First Mini-ITX build

[Ducky Spud]

Ordered these yesterday, they shipped this morning and say they should be delivered tomorrow... but wouldnt be suprised if its a few days because of new year and such.

Asus AT3N7A-I board
2GB DDR2 PC2-6400
500GB Samsung Spinpoint F1
Sharkoon System Fan Series 70x70x15
Compucase 8K01
Slim DVD drive

And then to control it I also got:

Keysonic ACK-540RF


Its basically going to be a small media PC for the front room. No room for a proper HTPC case so just wanted a small one that I can fit in easily. Was also looking at the Zotac boards, but the Asus one (which is basically the same spec, only a few minor differences) was working out around £40-50 cheaper and the only real problem I saw in reviews was the tiny fan on the heatsink, hence why I bought the (hopefully quieter) sharkoon fan.

Im also buying a wireless router off a forum member and he's sending a USB adapter too so I can get this connected to the internet/stream videos when its downstairs in the front room.

Never built a SFF system before, so hoping his goes well. Im used to having some space to work in but seeing how small this case is in peoples photos makes me realise this is going to be more of a tight squeeze haha.

Anyway, I will get photos up when it all arrives and being built... hopefully tomorrow!

 

[Ducky Spud]

Got the system built up and sounding like its booting, but no display Fans work, HDD spins up but just no display at all. Will try it using HDMI later to see if its just the VGA output thats not working, but its just confusing me Tried uplugging everything apart from the power cables and same result. Not a good start to my SFF adventures haha.

Also dont have one of the wierd power adapters for the slim DVD drive, I assumed one would come with the drive or mobo but no luck there so need to get one of those too whenever I can!

And to answer your question Raikiri, I basically just wanted a low power, quiet system. Was looking into an AM2 setup but just ended up going Atom/ION in the end anyway lol. The fact it can be run passive or with a very slow, quiet fan was the main deciding factor

But yea, a couple of photos. Battery in my camera went after the first few photos so put it on charge and then got more when I'd finished lol

Then all of a sudden it was built up!

Cables are well hard to sort out in such a small area, theyre all just sort of crammed together in that little space for now.

Anyway, anyone any ideas on what the problem could be? I thought maybe because Im only using a 20pin ATX cable but others are doing so and report no problems. Would be helpful if there was a little speaker in there for the error beeps but nowhere to plug one in I dont think

 

[Ducky Spud]

ahhh, cheers for the info! was looking at maybe getting a fanless replacement or a pico psu, just something to try and silence that tiny fan haha. Bit unusual that the psu spins everything up but it fails to POST. Will try with one of my proper ATX ones tomorrow and see if it works alright

 

[Ducky Spud]

Just tested out an old 350W PSU I had lying round and same result, everything sounds like its working but no output. That was also a 20pin ATX cable so decided to try the PSU from my main rig which I know has a 24pin cable. Same result though, so im guessing its something else causing the problem

May post in the general hardware section, gets more attention then in here haha, but if any of you can think of anything please let me know

 

[Ducky Spud]

Just ordered some new Corsair XMS2 RAM. After much hunting Ive found a few other people that have had similar problems with this board and its because of a compatability issue with the RAM. Seen the Corsair stuff in a build thats worked, so hopefully it will fix mine.... We'll see in a few days I guess!

Fingers crossed

 

[Ducky Spud]

Haha, its an essential part of my rig building outfit!

Went out in fancy dress as builders about a year ago and and it just happens to be dumped in that corner along with all sorts of other odd bits (see RC cars, BB guns, old airfix models, school tech projects etc)

 

[Ducky Spud]

Well I finally got the Corsair RAM today, delivery was delayed a week with the weather! But all is now well, took the old cheap stuff out, Corsair stuff in and its now working a treat and installing windows 7 Bit wierd as the old RAM is the same speed and everything as the Corsair, just different timings oh well, running now anyway

Still need to get a wireless router though otherwise I cant get this downstairs and thats the whole point of this build lol

 

[Ducky Spud]

Only tried a 720 H264 clip I had on my memory stick but it ran perfectly. Will try a full HD video tonight hopefully. Very pleased so far though, windows 7 is running fine and seems quite nippy. Only problem is the PSU fan is pretty noisy, not too bad but you'd notice it during quiet parts of a film.

 

[Ducky Spud]

Just installed flash 10.1 Beta and its played Top Gear in HD on BBC iPlayer just fine' in fact the only problem is my internet connection haha' leave it to buffer for a while and its fine

Still need to test playing from a file yet, still need to sort out all my codecs and things first

 

[Ducky Spud]

Tested Black Hawk Down in 1080p this morning and was a bit jerky, but a quick driver update later and its running perfectly smooth now

Just waiting on my wireless router now then its finished At the moment Im just limited to what few songs/films Ive put on there for testing, but its main purpose is iPlayer/4oD/Spotify etc

 

[Ducky Spud]

A proper skt 775 chip would be the faster option, but Im mainly after quietness and power efficiency. If I want speed I use my main rig But saying that, not noticed any proper lag during general usage. Got SSD's in my main rig so used to that being super snappy, but compared to other systems still using HDD's its fine. But then Im only really using it for web/media things. Going for a 775 board would open up more options for gaming and such, but for general use the Atom is fine.

As for the DVD writer, you need a special cable due to it being a laptop drive, but these are quite easy to find (here for example). Other than that its same as any other disk drive. The drive I used is a Samsung SN-S083C, was basically the cheapest slimline drive I could find lol