My "Special Edition" Shuttle SS40G

My 'Special Edition' Shuttle SS40G

by: Mark J. Foster

Though I've been playing around with PCs since before they were even called PCs, I've never been a "modder". Toying with software and hardware is fun, but I could never understand the appeal of wasting time mucking around with my PCs' cases. Perhaps it's because they were always just so beige and... boring. Then I found Shuttle's terrific little SS40G:

What a cute little box! Not only is it a rock-solid performer, it's very quiet, and it looks fantastic! Except for that big ugly DVD drive sticking out the front... can't you do something about that? Right about the same time that question popped up, I stumbled onto www.sudhian.com, the premier website for Small Form Factor (SFF) machines like the Shuttle. While checking out the Sudhian forums, I noticed that it wasn't just me: lots of people were customizing their Shuttle machines! Something about these great little boxes just invites you to play around with them, to try new things, to tweak them just a bit closer to perfection.

I started small, by "stealthing" my DVD drive: mounting it behind the cool-looking plexiglass bezel that Shuttle ships with the unit. That was a good start, since it gave me an opportunity to try modding without having to break my back, or my bank account. I soon discovered I was completely hooked, and kept thinking about new things that I could try out, about ever more complex ways I could screw up my machine.

Where did I wind up? In addition to integrating an 800x480 widescreen TFT LCD into the machine, the front I/O panel has been relocated to the back of the system. In the slot that originally held the front I/O panel, seven switches now control the system and the LCD display (from Left to Right):

Monitor POWER
Monitor MENU key
Monitor SELECT key
Monitor ADJUST +
Monitor ADJUST -
System RESET
System POWER

In addition to the switches being relocated, the LED indicators from the system, the LCD display, and the DVD drive have been moved to the four quadrants of the front panel.

Here's a view from the rear showing the new location of the I/O panel, just above the Shuttle's "I.C.E." cooling radiator. As you can see, pretty much everything has been painted in a metallic black color. While the metal flake in the paint looks pretty intense in this picture due to the camera's flash, in reality it's much more subtle.

Rear view of system, showing relocated I/O panel

Internally, things look quite a bit different, too. Below, you can see what it looks like from the left side (I'll always refer to left and right as though you were facing the front of the system). This image shows the PowerColor Radeon 7500 PCI card that drives the internal display (as well as an external monitor), a blue CFL tube, and on the right, you can see the LCD display controller, mounted behind the front of the case:

On the right-hand side, you can see another CFL tube - there are going to be lots of lights in this mod! You can also see how much better the system looks just by painting the power supply.

SO WHAT'S THE POINT?

What's it good for? To be honest, I've got to admit that the real reason I tackled this project was to find an outlet for stress during some challenging times at work. Still, somewhere along the line the project began to have meaning: creating something that would help me control my home theater system (while many folks don't realize it, PCs can deliver spectacular DVD playback quality that's only rivaled by $10,000 video scalers). I've been using PCs in my home theater for more than five years, but they've always been so darned ugly. It'd be nice if I could finally come up with something that I could mount in my A/V rack that didn't completely suck.

An increasing number of folks are using PCs as the cornerstone of their home theater systems - so much so that HTPC (Home Theater PC) is now a standard acronym. Why would you want a PC in your theater? HTPCs can do many things extremely well, including:

DVD playback - outstanding on ATI Radeon video cards
High-quality music playback, with a direct digital S/PDIF connection
Music jukebox, storing your entire CD collection on hard disk
[High-definition] TV recording and playback with an [HD]TV receiver card
Web-browsing
Large-screen games - what a rush!
The UIRT/2 IR transceiver let's you control your other A/V components via Girder
Fully controllable via a standard infrared remote

While most folks use an IR remote control to control their HTPC, sometimes it's nice to have visual feedback. If you just want to play music, for example, it's a pain in the rear (not to mention expensive) to have to fire up the projection system just to select what album you want to play. The internal LCD is an ideal solution to the problem: it lets you control the system independently of what the big screen is showing, even if it's turned off. Just as importantly, the display "disappears" whenever the screensaver kicks in, making the system quite unobtrusive:

In addition, you can even watch movies on the Shuttle! While my HTPC's job is normally to output video to my 1365x1024 D-ILA projector, it's fun watching a MiniMovie on the MiniMonitor once in a while:

While HTPC control was the goal, there's a problem: I haven't been able to convince myself to move the system from my normal web-browsing location into the home theater! Just for fun, I began using the internal display to monitor my (remotely-located) home Linux server full-time, and it's become really valuable. It's possible to see the status of the server at any time with just a glance, without having to obscure whatever you're working on on the primary, external monitor.

Monitoring Linux: showing "tail -f /var/log/xferlog"

The internal display could also be great with some of the new multiple-monitor games, letting you have a map view visible at all times, or keeping your comm console open while you're fragging all your buddies. Like to stay in touch? Keep a chat window around while you're doing other things. Trade stocks? Keep an eye on your portfolio, and just like the LCD display, you can watch it disappear in real-time!

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

The initial inspiration for this project was a rumor that Shuttle would soon be introducing a lighted front panel for their latest SFF boxes. I don't know why, but I've always had a fascination with light, and things that make light. Be it a home theater projector, a flourescent display, or just a plain blue LED, I'm a video nut. When I learned that the Shuttle's lighting kit would only work with the SS51G, I decided to see if I could modify my SS40G to do the same thing. Well, at least that's how it started.

I bought a couple of blue electroluminescent (EL) sheets, and fired them up. They were a little too blue-green for my taste, but it seemed that it'd be possible to squeeze the EL panel and a blue color filter behind the plexiglass front of the SS40G. But wait a minute... what's that squealing sound? As it turns out, EL panels resonate at the frequency of the voltage they are fed by their power supply; the panel was "singing" along with its inverter! Considering that I'd worked hard to make my Shuttle as quiet as possible, this was not going to work. Time for Plan B.

The next thought was to use an LCD backlight assembly to light up the front of the system. Instead of driving it with a normal Cathode Flourescent Lamp (CFL) tube, though, wouldn't it be cool to drive it with LEDs? Not just any LEDs, of course, but "Ultra Blue" ones, by using special 430nm deep-blue LED devices. After trying in vain for days to locate a suitable backlight assembly, it finally hit me. Why not make life easier, and just bolt in an entire LCD panel? So I did!

Well, after about 220 hours of trying...

When I finally finished the system, I thought it would be interesting to see what other folks thought about it, so I posted a few pictures on the Sudhian forum. The response blew me away - it seemed like lots of people wanted to know more about the mod. After getting inundated with emails asking how to put this together, I figured that I'd better write something up. While this article doesn't cover every single step in detail, it should provide enough information to let you build your own. For those that are wondering, everything described here applies to Shuttle's SS40G and SS51G, as well as to Shuttle's upcoming XPCs like the SN41G.

FINDING THE RIGHT DISPLAY

The first step is finding an LCD that's suitable for use inside a Shuttle. There are thousands of small LCD monitors out there, but most of them are fed by plain old low-resolution composite video, and aren't very good at displaying text or other fine detail. Fortunately, while scouting for a higher quality LCD, I found Xenarc, and their fabulous model 700Y:

This beautiful little TFT LCD offers true 800 by 480 pixel resolution, in a widescreen format. Better yet, it has a VGA input, so it can display far more image detail than displays with S-video or composite video inputs. I was hooked! I ordered one, and within ten minutes of opening the box I was tearing it apart. Not before firing it up, of course. It was gorgeous, and after a few minutes of tinkering with the PowerStrip video utility, I had a pixel-perfect 800x480 display. This is a superb little display! In addition to the 700Y, Xenarc also offers a version with an integrated touchscreen display, the Model 700TS; while you'd have to make some changes to use it here, it's an intriguing alternative.

