Fractal Node 304 Haswell: GA-Z87N-WIFI (rev 2) - i7-4770k - GA GTX 770 (2GB)

[caseyfriday]

Very cool guide! I've used the H87N and the white version of the case for my build. Out of interest, do you ever find the front fans aren't spinning at low speed? I occasionally have to 'tap' them to get them working.

YES! I posted that in one of my recent updates. I have to put the case on 'high' fan speed, then back down to minimum. I guess Fractal didn't plan out the voltage split from the molex connector very well.

 

[Gordo74]

Fantastic! Those pics are exactly what I needed! Thank you for the temp information too! That actually runs a bit cooler than my Fractal R4 in an enclosed space and I never have issues. Looks like you just drained my bank account looking for a Z77 ITX.

 

[caseyfriday]

Fantastic! Those pics are exactly what I needed! Thank you for the temp information too! That actually runs a bit cooler than my Fractal R4 in an enclosed space and I never have issues. Looks like you just drained my bank account looking for a Z77 ITX.

Any reason why a Z77, and not a Z87?

 

[Gordo74]

Simple: Funds. I can transplant my hack in its entirety by just getting a Z77. If I went Z87, I would have to buy a new processor as well.

 

[caseyfriday]

Simple: Funds. I can transplant my hack in its entirety by just getting a Z77. If I went Z87, I would have to buy a new processor as well.

Gotcha - that makes sense.

 

[TimeZone]

Caseyfriday, Cool build, thanks for sharing!

I built a similar system for my Mom to replace her old 2006 17" imac that was starting to have a lot of problems. I use the same GA-Z87N-WIFI (I believe rev 2). I used suggested hardware, used i5-4670K and did 8gb ram and am just using the built in graphics.

I built it several months a go and started with 10.9.2 OS. I used suggested BIOS options. I also select Legacy boot, which I don't know that everyone does, but see some suggest it. Used all the basic suggested multibeast settings. It has worked pretty well, but it does seem to have the occasional freeze, where you have to just shut it down and restart..

Do you have the loss of audio problem after sleep? I have always had this problem and have to revert to the multibeast 6.1 drivers to fix it. Only a few weeks a go upgraded the bios from F4 to F5. Didn't seem to really make any difference. Then a couple of weeks a go I upgraded OS to 10.9.4. I reinstalled multibeast with 6.4 afterwards. Everything again seems the same really with just an ocassional freeze every so often. It would lose audio after sleep again, so I had to revert back to the 6.1 multibeast drivers for that.

I wish i could get rid of the occasional freeze problem. Your changing of the network driver sounds interesting. Are you still freeze free? I only just switched bios to F5 and see on the Gigabyte site a beta F6c bios offered. Think I'll wait for that to be non-beta before trying it. You say you switched network driver to 2.4.14, this would be the intel one right? So that is reverting back to an older driver and then also selecting KillerALX. I might try that this weekend and see if it stops the freezes. I guess the Atheros driver wasn't changed. Which ethernet port do you actually use, intel or atheros?

The system uses wifi though and no internet cables are hooked up. Could it still be causing issues though? I'm guessing perhaps it could. Would be curious your thoughts are anyone else that might suggest a way to make it more stable. Thanks!

 

[Gordo74]

As a quick update - I have acquired all the parts needed to move from ATX to ITX in this case. Looking forward to doing it sometime this week

I'll take pics

 

[caseyfriday]

Caseyfriday, Cool build, thanks for sharing!

Do you have the loss of audio problem after sleep? I have always had this problem and have to revert to the multibeast 6.1 drivers to fix it.

The system uses wifi though and no internet cables are hooked up. Could it still be causing issues though? I'm guessing perhaps it could. Would be curious your thoughts are anyone else that might suggest a way to make it more stable. Thanks!

Yes! I definitely get that no audio after sleep problem! The one way I've found to solve it is to not allow the computer to go to sleep - screen saver only. Also, since I'm running a SATA3 SSD, it only takes about 20 seconds to reboot, so I'm not averse to doing that (although I would love if it 'just worked').

I used this guide to get my motherboard settings to a point at which I've actually had NO freezes since I changed it. I think the main thing to do is change xHCI from 'Smart Auto' to just 'Auto', and then enable xHCI and EHCI handoff. Actually, those are the only settings I changed.

Yup, changing to the older 4.2.14 Intel driver ridded me of all network problems during large transfers. I actually only use the Intel Port - the Atheros ethernet port doesn't work no matter what drivers I throw at it. Luckily, I only need the one Ethernet port!

Hopefully using that guide will help you fix the freezing issues, but sorry to say I don't know how to fix the audio glitch. Maybe Tonymacx86 will automagically fix it with 10.10?

- - - Updated - - -

As a quick update - I have acquired all the parts needed to move from ATX to ITX in this case. Looking forward to doing it sometime this week

I'll take pics

AWESOME!

 

[Gordo74]

Good news, Bad news

Good news:

I got everything in the case. It fits the Asus P8Z77-I with a CNPS10X well, however, due to RAM and the hard drive cage, I had to put the fan on the cooler backwards. I also bought a native working mini PCIe wifi card and got that all setup. It fits my 2 SSDs and 1HDD just fine in one rack, with the SSDs being velcroed together. The PSU fits, but is a bit messy for my tastes. It's very sexy all closed up though and performance is incredible compared to a Gigabyte mobo. It boots much faster.

Bad news:

Because of the fan placement on the cooler, I had to change around the airflow. There is no back fan now, but the CPU cooler fan is practically against the back, so it pulls in air this way and the front fans exhaust air out the top. This, however, does not seem to be very good airflow and CPU temps are around 40C idle and GPU temps are around 50C idle, whereas they were at 35 and 40C before, respectively. I'm working on some solutions here.

Also, the wifi seems choppy with the included antennas. It works great at times, but every minute or so, it drops connection for a couple of seconds.... very annoying for casual use. I will be replacing the antennas to see if this helps.

Once I figure out these few issues, I will post pics

 

[caseyfriday]

I had some issues with airflow as well. Well, to be completely honest, the folks at the overclock forum, in the official Node 304 thread, suggested that with my Noctua U12S right up against the GPU, there wasn't much space for air to be pulled from, to blow through the cooler.

Because of that, I decided to change out my CPU cooler to something made for a smaller space. Hence, the NH-L9I:

Not as BEEFY as the U12-S, but it definitely seems it'll perform more efficiently, and so far idle temps seem to be pretty much the same as they were with the U12-S. It's also just as quiet.

I'm relatively sure this will make for a much healthier heat removal from the case.