Shuttle SH61R4 Barebones Mini PC Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,775 words · ~8 min read
0:07
today we'll be looking at kind of an interesting thing from shuttle this is
0:11
an NC exclusive in Canada right off the
0:14
bat and this is the h61
0:18
R4 so what is what is an h61 R4 exactly
0:23
well it's a shuttle X PC it has the h61
0:26
express chipset which means you've got support for the latest core i3s I 5 and
0:30
i7s on Intel LGA 1155 it supports dual
0:33
Channel DDR3 1333 MHz memory with up to
0:36
4 gigs per slot a maximum of 8 gigs so that tells us it has two slots it
0:41
supports DVID it supports oh look at
0:44
that DVI DVD dual display support that's kind of handy so dual display support on
0:49
a little barebones like this means that this will be great for an office machine
0:54
what else do we have here in terms of the features and specifications it has a
0:59
USB three which is awesome given the value style product positioning of this
1:05
particular guy right here 5.1 audio as
1:08
well as a 250 W power supply two 3 and
1:11
1/2 in Bays for expansion and one 5 and 1/4 in Bay for expansion so this is an
1:16
xpc from shuttle that means this is a barebones machine now I actually did a
1:21
build guide for shuttle xpc systems on
1:25
my ncixcom channel so if you want to
1:28
know how to build a system in one of these then you can check that out but
1:31
I'm just going to give you a brief outline of what all you will need so
1:36
you're going to need the barebones unit itself as I mentioned before this ships
1:40
with a 250 W power supply it also has a
1:43
bunch of onboard connections which means it does have a motherboard and finally
1:48
as you can plainly see it also has a
1:51
case so a shuttle barebones is basically
1:54
a case a motherboard and a power supply that are all specially designed to work
1:59
together properly so what you will need is a CPU
2:04
you will need memory you will also need any expansion cards that you intend to
2:10
add to it and finally you will need
2:13
drives so let's go ahead actually you know what let's look at the outside of
2:16
the unit a little bit first so the casing itself is awesome considering
2:21
that this is a value unit this is an aluminum like a brushed aluminum
2:25
anodized finish on here that looks just outstanding can you see can you see it
2:29
in the light okay yeah looks really really sharp and then on the front of
2:34
the sh 61 R4 we've actually got okay let
2:38
me just uh take that off there we've got a nice shiny plastic piece and we have a
2:43
5 and 1/4 in Bay cover so there you can put any 5 and 1/4 in device that you see
2:48
fit on the front we've got our power switch and then we also have two USB 2.0
2:53
ports a headphone jack and a microphone
2:57
Jack let's go around to the back of the unit where we will find ventilation so
3:01
you can see the heat pipes running up through the cooler we've also got screws
3:06
for mounting the cooler to the back we have two PCI expansion slots remember
3:10
this is a custom form factor so you get two expansion slots in a very similar
3:15
form factor to something like mini ITX which gives you only one expansion slot
3:20
next you find your 5.1 audio out 1 2 3 4 5 6 USB 2.0 ports gigb Ethernet a clear
3:26
seos button check that out you got a clear seos button on a value h61 Bare
3:32
Bones machine from shuttle that's awesome that's a great feature you got
3:35
two USB 3.0 ports and this right here
3:38
that is the selling point so this makes it pretty much the ultimate office
3:43
machine because you can use those two DVI ports I don't think I've ever seen
3:48
two DVI ports natively on the back of a board now this is dvii which means it
3:53
has all of the digital connections as well as the analog connections you see
3:57
the little dots around the outside this is DV which means it's digital only so
4:01
this one you can use a DVI to VGA adapter this one you can't so what I'd
4:05
really recommend doing is using two purely digital signals you're going to
4:08
get the best image quality the best usability out of it and you are going to
4:14
have less ey strain and you'll be using it to its fullest extent okay looking at
4:18
the inside here is our 250 wat power supply so not really much to say about
4:25
that it's got a single 12vt rail provides up to 16 amps why don't we have
4:28
a look at the connector that are available on this 250 W power supply so
4:33
we have pretty much everything that we need including the 24 pin the four pin
4:37
which come pre-connected to the motherboard for your convenience we have
