Power supply can be the cause, what about the mosfets? Find someone who can flash the BIOS to the latest version and also post photos of both boards.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/shuttl … -v2-0#downloads

I would certainly replace the caps on those mainboards.

dominusprog wrote on 2023-08-21, 08:09:

Power supply can be the cause, what about the mosfets? Find someone who can flash the BIOS to the latest version and also post photos of both boards.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/shuttl … -v2-0#downloads

Mosfets look okay, psus on both seem strong but i will try to turn both on with a desktop sized psu. I see some people on ebay who flash these machines, ill sus that out. The link you provided believe it or not does not contain compatible bios images for my machine, it is a weird revision 2.1 which uses "FS56SS" bios bin files instead of "FS56S2". I couldnt even flash the latest FS56SS either which was weird. Here are some images

SS56G

SS58G (bloated caps circled in red)

flupke11 wrote on 2023-08-21, 08:15:

I would certainly replace the caps on those mainboards.

Even when they arent visibly bad, can they still be causing issues?

Well check for solder joints and also clean the board. For the second board, don't connect the power supply to it until you change all the caps.

dominusprog wrote on 2023-08-21, 09:17:

Well check for solder joints and also clean the board. For the second board, don't connect the power supply to it until you change all the caps.

i've ordered replacement caps for both boards, when they arrive i'll scrub the board with alcohol and install them and report back

if it turns out to be a psu issue, does anyone have experience with flex atx psus that are on aliexpress

EDIT: opened both power supplies and both have a few swollen caps.. fix or replace the whole psu?

schnoots148 wrote on 2023-08-21, 10:31:

dominusprog wrote on 2023-08-21, 09:17:

Well check for solder joints and also clean the board. For the second board, don't connect the power supply to it until you change all the caps.

i've ordered replacement caps for both boards, when they arrive i'll scrub the board with alcohol and install them and report back

Remove the heatsink and washes it with dishwashing soap, but remember you must let it completely dry out.

I fixed the problem, it was my keyboard all along. I sourced a very basic usb keyboard without backlighting and now all works well. I was using a spare mechanical keyboard with backlighting which caused all my issues. Maybe it was drawing too much current?

Those bloody things again!
I saw Philscomputerlab did a piece on them and had a few thoughts on it.

First I thought the prices will go up on em. Which they dont deserve, the prices were low for a reason. The second was that they should be left to sleep where they are.

I still have sore knuckles from all of the ones I had to put together, trying to fit ever larger video and sound cards into them as customers found out that their the latest greatest graphics card will technically fit.

They were never all that great, the coolers just couldnt keep up with the megahertz race AMD and Intel were in at the time and the power supplies just couldnt feed them the ever growing demands placed on them.

Great little machines if you keep the hardware in the mid range.
I knew a guy who had an X850XT PE in one. He had a cooler on it with some heat pipes that put the fins over the back of the card so he could get the case cover on...
Its like trying to fit a Hemi 426 into a Ford Escort...

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-08-24, 11:04:

Those bloody things again! I saw Philscomputerlab did a piece on them and had a few thoughts on it. […]
Show full quote

Those bloody things again!
I saw Philscomputerlab did a piece on them and had a few thoughts on it.

First I thought the prices will go up on em. Which they dont deserve, the prices were low for a reason. The second was that they should be left to sleep where they are.

I still have sore knuckles from all of the ones I had to put together, trying to fit ever larger video and sound cards into them as customers found out that their the latest greatest graphics card will technically fit.

They were never all that great, the coolers just couldnt keep up with the megahertz race AMD and Intel were in at the time and the power supplies just couldnt feed them the ever growing demands placed on them.

Great little machines if you keep the hardware in the mid range.
I knew a guy who had an X850XT PE in one. He had a cooler on it with some heat pipes that put the fins over the back of the card so he could get the case cover on...
Its like trying to fit a Hemi 426 into a Ford Escort...

I've always dabbled into laptops until phil dropped that video, a tiny windows 98 pc with agp yes please! Convinced me to get 2 of them for cheap and local to me as well. But trust me I would not have bought them only for the fact that I have no space for a full sized tower 🤣, I've also destroyed my knuckles in the past few days while working on both of mine, something like routing a molex cable from the psu to the gpu is torture for anyone with hands bigger than a toddler. Visibility inside them is 0 unless you take out the dvd drive, floppy drive and hard drive every single time. The power supplies on both of mine are like 250w and have bulging caps, i blame the pentium 4 for that. I was very surprised to find out that shuttle still make the xpc with the same bloody design, and you can get some with rtx cards in them..

I couldn't even attach a small skinny fan to my quadro which has a thin heatsink on it, and have the case closed, how the hell did your mate put an x850xt in and still get it to close all nicely lmao. I've seen an LS1 swapped escort before, it literally fits and closes the bonnet more better than putting a shuttle case back on with 1mm of extra length sticking out i swear to god

I havent a clue how he did it. Im not 100% sure if it did work out for him.
I remember the company I worked for back in the days when they came out, they were bought in bare bones and I have to fit the parts into them, but we sold a fair few as bare bones systems too.

I think the cooler he used was by Aerocool. or it looked like one they did...
I cant really remember after all this time. Its getting on for 15-20 years ago now.