The Mini-ITX build begins.

[Geofrancis]

Geo:He can cut a hole in the bottom of the case to act as a cold air intake for the GPU.

yea i read that he was going to put an intake for the graphics card but also the way a hd 4850 vents the hot air from the heatsink is towards the top of the card near the pci bracket. so if he cut a couple of the small vents so they were larger in that area it would help stop the 4850 dumping heat into the case.

 

[Lazzer408]

I picked up one for my PCI (intel Atom) they are really handy. They have reverse, backwards and flex ones too.

Geo:He can cut a hole in the bottom of the case to act as a cold air intake for the GPU.

Did you see the location of the 80mm fan in one of the pics? Just in front of the HDD. It will blow upwards right on the cards intake and probably help keep the HDD a little cooler. I thought about drilling a bunch of holes at the top left rear corner of the case. The 4850 vents internally and it's damn hot air too. If I can I'll try and make a plastic guide to direct the air to the holes. A double wide card would work great in this case having that 80mm right on it plus venting out the rear. There would be no cooling issues with that setup but I'd be stuck with laptop HDDs. On the other hand, two laptop HDDs would fit in there and I could RAID them.

EDIT - The 1U PSU is not going to be used. It was just a thought but there's no room for it. In the following posts are pics of the PSU board sitting in front of the motherboard.

 

[MKmods]

I like the Laptop Raid Idea (I did it on all my sff builds)
1- they only need 5V(eliminates un needed wires)
2- take practically no power
3- fit so easily
4- modern ones use sata (way easier to hookup)
5- prices are way down now compared to before
6- almost no heat added to comp

I have a bunch of reverse 90deg and short Sata cables if you need just PM me.

Glad no 1U PS, I tried them but they were very loud...

 

[Geofrancis]

Did you see the location of the 80mm fan in one of the pics? Just in front of the HDD. It will blow upwards right on the cards intake and probably help keep the HDD a little cooler. I thought about drilling a bunch of holes at the top left rear corner of the case. The 4850 vents internally and it's damn hot air too. If I can I'll try and make a plastic guide to direct the air to the holes. A double wide card would work great in this case having that 80mm right on it plus venting out the rear. There would be no cooling issues with that setup but I'd be stuck with laptop HDDs. On the other hand, two laptop HDDs would fit in there and I could RAID them.

the best way to sort all the heat problems is watercool that sucker

 

[Lazzer408]

I like the Laptop Raid Idea (I did it on all my sff builds)
1- they only need 5V(eliminates un needed wires)
2- take practically no power
3- fit so easily
4- modern ones use sata (way easier to hookup)
5-prices are way down now compared to before

I have a bunch of reverse 90deg and short Sata cables if you need just PM me.

7-quieter

I just remembered the motherboard only has 2 SATA ports but I could use a USB to SATA adaptor. There are 3 USB headers on-board. One is used for the WiFi. My DVD-R drive is SATA.

Here's the pic that shows how things are most likely going to be laid out. The PSU is the board at the top right.

 

[Geofrancis]

when i said cut out the side of the case i was meaning this area here so the 4850 will vent directly out thee case like a dual slot card

 

[MKmods]

every time I see the pict of that Zotac mobo I become so jealous.....

I had a lot of probs with Laptop DVDs reading stuff, I hope you have better luck.(I have like 4 dif ones)

This is gonna be really nice when done.

 

[Lazzer408]

when i said cut out the side of the case i was meaning this area here so the 4850 will vent directly out thee case like a dual slot card

http://i35.tinypic.com/2uib3o4.jpg

Exactly. If I could make a small airduct off the card to line up with a vent hole it would also help significantly.

every time I see the pict of that Zotac mobo I become so jealous.....

I had a lot of probs with Laptop DVDs reading stuff, I hope you have better luck.(I have like 4 dif ones)

This is gonna be really nice when done.

Really? The one I bought is a Sony dual-layer 8x burner. I hope I don't have any issues with it. They seem to hold up ok in laptops. Too bad it's not a slot-load though. I couldn't find a good deal on one of those. My Sony was only $50. Oh and thanks for the props. It's been rock solid stable so far. As long as I can keep that PSU cool and internal case temps reasonable I think I'll be very happy with it. The CPU is overclocked to 3.2ghz now. I could slow it down but unfortunatly this motherboard's BIOS doesn't allow you to lower the voltage to the CPU or NB.

 

[Geofrancis]

Exactly. If I could make a small airduct off the card to line up with a vent hole it would also help significantly.

