[BUILDING] The HaswellRise mod

[BUILDING] The HiRise mod

(OK the name is pretty lame but it's temporary. Please send me some ideas!)

I had set my eye on HiRise for a long time but I had to consider other aspects of the build first. After planning many other details I went on and ordered one and also begun selecting carefully all the other parts.

My goal for this project is to make something that could have possibly come out of a factory but actually doesn’t. Thing is, there are many great computers and many of them are Macs but the perfect computer doesn't really exist. So I thought why not give it a shot.

There are some red lines I don't want to cross though. In fact they are the same as in my second project, the OSXBOX 360. So, once again, we must end up with a computer with an internal PSU, a discrete GPU and as low power / low noise as possible. The difference is that this project is a high-end aiming one and I'll try to use the best available hardware.

So, first things first. The HiRise case doesn't need any introduction, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

I find it so beautiful that I don't want to modify anything in the aesthetics (but we'll see about that later). Even before purchasing the (steep priced) case I made some rough estimations of how i would fit everything in there:

See that blue colored PSU? It's a Flex-ATX PSU, maybe the smallest retail PSU you can find. And you know what? It's way too large and I had to find another way around. The obvious solution for something even smaller is to use a picoPSU:

These are essentially tiny PCBs which hook on the motherboard and seem to be ideal, but there is a catch; they accept only DC in. And since I don't want to use an external power brick, I must feed it with a decent AC-DC adapter. After a LOT of searching I finally found the N2POWER XL-160-1, a good quality open frame AC-DC adapter with the smallest possible volume (127x76x32mm):

Now about the specs: the adapter takes the 220v current and converts it to 12v to feed the picoPSU. Both the picoPSU and the adapter are rated for 160 watts, which I believe will be enough for my system (I'm hoping I won't even hit 100w at full load).

Next was the motherboard. I chose to go with Gigabyte because I have already build two other hackintoshes on these boards and they work almost flawlessly. Gigabyte has in stock quit a few Haswell options in the size I'm interested. Some of them are mini-ITX boards and then there are also some thin mini ITX. Although thin mini-ITX seems very tempting because it uses up less height and has already a 19v DC in (eliminating the need for a picoPSU), I didn't choose it, mainly because of the PCIe restriction: it only has an underpowered 4x slot. I am planning to use a discrete GPU so 4x is a no go*.

(*) Performance-wise, when using PCIe rev 3.0, the bandwidth difference between 4x and 16x isn’t that important, assuming you use an entry level GPU (don’t get me wrong, a beastly 780Ti would be severely bottlenecked but that kind of GPU is out of the question in my build anyway). But what is indeed unacceptable is that those thin mini-ITX boards only deliver up to 25w through the PCIe, whereas the normal mini-ITX slots can deliver a healthy maximum of 75w. Nvidia Maxwell, is that a smile?

So, from the standard mini-ITX options I choose to go with GA-B85N. Long story short, I had to exclude all the others for the following reasons:
GA-Z87N & GA-H87N & GA-Q87N: they don’t have a mSATA slot
GA-B81N: the mSATA slot is only 3Gb/s
GA-Z85N: we have a winner!

So, to make it clear, all of the above boards do have ONE mini-PCI express slot, but the “87s” use it for a half-sized wifi card. The B81N and B85N have two slots, the second being a mSATA one, but the B85Ns’ slot is faster (6Gb/s) and besides that, this board has more USB 3.0 ports and a more compatible ALC898 audio chip.
And now a very important detail! You see that mSATA slot? It’s full size of course. But here’s the thing: Those few boards with two mini-PCIe slots (meant for mSATA and wireless cards) usually have one full-size slot and one half-size slot. mini-ITX is already too cramped to accommodate two full sized slots, right? But the wireless solutions used in recent Macs are full sized, so the half-sized slot is useless. Except that in this case the second mini-PCI slot isn’t laid flat on the board, instead it’s vertical, meaning you don’t have any length restrictions and you can use any original apple wifi mini card! How cool is that Gigabyte?!


That is all so far! I have ordered the parts above and it will take a while to ship from China

Accepting comments and suggestions!

