Soltek EQ-3705 Thoughts

Info & chat about quiet prebuilt, small form factor and barebones systems, people's experiences with vendors thereof, etc.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
BlaZeIIXII
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 7:39 pm

Soltek EQ-3705 Thoughts

Post by BlaZeIIXII » Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:24 pm

Hey Everyone,

I'm just wondering if anyone here has a Soltek EQ-3705x (where x means m=mirror finish, w=white finish etc...) SFF Case. My local computer store seems to be selling them and i can't decide between buying the Shuttle SN45Gv2 or this case. I like the SN45Gv2 very much but because the Soltek has 2 drive bays, it looks like i'll be able to suspend the hard drive in it (i just did this recently thx to the SPCR community and my what a difference, i thought my Maxtor DM9 was quiet, boy was i wrong). I'm also wondering if the Soltek EQ-3705 is quiet out of the box. Any help would be very much appreiciated.

Thanks.

P.S. I searched the forums but couldn't find any threads to suspend a harddrive in a SN41G2v2/SN45Gv2 case but i read the article about the Shuttle Zen, and was just wondering if the SN4xGxv2 has enough space to suspend a hard drive in any way?

Farnsworth
Posts: 50
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:11 am
Location: Belgium

Post by Farnsworth » Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:15 am

Soltek barebones are quieter than Shuttle barebones (without any modding).
Soltek barebones use a 80mm and a 92mm fan, the shuttles use a 80mm and a 40mm fan.

brmecham
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Utah
Contact:

is Shuttle XPC or Soltek quieter?

Post by brmecham » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:57 am

Soltek barebones are quieter than Shuttle barebones (without any modding).
Soltek barebones use a 80mm and a 92mm fan, the shuttles use a 80mm and a 40mm fan.
This may not always be true.

The new Shuttle XPC SB83G5 has a 92mm fan for exhaust; this one and most of the other newer Shuttles have a 250 watt PSU with two 40mm fans (very quiet)... the new SB83G5 is especially quiet without modding. I added an additional 80mm panaflo to mine and it's still quiet http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=15616

I haven't heard the Soltek but it sounds like you are only comparing the older shuttles, not the newer and quieter ones. Even on the Shuttle's with an 80mm exhaust, with the 250w power supply they are very quiet.

BlaZeIIXII
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 7:39 pm

Post by BlaZeIIXII » Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:45 pm

Thanks for the post's everyone. brmecham, the reason i'm comparing it to the older shuttle (SN45Gv2) is because i wanna transfer my athlon xp to the sff so i don't have to buy a new Pentium/Amd64. I'm more in favor of the SN45Gv2 b/c i really like shuttles cases alot plus the fact that it has the nForce Ultra chipset (Soltek i think doesn't offer it from what i've seen on they're website)but, b/c there is no extra drive bay on the shuttle, i just don't know if there is enough room to suspend a harddrive. (i have seen the pics of it done on the shuttle zen, but i don't know if this can be done on the SN45gv2).

kojak71
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 6:29 am

Post by kojak71 » Thu Sep 16, 2004 4:07 am

The biggest problem with the SFF is that the AGP connector is right on the edge of the mobo, making it impossible to have modern graphics card + quiet VGA solution (e.g. Zalman passive heatsink or Artic Cooling). You also are advised by Soltek to stick with the retails heatsink & fan. I have one of the recent Soltek cases (based on i865 solution), and even using the onboard graphics, the noise is by no means silent.

If you get something like an Antec Aria, with a decent M-ATX board, then the AGP port is in the right place. But there may be a restriction on what sort of CPU heatsink/fan you can use. Plus it ain't exactly dinky!

Post Reply