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neilhart's first Kaby Lake scratch build case project

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A catch up post:

I have the scratch built case mostly complete. The project follows the 80/20 rule, where 80 percent was completed in 20 percent of the time and the remaining 20 percent seems to take forever.

And a side note. Late last year I purchased on sale a Fractal NODE 202 case (which included a Fractal Design Integra SFX 450W power supply). I evaluated the case using my ASUS Z170i Pro Gaming mother board and I was impressed but not enough to leave that motherboard in that case. I decided to salvage the reusable parts and junk the case. I reused the PSU in this project.

As seen in the photos that follow, the bottom panel now has two 4” round ventilation holes that align with the MSI GTX 770 GPU fans. also I have added 4 feet that are 1/2 inch tall. And the round 1/2 inch holes in each foot provides access to the corner mounting screws.

5-GHz-19.jpg


The top panel remains as shown in a preceding post. The top panel houses the SilverStone Tundra Series TD02-E all-in-one Liquid CPU Cooler. I have the fans set to exhaust air through the rad.

The front panel provides the only air intake for the system through the mesh covered window. I have installed USB 3.0 and audio ports taken from the “fractal NODE 202”. The on/off switch, reset switch and power and HDD LEDs are incorporated in my sliding light pipe design (this is my third system that I have used this design concept).

5-GHz-20.jpg


The rear panel needs to be re-made as I have made a mistake locating the PSU mounting and had to elongate the mounting holes to get the fit that I wanted. And now the countersunk flat head cap screws had to be replaced with washers and pan head screws.

The right side panel has a motherboard access hole placed for access to the bottom m.2 slot and the CPU cooler bottom mounting plate. At this point I am thinking of using an acrylic panel attached by countersunk cap screws.

5-GHz-21.jpg


I have the ASUS motherboard RGB LEDs turned off as I find them to be distracting.

While I have the system mostly complete, I do need to purchase connectors and plns so that I can re-terminate the PSU harness with the cables neatly routed and cut to the correct length. It is a mess of cables now.

I am mostly pleased with the case project. It is “over kill” for the i3-7350 and was built with running an i7-7700K in mind. I plan to pick up the i7 CPU at a good price some time in the future.

Lacking is HWMonitor.app support for Kaby Lake and I need to sort out the USB 3.1 Type C port which at the moment does not work. However the system is stable on 10.12.3 and using VoodooHDA 2.8.9 the audio works at both front and rear ports as does audio over HDMI.

And that brings up the point that I am using one DVI display at 1600 x 1200 and one HDTV over HDMI at 1920 x 1200. I purchased the MSI GTX 770 used for $80 USD recently.



Good modding

neil
 
Last edited:
An update concerning USB function:

USB on this ASUS ROG Strix Z270I Gaming motherboard is a strange thing and I do not pretend to understand how it works.

I have combed through the posts related to USB on Kaby Lake and added too many patches to the config.plist file. The system boots okay. I suspect that some of the patches are not productive but I do not have the interest at this time to take it to the next level.

The USB 2.0 ports, 4 on the rear work:

USB 1.0 12 Mb/sec
USB 2.0 480 Mb/sec
USB 3.0 480 Mb/sec

The USB3.0 ports, 2 on the front and 3 on the rear (blue colored) work:

USB 1.0 12 Mb/sec
USB 2.0 480 Mb/sec
USB 3.0 5 Gb/sec

And the USB 3.1 Type C port works as follows:

The Type C Hub used is: http://www.hootoo.com/ht-uc001-usb-type-c-hub-charging-hdmi-apple-pd.html

With a “HooToo” Type C Hub assembly that has a Type C pass through charging port (used by MacBook for charging), three USB 3.0 blue ports, SD card port, and HDMI port.

With this device the USB 3.0 ports appear to work as normal USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. I was able to use SuperDuper!.app to copy the boot drive to a small 2.5inch SSD attached by a USB 3.0 cable to one of the HooToo USB 3.0 ports. I booted to the cloned drive and ran MultiBeast to install a UEFI Clover setup on the EFI partition of the small SSD (and then copied the EFI partition from the original boot derive to the cloned drive EFI partition).

The SSD attached to the HooToo hub on the Type C port is now standalone bootable.

Then I attached the test SSD to a Type C to SATA adapter cable (removed the HooToo hub) and booted from the test drive, now directly attached to the Type C port on the computer. The Type C to SATA cable is by SABRENT from Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014T3JRFM/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

All well and good… so I now repartitioned/reformatted the SSD on my Mavericks system and using the SABRENT Type C to SATA cable, I re cloned the boot drive to the test SSD directly attached to the Type C port. And made the test SSD standalone Clover bootable.

The reason for doing this was to run BlackMagicDrive test app both when boot from the Type C port and when the SSD was attached directly to a SATA port.

From USB Type C port:

5-GHz-22.jpg


And from the SATA port;

5-GHz-23.jpg


Again I do not understand how and why the USB works the way that it does… I am also attaching my config.plist for reference…. note you will need your own SerialNumber in SMBIOS to run this in a system.

And I almost forgot, I used Kext Beast to install XHCI-200-series-injector.kext and USBinjectorAll.kext to /L/E.


Good modding,

neil
 

Attachments

  • Example-config.plist.zip
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I love following your posts, thanks so much for sharing them, great admirer of your work.

