The Shuttle's heatpipe system for the Intel Pentium 4.

The heatpipe system's CPU element with a countersunk copper plate.

A view of the heatpipe section, which absorbs the heat from its surroundings.

The system's specially designed fan ensures air circulation.

In practical operation, it became clear that the new Shuttle SS51G system is just as much a pleasure to work with as its predecessor, the SS40G with an AMD processor. In the laboratory, the Mini PC was subjected to a wide range of test scenarios, including a CPU burn-in test, which includes uninterrupted operation of around 30 hours at maximum load. The Mini PC passed all the tests without problems, even though the fully-equipped system (with GeForce 4 Ti 4600, two hard drives and extra network card) generated a fair amount of heat; we recorded a blistering 50-55°C (122-131°F) within the PC. The actual convection is handled by the effective heatpipe, which is coupled with a speed-regulated fan.