Really? The one I bought is a Sony dual-layer 8x burner. I hope I don't have any issues with it. They seem to hold up ok in laptops. Too bad it's not a slot-load though. I couldn't find a good deal on one of those. My Sony was only $50. Oh and thanks for the props. It's been rock solid stable so far. As long as I can keep that PSU cool and internal case temps reasonable I think I'll be very happy with it. The CPU is overclocked to 3.2ghz now. I could slow it down but unfortunatly this motherboard's BIOS doesn't allow you to lower the voltage to the CPU or NB.

i use 2 laptop dvd drives in usb cases with my itx rig and i have not had any problems with them. just be careful you don't touch the lens when you open it.

if you want to undervolt your cpu there is software that will let you manipulate the speedstep power management in windows to let you change the vcore down along with the multiplier.

 

[Cuzza]

Here's a nice use for those old square cpu heatsinks. I cut a chunk off to make a little heatsink for the mosfets.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=29573&stc=1&d=1255498086

Nice work. What did you use to cut that?

 

[Lazzer408]

Nice work. What did you use to cut that?

My bandsaw. I had to buy one to cut parts for a 144kw power supply I'm building. A hacksaw would work fine but it would take a bit more filing to even out the cut.

 

[Cuzza]

144kw? powering a supercomputer?

 

[Lazzer408]

144kw? powering a supercomputer?

Electric car.

 

[Cuzza]

Serious! Dude, where's the Plog for that one?

 

[MKmods]

i use 2 laptop dvd drives in usb cases with my itx rig and i have not had any problems with them. just be careful you don't touch the lens when you open it.

if you want to undervolt your cpu there is software that will let you manipulate the speedstep power management in windows to let you change the vcore down along with the multiplier.

they worked ok for most stuff but I had a really hard time getting them to run Movies on DVDs.
(I havent tried the one that used a DVD cable yet, I had to use the Laptop DVD to ide/sata cable adaptors)

 

[Lazzer408]

Serious! Dude, where's the Plog for that one?

I can't go into much detail about it. It's still under development. The drive for the prototype is DC. Production drive will be AC. I'm just doing the DC system design for the prototype.

http://orionelectriccar.com/

Here's a '91 Geo Metro I converted years ago. That car was a BLAST to drive! I miss it. It was sold years ago.

 

[Geofrancis]

the program for managing speedstep on my old pentium d was RMclock utility. not sure if it will work on a core2 tho
http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

 

[Lazzer408]

the program for managing speedstep on my old pentium d was RMclock utility. not sure if it will work on a core2 tho
http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

I have full fsb control on the Zotec. Multiplier also. Speedstep would drop the voltage too wouldn't it? But then under load it would go back to full furnace mode.

 

[Geofrancis]

I have full fsb control on the Zotec. Multiplier also. Speedstep would drop the voltage too wouldn't it? But then under load it would go back to full furnace mode.

im pretty sure you can define your own speedstep voltages and speeds with rmclock that means you can set your cpu speeds and voltages for speedstep. so if you wanted to have it on silent mode jsut use rm clock to drop the multiplier on the cpu so its near stock speeds with your fsb overclock and drop the voltage. when you want to run at overclocked speeds just turn it back up.



random thought, shouldnt your itx build be in with the project logs instead of the general hardware?

 

[Lazzer408]

im pretty sure you can define your own speedstep voltages and speeds with rmclock that means you can set your cpu at full speed and undervolt it.

Ok thanks. I'll look into it if it runs hot. I'm all hyped up for my Thurdsay delivery when all will be answered. Like "Will the power supply fit?" lol If not I'll be doing what your doing and velcroing a power brick on the back. Hows your power project going? I haven't seen any new pics.

 

[Geofrancis]

im just waiting for parts at the moment. unfortunately most of it is coming from china so it takes a while.


edit :im seriously considering water cooling aswell now i think i can actually get it to fit. its gonna be real tight tho.

 

[Lazzer408]

im just waiting for parts at the moment. unfortunately most of it is coming from china so it takes a while.

You should have said something. I'd mail you a grab bag!

 

[Geofrancis]

how are you going to isolate your power supply from the rest of the case? obv you cant just leave it sitting on the bottom of the case?

 

[Lazzer408]

how are you going to isolate your power supply from the rest of the case? obv you cant just leave it sitting on the bottom of the case?

The bottom of the power supply has a thin plastic cover on it for some protection. When it was mounted in the original enclosure it had 4 stand-offs that it was secured to. I thought about something similar but using 4 of those brass motherboard stand-offs upside down. The bottom of the case would only show 4 philips screw heads. The PSU board would then be placed over the 'studs' inside with 4 nuts to hold it down. Keeps it clean and simple and makes use of the seemingly endless amounts of stuff I have around here.

Uninsolated for proper shielding/grounding, like this.

 

[Lazzer408]

I had an idea. Please pardon my cardboard mock-up but it's just a thought. There's still a portion of the heatsink outlet left exposed to the inside of the case but this would direct most of it out the bottom slot and still retain enough room for the 3.5" harddrive. What do you think?