New SFF - X-QPack Built

I noticed yesterday with my QPack that the air flow from the front grills out through the exhaust fan is sure important.
Had the cover off to reset the cmos while playing with the ram timings and forgot to put it back straight away.
A little while later the temp gauge was showing both the HDDs and Ram to be 10 degrees above normal, I popped the cover back on and after 5 minutes they were back down to normal.
Actually varying the fan speed from max to min makes no difference to temps while idle but sure makes it a lot quieter.

I'm going to have to get a new psu though, this mini one is struggling a bit with a x1800xl at stock. I daren't try overclocking it yet.

Deathwish, how close a fit was that 7000Cu? How much clearance have you got , I'm intending to put the biggest Zalman I can in there :D
 
I thnk only the 7000 series from Zalman fits with Aspire. over at suddhian forums, most people with Aspire are usign the Zalman HS&F.

This System runs soo cool and silent. I'm using the Sapphire Ultimate x800GTO and temps @ load is 55. idle @ 35.
 

Anyone tryed doing this? Is the handle plastic?

How heavy are they one with Zalmans in? Take a lot of effort to heal around?

Everyone whos got one recomend them?

Sorry for all the questions
 
Hey guys, finished taking some pics of the Zalman. Was straight forward installing it, no clearance problems whatsoever and it fits in real nice.

I have routed the fanmate to the outside on the back so I can control the fan speed myself, putting it on minimum its as if there is no fan! Cranking it up makes a noise but not that bad, and I will probably do that when playing games etc.

Having said that, it doesn't get hot, this is a very cool and quiet machine which I am happy about as that is what I intended to create.

Under full load, with the zalman on low setting, it reaches about 35degrees! It will sit and idle at 27deg all day long. Cranking up the Zalman makes a few degree's difference. (note: reported by the motherboard, no reason to doubt it but should air on the side of caution, can't be far wrong though)

Im not sure about fitting a bigger Zalman, the 120mm 7700Cu might be too big depending on the layout of your motherboard. I think you would get away with it if you had no graphics card installed and the cpu socket was in the right place.

http://www.fwibble.org/gal/view_gallery.php?gallery=newpc
The first 4 images are the new ones.

Sandmaster: I have tried lifting with the handle and it did work, although I would not recommend it. Good for moving short distances etc but not worth the worry to use regularly.

tim_enchanter: I can recommend a Seasonic PSU, will fit in perfectly especially if you have a windowed version of the X-QPack as the top of the Seasonic is pure black with no stickers. Oh and the cabling is well suited as it exits on the left, plenty of room for a DVDROM etc.

Edit: I found that my hard disks were getting a little warm, so I have inverted the rear fan to suck in air, rather than blow (ooer missus ;) ). Now I can feel the air coming out of the vents at the front and im much happier with the temps. The Noiseblocker fan is so quiet I can run it at 12v and its very quiet, the Seasonic PSU has leads for 5v and 12v so I can change them if I need to, might invest in another fanmate for it.
 
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Ok thanks I'll take a look at the seasonic.

Yeah I think that 7000 is about all it needs :) I wouldn't fancy trying to get something larger in there
I like your idea of turning the fan around, at the moment I'm using my hardcano from an old case, atm its only controlling the case fan but when I get the Zalman that will go on there to.

I would also advise against using the handle much if your case is full. With just a dvd drive and 1 Hdd while using the onboard gpu it was fine.
I have since put in 2 more Hdds and new gfx, earlier I picked it up to see how the handle felt. When gently turning the case I could feel a fair amount of flexing going on.
Use it with caution.
 
Got a Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU in mine, running a 146 Opteron at 2.88 Ghz fits fine with the standard PSU
 
Not a tight fit once its in, the 7700 is only 67mm high which is only 5mm higher than the 7000 range, the ribs of the HS pinged through when sliding the mb tray back in, that was the only close bit I reckon.

I'll try and get a pic of it over the holidays for your perusal :)
 
What VGA coolers you guys using? The Artic Cooler 5 v.2 for X850XT is bit loud even at 10% spin.

Do you think the Zalman VGA cooler would be more silent?
 
nolimit said:
What VGA coolers you guys using? The Artic Cooler 5 v.2 for X850XT is bit loud even at 10% spin.

Do you think the Zalman VGA cooler would be more silent?
Click to expand...

Well at 5V mine was inaudible and still cooled my unlocked and overclocked 6800 to about 54-56C under load:).
 
Biffa said:
Not a tight fit once its in, the 7700 is only 67mm high which is only 5mm higher than the 7000 range, the ribs of the HS pinged through when sliding the mb tray back in, that was the only close bit I reckon.

I'll try and get a pic of it over the holidays for your perusal :)
Click to expand...

Any chance of that pic :) So tempted to get one of these. The version Deathwish has just looks class.

How good/bad is the stock PSU in them?

ty

*Edit - also have the zalman VGA cooler - Ok for quiet system (ie similar to an akasa amber at full volts) at full volts, silent at 5v and not much difference to temps
 
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Can you set the Artic Cooler @ 5v?

I have the zalman fan controller and don't really know how to connect it to the 5v switch.

This is the manual but doesn't help much.
ZM-MFC1.jpg


here is my fan controller.
aspire9mx.jpg
 
Have done a rebuild in the last few days,
Have now got the seasonic 430W psu, a zalman 7000 cpu cooler and a zalman vga cooler.
I only had one small problem getting it in there, I had to cut a tiny part of the case to fit my vga cooler, this is probably a fairly unique issue to my combination of mobo and gfx cards which means that the zalman fins foul on the case.

Nolimit you do not need to connect anything to 5v if using that controller you just connect the cooler to the controller and turn it down which gives you your low voltage.
 
In a strange twist, I also recently built the exact same system as Deathwish.
Whats so strange in that, is the fact I've known Deathwish for about 5 years online via IRC and gaming forums. I didn't know of his project until a 3rd person (Brocken) from the gaming community started their Q Pack.

The stranger things were the same componants we both used.

Aspire X-Qpack in Silver with Windows
AMD Athlon 3700+
ASRock 939A8X-M
2Gb Crucial PC3700
Gainward 6800GT AGP GFX
120Gb Samsung HD
Pioneer 106 DVD-RW Black
Standard PSU

Dave helped me out with some noise reducing tips and products ( cheers m8 )
and Brocken helped out with some valuable advice reguarding the Case main power switch being faulty.

Added.
Zalman (CNPS7000B-CU) CPU cooler (on its way)
Zalman (VF700-Cu LED) GFX Cooler
Noiseblocker Ultra 120mm fan


http://www.british-airborne.co.uk/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=225&stc=1&d=1135932182

When the CPU cooler goes in, I'll take some more detailed pictures of the build.
 
Nice wallpaper! Change the PSU to Nexus 4xx / 5xx watts PSU. It runs very silent and cool. Not sure if it will fit with the Pioneer DVDRW but it fits with Sony DVDRW.
 
ASRock 939A8X-M

Guess that has the mounting holes for the heatsink? Will be getting this mobo then, whats overclocking like?
 
yep it does use mounting holes.
Am doing yet another rebuild today, have got two Zalman NB heatsinks for my NB and SB, my gigabyte mobo is getting too warm. Add to that a couple of akasa ambers and it'll be nice n cool
 
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