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Truly small Mini-ITX case for hack mini?

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Hi all, I have a similar case, but in a striking red colour and more ventilation.

Originally I had a H67N in it with a core i5 2500K with a 160W pico PSU. Unfortunately, though, I had no other ventilation in it other than the heatsink/fan which was insufficient for drawing in or pushing out air from the exterior. The case would get uncomfortably hot. And so I gave up on that 95W TDP combo and decided to chuck an Atom D525/ION2 mobo (passive) in there instead.

Still not entirely sure why I thought that the passive Atom, albeit significantly lower TDP system would work any better, and it did not, it got hot and crashed. Obviously proper airflow was going to be required.

Next I shoved in a couple of 50mm "silent" fans on the right side on chassis exhausting the hot air and now it is working perfectly! The case lid now remains cool to the touch at all times.
I wish I had tried that with the H67N now, because I suspect that it would also have been fine, however that cpu/mobo has now gone and I have moved to a matx chassis for my new hackintosh.

Obviously the current Atom setup is no good for hackintosh duties so that doesn't help you guys much (currently it runs Win8 x64 Dev booting from SAN (iSCSI/gpxe) as a diskless HTPC) however I do have an Intel DH57JG and a Core i3 which I will be trying out in the red case, not sure how I will get on with that as a hackintosh, but I will certainly understand better how that case+50mm fans works with a higher TDP setup...

The case I bought from a shop on eBay, it was £27 for just the case (usually it comes with a small PSU that would be useless for core iX builds), so very cheap. The pico psu costed more.

See pics below, I may take some more today with the lid on if there is any interest.
 

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Also I should add, with the H67N + Core i5 2500K + PicoPSU setup I tested power consumption:
* idle 30W
* full load 110W (never saw it exceed 110W)

At the time of those tests I was using a 120W brick, I felt I may have been cutting it fine with the 95W TDP CPU despite not having any trouble. After running those tests I bought a 150W brick which allowed me to sleep easier...
 
You should never try anything beyond 35w on such small cases. Even my Fusion-350 powered HTPC gets really hot without an additional fan.
 
memmerson--

Would you be willing to provide a bit more info on the build you've got going pictured above? I'm spec-ing out a similar system but am worried about PSU. Originally, I was going to follow the TonyMac Mac Mini guide and grab the 200W box... but now that I've come across these very "mini-like" cases, I'm reconsidering.

My question is what is adequate power for either running the i5 2500K or even an i3 using a pico PSU? I see they don't tend to go above 150W but whenever I've done "PSU calculators", they always come in at around 180-200W needed.

I've also found some cases like yours that also include a small fan. Any help / insight you could provide would be wonderful.

Thanks!
 
Hi ninjojo,

The parts I had used were:

* 150W picoPSU from linitx @£30 (I said 160W earlier, but it is actually the 150W model)* 12V 150W (12.5A) AC-DC power brick @ £20
* Gigabyte ga-h67n-usb3 mini-itx mobo about £80
* Intel Core i5 2500K £150
* Akasa low profile HSF £10
* Intel x25-M 80GB

Picopsu's efficiency is around 90% where standard ATX supplies are around 80%, that may explain some of the difference with the online PSU calculators, also I would assume they add generous headroom.

When testing, I murderised all cores @ 100% (running multiple 'yes > /dev/null' processes) then ran even more cpu intensive processes on top of that until the OS practically chokes. 110W is the maximum draw I saw (using maplin enegy monitor). When idle, it used about 30W (IIRC it was usually @ 27W) which compares very well with my Atom which idles at a similar wattage. The difference is when you start doing more, when playing a 1080P h264 mkv on the 2500K it would use around 60W and generally, doing day-day stuff I hardly ever saw it increase beyond that unless I was benchmarking/testing.

If airflow is sufficient, almost any size case can be OK. Usually however, higher degrees of airflow require fans with greater CFM and usually that means more noise, moreso with smaller fans.
 
ninjojo said:
memmerson--

Would you be willing to provide a bit more info on the build you've got going pictured above? I'm spec-ing out a similar system but am worried about PSU. Originally, I was going to follow the TonyMac Mac Mini guide and grab the 200W box... but now that I've come across these very "mini-like" cases, I'm reconsidering.

My question is what is adequate power for either running the i5 2500K or even an i3 using a pico PSU? I see they don't tend to go above 150W but whenever I've done "PSU calculators", they always come in at around 180-200W needed.

I've also found some cases like yours that also include a small fan. Any help / insight you could provide would be wonderful.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Try using a 35W CPU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_brid ... processors
 
memmerson said:
Picopsu's efficiency is around 90% where standard ATX supplies are around 80%, that may explain some of the difference with the online PSU calculators, also I would assume they add generous headroom.


If airflow is sufficient, almost any size case can be OK. Usually however, higher degrees of airflow require fans with greater CFM and usually that means more noise, moreso with smaller fans.
Click to expand...

ya i think so too the airflow is more of a problem than power

they can be loud as the fans speed up to increase airflow think these little cases need good ventilation and airflow
 
TirsoJRP said:
Try using a 35W CPU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_brid ... processors
Click to expand...

Even if TDP was the issue (which it isn't) there are no 35W TDP (or even 45W TDP) parts with HD3000, which is a prerequisite for a Sandy Bridge hackintosh as HD2000 currently does not work. And the very small cases do not have space for discrete cards...
 
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