Internals II
The PSU features a variable-speed fan that turns up the RPM with rises in internal temperature. It's nominally rated to 200w. The individual power ratings do give rise to concern. The AGP-equipped eX5-300S could potentially be asked to power a 3.2GHz Pentium 4, 1GByte RAM, Radeon 9800XT, 250GB hard drive, and an optical drive. That's awfully close to saturating the PSU's limit. No wonder it has a comparatively large fan to keep it cool. We were disappointed to discover that the PSU made a high-pitched clicking sound when the system was switched off (mains power was still present). It was distracting enough to be noticeable 10-feet away. If anything, it was quieter and more agreeable to leave the system on.
The chips count is always impressive on a SFF system. SATA work is undertaken by Intel's ICH5 (non-RAID) Southbridge. The ports can be seen just above the vertically-mounted battery. The ICH5 cannot, however, run on-chip FireWire. That's left to VIA's VT6307 single-chip 2-port controller, with one port on both the front and back of the chassis. The LCD's connected to the motherboard via a gaggle of wires in the foreground.
Realtek's ALC655 Sound CODEC, a cutdown version of the popular 650-series, and RTL8101L single-chip 10/100 Ethernet controller sit on the left extremity of the EP-4PGF+ board, right next to the AGP and PCI slots.
Notice how the hard drive mounts sideways. EPoX ensures that there's enough room to mount standard graphics cards behind the hard drive space.
Things are cut close, though. The card reader's chassis gets close to fouling the back of the Radeon 9800XT card. We wouldn't hold out much hope for cards with large RAMsinks or other appendages sticking out of the rear side. There's also no possibility of using the PCI slot with any oversized GPU cooler.