Whatever you do, don't confuse Xenarc's 700Y with the less-expensive 700V. The 700V uses only normal composite video inputs, and the difference shows! Trying to read computer output on a composite or S-video screen is like trying to read the newspaper through a thick layer of Vaseline: you won't be able to understand anything, and it'll give you a headache! Regardless of the manufacturer, there is a huge difference between RGB-interfaced monitors and video monitors. Don't scrimp unless you're sure that you can live with the outcome.

The next step is to integrate the LCD into the system, which is a fair amount of work. Before we leap into the tough stuff, though, let's start small, and learn how to "stealth" a DVD drive.

STEALTHING A DVD DRIVE

Even if you don't do anything else, a great way to get started in modding is to stealth your Shuttle's DVD drive: "hiding" it so that the front of the system has a clear, clean look. Here's how my SS40G looked after stealthing the DVD:

Compared to some of the more complex mods, it's a simple process that's a lot of fun, and the result looks great. That's how I started my mod. In fact, stealthing the DVD+RW drive on this machine was the first PC mod I ever attempted. I'll warn you, once you start modding, you won't want to stop!

The process of stealthing a drive boils down to three basic steps:

Use Shuttle's 5-1/4" bay plexiglass bezel to cover the drive
Come up with a way of ejecting disks
Expose the DVD's drive-access light

There are many different ways to replace the drive's bezel. By far the easiest is simply to use strong double-sided tape to attach Shuttle's bezel to the front of the existing drive tray cover, then mount the DVD drive further back in the system so that the new Shuttle bezel is flush with the front of the system when the drive's closed. That's certainly an easy possibility, and you're welcome to use that approach. For me, though, that seemed like wimping out. Not wanting to admit that I'm a wimp, I decided to tackle this a little more, err... aggressively. Instead of adding on another bezel, you'll actually replace your drive's existing bezel with the new Shuttle bezel.

Shuttle has shipped two different types of 5-1/4" drive bezels in their "XPC" plexiglass-bezeled machines. The earlier bezels are glued together, while later bezels use two screws - the same kind of screws used to attach the system bezel to the chassis. Since most folks have the latter variety, we'll concentrate on that type here, by stealthing the DVD on an SS51G. The bezel itself has three pieces: an aluminum bracket, a thin paper color sheet, and the plexiglass bezel itself. Before you do anything else, cover the plexiglass part of the bezel with masking tape or heavy-duty packing tape; this will prevent the bezel from getting scratched by metal shavings as you're working. As I learned the hard way, always take the time to protect any of the plexiglass components while you're handling them.

Begin by breaking the piece of aluminum (in the right place, that is). The goal is to remove the aluminum tabs that are sticking out from the bracket, leaving a flat sheet of aluminum behind the color sheet. You don't even need to disassemble the bezel to do this: just grab a pair of vice-grips, and start bending! Start at the far end of one of the tabs. Squeeze the jaws of the vice-grips against the very base of the tab, as close to the aluminum plate as you can. Start by pressing the vice-grip handles away from the bezel, or "outwards", so that the tab bends slightly. As you do this, apply downward pressure to the vice grips to help prevent the aluminum plate from bending upwards. Next, bend the tab inward slightly, and repeat a few times until the aluminum cracks. Move the vice-grips towards the other end of the tab, advancing to the end of the cracked area. Repeat the same bending process, repeating all the way across the tab. Once you're done, the entire piece will break off cleanly.

Repeat this process on all four tabs, and you'll have a flat aluminum plate. Well... almost flat. The screws that hold the assembly together are still sticking out of the back of the plate. Fortunately, the screws are made of fairly soft metal, so it's easy to cut them off. Using a razor saw such as a Zona or X-Acto, just hold the blade parallel to the aluminum base, and cut the extra screw length off, so that its flush with the aluminum plate. If you can't quite trim the screw flush with the baseplate, you can use a Dremel tool, with the little sanding wheel attachment, to grind it down the rest of the way.

The only problem at this point is that the edges of the aluminum aren't smooth, with lots of tiny sharp ridges. If you leave it like this, the aluminum edge will "hang up" on the front of the system as the drive tray moves in and out, so this needs to be cleaned up. It's actually pretty easy to fix. Get a sanding block with some 100 grit sandpaper and sand the edges, holding the sanding block at a 45 degree angle to the back of the bezel. Pay extra attention to rounding the corners - that's usually where the drive tray will hang up. Within a few minutes, it'll be ready to attach to your drive.

Before you can attach the new bezel to the drive, it'll be necessary to remove the old one. On most CD and DVD drives, there will be a couple of push-in plastic tabs located in slots in the drive case somewhere near the faceplate. Push these tabs inwards while simultaneously pulling out on the front bezel - that section should come free. Next, work your way around the faceplate, and you'll probably have three or four other tabs to unsnap. Once you've gotten them all, the faceplate should pop off the drive's frame easily. However, you won't be able to remove it completely until you pop off the front of the drive tray. On the drives I've seen, this is done by disengaging a couple of tabs underneath the drive tray cover, then pushing the cover upwards until it pops off the tray mechanism. Once that's clear, the bezel faceplate can be fully removed.

Now that the old bezel is removed, you'll have to remove anything that protrudes from the drive's printed circuit board (PCB): specifically, the headphone jack and the volume control. If you're the cautious type, you could always disassemble the drive and unsolder these components. If you're like me, you'll grab a pair of diagonal cutters and just cut the parts off instead - it takes all of about 30 seconds. Other than being careful not to crack the PCB, this is actually easy to do.

$Controls removed from front of DVD\$

The next step is to glue the front of the drive tray to the back of the aluminum bezel. In my case, I used an unusual heavy-duty glorified rubber cement called Quick Grab as the primary adhesive for this project - highly recommended! Some drives (particularly HP & LG), have decorative moldings on the front of the drive tray cover, so it may be necessary to sand/grind down this surface prior to glueing in order to create a flat mounting surface. Once the surface is ready, snap the tray cover back on the drive, apply glue to the front of it, and hold the bezel against the front of the drive, being careful to keep the bezel precisely centered with regard to the drive's frame.

After the glue has cured, you'll need to find a way to eject the drive tray. On most drives, you'll see a small microswitch mounted at the front of a PCB underneath the drive tray: that switch is what starts or stops drive tray ejection. The simplest solution I found is to glue a small block of wood on the back of the aluminum part of the bezel that almost touches the switch when the drive is closed (you'll have to experiment to get the wood just the right height). It will take some playing around to find the right location and height for your drive, but it's not difficult if you measure carefully. Since there is some play in the drive tray mounting mechanism, simply touching the bottom of the bezel near the switch results in the bezel rotating downwards and activating the switch. Cheap, easy and quick. Amazing- watch your friends swoon in appreciative disbelief as you deftly stroke your system, and it smoothly opens up at your command! It is a cute trick.

