The chassis mounted cooling fan swings out for easy access to the socket AM2 processor socket during installation. The four mounting holes around the AM2 socket are not standard, only the accompanying Shuttle heatsink will fit. The heatsink shuttle include with the computer for socket AM2 processors has a single fan blowing through a large plenum to the bottom half of an array of aluminum cooling fins. The cooling fins are interspaced with four copper heatpipes. The upper half the cooling fins is open to the rest of the case to draw air in. The case mounted fan exhausts air outside the case, and to make sure it gets there a gasket seals the space between the fan and aluminum chassis.

Cables are organized inside the Shuttle XPC SN27P2 like no other SFF PC we've seen. The nVidia nForce 570 Ultra chipset is cooled by a small extruded aluminum heatsink and tiny fan. The heat from the chipset blows directly towards the memory.