Mac Mini-Intel DH61AG

[Gus]

Minihack! Just had a thought, if I permanently glued the block to the top of the case, the mobo might not slide in and out! I'll have to check when I get some more parts and bits of metal or something to replicate the block. But looking at that, I might actually get away with it, there's two headers either side of the cpu socket on the front of the board. Hopefully I can wiggle them past.

Gus

 

[beelzebozo]

Minihack! Just had a thought, if I permanently glued the block to the top of the case, the mobo might not slide in and out! I'll have to check when I get some more parts and bits of metal or something to replicate the block. But looking at that, I might actually get away with it, there's two headers either side of the cpu socket on the front of the board. Hopefully I can wiggle them past.

Gus

How do you plan on cooling the CPU?

 

[Gus]

The current plan is to glue (cpu thermal glue, not paste) a block of aluminium or copper to the top of the case. Then slide the motherboard in and push it against the block. Using the case as the heatsink.

To secure the motherboard I plan to glue a cpu backplate to the top of the mini, and use this to pull the mobo up to the block. A two part backplate would work best. I already have these, in the 1155 though.

Gus

 

[minihack]

Hi Gus,

How does the Mac Mini get air in and out of the case - where are the vents?

I think you will be best advised to use these vents as well as you can. Obviously I am interested to see how the passive solution works out, and think that using the case to sink the heat to is a great idea but it's going to be important also to see if you can get a bit of airflow through the inside.

Presume you are going for a 35W CPU version?

Whats the diameter of the plastic base cover by the way? Just wondering if there might be scope for perhaps even mounting some sort of fan around there to either pull air in or push it out maybe one of those super thin Scythe fans in the base to exhaust air from the case might be worth a go.

 

[eelhead]

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini ... own/6131/1

 

[minihack]

Cheers for that eelhead.

So the lovely little Mac Mini fan chucks air out of the little slot under the ports....and I guess there is an inlet somewhere - is that plastic bottom vented maybe??

It's amazing looking through that iFixit teardown how much good stuff Apple squeeze in such a small space. Really elegant. Sticking a thin ITX board in there is always not going to be as good from the aesthetic viewpoint. A definite challenge.

I think the backplate for the conversion definitely needs to be custom made with a slot or some such to give a chance for cooling to work. I think that just keeping the standard tin "thin-ITX" plate there is not going to cut the mustard...even if it did fit.

 

[eelhead]

Yeah your going to need a custom back plate and possibly a way to channel the air into the fan. It can be done and done in a quiet manner as well, just a little thinking and patience lol

 

[minihack]

Yeah your going to need a custom back plate and possibly a way to channel the air into the fan. It can be done and done in a quiet manner as well, just a little thinking and patience lol

Everything is do-able, right?

 

[slowjin]

Hello-

Nice to see you progressing with the DH61AG in a Mac Mini. beastyfellow had listed part number for the heatsink (HTS1155LP) in his post on neilhart's thread (http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=76&t=41231&hilit=dh61ag+heat&start=60). Found a YouTube and supposedly in stock at pcmall of this, made for DH61AG.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o35MSdvrkLE

http://www.pcmall.com/p/Intel-CPU-A...~pdp.gjccche?src=search#activeTab=pdpOverview

Looking forward to getting this to work!

 

[zackmd1]

Im wondering with all that room in there if the OP could actually fit a graphics card in there. Not something like a GTX 295 but maybe a Readon 5770 or better. Look at this site as it explains how to connect a pcie 16 to the mini pcie found on that board http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming- ... ences.html I know this will slow down the card but it should still be better then the HD3000 in the core series. The only two problems I see is the heat generated by the card but if you could figure out how to fit a low profile cpu cooler onto it you might be able eliminate that. The last problem is power, Mini itx power supply maybe but I think the adapter cards have their own power. Just a idea if your interested.