Finally, you'll need to decide what to do about the drive access LED. If you're just getting started, and only want to stealth your DVD drive, it's easy to drill a hole through the aluminum and color sheet in front of the drive's existing access LED - disassemble the bezel before drilling the hole so that you don't drill into the plexiglass. When the drive is accessed, the LED will shine right through the front of the bezel. If you are interested in trying some more advanced modding techniques and want to relocate the drive access LED, it isn't necessary to drill the hole in the bezel - another approach is shown below.

Umm, I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but unless I'm mistaken, you've just voided your DVD drive's warranty!

DISASSEMBLING THE XENARC

Now that you've got a bit of construction under your belt, why not try ripping something apart? Before you can install the Xenarc display in your system, you're going to have to remove the panel from the housing that Xenarc supplies. First, flip the display panel-down, and remove the three screws at the corners. Next, see that little round sticker in the upper-right corner? That's your warranty sticker. If you want to open it up, you're going to have to push your screwdriver through that sticker, and remove the fourth screw. Gulp - you're committed now! On the bottom of the unit, remove the two small screws that attach to the black mounting bracket. Lift off the back panel and give it a heave - you won't need it again.

WARNING: Before continuing, take static precautions. Anytime during this project that you are going to work with the LCD or its controller board, first ground yourself (physically, not emotionally). Then, if you're going to touch the panel, touch the metal frame first. If you're going to touch the controller, touch the metal RGB connector shield first. In-between construction rampages, store the LCD and display controller in an anti-static bag (you know, the kind that add-in PCI cards come in). Taking just a few steps on carpeting can easily build up enough charge to permanently zap the delicate display electronics, so be careful!

With the rear of the case removed, you'll see a four-layer sandwich. On top is the display controller PCB; below that is a plastic insulator, below that is the LCD panel, and the front of the case is at the bottom of the pile. Near the four corners of the LCD panel, you'll notice four small metal brackets. Remove the screws attaching these brackets to the front of the case, then remove the three screws located along the bottom of the display controller board. Once these are removed, it'll be possible to remove the case completely.

If you look at the display controller, you'll see two cables that connect it to the LCD panel. On the left is the flat black FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit) cable: this cable provides low-voltage power, digital video information, and clocks to the LCD panel. On the right is the high-voltage CFL (Cathode Flourescent Lamp) power supply cable.

DANGER, Will Robinson: the display controller's CFL inverter runs at about 15,000 volts AC. You don't want it shorting out to anything. Particularly you. Or your motherboard. Or, if you aren't careful with cable routing, your IDE cable. Insulators are a very good idea, as is careful handling of the board any time you're working on it.

To detach the controller board from the panel, remove the single screw that's located at the upper-right of the display controller. Unplug the CFL cable from the display controller, then it'll be possible to fold the display controller over to the left. Removing the FPC cable from the LCD panel is interesting: place your fingernail under the beige section of the connector where the FPC cable attaches to the LCD. Lift up, and the hinged connector will pop up, freeing you to pull the FPC cable away from the display. Disconnecting the FPC cable from the display controller itself is a little harder, since this is a different type of connector. With this type, it's necessary to gently pry away the dark brown connector lock away from the beige connector body. An X-Acto knife works well here: don't cut up the connector - just use the back of the blade to gently pry away the tiny brown arms that wrap-around each end of the connector body. Once the connector lock is removed, toss the FPC cable - you're going to need a longer one to finish the job (I've found a source for long FPC cables; contact me via email if you need one). Afterwards, snap the connector lock back on the connector: you don't want to lose that little piece of plastic!

From a $500 display to a pile of useless parts in just five minutes. Not bad! If you want to make them useful again, be gentle to them. Beyond static precautions, LCDs are sensitive critters. The display itself is made of two sheets of glass that are about 1/50" thick: you don't want 14 years of bad luck, do you? If that's not enough, the amber-colored FPC cables you see on the back of the panel have very delicate solder joints. By far, the top cause of LCD failures occurs when pressure is applied to the points where the FPC cables are attached, breaking those solder joints. Don't squeeze the LCD! As you keep reading, I'll let you know what happens when you do.

Closeup of Original Xenarc Switches and LEDs

Before tucking the LCD away safely into its anti-static bag for the night, check out the back of the display controller board. As you can see, there are five switches, plus a power LED. Enjoy the view while you can, because they won't be there for much longer.

THE LCD PANEL

For this mod, the LCD panel is actually mounted into the plastic "sub-panel" that sits behind the Shuttle's plexiglass bezel. Start by removing the four fancy allen screws from the corners of the front of the machine: the plexiglass bezel and sub-panel will easily detach from the aluminum frame (oddly enough, I found that a Torx T-10 screwdriver works perfectly on those allen screws). Before you start cutting the hole in the sub-panel for your LCD, note that the active image area on the panel isn't centered in the frame of the LCD - the CFL tube on the right-hand side of the panel takes up more space than the electronics on the left-hand side. As a result, the hole must be cut off-center, if you want the image to be centered properly in the front panel. Use your tool of choice to cut the hole for the LCD in the sub-panel. I tried a utility knife, a spiral cutter in a Dremel tool (the expensive-looking drill bit gizmo), Dremel's cutting wheel, and various other assorted odds and ends, but none of them worked particularly well. I finally broke down and picked up a $97 scroll saw at Home Depot. Yahoo! That's definitely the right tool for the job, if you can get access to one.

Anyway, your mission is to eventually create a hole of the size of the LCD, but try not to do it all in one glorious blaze of furious hacking. Instead, start by cutting out a hole that is intentionally too small, then use a file and/or a sanding block to gradually widen the cutout, ensuring that the LCD just fits the opening, without fitting tightly (the sub-panel is flexible, and will warp if the LCD is mounted with any pressure). You'll discover that even with the LCD mounted as close as possible to the DVD, the bottom of the panel will interfere with the front-mounted I/O connectors, so it'll be necessary to relocate the I/O panel. In addition, it's necessary to find a new home for the original power and reset switches, along with the power and HDD LEDs.

Once the hole is in the right place, you can simply glue the LCD to the back of the sub-panel, making sure that the face of the LCD is flush with the recessed surface of the front of the sub-panel. Once again, Quick Grab glue works very well - just run a bead along each side of the LCD where it contacts the rear face of the sub-panel. Next, it's necessary to make modifications to the aluminum faceplate of the system so that the LCD cables can be connected to the display controller. Drill a hole for the 2-wire CFL cable on the left-hand side (as viewed from the front), and then find a way to route the flat Flexible Printed-Circuit (FPC) cable that connects video to the panel. One way is to cut a slot for the FPC cable through the aluminum on the right-hand side, but another way is a lot easier, and probably easier on the FPC cable. When you assemble the system later on, you can just wrap the FPC cable around the edge of the cabinet as shown, then protect it with heavy plastic tape. If you go this second route, make sure that you bend the RFI tab on the top cover inwards to clear the cable - otherwise, it will eventually wear through the tape and cut the display cable.

During one trial mounting session, while screwing the sub-panel assembly back onto the front of the case to see how things looked, I discovered a very nasty problem the hard way. As it turns out, the aluminum face plate isn't actually flat: it has ridges stamped into it that act as stiffeners, making the system more rigid. When I screwed down the sub-frame, the ridges squeezed the LCD where it didn't want to be squeezed, severing some of the panel's internal connections. Having learned a lesson, and having had to buy another LCD, it was time to try something different. While it's possible to use spacers to raise the sub-panel so that the aluminum frame doesn't squeeze the LCD, this creates even more problems. First, you'd have to replace the front panel screws with longer ones, since the original screws are too short. Second, this also leaves a big, ugly gap between the sub-frame and the top cover when the unit is assembled - it looks bad. After trying this approach and discarding it, it was time to pull out a hammer.

