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Shuttle KPC K45 Barebones System
In Use
I used an Xbox 360 HD DVD drive, and installed a bunch of different stuff. Windows was no hassle, and, for the most part, Linux wasn't either. I spent the majority of my time using Linux Mint, because it's the least-hassling Linux distribution I've ever come across. It's Ubuntu with enough tweaks and uniquely Mint applications that it's its own animal. The strength of Mint is this: you install it, and you don't have to configure anything. With GMA950, Compiz Fusion worked out of the box, and it was pre-installed and configured. Flash is installed, BitTorrent, everything. Inside an hour I was playing StarCraft via Wine, Folding @ Home, and doing everything that I could have wanted to do with a workstation. It's worth pointing out that I was up and working with Mint faster than when I had just installed Windows, Vista, or XP. It's a completely satisfying operating system that really contrasts itself with Windows--XP in particular, which shows its age poorly. Once I got Mint and StarCraft installed, I removed the 360 drive and took it back to the office. I haven't missed it. MintInstall took care of all my other needs. Part of why Mint runs so well is that the KPC's hardware was selected with Linux in mind, and every component has kernel support and drivers, and needs little (and in this case, no) configuration. Given Shuttle's ability to select good Linux hardware, I wish they included an internal wireless adapter. For some, that would be icing on the cake, but not likely the kind of people who want to use a KPC. For the record, I had no problems using an hField Wi-Fire. After a few days of always-on operation, running F@H, and keeping both cores fully loaded, the power supply started making an irritating noise. It was a constant, grinding noise. I assume it was the fan and, by the end of the week, it ground away whatever was irritating it. Now it just sounds like a little, high-RPM fan. It's been fully-loaded for about a month straight, with no crashes or system failures. A funny thing: this was a smelly computer for the first couple of days. It made the whole room smell like a bag of do-not-eat. I'm familiar with the pungent, industrial smell of new hardware, and that's all it was. But there was a lot of it.
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Inside the Case & Settings Things Up Page 3: In Use Page 4: Conclusion 
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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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