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There is not much to say about the case layout, it is the same as the one we have known from the SB51G and SK41G with the exception that the buttons are round and the Lucite front covers are missing. It goes by itself that this also precludes the use of the different color schemes offered by the Shuttle-Online store. On the other hand, personally I am not too fond of the Lucite solution because it is somewhat prone to scratches. Moreover, another facelift is always welcome and the brushed aluminum front makes it easier to find matching bezels for floppy and DVD-ROM for better optical integration of the drives into the overall ambience. Also, the look is a bit more retro and conjures up the 1950s but keep in mint that then the capabilities of the SN41G2 would have required several warehouse equivalents of space to host the hardware and a power plant nearby to supply the energy.

         

Click images for larger view and detailed captions.

The FN41 mainboard is basically the adaptation of the standard Shuttle FlexATX series of mainboard to the nForce2 chipset. In many ways, the nForce2 chipset appears predestined for a role in SFF systems in that almost all components are internally already supported and only require digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to empower connectivity to the outside world. Those DACs are usually rather small and cost-effective at the same time and have become the solution of choice to interface features built into the chipset with the analog connectors. What we have on the FN41 are the RealTek ALC650 AC97 codec, along with the RTL8801 firewire physical interface chip and the RTL8201B Ethernet chip.

One concession towards the small form factor is the omission of the third DIMM slot. That means that each channel only needs to service one DIMM but which also means that the SN41G2 will be limited to a total of 1 GB of system memory as long as 256 Mbit chip technology is used since the chipset does not support more than 16 chips /DIMM. Another minor change in layout is the rearrangement of the IDE connectors that are in-line with each other rather than back-to-back in the other SFF Shuttle boards. Makes perfectly sense since the long, split cable for the CD / DVDROM is running off to the side anyway.

Cooling any XPC is always a challenge and more so with a chipset that by itself is a small space heater. Relying solely on paddive cooling here would be calling a bluff, therefore the chipset is actively cooled with a small fan running at some 5600 rpm and doing it remarkably quiet.

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