[BUILDING] Mac Mini3 (i3-3225, FusionDrive, GA-B75N ITX)

[at0mac]

Second try at dying.


Wires look ok, they are darkened at least. But they are not black as I had hoped. Dyed them again with some different dye I bought locally and made absolutely no difference
So I guess I have three choices: Leave as it is, buy more RIT dye and start again or sleeve.

I think it went wrong because my pot was a lot bigger than the one in the link were I found the method, so I simply just did not have enough dye and the dye I bought today didn't work on plastics at all.

 

[Schw3n]

I'm watching every day on your Mac Mini3 (i3-3225, FusionDrive, GA-B75N ITX) thread and hope to see some news.
I've got some question, hopefully you could help me, because I would like to build the same build.
- I want to get a home-media-server (24/7) to steam movies directly via HDMI to my TV
- Is the i3 internal graphic enough for 1080p?
- Does it work 24/7?
- Is just one 2TB drive okay for OS + data, or should OS and data be separate?

 

[at0mac]

Long time of silence but a lot have been going on, time for a big update:


First of all the last few parts arrived, here is my tiny Bluetooth dongle, never seen anything USB this small before.

Also received my recording/playback module:

And wifi:

I have also painted everything:

First in primer.

And then in mat black.

Even painted the fan.

So it can't be seen from the outside.

 

[at0mac]

I have changed the LED colors from original red/green to white.

And I have assembled!

An extremely stupid detail is that if you use the original PSU for this case, made by Chieftec them selves - then the case cant close because of the fat modular connectors.
So I had to mod the lid to slide it in place.

DONE!

 

[at0mac]

...but then there came problems... First time I turned it on it only went on for like 5 seconds and then turned off. And its been doing that ever since every time I try.


It seems like its a dead power supply, because even if I unplug everything and only plugs in the power and a paperclip it still just turns on in a few seconds and then off (also had a fan connected to see if there was power).


Problem is that if I'm right and the PSU is dead, then I have modded it so much no RMA will ever cover
Could also be because the PSU is underdimension and I actually burned it first time I tried turning on...
Beside that I have discovered that the paint is not really as scratch proof as hoped, so I am now considering a total rebuild...


Just to be sure:


* I want a PSU with more power than the barely enough 90w I am trying with now.
* I want something in silver aluminum to withstand scratches.
* It also annoys me that the current PSU has a power brick.
* Would love to fit in my FireWire800 card.


Yes, no longer much similarities to a Mac Mini, just a plain cool small computer.


I'm thinking I can mod my PCI card to fit in a Lian Li PC-Q12, so I start with buying a SilverStone SST-ST30SF PSU, just to check if any other hardware have broken.
If everything works with that PSU then I get the Lian Li case instead.




I just pictured how it looks in size compared to Mac Mini and my current PC:

The Lian Li is the first and the last box.

Would not be too bad... Still easy to travel with.




I will update when more have happened ...project is NOT done yet

 

[at0mac]

Just to let everybody know - I will restart this project some time in 2014. But for now it is put on hold as it started to annoy me...


Last thing I did was that I ended up buying the Silverstone ST30SF SFX PSU to test if everything was still alive, just to realize that is worked like a charm but the dye had screwed up my CPU fan so its now quite noisy.
Also my old SSD seems to have developed a slight high pitched noise and the HDD noise was also more than I had hoped.


So now I have the perfect PSU, CPU, MB and RAM, but the rest is a little annoying.
To be fair the PSU is not perfect, I wish it was sleeved better (so badly I even want to redo it whenever I get time).




Will let you guys know when an update is due.




(for now im just passing time with great xmas amazon offers on games)

Happy holidays!

 

[rehpotsirhc]

Next time you try to dye PVC coated wiring you should try using PVC cleaning solvent mixed with dye:
http://makezine.com/projects/make-30/stain-pvc-any-color-you-like/

 

[at0mac]

At the moment this build is in a re-build stage, so the Node is now using a Pentium G2030 CPU and has changed name to Node 2.1b, running Windows 8.1. The 3225 CPU has been moved to this setup called the Mac Mini3 and added a lot of new hardware.

The Mac Mini3 is at the moment consistent of:

Intel i3-3225
Gigabyte GA-B75N
Plextor M3 64GB boot SSD
500GB TimeMachine
LyCom FW400+800 PCIe card
1TB FW800 + 2TB FW800
Silverstone SFX 300Watt PSU
Akasa low profile CPU copper cooler
All inside a cardboard box from a pair of Bowers & Wilkins P7 headphones.
EVERYTHING works, even sleep!

The point is that the Mac Mini3 and the Node 2.0b will soon be rebuild into three different machines:
A proper Mac HTPC, a unRAID server and a Windows 8.1 gaming PC.

//Stay tuned

 

[thierry37]

Hi At0mac,

So in the end, you cannot use the Chiftec small case?
I saw it on amazon and was wondering if it would make a good small ITX silent case


I was quite surprised to see your pictures of dying the cables, fan and electronics in water....
Maybe sleeving is more time consumming but also more safe.


The cardboard box is silent?

When looking at a small silent case, to screw under the table, I was almost thinking of making a wood box. Ugly, but small.
Then I realized how much time I would spend to fitting correctly the motherboard and the back plate, etc.
And I looked at this small case.
Smaller than a SG05 or a Coolcube. (my other options, right now)


Will you also put these pictures on your flickr?