Nice to see you taking this on!

THis case I think is really nice and offers good options for making things build up well with removable motherboard tray, split case etc.

Good luck.

I'll be watching this build. Love the small stuff!

Can you mock-up where your pico PSU, your AC/DC and motherboard are going to go on the diagram showing the flex-atx, HD, and GPU?

Thanks!

Update: HiRise in the house!

Today's mail has the HiRise! Without further ado, check the (poorly-indoors-iPhone-shot) gallery below:

Packaging (Apple-premium-quality stuff here):


The full kit:


The top and bottom case slot in nicely:


The front and rear grilles can be either screwed in or be temporarily held in place with the build-in magnets:


The tray fits super tightly. Slides, but requires much effort. Maybe it should be slightly narrower:


Full kit assembled:



The INNER dimensions are: Width: 200mm x Depth: 215mm x Height: 78mm. To be frank I estimated the height around 85mm, hopefully I won't have any problems later. However, the tray is much smaller: same width of 200mm but only 185mm deep. Still more than enough for a mini-ITX motherboard (although I haven't decided if I will screw the motherboard on the tray yet.

That's it for now!

@Mumblr: No mockup necessary, now that the case is here I'll just cardboard them one of these days!

I'm so jealous you are doing this!

That damn thing is the perfect little box.

Have fun!

Good luck, we're all counting on you

EDIT to add:

I'm wondering if you won't have to cut a 7th notch below the 6th one to lower the board a few more mm.....

Also, what is the size of the opening on the back panel?

Update: measurements and further plans

@Mumblr: As it turns out, the lowest possible position that the tray can be placed is actually too high for my purpose.

But first things first. This is the bottom case with a "motherboard" bolt in. The motherboard is an old model, featuring an Intel 000 chipset



As you can see, I have also used a spare Sapphire Radeon 5670 low profile. Things are looking good I believe, as almost everything is going to be placed on the motherboard: picoPSU, wi-fi, mSATA, dGPU. The only thing I need extra space is the AC-DC converter but I think I can squeeze it somewhere in there, either in one of the sides or maybe even screwed somehow on the top case. There are about 30mm left on the side of the motherboard and another 40mm in front of it. Considering that the converter is about 127x76x32mm I think it won't be too hard to find a place to store it.



I think the most possible solution is to put it in front of the motherboard because I need the empty space on the side for the GPU fan (fans sometimes are a bit larger than one slot, even in low profile cards such as this one).



But from this last picture is obvious that the tray cannot be used at all. I mean, yes, it could be a solution to carve two more notches even lower than the last ones but I dont think it's easy (the metal frame is super strong! btw the whole thing is very heavy as well) nor really helpful (becase it has to be VERY low to have enough height clearance for the gpu, it almost has no meaning to keep the "tray" form factor). I have some thoughts but haven't concluded yet.

And here's some additional mockups I made:



That's it for now!

Wow, that is a tight vertical margin!

Good luck!

dj_aris said:

Update: measurements and further plans

@Mumblr: As it turns out, the lowest possible position that the tray can be placed is actually too high for my purpose.

Click to expand...

i will be interested to see how you go with this build. As for your tray another possibility was to mount the tray at the top above the MB. Why?

If you were to cut a single hole so the CPU fan poked through, and seal around the gap, then this would ensure that air would have to be sucked directly from the front or back of the case, meaning lower temps, and lower fan speeds

If you compare this to a design without the shelf, there is a lot more re-circulation of air inside the case.

Not sure if this would work with your GPU, you may need a long slot to fit the GPU, but could still work.

I posted this idea months back on the original thread.

Kiwi

kiwisincebirth said:

If you compare this to a design without the shelf, there is a lot more re-circulation of air inside the case.

Kiwi

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input! I believe that the ventilation will not be an issue either way, because I am planning to use lower-power hardware and also because the front and rear panels of the case are already drilled.

I 'm also considering the idea to build an acrylic frame inside the case (especially after peeking at your very sleek builds!) to bolt the motherboard and the PSU. I want to avoid drilling and carving the case because I really like it and also because it seems very difficult. It is much much more solid than I thought it would be.