The second method of providing additional clearance is pretty darned effective, but it's also slightly wacky. I built a fixture out of 2x4s that would provide support for the back of the aluminum face plate, and then started wacking the faceplate with a hammer! The goal is to partially flatten the ridges to provide more clearance for the LCD. (I'd strongly advise you to remove everything from the chassis before you try this!). The trick as you are forming the metal is to be extremely careful not to overdo it, or else you can crack the aluminum, or even warp the entire system. Much to my astonishment, I did manage to create sufficient clearance for the LCD, and the system was still in one piece! Inevitably, the aluminum will stretch and bow inwards slightly, but if you are careful, it will work out just fine. A bit of advice: aim carefully (my thumb is still sore!).

By the way, congratulations! You've just voided your Shuttle's warranty, too!

THE DISPLAY CONTROLLER

Mounting the display controller takes a bit of work (surprise, surprise). You'll need to sandwich it between the motherboard and the front of the aluminum frame. The first problem is that the hard disk is in the way. There are a couple of ways to resolve this one; I used a variation of a modification that had previously been posted on the Sudhian forum: cutting off the bottom and most of the sides of the hard disk bracket, gluing pieces of credit card to what is left of the bracket, and then screwing the hard disk to the pieces of credit card. This general modification is extremely effective at quieting the hard disk, but it also comes with a catch: the hard drive will run at least 5-9C hotter than before the mod. Most recently, the creator of this modification has had his hard disk fail, so you might want to try another approach, and/or add additional cooling for the hard drive. Anyway, to clear the top of the display controller board, it was also necessary to cut off the front of the drive bracket about 1/2" back from the front panel, cutting only up to the bottom of the DVD drive area.

The next thing that interferes with the display controller are three aluminum tabs that extend rearwards from the front aluminum face. These tabs, which are designed to engage the drive bracket assembly as it is slid into place, must be sheared off, so that the front face is clear. Fortunately, this part is easy: just grab the base of the tabs with a pair of vice-grips, and slowly twist them back and forth a few times. The tabs will snap off cleanly, leaving you with a flat front panel. Fortunately, you can live without the tabs just fine: the drive bracket still slides back and forth into the proper location easily.

At long last, there's finally enough room at the front of the system to mount the display controller! There's just one catch. The original switches for the Xenarc controller protrude from the back of the controller board about 1/2". To fix this, either unsolder the switches and LED, or take out your frustrations by cutting them off the board with a pair of diagonal cutters. Guess which approach I used? The downside of doing this, of course, is that you don't have any more switches, so you can't even turn on the LCD. Hmmm. My solution was to hot glue an 8-conductor male ribbon cable connector onto the top of the display board (in an area without circuitry, hint, hint). In the picture below, you can see the opposite side of the board where the switches were mounted. It's hard to see, but there are four groups of four PCB pads to the right, and one to the left, adjacent to the DC input connector. Just to the right of the last switch, between the two screws, are the two pads for the Monitor Power LED.

Solder five pieces of small-diameter hookup wire to the positive side of each of the five switches, on the component side of the board. How do you know which pad is positive? Easy! The switches have four PCB pads each; pick either of the 2 pads that's closest to the edge of the board. Solder a sixth wire to ground, which is available at any of the switch pads that's furthest from the edge of the PCB. Solder a final wire to the positive LED pad: that's the leftmost pad of the two LED pads (you'll see that this point connects to resistor R1). Connect the other end of each of the seven wires to the ribbon cable connector, writing down the cable pinout as you connect the wires to the connector - you'll need that later on. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that one of the connector pins isn't connected to anything. That's fine - you won't need it.

Wires ready for connecting to display controller

Display finished - connector glued to controller

To protect the display controller, tape the thick clear piece of plastic that was shipped by Xenarc as an insulator between the LCD panel and the display controller onto the back of the display controller, which will serve to insulate the display controller from the chassis. To mount the display controller to the aluminum face of the chassis, I just used "Industrial-strength" Velcro. While standoffs are also possible, there is very little room for conventional standoffs, and this type of Velcro is more than strong enough to ensure that the controller board stays firmly in place. This also makes it easy to remove the display controller whenever you need to remove your Shuttle's motherboard.

SWITCHES

Like any electronics buff, I like switches. Lots of them! However, they have to look good, too. I mentioned at the start of the article that I was planning to use this system in my home theater, so clean appearance was a must. Digi-Key stocks some ITT MDP-series 12.7x12.7mm switches that look good (part number 401-1173-ND), and they also offer black switch caps for them (401-1179-ND). To make these look even better, you can spray them with the same metallic black paint used everywhere else on this project, then top them off with clear coat. After the paint cures, pry them off the board that you spray-painted them onto (oops), and they'll actually look quite good. Set the switch caps aside, for it's time to build a switch board.

Between the system and the LCD controller, there are seven switches that, in theory at least, ought to show up somewhere. Remember that big hole where the front I/O panel used to be? I accidentally stuck my finger in a light socket, and had a moment of blinding insight - I figured out that that hole might be a good place to try to put the switches. I began by cutting up an old PC/AT prototype board to make a long, thin strip, then glued the switches down every 0.6" onto that strip (Quick Grab really is great stuff). The proto board is then glued to the back of the sub-panel, so that the switches are mounted in the center of the hole. At this stage in the project, just tack down the board temporarily - once you've made the acrylic bezel, you can use it as an alignment fixture for final placement, so that the switches actually match up with the holes in the bezel.

Now it's time to do some more soldering. First, find the ribbon cable that originally connected to the Shuttle's Switch/LED PCB. On the end with the small white connector, cut off the wires one at a time, connecting the wires to the two remaining switches on your new switch PCB. Be careful doing this, since the cable order isn't the same as the pinout on the white connector; the wires from the cable are twisted around to match the connector pinout. At least the pinout at the connector makes sense: starting with Pin 1, the pins are Power Switch 1, Power Switch 2, Power LED +, Power LED -, Reset Switch 1, Reset Switch 2, HDD LED +, and HDD LED -. Note that you need to identify Pin 1 of the cable by using the original motherboard Switch/LED PCB, since the red wire doesn't indicate anything in this case.

Next, grab a piece of 8-conductor ribbon cable with a female connector that matches the male connector you mounted on the display controller. Using the pinout you wrote down earlier, connect the appropriate wire to one side of each of the five left-most switches. Next, connect a common wire along the other leg of the same five switches, and solder this wire to the ground wire on the ribbon cable. Work slowly to make sure that you keep the pinout consistent all the way from the display controller through to the proto board.

Motherboard ribbon cable connected to switches

Both M/B and display cables soldered to switches

LEDS

Based on all the wires that you've got hanging in the air, there are at least three LEDs that ought to be mounted somewhere. Three isn't a nice round number, so I decided to relocate the drive access LED in my DVD+RW drive, as well. To do this, you might try disassembling the DVD drive, unsoldering the old LED, running two small jumper wires from the LED's PCB pads to the left-front edge of the drive PCB, glueing down a 2-pin connector, and soldering the jumper wires to the connector. Voila! Relocated DVD LED connector. Next up, you'll want to make something to plug in to that connector, like perhaps an LED with a 2-pin connector of the opposite sex cabled to it?

