ARGH!!!!!!!!
Early this year I decided that I needed to build a new computer. Well, not necessarily needed more like wanted, but that's not the point. I decided to build one of those cute small form factor systems from Shuttle because I was tired of how much space my old computer took up. I chose their SN25P model. It looked cool and got decent reviews from many sites. I built the system and have had a nice stream of problems since.
The first time I had a problem, both hard drives overheated and locked up. Evidently the space where the hard drives are supposed to go doesn't get enough air flow to sufficiently cool them. I've learned that since I bought the SN25P, shuttle has issued a slight modification which apparently corrects this. Unfortunately they won't allow me to exchange mine for one of the fixed versions. So I ended up removing my floppy drive and putting one of the hard drives in it's place.
A couple of months go by and I have another problem. I notice that my hard drives aren't performing quite as well as their supposed to. I do some investigating and realize that the BIOS is telling windows that the hard drives are SATA I, not SATA II which doubles the transfer speed. Evidently Shuttle has issued a BIOS patch to fix this. I download the patch and flash my BIOS. The flash program tells me that it successfully updated the BIOS. When I go to reboot, the fans power on but the system will not boot. The flash program lied to me. The BIOS did not update correctly. I had to purchase a new BIOS chip from shuttle and be without a computer for about a week.
Yesterday, I came home and found one of my hard drives had again overheated and locked up. The funny thing was that I checked the temps that the BIOS was reporting and everything appeared to be within normal operating temps, so I can't understand how the hard drive overheated. Luckily I was able to get it working again by throwing the drive in the freezer for a short while. I spent a good portion of last night doing diagnostics on the drive and backing up the data on it. It was not a good night.
I've had enough.
I still have my old tower case. The first chance I get I'm buying a new motherboard for it and moving the rest of my hardware to it. The tower case may have been bulky, but I never had heat issues at all.
I've not yet decided what I'm going to do with the Shuttle case. I may sell it. Then again, taking a sledge hammer to it may give me a modicum of satisfaction.