Shuttle XPC ST20G5 Barebone

After much debate, studying of benchmarks, price comparisons, and cost/benefit analysis I recently decided to upgrade my main system from an SN41G2. For the benefit of any and all considering the purchase of an ST20G5, this covers everything I've experienced so far with my ST20G5.

My former system the SN41G2V1 –
I've owned quite a few computers in my life and my SN41G2 was by far the best. I chose the SN41G2 for its size and looks after having a hulk of a computer that was the HP Pavilion 9800 series. I built it in June of 2003 and aimed to keep it for two years, hence why I am now justifying my upgrade. I didn't do to much research at the time and was attracted by one key feature: the onboard video. As I was going to be an freshman IT student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute I knew I'd be one of the many at the school who were "computationally inclined" (is that a PC enough way to say computer nerd? :-p) I didn't want a regular computer, I wanted one that would be unsurpassed. I therefore decided to get not one, not two, but three LCDs primarily so I could play games on all three. As such, I was mesmerized by the SN41G2's dual head onboard video and figured that in conjunction with a 9800 Pro, I'd be able to support three LCDs. I was wrong. As the SN41G2 supports only onboard or AGP graphics, not both, I was forced to get a PCI video card and run the screens off the AGP and PCI. However, OpenGL and DirectX do not play nicely with two video cards in the same system and will not play games on all three. DRAT! For two years I went on with my life, thoroughly enjoying my SN41G2 but always wanting to fulfill my multidisplay gaming fantasy. Then Shuttle announced the release of the ST20G5 which supported ATI's SURROUNDVIEW technology. At last it seemed my dreams could finally come true!
(As a sidenote, yes I know the Matrox Parhelia supports this type of gaming, but seriously folks, look at its capabilities, I'm not spending $600 on a card with the power of a GeForce4)

Choosing the ST20G5 –
When I decided to upgrade my system to gain the benefits of 64 bit processors I had two primary goals for a new Shuttle; it needs to support three displays and it needs to be as quiet as possible. My choices were between the ST20G5 and the SN25P. The SN25P was regarded as cooler and quieter and had with the backing of the NForce4 chipset it seemed the better machine. However, once I began exploring component options, I quickly learned that supporting three screens in the SN25P would be impossible as there are not yet any PCI-E 1x video cards on the market. The ST20G5 then became the ideal candidate in my mind as it supported AMD 64 chips, consisted of the smaller G5 case, and offered onboard graphics which worked with a PCI-E 16x video card instead of against it. After considerable personal debate and checking my system for recommendations by users here at Sudhian, I decided to build a system with the following components:

Shuttle ST20G5
AMD 64 3200 (which I will eventually overclock)
1GB GeIL PC3200 DDR RAM (because it is nice ram for the price and will support moderate overclocking)
120 GB Samsung SpinPoint SATA HD (for it's quiet operation and speed)
Gigabyte Fanless 256 MB ATI X800 XL (for the silence)
Shuttle CR40 16x DL DVD /-RW (for the looks)

Assembly of the ST20G5 –
As I was super excited about my new system, I went ahead and paid the extra $17 for overnight delivery and therefore had my system the next day. Up to that point I had built six Shuttle systems and therefore knew what to expect and was prepared to have the system built in a very short period of time. As in the past, the assembly of my ST20G5 took less than 20 minutes from the time I opened my boxes till the time I was ready to plug it in. Little did I know I should probably read the manual as the G5 model had a few new twists. I shall explain as I go along. I took a large number of pictures of the ST20G5 as I was constructing it in order to give a good idea of the internal components and what may or may not fit inside the case.

The ST20G5 comes in a well packed box with the following accessories: Shuttle Quick Install Guide, Shuttle RAID Manual, FN20 Manual, RAID instruction sheet, power cord, 4-pin molex to 4-pin converter (used later on), adhesive for cables and screws for drives, 4-pin molex to SATA power converter, silver case feet, Shuttle floppy cable and Shuttle IDE cable, ULi SATA driver disc, Shuttle "Bonus" CD with useless software, Shuttle Driver CD.

