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Shuttle KPC K45 Barebones System
Inside the Case
The case lid is held on by three thumbscrews, and comes off in one piece. At the back is a vent for a single 92mm fan (not included). The only active cooling is through the power supply; it's a 20-pin ATX model, and, if you ever wanted to replace it, you should be able to slide in a Shuttle PC40. And right in the center of the motherboard is the CPU socket. There's also room for after-market CPU cooling, so long as it's less than about 90mm wide--two struts run from the front of the chassis to the back--and the socket's rotated 45 degrees, too. The motherboard runs the entire length of the chassis, and it's all screwed and plugged in. There are two good reasons to stick with stock, or at least small push-pin, heatsinks. Mainly because you really don't want to have to remove the motherboard, which has been professionally installed by the best possible person: anyone but you. And also, with the PSU mounted where it is, it was a little difficult even locking in that side of the heatsink. The problems with this case have almost everything to do with the power supply. Not only is it un-silent, but the cables that you want to connect to things like the hard drive are critically short. Too short. They don't reach. There's also only one 4-pin Molex and one SATA power connector, and, for some reason, a floppy connector. You will probably need to buy an adapter or splitter, for length and connectivity.     There are two hard drive bays hung from the struts, with holes cut out for the hard drives and tabs punched in for extra support. And that, as they say, is it. While not having a hole for a 5.25" drive--or even a laptop slim drive--is annoying, the cost of an external optical drive isn't really greater than an internal one, so there's no way I'll ding it for that. Setting Things Up I grabbed a few parts from the office. I knew they worked and had no doubts that they could somehow be incompatible with what is arguably the most veteran of chipsets: i945. In about ten minutes, I installed two 120GB IDE hard drives, a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, its stock heatsink, and two gigs of Mushkin DDR2 800 memory, the maximum the KPC board supports. Then, surprise, not enough PSU options. Fortunately for me, I had the extra parts lying around to make everything work, specifically a 4-pin-Molex splitter for the hard drives. Without it, the power cable is zip-tied to the frame such that it's not long enough; the adapter added about six necessary inches. I have to point out, though, that I have piles of adapters from every kind of hardware, current or otherwise. This would be more than a stumbling block for many people just looking for a quick build. And then the KPC got warm. Hot, really, is what we in the field call it, and the 40mm PSU exhaust fan was really cranking away to get the heat out. There are two fan headers, both PWM (a stunning diversion from legacy), and, while the CPU fan spun silently, the exhaust fan roared away, ignorant to the BIOS's instructions to be quiet. Again, an old Zalman Fanmate came to the rescue, happy to leave the spare-parts bin. Even with extra cooling, the power supply is hands-down the noisemaker of the case. It's quiet now, but will never be inaudible. It's on par with an old, loud hard drive, both in volume and character. In the first couple hours with the KPC its budget nature hit hard; without planning or lots of junk and some luck, you might think the computer was a lemon. Even if you don't expect to use them, if you don't have a 92mm PWM fan, 4-pin Molex splitter, a Molex-to-2x SATA power adapter, an extra IDE, and SATA cable, buy them when you order the KPC. It will cost you $20 and save you precious tooth enamel. There are no flaws in the build or component quality of the barebones, but then, you're only spending a Benjamin. It's pretty basic.
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Inside the Case & Settings Things Up Page 3: In Use Page 4: Conclusion 
Related Reviews Add Comment
11 User Comments 1 - Posted by
afs
on June 26, 2008 - 12:02 am Imo the reason the KPC is missing features is so it doesn't cannibalize the sales of Shuttle's costlier barebones. They do sell models that have the "missing" options.
2 - Posted by
Anthony
on June 26, 2008 - 10:20 am I have two XPCs - one is a W2k3 Server and the other is a WHS box. Both work really well and only consume about 50W of power.
3 - Posted by
loz
on June 26, 2008 - 2:05 pm I agree the PSU a loud. But I disagree on two things : - there's room for a slim optical drive (take care to choose a short power adapter for it). You just need to remove or cut the front panel. - Mine came with the 92 exhaust fan. And by the way I didn't had any heat problem (with the exhaust fan, and all components chosen for being low-power consumption, though). But I had memory recognition problems with 800Mhz Kingstone sticks. I downgraded to 667Mhz and now it runs flawlessly. 4 - Posted by
Kurtis
on June 26, 2008 - 2:50 pm afs: good point about the other models which come with the other stuff :-P loz: I think he meant you can't just plop a drive in there, since most people wouldn't want or know how to modify the case. 5 - Posted by
loz
on June 27, 2008 - 3:19 am You don't have to "modify the case". - Remove the front panel (4 screws, tool included) - Remove the metalic grid from the front of the case (no tool needed, just your fingers). - "plop" the drive If you want the (optional, it's just for the look) plastic panel back, and if you want a permanent access to the drive, you'll have to drill a hole in the plastic panel, indeed. 6 - Posted by
cubiclegangsta
on June 27, 2008 - 3:27 am very nice article. in fact, it was one of the most relevant I have read on the kPC. Regarding "kP2" there are some new variations coming out "soon": global.shuttle.com/awards_de tail.jsp?award_id=848 No idea on price or actual release though. I don't know if I can/want to wait.... damn it. 7 - Posted by
Joacchim
on December 12, 2008 - 6:26 pm I could not get the KPC to recognize my 120Gb IDE hard drive. I kept getting a "disk read error" when it booted up. This is a drive with XP already loaded that I was using in another computer with an AMD CPU. Do I have to reload XP on the drive to make this work? Any help out there? Thanks in advance... 8 - Posted by
Max Slowik
on December 13, 2008 - 3:44 am Yeah, that, to me, seems like a common boot problem you run into when you change Southbridge chipsets with XP already installed. If you have another hard drive you can copy your files to it temporarily before reinstalling Windows on the first drive, that way you won't lose the data. 9 - Posted by
Joacchim
on December 13, 2008 - 7:11 pm Thanks, Max. I called Shuttle tech support after making this posting - they also suggested your fix - but another idea they had steered me in the right direction. I was using an old IDE cable (instead of the one still dangling from my other computer) for the 120Gb hard drive in the Shuttle and their rep "Bill" suggested that the larger hard drives require a "more modern" (my description) IDE cable with quite a few more conductors. I was skeptical, after all they all have the same number of pins at each end, but when I plugged in the newer cable, my hard drive worked! Then all I had to do was re-activate XP thru Microsoft. Thanks again for your prompt response!
10 - Posted by
Kurtis
on December 14, 2008 - 12:34 am Interesting fix... glad you got it all sorted, and thanks for sharing how you did it!
11 - Posted by
Mista2
on September 3, 2009 - 10:01 pm I've bought shuttle bare bones for my last two desktop and have been very happy with them so I have bought a kpc sight unseen. Dissapointed now to find it might be noisy. I spluged on a 60gb SSD just to keep the noise and heat down. Howver I do have a 3GHz core 2 duo and 2gb ram too so should still be a good performer even with the crappy intel GMA950 Add Comment To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields. |
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