Advice on replacing/upgrading motherboard in Shuttle XPC

[gazzarose]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for some advice on changing the motherboard in my 12yr old Shuttle XPC SB75G2. Its a small form factor cube PC that in its day was quite well spec'd and would place games like counterstrike and halflife quite happily. Over the years its got slower, and now it refuses to display anything. It could just be the graphics card, but when it was working it was struggling to play videos off my dash cam, and certainly didn't have the power to edit or convert them. I was thinking of changing the motherboard and the graphics card to something modern, but haven't fiddled with PCs for so long I don't know whats what anymore. The PC now lives under my TV in my living room (hence wanting to keep the small cube case) and I no longer want to for playing games on it, its going to be for video editing, photo editing, and general PC stuff like backing up phones and stuff like that.

Has anyone put a non-Shuttle motherboard into a Shuttle case? I guess if the mounting holes are in the wrong places I can move stuff about, but I just don't know what size board it needs.

Any advice on spec? When I had this PC build I had 2Gb on RAM in it, which was loads at the time, and when I upgraded to 4Gb it was like nothing could slow it down, but now wrist watches seem to have more RAM than that. As for processors, I never can't remember what its got or even what is good now. I remember my uni computer geek friends saying that more Mhz wasn't always better, but again don't even know what a standard PC would have nower days.

Sorry for the long post, I'm stuck looking after the office in work with nothing to do so started thinking about the PC.

Cheers

Gareth

[gazzarose]

I'm still stuck in the office so still bored, so I've been looking on ebuyer at motherboards.

The internet seems to suggest I can fit a mini-itx motherboard with a bit of fettling.

Would this motherboard and this processor be a good pairing for general PC work and a bit of video editing?

http://www.ebuyer.com/638938-asus-am1i-a-socket-am...

http://www.ebuyer.com/636285-amd-athlon-5350-2-05g...

[gazzarose]

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll have to do so measuring and checking. The board that's in it at the moment has only got 2 card slots, but the mini at ones seem to have 3, so don't know if they'll fit. I think the later shuttles use mini itx but the earlier ones were different. Either way I think it's going to need some modding.

I might pull mine to bits on the weekend and see if theres anything wrong with it, and take some measurements and do some more research.

I just don't like throwing it things that are working especially as the case fits in nicely under the TV.

Cheers

Gareth

[gazzarose]

Thanks for the other replies guys.

I had a chance to have a look at the PC this evening and got it working, I think something was a bit loose?

I've had a look at the specs-

Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz
1 GB Ram DDR400
Geforce 6600 256Mb AGP 8x

Now earlier I said I had 4 Gb RAM, but I must have misremembered it, its got 2 mismatched 512 cards in it. The manual says a maximum of 2GB total, what would happen if I put more in? If I stick to 2GB, would a matched pair of 1GBs or a single 2GB be best?

The graphics card has got a noisy fan and hasn't been plugged in for years, so if could well have cooked itself. Is it worth getting a better one anyway? I know AGP is a bit old hat, but I don't need it to play any games, just work and play videos. Do graphics cards make a clicking noise? Something in mine makes a clicking/ticking noise as you scroll down a webpage, so maybe thats not good?

Anything else I should look at? As I say, it was a good gaming PC back in the day, but I just can't get it to play videos from my dash cam smoothly, and trying to convert the videos down a a youtype size/format is an overnight job, so any advice would be welcome.

[gazzarose]

I think if I wanted to do anything exciting with a PC I could justiy buying a new one, maybe something like the ASUS revo that has been suggested. I've been doing some more reading of changing the motherboard and it does just end up with a bodge.

Would this card work and be an improvement?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Club3D-Radeon-3450-512MB-G...

And this RAM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Komputerbay-400MHz-PC3200-...

If they seem ok, then at less than £50, I think its worth a go. If I do have to get something else then at least this PC should be able to live on as a garage computer, or maybe even run a trainset in the attic. Its not helped that at the moment this PC is the only one in the house that sort of works, the 'free' windows 10 upgrade on my laptop has made it about as useful and reliable as an italian made chocolate teapot.

[gazzarose]

That sounds cool. Sounds perfectly good enough for what I need it to do. Where abouts are you? In Bridgend South Wales half way between Cardiff and Swansea l, if your closeish I can pick it up. If not would you be able to post it?