As a former owner of a G2 case, I must say the G5 is an example of Shuttle's continual improvements on making their systems look sharp and sexy as hell. I was initially very unsettled by the fact that the ST20G5 came only in silver and would still like to trade it for a black case. However once the system got here, I lost any reservations that I had because the brushed aluminum and silver look fantastic together and I can certainly deal with looking at the beautiful case that it is.

The ST20G5 is covered in silver brushed aluminum. The front bezel continues this trend with two stealthed drive bays, a 5.25" optical drive bay on top and a 3.5" drive bay in the middle. The front buttons are also shown on the front. Unlike in previous Shuttle designs, the front LEDs are substantially dimmer and no longer light up a room with their glow at night..

The ST20G5 has two onboard video outputs, an analog on top and a DVI on bottom. It is important that anyone thinking of using the onboard be aware that the DVI can only output to a DVI monitor and as converters do not work.

One of the most prominent features on the motherboard is the ATI branded 40mm fan on the actively cooled northbridge. While previous Shuttles with actively cooled northbridges have had very loud or whiny 40mm fans, this one is practically silent and I see no reason to replace it at all. Heatsinks cover pretty much every other large chip on the system as well, though I do not know what chips specifically.

The PCI-E 16x port on the ST20G5 is on the outside edge of the left side of the case. This is to allow maximum airflow over the video card. The ST20G5 also has a standard PCI slot. Between the two slots is a red power connector near the rear of the case.This is where the 4-pin molex to 4-pin power converter that I mentioned earlier is plugged in. This connector gives extra power to the PCI-E 16x slot and some cards seem to have trouble running without it installed. This is an easy step to miss if you don't read the installation guide.

The ST20G5 and all G5 Shuttle models come with a newly designed I.C.E. heatpipe. The I.C.E. heatpipes are Shuttle's proprietary cooling systems that work as well, if not better than most high end processor heatsinks. The I.C.E. unit consists of a processor cooler, and heatpipes which lead up to a radiator which is placed between the fan exhausting air from the system.

As I am used to the G2 chasis, the new clip design on the G5 I.C.E. units was pretty awesome in my opinion. It secures the ICE by applying pressure to the middle of the heatsink. In order to unlock it all you have to do is push down on the two clips that you can see on the closer side of the ICE unit. This is much easier and convenient than the old screw system used on the old ICE units.

The new ICE design incorporates a 92mm fan and I was very surprised to find that it basically silent yet keeps the case cool when the BIOS is set to "Ultra Low." Because this fan works so well, I have no immediate plans to replace it or incorporate a 120mm fan for a push pull configuration.

The new 240W SilentX PSU that comes with the ST20G5 features a 60mm intake fan on the inside of the case. This allows it to be quieter than either it's 200W or SilentX 250W PSU predecessors which used two 40mm fans.

The DIMM slots have moved under the PSU in the G5 chasis and while the 240W PSU is shorter, it still was a bit of a challenge to get my fingers in there to make sure my RAM snapped into place.

A wide view of the right side of the internal components of case. Here you can see the new 240W PSU used by Shuttle. It is great; smaller, quieter and cooler than the stock PSUs that came in older Shuttles. Many people have serious reservations about the capacity of Shuttle PSU's to power fully stocked systems. However this is not and should not be a worry because while most PSUs have a low rate of efficiency, Shuttle power supplies have repeatedly been shown to perform at an efficiency of over 97%.

The new copper base of the ICE heatpipe which I feel is a huge improvement by Shuttle in attempts to improve heat transfer. While no temperature monitoring software officially supports the ST20G5, a number of programs have been reporting a temperature labeled "Ambient" at around 38C when idle. If this is in fact my case temperature and accurate, then I'm extremely pleased with the thermal abilities of the ICE unit in conjunction with my Venice core AMD 64. My Barton AthlonXP 3000 operates at 54C in the same room temperatures and that much improvement really helps when it comes to the type and speed of fans needed to cool the system.

With my system assembled it was time to plug it in and begin the installation process.