As you can see on the back of the assembled sub-panel, the DVD LED is mounted on the left-rear side of the sub-panel (which is the right-rear, since you're looking at the back of the panel). As with all LEDs, make sure that you keep all the plusses connected properly, and the minuses connected properly, or else your LEDs will indicate just two states: Off, and Not On! Be extra careful to solder the wires to the LED's leads as close to the body of the LED as possible, since the LEDs are nearly as deep as the LCD panel.

For the two motherboard LEDs, just wire them to the appropriate pins on the cable from the motherboard (you did remember to cut each wire one at a time as you connected them, didn't you?). For the Monitor Power LED, connect the last unused wire from the display controller to the positive side, and connect the negative side to the same common ground wire you used for the five monitor switches.

Drill holes for the LEDs through the sub-panel, push the LEDs into the holes from the back side, and glue the LEDs down. Once you're done, trim the leads on the LEDs as short as you can, since you don't want them shorting out against the aluminum frame. In addition, its a sterling idea to place insulating tape over the base of all of the LEDs, just for extra measure.

If you've really got class, you'll want to use 430nm LEDs - they look great (unfortunately, camera sensors don't register this color properly, so the pictures can't show how good they really look). I used the "Ultra Blue" 5mm wide angle LEDs from LEDTRONICS, model number L200TUB500-3.8Vf. You can pick them up for $1 each from NetDisty, though they do require a $25 minimum order. Note that these LEDs aren't as bright as the blue power LED supplied by Shuttle: they were chosen intentionally so that they don't blind you when you are trying to look at the internal display!

I/O PANEL

I'd almost forgotten about that darned I/O panel. Initially, I cheated just by cutting the metal tabs off the I/O bracket, placing an insulator over the motherboard, and wedging the I/O panel into place, such that that the connectors peeked through one of the PCI slots. While that kept it off my mind for a few days, I eventually remembered that it was there when I tried to shove an HDTV decoder card into the same slot.

Rear view of system w/IO panel in PCI slot

The best place to mount the I/O panel is probably at the rear of the system, just above the I.C.E. radiator. However, to do that, it's necessary to cut a big rectangular hole in the box that's big enough to uncover all the I/O ports that are on the I/O panel. On this one, your guess is as good as mine. To someone like me who has never cut aluminum before, the task was so daunting that I nearly threw away the I/O panel entirely. However, since the I/O panel holds the only available S/PDIF output port - an absolute necessity in any decent HTPC - I couldn't get away with it.

Grabbing a Dremel tool and a stack of cutting disks, I started hacking away at that hole. While it sort of did the job, it looked absolutely terrible, and no, I'm not going to let you see how bad it looked! Using a metal file helped to square things off, and sanding the edges cleaned it up a bit more. However, somewhere between the Dremeling, filing and sanding, the back of the machine wound up looking like something from a scrap metal yard. Remembering a wise old friend's advice from long ago, he'd suggested, "When everything goes to hell, slap a coat of paint on it"! OK, time for another can of Rust-Oleum Midnight Black Metallic.

Since the spray can was all warmed up, it made sense to paint the I/O panel, too (after removing the PC board from it, obviously!). Somewhere along the line, drill a couple of holes in the back of the case to match the holes in the I/O panel, and attach the I/O panel with a couple of nuts and bolts. Note that it'll be necessary to detach the I/O panel from the rear case whenever you need to remove the I.C.E. module - that's just something you'll have to live with with this mod.

As you can see in the rear view, I also cut off the fan guards for the main fan and the power supply fan, and relocated the fan grille from the inside of the unit to the outside - yet another neat idea from the folks at the Sudhian forum. While this modification does yield marginally improved airflow, the real benefit in my mind is that it just looks better.

TOP COVER

How can such a little system have so many pieces? If you want the top cover to match the other components you've painted, you'll have to paint it, too. As with anything made of aluminum, which means just about everything you touch on a Shuttle, wash it first with warm water with a bit of dishwashing detergent mixed in, rinse thoroughly, and then let it fully dry (cheaters like me use a hair dryer). After it's dry, prime it with a good bare metal primer, give it a couple of coats of Midnight Metallic Black, wait for that to cure, and hit it with a final couple of coats of whatever decent clear coat you feel like.

If you want a really smooth finish, elbow grease is required - sand between coats with a very fine grade sandpaper (400-600 grit). For the clear coat, Krylon has a nice spray-on acrylic, or you might even try a spray on fast-dry lacquer after the base paint has fully cured. Whatever you do, don't use Rustoleum's clear spray-on. I did, and it must have been a bad batch, because it never cured. Anything that touched the system for days left deep gouges in the paint. Oh, joy! If this happens to you, sand it all off, and start over again. Ugh.

While you may not go quite as crazy as I did, in addition to the top cover, I wound up painting the rear panel, I/O panel, blank PCI card bracket, Radeon 7500 card bracket, aluminum feet, sub-panel with LCD, disk bracket, power supply, power supply fan, front-panel mask, DVD mask, front-panel switches, and half a dozen screws or so.

PAINT THE LCD?

Like it or not, you're going to have to paint the sub-panel assembly, though it can be a little scary now that the LCD is mounted in it. If you're insufficiently adventurous, you might even want to skip this phase (in which case you'd better paint it before you glue in the LCD, eh?). For the best possible look, pick up some of 3M's "Safe-Release Painters' Masking Tape" (available at Home Depot), and use it to completely cover the glass area of the LCD. To make sure that no solvents leak through, cover it completely twice, trimming carefully so that the tape covers to the edge of the glass, but no more. Hopefully, you've been smart, and never removed the plastic self-adhesive film that Xenarc ships the LCD with, or thrown it away, or tried finding it in the garbage, or learned that it won't stick worth a darn anymore, unlike me. Also, make tiny little hats for the LEDs out of masking tape; black LEDs aren't particularly informative. Similarly, try not to paint the switches shut. You may want to just mask out the switch area - don't worry, we'll be taking care of the appearance of the switches later on.

Spray around the frame of the LCD with bare metal primer first, so that you'll get good paint adhesion. The voice of experience speaks once again - I got to repaint this, too. After the primer cures, use the same cycle of two coats of black metallic, cure, two coats of clear coat, cure.

HOW TO MAKE THINGS FIT

Up until about this point in the mod, I was just hacking away, fitting parts manually, eyeballing how things would fit together, etc. Sure, I measured everything, but for a klutz like me, it seemed things never came out quite right. As a result, I kept having to remake parts over and over again. Somehow, there had to be a better way to make things fit. Though I resisted it for a long time, I finally decided to check out Computer-Aided Design (CAD). After trying out different CAD evaluation programs, though, that began to seem like a pretty stupid idea. All the programs I tried essentially used variations on the Autocad user interface, and I didn't know how to use Autocad (or any other CAD package, for that matter). While it's undoubtedly a very powerful program, it has a steep learning curve before you can do anything useful. I didn't want to spend my whole life learning CAD, I just wanted to make a few drawings!

Fortunately, I found the free, open-source 2D CAD package called QCad. Vive la difference! This superb program uses a simple user interface that is very easy to learn, while offering far more power than "easy-to-use" commercial CAD packages like PC Draft. Running on both Linux and Windows, QCad is truly an outstanding program. Starting with zero CAD experience, in just a few hours you can make complex drawings including perfectly radiused corners, accurate dimensioning, etc. More importantly, you won't believe how much easier it makes everything else. Parts fit how they should, there's much less guesswork, and the results look much better. If you want to make modding more fun, and more productive, try QCad!