4:41
four SATA cables which I would imagine is sort of too many because I believe
4:47
this uh this Bare Bones only supports three drives so two 3 and 1/2 in and
4:51
then one 5 and a/4 mind you you could throw two 2 and 1/2 in drives in a 3 and
4:56
1/2 in uh bay and then you would be using all four connector so there you go
5:01
we also have two four pin Molex as well as one four pin floppy and a PCI
5:07
Express uh plug so that means you could take something like a GTS 250 or even a
5:11
GTS 450 throw it in here remember a good 250 W power supply still perfectly
5:17
capable of powering a low-end or like a
5:20
mid low to mid-range graphics card I wouldn't go throwing like a GTX 560 or
5:24
anything like that in there though all right here are our front connectors
5:27
which are already plugged in now you'll see this in my build guide if you watch
5:30
it but this is what's so convenient about a shuttle is that all of the
5:34
little finicky stuff like the front panel you know power switch uh which you
5:38
can see over here the reset switch the LEDs all that good stuff is all plugged
5:43
in so all you really have to do is plug in some RAM see check that out look at
5:47
this even the SATA cables are pre-wired into the motherboard and then pre-
5:51
routed up exactly where you need them so you cut this one uh zip tie right here
5:56
oh no you don't sorry you don't cut the zip tie you you undo this right here
5:59
here you plug these into the backs of your drives and you're pretty much ready
6:02
to rock just like that you actually don't have to do any cable routing on
6:07
your own other than the power supply cables which are fairly easy to do and
6:12
I'm clearly trying to put this back all
6:15
wrong right now which is making my life difficult okay and then all you have to
6:19
do is plug in the CPU so you take out the push pins here you take out the
6:24
screws at the back of the unit here right there and then you plug in your
6:29
CPU you plug in your RAM you plug in a graphics card if you see fit and you are
6:34
done now as far as graphics cards concerned check this out for expansion
6:37
on like a a value h61 be bones we've got
6:40
a PCI e6x and a PCI e1x those are very good expansion options you can throw a
6:45
graphics card in there you can throw whatever you want in there uh probably
6:49
most people will put nothing in there because this is more like an office
6:53
style machine as I mentioned before it does support uh core I3 Core i5 and core
6:58
i7 processors although because of the h61 chipset you are not going to have
7:03
support for overclocking so if you're using like a K series processor you're
7:08
not going to get the most out of that K series processor with a little Bare
7:12
Bones machine like this one got a nice heat sink here on the vrm so I wouldn't
7:17
worry too much about any cooling problems and you can actually see
7:20
speaking of cooling that the whole unit is cooled by three heat pipes coming off
7:24
the CPU Cooler into an 80 mm fan that
7:28
runs and blows all the air directly okay
7:32
cameraman's looking at the heat pipes there they are and then that that comes
7:36
up to that radiator I showed you from the back which is cooled by an 80 mm fan
7:40
which draws air from the ventilation holes on the side of the chassis right
7:45
here through the back of the chassis cooling things like the graphics card
7:49
which is next to the ventilation holes as well as the vrm and the RAM which are
7:53
also sitting next to ventilation holes so thank you for checking out my
7:57
unboxing of the sh 61r for don't forget
8:00
to subscribe to lus Tech tips from our unboxings reviews and other computer videos and also don't forget to check
8:05
out my video on how to build your very own shuttle PC just by picking up one of
8:09
these Bare Bones units CPU RAM drives
8:13
and that's pretty much all you need unless you want to throw in a graphics card as
8:17
well hey check this out I missed something you guys mini PCIe right here
8:22
so you can actually throw a wireless uh wireless card in there like a notebook
8:25
wireless card also here's another pretty cool feature check this out so they're
8:29
using a PCI E slot see that's a PCI e1x but it has an open back so that means
8:33
that if you have something like a raid card where you're going to hook up only two drives or something and it's a PCI
8:38
e4x you can throw it in there it'll run at lesser bandwidth but at least it'll
8:42
be physically compatible because you don't have that stopper at the end of
8:45
the slot