Any mini skeleton users? What specs?

Emlyn_Dewar

Emlyn_Dewar

Emlyn_Dewar

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I bought one of these a while back when OcUK had them cheap. To test it out I chucked an old VIA board in, was happy enough with the noise and think it's a good looking system.

Just wanted to see if there were any others with these on OcUK?
What specs are your running?
Have you got any pictures? (Cable management was a pain on the test build I had...) :S

I'm wanting to build it up as a small system to play the odd blu-ray/avi and get some Minecraft played on a machine that doesn't sound like a hoover... :D

Is the 90w PSU any cop for a machine to run some basic media stuff?
 
Hey Emlyn,

Indeed it is. The Mrs uses one as her office PC.

Specs are:

e3300 dual core @ stock
Intel DG45 board
2x1gb Geil PC2-6400
Windows 7 64bit
Sata DVDRW
Sata 160gb lappy HDD

For cpu cooling i use a stock Core2 heatsink with the fan removed - the Skeleton's main fan provides enough airflow at it's lowest setting to keep the chip cool. This makes it a very quiet system as only the large case fan is used! :)

Performance wise it's ace. Very fast to boot up and is powerful enough for image editing and other pretty heavy office tasks.

The onboard x4500 video is also more than capable of full 1080p HD video (cpu utilisation no more than 30% if i remember correctly) and is surprisingly OK for games too. Remember playing STALKER @ fairly low settings with no real issues.

No idea of actual power usage but this board with 2x2gb, an e7200 and full sized HDD pulled around 59w standby and up to 80w at load. The e3300 is well known to be a frugal chip so this could be a fair bit lower.

The 90w PSU should be enough for a reasonably powerful little pc!

gt
 
Thanks for that, just don't want to go overloading the PSU.

I've seen a couple of cheap AM2 boards with the onboard Nvidia 8200 chip. Thinking something like that could be worth a punt with an X2 3600 or similar.
Will check out the DG45 though.
How did you find it for cabling? Not an issue?
 
Not too bad TBH really - obviously a little fiddly but i suppose that's the case in many similar sized enclosures.

TBH i've never had what i would call an 'easy build' in any of the ITX stystems i've built. As long as you plan carefully and invest in short sata cabling you should be fine!

I've also built into this case using a Zotac 9300 board. Integrated wifi an even better gpu and a pci-e x16 slot. Lovely little board too.

I'd be interested to see how you get on if you go the AMD route. Not seen many ITX builds using their kit.

gt
 
Will do, once I get round to amassing the needed parts...
Jetway NC62K was purchased. It's very much no-thrills but got a reasonable writeup.
I'll check out what AM2/AM2+ chips are out there, limited to what I can run, but I'll find something out there.

Will use my Phenom 955 retail heatsink with fan removed, assuming it fits in the case.
I can see myself underclocking whatever CPU I end up with...

I'd quite like to go for a small capacity SSD assuming I can scrape the funds together. If not, a 320gb WD Black will have to do.
 
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Good good!

Yeah, an undervolted chip would be a good start.

Does the board take any of the newer Athlon II or Phenom II chips? Can't find any info.

Would be nice to add an X2 260 @ 3.2ghz undervolted. :)

gt
 
Depends what revision it is, luck of the draw if it'll support the 45nm chips.
Hopefully I get lucky on board revisions for once...

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NC62K.html

I can't say I've had many positive experiences with Jetway but for a low price gamble, I'm willing to try this board out.

Edit: No luck on the board revision... Rev 3 for me, 45nm is supported on Rev 4 only. Will see what it does with a newer chip plugged in but don't hold out much hope.
Picked up a very cheap X3 8550 anyway, so will underclock and go with that.
 
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:mad:

Aarrrggghh!! The standard cabling on this case! Why is it not braided?
I just can't see a way that the mini skeleton can not be a cabley mess as standard. This is unfortunate as I have never rewired anything or even braided my own cables before. However, looks like it'll be time to learn... :(

Have the X3 running at 1.8ghz at the moment on slightly lower volts, will properly get to work with getting a good underclock after the setup is built properly. I'm hoping to get it down to really low volts at around 1.5ghz.
In test form it's running a cruddy old 1gb stick of PC5300, will get a 2gb in ASAP.
Heatsink from the 955BE has been stripped of fan and can just squeeze in now. :)
Generic DVD drive to get Win7 on...

I'd post pictures but the camera would break at the sight of the cabling.
 
Couple of really poor photos, testing over lunch so thought I might as well...

2010-11-05120833.jpg


2010-11-05120809.jpg


Still looking for a good value single stick of 2gb PC6400. Once I've got that I'll take the thing apart and start on the cabling.
Still running the X3 at 1.8ghz, am down at 1.08v now so will leave that stability testing for rest of the afternoon. Just on a lower multi for the moment but will get a proper underclock done when I get the correct memory.

Spec at moment:
Jetway NC62K
AMD Phenom X3 8550 @ 9*200 (1.08v)
Stock Phenom BE heatpipe cooler, fan removed
1 x 1gb Generic PC5300 1 x 2gb PC6400 to replace
Hitachi 160gb 5400rpm 2.5" HD
Generic CD/RW-DVD Drive Blu-Ray drive to replace
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Dual tuner TV card will be fitted at rebuild

From what I've used it for, I'm quite impressed at how Windows 7 copes with 1gb of memory. I know I'll see a boost from 2gb but I just expected far worse performance.
The 8200m Nvidia chip looks like it'll do the job for some light Minecraft sessions also...

With the top fan on the highest setting, the CPU isn't getting over 36 degrees. Hoping to get lower still on the voltage also.
 
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Looks good - great work with the undervolting! 7 does surprisingly well with 1gb from what i've seen. :)

I'd be interested to see how you get on with a dual tuner card and media center... what dual tuner card are you getting for it?

gt
 
It's a Peak Dual DVB-t, picked it up a while back to watch a Grand Prix. Had been running it on Vista with the supplied software which wasn't much use.
Media Centre is a lot nicer, have been using it for a while, haven't experienced any issues so far.

The idea I'm working on now, is to replace the cruddy Freeview box we have with the mini skeleton. It's not to everyone's taste, but I quite like it. The Media Centre interface is worlds better than what the Freeview box uses. :|
 
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