking questions about watercooling the 750Ti I am more met with "why would you do that, you don't need to, its a waste" yadda, yadda... I've yet to see anyone say the MSI 750Ti uses a ref 760 PDB in any forum thread to use its waterblock, not saying it wouldn''t have been said here but I would have been lucky, though its awesome you've pointed it out for any others that look over this thread, hopefully it helps them.

There's nothing I can do here, from the research I did people complained about the fans, not so much the pump, maybe it will be acceptable to me, if not i'll look at a DDC as I don't think I will have any chance of a D5 getting in there.

There is always Noctua's rumoured AIO...

Fingers crossed.

 

[deegee]

Small update from today.

I did a full tear down of the Shuttle to see exactly what I would be looking at. Here it is in all its glory

Love the colours on an old Mobo...

The first thing I notice is that there is 2 fans on the PSU, not 1, and I only got 1 fan to replace it, so ill have to get another, no big deal...

The front - intake

The back - exhaust

This is a ribbon connector for the front USB and audio, fair to say no sleeving will be done of this...

And this is the connector for the PWR and LED, Reset and HDD LED.. All this is going as i'm putting on a new front panel with a vandal switch, luckily the motherboard document shows what pins are for what on the motherboard otherwise there would have been a lot of trial and error. It juts looks like a USB 2 header with no labels.

Next to take apart the PSU... and this, fair to say from 2008 its not in warranty anymore...

Just 4 screws and it opened up

Nasty... I brushed it all out...

The stock fans, 2x 40mm Delta's I need to find out the specs of these fans, hopefully the NoiseBlockers I have to replace them will do an OK job...*

A quick google has the Delta's at 6300rpm - 7.17CFM and 27dBA. The NoiseBlockers are 3800rpm - 3.9CFM and 14dBA. I think that's well within the tolerance, who knows how well these Delta's are working after all these years and dust. I'm sure after I've cleaned it all out and using the NoiseBlockers it wont be worse.

And case ready for paint!

That's as far as I got for now, hopefully I'll get some sleeving and custom cables done tonight!

 

[deegee]

I give you...

The Shuttle SG33G5 Motherboard - Black Edition, with a bit of yellow... and red... and white... stop judging me...

It's a bit rough, I just hit it hard with one thick coat of Armor All Invisible Shield (Plastidip) really it's just to take off the obvious harsh colours that this motherboard had, there's so much you won't see.

 

[deegee]

OK, well...

Here's what I got done today.

Here is the PSU cover, painted in the same satin black as I did the R4, has a really nice texture to it.

Then I pulled the fans and tubes off the Glacer 240L

This is a really bad photo but to fit the Gentle Typhoons I had to grind out the inside on the screw mounts because the screws that fit the rad aren't standard M3's

Then I made up this super dodgey template...

Then I fitted said radiator, fans, and fan filters to the dodgey bracket.

Then I turned my gaze to the chassis, time to cut to make the radiator fit.

This is what I had to cut from the front,

And the back, note completely going into the 2nd slot.

A quick dremel and the front was out, this was basically just to make a bit more room for the tubes on the front of the rad.

And the back... This was the first cut, I had to go back in a few times.

AND DO YOU BELIEVE IT!, ITS IN! A bit of pinchweld on the top and bottom will clean this up.
The back

The side

The front, lucky I cut that front section out... 0 room in this case...

When I started cutting, I didn't think it was going to fit but I'm glad it did. I can not stress how close this is to the PSU (it will be touching) and the back of the GPU (will pretty much be touching)
The chassis is in primer now. I'm redoing that stupid bracket I made up because it’s horrible.

Touch wood, this build might be close to completion the end of next weekend... fingers crossed.

 

[nepas]

looking good

 

[Feronix]

Quite like this one actually

 

[deegee]

looking good

Thanks!

Quite like this one actually

Thanks, it looks a bit rocky at the moment but with the new mount things will straighten up

 

[barnsley]

I work with shuttles on a daily basis (99% of the pcs at my work are shuttles). You're defiantly right watercooling it. They're flipping ovens and honestly, the pump may be noisy but it wouldn't be as bad as the 750ti at full tilt. IMO you've done the right thing .