Well I think it was a good day

[Skiing Squirrel]

Not only was today your truly's birthday but... My dad wanted me to build my mom a computer. So off to newegg we go. Having a 1000 dollar budget is really fun, especially when you get to play with the computer and build it whenever you want.
I got the shuttle small form factor case/motherboard with the PSU and heatsink. The SK43G to be exact.
256 megs of pc-2700 ocz ram (its sitting on top of my monitor right now)
1800+ (I might have to trade out my 1700+ which can't overclock worth crap)
80 gig seagate sata... Its quiet and fast.
Phillips 17 inch LCD (black)
logitech elite keyboard (black)
Sony 52x cdburner and floppy drive (black)
round cables and misc. stuff
Oh and a cheap logitech black mouse.

I was around 2 dollars under budget. Anyways... Being kind of new to this mini form factor:
Should I whip out the old dremel and cut those holes in the back? Lap the heatsink? Put thermal grease around the heatpipe things?
I know those pretain to cooling but... Should I really have to worry about overheating? This rig probably wont be blessed with my overclocking skills... Ok ok... It will be overclocked at least 1 mhz just because. Is this going to be enough for years to come? All she does is type letters, emails, and play solitare, surf the web, and does taxes.

It should be able to run folding@home stable for weeks on end, correct? Really the lack of power and heat concern me... Is the onboard graphics good enough for this as well? It now hit me that I forgot to buy speakers! Oh well, thanks for your time to read this.

 

[Top Hat Theater]

Definitely lap the heatsink if if needs it. What cooling are you getting? In situations such as yours, I generally go overboard on the cooling and get the best (e.g. SLK-900) so I can get a quieter fan. My HTPC currently has a Swiftech MCX-462 w/ a Panaflo L1A 80mm fan in a case that has 0 airflow (no case fans whatsoever) and the 1800 NIUHB that's in there runs at about 56C (full load) in a 22C room if that helps you any as a reference. And it folds 24/7.

As for onboard graphics satisfying your mom's computing needs, yes, it'll be fine. I took a look at the board and it's got an 8X AGP slot so should her needs change and become more graphically intense, upgrading will be easy. One suggestion that I've gotta make is increase the RAM to 512MB.

~THT

 

[Skiing Squirrel]

I will probably have to use the stock heatsink that comes with the motherboard. I wont be able to fit a bigger heatsink on here, because it is one of those mini cubes. Deffinatly going to increase the ram... I have two sticks of 256, but one is 2700 and the other is 3200 el ddr.

 

[Yuriman]

I too am making my mother a shuttle pc. Only I have a $2000 budget. Her boyfriend and I are going to suprise her on christmas. I Built it in a model SN85G4, the one with the athlon64.

 

[diddydo75]

when you lap the heatsink what do you mean?

 

[Top Hat Theater]

Work it with high grit sandpaper so it is super smooth.

~THT

 

[Skiing Squirrel]

Work it with high grit sandpaper so it is super smooth.

~THT

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. If you want more guides and reading just search for lapping.