SEXING IT UP: THE BEZEL

The toughest part of this project is probably the bezel. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to make this by hand - those seven little switch cutouts are nasty. Realizing that this would be the case, I decided I needed professional help. I used QCad to make a CAD drawing of what I wanted and brought it to a local plastics shop (for those fortunate enough to live along the West Coast of the USA, the folks at TAP Plasticsare genuine experts, and nice people, too - highly recommended). TAP created their own CAD model from my dimensions, which they used to cut out 3/16" Acrylite GP with a computer-controlled laser, leaving me with an accurately dimensioned part. While it is accurate, the laser can only make vertical cuts, and the cut edges aren't quite smooth, so the part won't look too hot. To add a finished appearance, it's necessary to bevel the edges of the acrylic so that they are completely smooth, and optically clear.

Pulling this off is an excellent test of your patience. Start by using a Dremel tool to grind down the front bezel - Dremel's little drum sander works fairly well. Hold the Dremel tool at a 45 degree angle to the front, and slowly work it back and forth around the edge of the plastic. Be careful not to run the tool too fast, and take breaks every couple of minutes or so to let the sanding drum cool down, or else the plastic will start melting, and you'll have a complete mess on your hands. Also, don't let the Dremel tool "bite" into the plastic - just use light pressure to gradually remove the material in multiple passes.

After grinding the bevel down to about half of the thickness of the acrylic, I used three progressively finer grades of sandpaper, mounted on a sanding block, to smooth the outer edge and the newly cut bevel. By the time you've finished all this, the bezel will have the right shape, but the edges will still be translucent white, not transparent. The final touch is to grab some Novus Plastic Polish No. 2, and buff all the edges of the plastic with a clean soft cloth. While it may not seem like you are making any progress, keep it up. Just about the time your arm is ready to fall off, the buffing will work its magic, and the plastic turns crystal clear. Nifty!

The final stage of preparation for the bezel is to drill the holes for the mounting screws, then countersink the holes so that the original Shuttle screw heads wind up nearly flush with the surface of the plastic ("countersinking" means to drill a big hole with the exact same center as a little hole, where the little hole goes all the way through, but the big hole doesn't). Be careful not to drill all the way through the acrylic, or you'll get to make another bezel from scratch. Once everything's finished, it's finally OK to remove the protective paper sheet shipped with the plastic - until now, you've wisely left it on as long as possible to prevent the need to buff out unnecessary scratches later on.

If you're the lucky owner of a Shuttle with a clear bezel, then you just saved yourself a lot more work. If not, guess what? You get to make another bezel, this time for your DVD-ROM. Repeat the entire bezel-making process using a piece of acrylic that matches the size of the old 5-1/4" bezel. Whether you use the new or the old DVD bezel, you'll then want to grab the paper color sheet that Shuttle ships behind the old 5-1/4" bezel, and paint it to match your system. After the paint has completely cured, screw the bezel onto your drive, with the color sheet sandwiched between the drive and the new bezel. One more step down, just a few dozen more to go.

THE SECRET TO LOOKING GOOD

After going to all this effort, you probably can't resist mounting the bezel to the front of the system, but you'll probably be disappointed in how things look. I know I sure was! Through the clear bezel, you can see every little construction detail, including the hole you've cutout for the LCD, the 1/10ths center holes in the switch PCB, etc. It just isn't fair! Fortunately, I came up with a cool variation on Shuttle's trick that transforms the system into a class act.

Use QCad to create a file that has the same outline as the bezel, and include cutouts for the DVD drive, the LEDs, the individual switches, the mounting holes, and the active area of the LCD (the active area, where the image appears, is smaller than the glass area of the panel, which itself is not-surprisingly smaller than the outside dimensions of the frame). In the case of the swiches, make the square cutouts slightly smaller than the 12x12mm switch caps - perhaps 9x9mm. Print the CAD file at actual 1:1 size onto a regular piece of paper.

Next, find a piece of thin, but not completely floppy plastic. Overhead transparencies are too flexible, plastic notebook covers are way too thick. The best material I've found is the clear, flexible plastic sheets used by copy shops to cover copied documents. Spray one side of the sheet of plastic with a unique 3M adhesive called ReMount Repositionable Adhesive - it's sort of like Post-It note glue in a can (you should be able to pick this up at an art supply store). Press the adhesive side of the plastic on top of the CAD drawing so that you can see the drawing through the plastic, and, surprise! You've created a nice cutting guide. With an X-Acto knife, a sharp new #11 blade, and a metal straightedge, carefully cut out all the indicated areas to form a mask. For the LEDs and the mounting holes, it's easiest to just use a hole punch to cut the circles. Finally, spray paint the plastic side of the mask with a couple of color coats - you don't need clear coat here.

Peel off the paper backing, and you've managed to create a self-adhesive mask for the front of the system. Remove the switch caps, press the mask into place, re-install the switch caps, and screw on the bezel. Behold, the power of cheesy! As simple as this mask trick is, it works surprisingly well. Once everything is in place, you'll see how the mask provides a completely clean appearance, hiding all the usual tell-tale signs of homebrew construction. Now that's looking good!

CONNECTING THE DISPLAY

While your system probably looks great at this point, my guess is that you'd probably be considerably happier if it actually worked. To continue marching in that general direction, how about making a power cable that will let the TFT display run off the Shuttle's internal power supply? Grab the original Xenarc power cable, and slice the cable about 6" away from where it attaches to the display controller. Strip the two leads, then solder the positive lead to the yellow wire on the Shuttle's secondary motherboard power connector (this looks just like a disk drive power connector, and sits just behind the primary (i.e. huge) power supply connector on the motherboard. Solder the other lead to one of the black wires on the motherboard power connector. Plug the power cable into the Xenarc controller, and you can cross yet another item off your to-do list.

Closeup of right-front, showing Power and video connections to display controller

Soldering these wires to the connector can be a bit of a pain, since you have to stick the soldering iron down into the plastic Molex connector, while trying not to inhale the cyanide fumes that escape as you inevitably burn the plastic. If you'd prefer something a little less challenging, find yourself a disk drive power extension cable - this type of cable has both a male and a female connector on a short piece of wire. You can cut off the female connector, and then just solder the wires from the Xenarc's power cable to the bare wires of the drive power cable (cutting off the red wire, and one of the black wires). Insulate the splices, then just plug the power connector into one of the unused drive power connectors on your Shuttle.

It's finally time to hook up the front panel to the rest of the system. Front panel assembly can be a bit of a chore thanks to the five cables that have to be connected to it, but it's not all that complex - just take your time. Throughout the process, the most important goal is to minimize excess bending of the FPC cable: if it's stressed, the traces in the cable can easily crack, develop an open circuit, and ruin your whole day.

What's worked out best for me is to start by removing the frontplate from the DVD drive. Next, connect the FPC cable, supporting it by hand throughout the rest of the assembly procedure. Push the two switch/LED cables through the opening in the front panel: connect the display controller switch cable to the Xenarc controller, then connect the system's power/LED cable to the motherboard. Thread the CFL cable through the hole you drilled in the aluminum front plate, then connect the inverter to the Xenarc's high-voltage output (I hope to heaven that you aren't doing this with the power turned on!). To protect the FPC cable, apply a piece of heavy-duty tape over the cable, wrapping it around the edge of the system. As you push the sub-panel onto its mounting bosses, double-check to make sure that the DVD LED cable is located in front of the DVD drive. Plug the DVD LED cable into the connector you added to the drive, and you're almost finished. If you haven't yet mounted the front mask, do so now, then place the bezel over the mask, and screw it!

