The little aluminium breadbins from Shuttle have been around for a couple of years now, and have gained quite a reputation. They have many clever design features, enabling them to cram a complete PC into such a small space, but of course, nothing is perfect. There is always room for a bit of modding.

My victim is one of the earlier models, the FS40, which is an AMD socket A platform ubfortunately crippled by the lack of an AGP slot. All the Shuttles cool the CPU with a set of heatpipes which lead to a small radiator mounted to the back of the case. Despite the active fan speed control features of the BIOS, this solution seems to be rather inadequate, leading to CPU temperatures typically in the high 50s and low 60s.

This is not the fault of the cooler itself, but rather the fan. Every generation of Shuttle uses the same Sunon 80mm fan, mounted in a shroud, held flat against the radiator. This means there is a large dead spot in the centre of the radiator, which receives no airflow. The fan itself is also rather substandard, making a lot of noise for the air it pushes. There is also a finger guard on the other side of the radiator, which varies from very restrictive, to extremely restrictive, depending on which model you have.

The first step in improving airflow is to de-restrict the stamped out vent on the back of the case. In the case of my model, it came off with the help of some heavy duty wire cutters. Later models may need you to take a drill or a saw to it. If you do this, strip everything out of the case first, and vacuum up afterwards of course. This will leave the radiator exposed (shown above), and you may wish to put a wire finger guard over it.

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