BIOS and SATA, alternate spellings of Hell –
When I started up my system, I entered the BIOS configuration, loaded the optimized defaults, and then restarted. I wanted to get Windows installed and working before I began playing with the BIOS settings or enabling SURROUNDVIEW.
One of the most frustrating things about the ST20G5 is the lack of SATA support straight out of the box for Windows installs. Not that I really blame Shuttle or ULi, it is just really annoying to have to deal with installing a 3rd party driver. This process requires the use of a floppy drive and the provided diskette that comes with the ST20G5. [Note: This DID NOT WORK FOR ME] However, I'd venture to say that 95% of people building a ST20G5 no longer have a use for a 3.5" floppy disk drive and as such a problem arises.
As suggested in many threads here, the best solution to this problem is to slipstream the SATA drivers onto a Windows XP CD. This can be done very easily using the installation wizard of a program called nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/) that will allow you to select the driver you want to include (for most people it is the Windows XP 32-bit driver NOT the 64-bit edition) and then generate a new ISO for you to burn. Another popular option is to create an unattended version of WinXP using driver packs which can be downloaded from www.btsunattended.net. These driverpacks allow Windows to automatically install a tremendous number of drivers for a number of different system components, virtually eliminating the chance your system wont have the necessary drivers. This process is also easy to complete by following the instructions which come with the DriverPack BASE. I highly recommend "Method 2".
I however thought I was above such silliness; I had a floppy disk drive and was confident I could just install the drivers that way because I have a previously compiled unattended version of Windows XP which is like quite a bit and wanted to continue to use. As such I pulled my floppy drive out of my random computer box-o-fun, pulled off the case cover and plugged it into my ST20G5. Turned on the power and put in my Windows install CD.
Upon reaching the install point for the SATA drivers, Windows continually prompted me to insert a system disk into Device A. Over and over it did this even though my floppy drive was plugged in properly and I recreated the SATA driver disk after downloading it from Shuttle's website. Thus began my search for a working floppy drive. My floppy drive turned out not to work with my ST20G5 even though it would read when connected to my SN41G2 just fine. No problem I thought, I'll just find another. I called up my friends who I knew had a bunch of old systems lying around their house and went over and scavenged. I came home with 6 floppy drives, and again could not get Windows to read from the drives. I then appealed to one of my friends who I knew used a floppy drive in his computer and therefore knew it was in working condition. I went over, stole it, and then came back and plugged it in. This time, I was able to get Windows to continue loading and it went through the "copying files" segment of the install, however when the system tried to load the SATA driver off the disk, it could not do so under any situation. No matter what drive I tried, no matter what disk I used, formatted or restored, nothing would allow Windows (I also tried all three different versions of Windows I own) to copy the SATA driver from the disk. As such, I feel this step is quite impossible, and highly recommend anyone building an ST20G5 system slipstream the SATA drivers onto their Windows discs.
After slipstreaming the drivers onto a copy of my Windows CD using nLite I was able to successfully install Windows and start it up. While I was able to get my system fully operational, discussing that setup process is pointless as my final act in my install process was a kiss of death for my system.

BIOS troubles
My ST20G5 arrived with the 3/30/05 "U" release of Shuttle's BIOS. While this BIOS did work, it was reporting much higher temperatures for my Venice core AMD 64 than myself and others felt was reasonable.
Shortly after setting my system up, Shuttle released a new BIOS version on 5/19/05 which is referred to as the "W" version. (Just for reference, the initial BIOS release on 2/23/05 is the "S" version) This new BIOS presented a chance for this to be corrected and therefore I decided to update it. My mistake, my HUGE mistake.
Ignorant as I was, I found WinFlash on the Shuttle driver CD and had used it once in the past to update my BIOS on my SN41G2. I suppose I was just lucky that time, as I now know it is the worst idea ever to update the BIOS using WinFlash, always use a DOS boot disk instead.
In the middle of flashing my BIOS, my screen went blue and my system went dead. Who would have thought that a Shuttle BIOS being replaced with software provided by Shuttle using instructions provided by Shuttle, that it could screw up? Not me! But it did and TERRIBLY at that! 36 hours, 3 BIOS versions, and 3 clean format Windows installs later, I was able to get my system to actually bring up the Windows desktop. Suffice to say I am now using the "S" version of the BIOS and do not intend to upgrade again until there is a new version and it is well tested. Based on my experiences and the problems of others around here who have reported issues, I declare the "W" release to be entirely too risky to install on any ST20G5.