The last step is to connect the VGA input cable. In my system, I used the PowerColor Radeon 7500 PCI video board, which very conveniently uses a ribbon cable to connect its analog VGA output to the PCI card bracket. Just unscrew the VGA connector from the bracket, and the VGA cable can be connected internally to the Xenarc's display cable. As shown in the photos, the Xenarc's display cable is routed over the top of the I/O panel, then through the right-hand side of the system on the outside of the DVD drive, then down to the display controller, at which point it just snaps into place.

Top Rear view showing I/O panel mounting

When I first assembled my system, I just coiled the excess cable length at the back of the system behind the DVD drive, but knowing you'd be watching over my shoulder, I finally got around to cutting the cable and splicing it to the right length. I hate splicing cables, but I've got to admit that it does look a lot less cluttered than it did initially:

While you're cutting cables, once your modification is nearing completion, you may well want to clean up some of the other cables, too, by removing excess drive power cables, etc. It definitely makes things look a lot cleaner.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

There are a few final warnings that you'll want to keep in mind before you throw the switch. As mentioned previously, keep the display controller board away from any other components. Make sure that there is free space between the motherboard and the display controller - you don't want to fry anything! Similarly, double-check to ensure that the hard drive doesn't touch the controller board, either. To be on the safe side, I'd recommend installing insulating tape over the top and bottom of the front of the display controller in the areas that are adjacent to the motherboard and hard drive. Also, contrary to Shuttle's recommendations, make sure that the ATA cables are pushed towards the rear of the system, rather than towards the front panel - you'll want to protect the sensitive ATA signals from any potential interference generated by the display controller's power supply and high voltage inverter.

Front left of system, showing ATA cables and display controller

The last modification I installed is utterly trivial compared to the rest, and seems to be regarded by many of you with about the same enthusiasm as slapping racing stripes onto a Yugo. As I said, though, I'm intrigued by light. So, I decided to mount a couple of 6" blue CFL tubes inside the system, just for fun. If you're so inclined, it's a fast, easy mod. After all the work that you've done so far, I'm pretty sure that you can figure this part out on your own.

Once you've put everything together, it's time to give it a whirl. Make sure you use an external monitor for initial testing, since the Xenarc panel is fairly picky about what kind of video it will display. Hit the power switch, and the blue LED next to it should light immediately. If, instead, smoke starts billowing out and you sniff the distinctive aroma of fried electronics, you've failed. Buy another machine and start over again.

Seriously, as long as you've been careful, things should work out just fine. In the event that the system won't power up, recheck the wiring to the switches - that's easy enough to fix. Once the system powers up, push the monitor power switch, and see if the LED adjacent to it lights up. If so, give yourself a pat on the back! If not, perhaps you should try stamp collecting?

To be honest, it's actually pretty easy to accidentally wire the monitor connections wrong, given the double cables, connectors, etc. Follow each wire back to the display controller board, making sure that each is routed to the right connection on the PCB. Fortunately, as long as the wires are attached to the right pads on the display controller PCB, mixing up the wiring to the switch board isn't likely to do any damage. Just turn off the system, correct any errors, and give it another go!

Once the LEDs are all doing their thing, you'll naturally be anxious to start using the internal display, but before you can do that, you'll first have to convince your system to generate the kind of video that the Xenarc display is comfy with.

POWERSTRIP

You might not have seen a video display with 800 by 480 resolution before. I know that I haven't, and I've been playing with video for 25 years. Consequently, Windows won't know what the heck to do with the Xenarc display without a little help. Fortunately, Ashley Saldanha has written an indispensible shareware display utility called PowerStrip, available from Entech. This tool allows you to create "custom" video resolutions on many popular video boards, including nVidia, ATI, etc. (however, note that PowerStrip can't create custom resolutions on the SS40G's or SS51G's internal video outputs due to hardware design limitations in the SiS chipset). PowerStrip offers the ultimate in video flexibility: you can not only define an arbitrary screen resolution, you also have full control over each element of the video timing. While it would take a long time to fully explain everything there is to know about video timings, I've packaged up the info you'll need to make it easy to set up your system.

After downloading and installing PowerStrip, I encourage you to register the program. Though it isn't strictly necessary to do so, this great tool deserves our support! From a pragmatic standpoint, registering will also prevent the need for you to click on the PowerStrip Info box every time you reboot the system.

Before proceeding, it is very important to perform the resolution setup on a normal autosync computer monitor - you won't want to try this on the internal LCD, or you'll wind up with no display: the Xenarc 700Y doesn't have much resolution flexibility, since it only supports a 640x480/800x480 video mode. As a result, disconnect the LCD's VGA cable from the video board, then reboot with only an external monitor attached before continuing.

To get started, click on the PowerStrip icon in the system tray, then select Display Properties, Configure. Select the proper video output using the scroll arrows on the upper right, then click on Advanced Timing Options, then on Custom Resolutions. Under the New resolution field at the top, enter 800 in the left box, and 480 in the right box, then click on Add New Resolution. PowerStrip will probably inform you that Windows will need to be restarted to accept the custom resolution, so click on Restart when prompted. After the system reboots, first find your way back to this page, then fire up PowerStrip again by clicking on Display Properties, Configure again. This time, move the resolution slider on the upper-right to 800x480, then click on Advanced Timing Options again. PowerStrip will ask you if you want to work with the Selected resolution or the Current resolution. Click on Selected, and the timing adjustment screen will pop up. Next, click on OK to let you adjust the timings directly. To make life a little easier, uncheck the Real-Time Adjustment option before entering the timing information.

On the timings adjustment window, first enter the horizontal timings in pixels, then the vertical timings in lines. To do this, start with the Front Porch setting in the Horizontal Geometry section - right underneath the "800" shown as the number of Active pixels. Enter 60 as the Front porch, press tab twice, then 80 as the Sync width, tab twice again, and enter 60 as the Back porch. The Horizontal total should automatically show up as 1000 pixels.

Under Vertical Geometry, enter 28 as the Front porch (underneath the 480 Active lines), press tab twice, enter 3 as the Sync width, tab twice again, then 14 as the Back porch; the Vertical total should total up to 525 lines. Finally, select the Refresh rate under Vertical geometry and change it to 60.000. If you've entered everything correctly, the Horizontal scan rate should change to 31.500 KHz, and the Pixel clock should change to 31.500 MHz. Once all the timings are correct, turn the Real-time adjustment option back on, and your screen should look like the following:

Press OK - you've successfully created the proper video timings for the Xenarc display. Finally, you can run the panel at its native resolution!

DUAL-MONITOR SETUP

All right - it's time to connect your video board to the Xenarc! To start off, there are two different ways to select the 800x480 resolution in Windows XP. The first method is to click on the PowerStrip system tray icon, select Display Profiles and Configure, drag the slider bar over to 800x480, and press OK. The other way is a bit more convoluted, but I'll include it just in case you get stuck sometime. Bring up Windows' Display Properties by right-clicking on any empty area of your desktop, then select Properties. Once the dialog box pops up, click on the Settings tab, then on the Advanced button. In the Advanced dialog box, click on the Adapter tab, then click the List All Modes button. You'll then be able to scroll through the list of every video mode available. Once you find "800 by 480, True Color (32 bit), 60 Hertz", select OK, then OK, then OK a third time. Might I suggest that you use the PowerStrip technique?