I read that you are using a Fractal Design Integra SFX 450W PSU from the Node 202 case. I have considered buying that PSU for a build that I am working on and am curious to know how loud it is, particularly under load?
 
I love following your posts, thanks so much for sharing them, great admirer of your work.

I read that you are using a Fractal Design Integra SFX 450W PSU from the Node 202 case. I have considered buying that PSU for a build that I am working on and am curious to know how loud it is, particularly under load?

The PSU noise is very low even under full CPU load (Prime95.app Torture Test). I have no issues with the unit however if cost is not an object, I prefer the modular SilverStone ST45SF-G as working with the modular cables is a snap.

Good modding,
neil
 
The PSU noise is very low even under full CPU load (Prime95.app Torture Test). I have no issues with the unit however if cost is not an object, I prefer the modular SilverStone ST45SF-G as working with the modular cables is a snap.

Good modding,
neil
Thanks, good to know. I know there is a Corsair model where the fan doesn't spin when not under load but it hits my budget. Can I ask, the Node 202, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, comes with a riser card/cable? I have found very hard to find a working riser cable and it has put me off moving my projects from paper to the workshop. Is it possible to source the riser card/cable that Fractal Node used?

Also, a quick look around, I can't find mention of someone who has got Kabylake G4600 to work. The G4620 has HD 630 graphics, where the G4560 has HD 610. I am wondering if I would need a special kernel to get it to work, or being Pentium/Kabylake, it just wouldn't work? Dual core with hyper threading and a good price, would encourage more people to projects, perhaps. Thanks for your thoughts!
 
Thanks, good to know. I know there is a Corsair model where the fan doesn't spin when not under load but it hits my budget. Can I ask, the Node 202, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, comes with a riser card/cable? I have found very hard to find a working riser cable and it has put me off moving my projects from paper to the workshop. Is it possible to source the riser card/cable that Fractal Node used?

Also, a quick look around, I can't find mention of someone who has got Kabylake G4600 to work. The G4620 has HD 630 graphics, where the G4560 has HD 610. I am wondering if I would need a special kernel to get it to work, or being Pentium/Kabylake, it just wouldn't work? Dual core with hyper threading and a good price, would encourage more people to projects, perhaps. Thanks for your thoughts!

The SilverStone ST45SF-G usually sells for near a $ 100 USD and I see it on Amazon for $ 89 today. This is higher then I would like to see but it is what it is...

I will no longer use "riser cables" based upon my bad experiences. The PCB riser card(s) is the way to go in my opinion. The riser card from the Node 202 is a two piece PCB assembly (a fairly tall right angle riser and a short straight riser card) that I ran in my testing and it worked without issue. In this photo the Node 202 risers are the black ones, the green card is from Amazon and I have used it with good results (and I have seen this same riser card at Central Computers in the SF Bay area).

3riser.jpg


I can not respond to your question on Kaby Lake CPUs. My experience to date is with the i3-7350K only. I have just purchased a i7-7700T for my next project but have not installed it.

One suggestion would be to fall back and use older CPUs and Motherboards for better cost/performance. The Sky Lake and Kaby Lake CPUs are by the nature of things restricted in which versions of OS X will play... If you used a Haswell CPU you can run Mavericks and every thing later (where Mavericks is probably the best OS X version released in several years IMHO).

Good modding,
neil
 
Hello! Thanks for a lot of useful information, Neil! I'm going to build a powerful mini-ITX (NCASE m1) hackintosh with the same motherboard. Can you give me advice, is it worth it?
 
Hello! Thanks for a lot of useful information, Neil! I'm going to build a powerful mini-ITX (NCASE m1) hackintosh with the same motherboard. Can you give me advice, is it worth it?

IMHO the NCASE m1 and the Dan case are are both excellent cases. When one builds a "powerful mini-ITX" the key is keeping everything cool under full load. This case is designed to run an i7-7700K but I have not found one at a reasonable price... In my current S4 Mini build I am using a i7-7700T (TDP of 35 W) just to keep the heat generation down where I can run a single fan system.

Good modding,
neil
 
IMHO the NCASE m1 and the Dan case are are both excellent cases. When one builds a "powerful mini-ITX" the key is keeping everything cool under full load. This case is designed to run an i7-7700K but I have not found one at a reasonable price... In my current S4 Mini build I am using a i7-7700T (TDP of 35 W) just to keep the heat generation down where I can run a single fan system.

Good modding,
neil
Thank you for reply!
What about ASUS ROG Strix 270i motherboard for hackintosh? I'm afraid of making a mistake with the choice. My cart in the online store already contains this mobo, but I'm not 100% sure to click 'OK'. Your opinion will be a great contribution to my decision. Thank you again!
 
Thank you for reply!
What about ASUS ROG Strix 270i motherboard for hackintosh? I'm afraid of making a mistake with the choice. My cart in the online store already contains this mobo, but I'm not 100% sure to click 'OK'. Your opinion will be a great contribution to my decision. Thank you again!

I think that the ASUS Z270I is a very good choice (if not over priced) and is unique with two m.2 slots. If cost was not an issue, I would like to purchase twin Samsung 960 m.2 cards and try running a RAID 0. It is a shame that all of the mini-ITX motherboards that I know of have WiFi/BT devices that are not compatible with maxOS.

Good modding,
neil
 
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