Cool, Quiet, and Awesome –
SURROUNDVIEW
Ah the promises of SURROUNDVIEW, they are my ideal dream and I shall love them for that. I have SURROUNDVIEW enabled and working properly. For those who are unaware, SURROUNDVIEW is ATI's technology that allows you to use onboard video in conjunction with a PCI-E 16x card at the same time. This makes it such that the theoretical maximum number of monitors you can run off an ST20G5 is four. I however am only running three at the moment.
Installation of the system took place using the onboard video since I did not want to touch the BIOS settings and that is what the default output was. After installing Windows, crashing the BIOS and installing Windows again, I was able to finally install the drivers and enable it in the BIOS. Here however you must be cautioned, if you are going to use SURROUNDVIEW you need to install the chipset drivers from ATI with the CATALYST control center for the chipset driver. You then must install only the drivers for your video card and not the entire CATALYST software again as it will overwrite the chipset CATALYST software. The CATALYST software for video cards does not work with the Xpress 200 chipset and Windows will crash over and over again until you uninstall them and install the drivers in the manner I suggested. One odd result of SURROUNDVIEW is that Windows does not seem to be able to handle screenshots of the triple display or I'd have taken them to show you.
My ultimate goal is to be able to game using all three screens at one time as until now that was entirely impossible. I however have not yet, at the time of this writing, had the time to install any games to test this feature out, much to my disappointment as it requires special configurations and drivers which are difficult to find and understand

USB / Ethernet performance
I was very concerned about the performance of the USB and Ethernet controllers of the ST20G5 as in several reviews they considerably underperformed their peers. I run 14 USB devices at any given time, including six external drives, and I needed a working USB system. Because of my video requirements, I went a head and bit the bullet with these concerns, and it hasn't turned out as a badly as I thought it might. My USB transfers faster than my old SN41G2 did, but I always suspected that the V1's USB 2.0 support was merely theoretical anyhow. So while the USB does under perform even in comparison to my laptops, it is not too terrible and I'd not let it stop you from purchasing an ST20G5.
In the benchmarking tests I've run, my Ethernet performs much like it does in all the ST20G5 reviews. I unfortunately have no gigabit support on my network so I cannot comment on its actual performance.

Cool 'n Quiet
The ST20G5 offers support for AMD's Cool 'n Quiet software, but I don't really think it needs it. As I commented earlier, there not yet any real support for temperature monitoring in the ST20G5, but several programs have identified one diode that reports 38C at idle. This temperature was reported right next my old SN41G2 which was idling at 46C and therefore I can only assume this shows dramatic improvement. Under load I pushed this temp reading to 44C and it topped out there.
I've supremely pleased with the silence of the ST20G5 in conjunction with my Samsung Spinpoint. I keep my system in my room about four feet from my head and I was unable to hear it as I went to sleep last night. Even with my heavily modified and fan controlled SN41G2 this was not the case and therefore I could not be happier.

Audio Drivers
I'm not an audio junkie, in fact I don't hardly listen to music at all and only care that it works when I play games or watch movies. Therefore I have no ear for sound quality and will not comment on it beyond saying it works. However the software side of things is very interesting. Windows SP2 refused to accept the Realtek drivers after install by popping up a message saying that critical system files had been replaced with unauthenticated versions and the Windows CD was necessary to repair them. This happened several times when I reinstalled the drivers and I could not figure out a solution. However, after the Windows CD is put in the drive, it successfully installs the correct drivers, or at least ones which work.
The Realtek software is decent, it's auto detection of what has been plugged into the ports is sort of novel, but quickly became annoying. It seems to do it's job, but like I said, I'm not much of an audio quality person.

Update: 3/6/06

Because Shuttle's After Sales support and Technical Support has continued to slide from miserable to practically non-existant, I can no longer recommend this or any other Shuttle product to anyone who is not substantially experienced with building computers.