Why all this hassle just to change video modes? With Windows XP, Microsoft decided to make the minimum supported resolution 800x600. Since the Xenarc panel can only display 800x480, you have to use a backdoor method to change resolution. If you spend a bit more time with PowerStrip, you'll discover that it has some really nice automation capabilities that can alleviate these restrictions, including the capability to define hotkeys for selecting specific display resolutions.

One thing to keep in mind as you are performing this sequence is that the Xenarc LCD panel doesn't actually have a 640x480 pixel mode - it only has an 800x480 pixel mode. However, folks who aren't as clueful as you are won't know how to create a native 800x480 resolution, so they'll probably just be running 640x480, which is really too bad. To keep these silly characters from getting confused, somebody at Xenarc chose to display the 800x480 mode as 640x480. Since this is plain-old analog video, when the Xenarc sees a VGA resolution video signal, the display controller will automatically upsample the 640 pixels being output from the video card to match the 800 pixel wide LCD. Huh? Just remember that if your PC says you are running at 800x480, you are, even though the Xenarc's OSD will claim that it's running at 640x480.

However, at this point, we're just trying to get the display running. Since you've just activated 800x480 on your external display, I'd suggest disconnecting the RGB cable from that monitor and connecting it to the Xenarc. If all's well, the 800x480 image should pop up clearly on the internal LCD. Display something with a lot of text, like perhaps this page, and see if the text looks clear. If it isn't nice and crisp, press the Xenarc's Menu button, and navigate using the Select button to the fourth entry from the top (the icon with the little vertical lines) - that's the display's tracking control. Adjusting the Tracking value should bring the display into consistent focus. You'll know when it's right: the image will be crystal clear across the screen. It's good you picked up such a great panel, eh?

Once you've gotten 800x480 working in stand-alone mode, the next step is getting it to work in a dual-monitor configuration. Here, we'll concentrate on using an ATI Radeon-series video board with dual RGB/DVI outputs - anything from a Radeon 7000 to a Radeon 9700. Change the video cables back to the way you'll want to run normally. In my case, that means that the Radeon 7500 PCI's RGB output is connected internally to the Xenarc, and the DVI output is connected to my primary display through a DVI/RGB adapter wart. Once that's done, try rebooting. If your system acts up like mine did, Windows may decide to activate the Xenarc as the primary monitor, but running at a resolution that the Xenarc doesn't support. What you'll see when that happens is that the Xenarc will show an odd whitish display, with nothing readable. If this happens, you'll have to swap the display cables again, reselect 800x480 on the external monitor, and then swap the cables back, all without rebooting.

Thanks to a bug in ATI's display drivers, it's possible that when you swap the cables for the first time, the 800x480 resolution may not be available at all. If that happens, go back through the PowerStrip process for creating a custom 800x480 resolution one more time: this should recreate the custom resolution on the second output from the Radeon, which should be fine after that.

With the cables reconnected normally, are you now seeing an image from both monitors? If only the Xenarc has a display, then bring up the Windows Display Properties Settings tab, click on the monitor which isn't highlighted, and select "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor". Now, pressing OK should bring up an image on both displays.

SWAPPING DISPLAYS

The final trick you'll need to learn is how to change back and forth between the internal and external monitors as the primary display. Why? One reason could be that Windows keeps bringing up the Windows desktop, icons, and start bar on the internal monitor, and you'd rather have it show up on the external monitor. Another possibility is that you might want to play a DVD on the Xenarc - you're probably showing off - and it'll need to be made the primary display for DVD playback to work correctly, thanks to limitations in Windows' video overlay controls.

To have Windows flip between using the internal and external displays on an ATI Radeon card, you must follow three key steps in order:

Change the resolution on your external monitor to 800x480.
Tell Windows to swap between the internal and external displays
Change the resolution on your external monitor back to its normal resolution

If you don't follow this sequence every time you change the primary display, Windows will feed the Xenarc with whatever resolution your external monitor was running at, and the poor little thing will get confused again, leaving you blind (well, at least unable to see anything on the Xenarc).

To actually flip monitors, once you've selected 800x480, then go through the sequence: Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Displays. Here, you'll see two side-by-side tabs with images of monitors on them. Notice the little "1" and "2" buttons on each monitor? Clicking on these buttons performs the display flip, after you press OK.

There's just one little problem - you can't see the OK button when you're running at 800x480! ATI's Displays dialog box is 600 pixels tall, so it won't fit on the screen.Worse yet, pressing "Enter" won't do the trick, either. The first time you do this, after you've clicked "1" or "2" as appropriate, click on the pull-down line called Scheme, then type in a description like "Internal Primary", or some such. Click on Save. Type one tab, and then you'll be able to press Enter to effect the display switch. The first time you switch back, do the same thing, but change the Scheme description to something like "External Primary", Click Save, then press Tab and Enter. While the Scheme box supposedly offers hotkey support, it's broken. Instead, each time you want to change the display in the future, just select "Internal Primary" or "External Primary" from the pull-down box, then press Enter (it isn't necessary to push the "1" or "2" buttons again).

One last suggestion, if I may. With all the work you've gone through to build this, you'll probably want to show off your display all of the time. While you can certainly do that if you want to, you might want to keep in mind that LCD backlights have a limited lifetime, specified as a "half-life". What this means is that the backlight gradually grows dimmer over time, and at some point, the backlight will only be half as bright as it was initially (just like me!). This point is the half-life spec, measured in hours. Although I don't know the actual specification for the Xenarc panel, the typical value is 20,000 hours, or about two years full-time. To keep your display looking its best, it's a good idea to enable Monitor Power-down in your O.S.'s screensaver control panel. Fortunately, the Xenarc panel responds perfectly to power control commands: it automatically turns off the CFL backlight whenever power-savings mode kicks in.

CONCLUSION

From here on out, you're on your own. Enjoy your system, try new things, and keep exploring, finding new ways to use it. Try the Windows "Pipe Dreams 3D" screen saver, for instance: it runs independently on both displays - very cool! Check out the Windows Display Properties Settings box: see the pictures of the monitors there? You can drag them around with the mouse so that they have the same physical relationship that your actual displays have - that makes it much easier for your head to keep up with what's going on as you move the cursor from one monitor to the next. There's much more waiting to be found.

After all this effort, was it worth it? Absolutely. The process of modifying my Shuttle system has been exciting, rewarding, and a tremendous learning experience. So... go for it! Try modding - it really is a blast. Don't be afraid, just dive in! Modding gives you an opportunity to be creative, to express your individuality. Have you been daydreaming about that flourescent pink Hello Kitty Shuttle you've always wanted? Anxious to highlight your wizardry by engineering a Star Trek Shuttle? Shivering in your sheets to showcase a Shabby Chic Shuttle?

Whatever you do, please don't be satisfied just by reading about it - get out there and mod something! Start out by stealthing your DVD drive, and let's just see where you wind up...

In parting, here's a snapshot of my two favorite SFFs: my Small Form Factor SS40G, and my Sexy, Fun, Femme girlfriend. She thinks the Shuttle's really cool! Am I lucky, or what?

Small Form Factor Shuttle s/Sexy Fun Femme girlfriend

Have Fun!
MarkF

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