SFF Cases

RobH · 18 Jul 2009 at 16:36

Been out of the loop for several months, I last looked into them in September. I want to squash my desktop into a Micro ATX case of some sort, as a minimum I would need space for:

1x Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
2x 3.5" SATA Hard Disks
1x X-Fi sound Card (PCI)
1x BFG 8800 GTS (PCI-E, dual slot)

Optionally:
Full sized ATX PSU
1x SATA DVD-RW (Slimline or full size 5.25")
1x 3.5" Internal Card Reader

I'm aware these requirements quickly rule out a large number of SFF cases, are there any that offer these features?

RobH · 19 Jul 2009 at 23:39

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll take a look at them. Does the SG01 take a full sized PCI-E such as an 8800 GTS with a dual slot cooler?

It would be handy to fit in a bag as I am likely to be moving it around the country every few months but I think even the V351 is small enough to put in one.

RobH · 20 Jul 2009 at 16:03

Whats the main difference between the SG01 and SG02?

Also whats the deal with the '-F' suffix, are there different versions of the same model?

RobH · 20 Jul 2009 at 16:15

So would I need the 'F' version for an 8800 GTS or does the standard version have enough space? Kezmo looks like he has the 8800 in his fine but is that the 'F' version?

RobH · 22 Jul 2009 at 10:23

Went with the SG01 in the end along with the Asus P5N7A-VM. Also took Kezmos advice and invested in a 450W Corsair HX Modular PSU. Thrown in a PCI-E WiFi card, SATA optical drive and low profile cooler.

RobH · 22 Jul 2009 at 22:14

Will post some pics when I get a chance to build it, I went for black in the end as it's easier to match everything with.

RobH · 25 Jul 2009 at 12:08

Some pics from the build so far:

RobH · 26 Jul 2009 at 18:29

I should mention that I took the fan assembly out in these pictures, there is another 80mm one angled at the expansion slots and a mounting hole for one in the top of the case. I also have raptor that will sit in the lower 5.25" bay in a Zalman enclosure rather than being mounted in the bottom.

RobH · 31 Jul 2009 at 17:45

So I managed to finish building it this week. I modified one of the SATA Power cables on the Corsair PSU. It has 3 SATA power plugs but it didn't reach to all 3 devices when I plugged in 2 of them so I removed the connector and crimped it closer to the first one, this saved me running another cable for 1 device and creating more of a mess. I did quite well, just the one SATA power cable and a single PCI-E cable from the PSU.

RobH · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:20

Ok strange problem, I didn't reinstall Windows 7 after swapping the motherboard and I'm wondering if it is to blame for this problem. It keeps rebooting randomly whilst idle or under low load such as browsing. Playing the UT3 demo on max settings or running the Prime95 torture test don't do anything to it, it runs flawless which makes me think it's not the temps.

Update: It's been rebooting again, I'm running Prime 95 on one core and it seems to be preventing it from restarting randomly whilst using the computer.

RobH · 4 Aug 2009 at 23:11

WSS said:
What kind of temps are you getting at the moment? I'm looking into a build much the same as yours.

Well the problem has been solved now, it was the Northbridge chipset that wes hitting 96 degrees causing the reboots. It's mainly due to the built in GeForce 9300 and crappy passive heatsink. Running Prime95 or a game stopped the crashing as it caused the CPU fan to spin up, creating more airflow over the northbridge. The machine runs hotter than it would in an ATX case as the airflow is more restricted.

RobH · 5 Aug 2009 at 11:57

betaspin said:
As a rule, it proves sufficient to re-sit the heatsink using a thin layer of high quality thermal paste.

Yeah, I've ordered a Zalman northbridge cooler and some Arctic Silver to replace the ASUS one. The ASUS one had a piece of aluminium with a logo on that was simply glued to the top of the heatsink, removing that dropped the temperature a few degrees. It looks like it's made out of copper but I think it's just plated aluminium as it does a poor job at cooling.

RobH · 6 Aug 2009 at 14:28

I'll have a play around with a few things, my OcUK order should have been here today but it didn't arrive. With the Royal Mail strikes I don't think i'll see it until next Tuesday and that's being optimistic.

I think a big part of the problem is that MCP is sitting right behind the GPU on the 8800 GTS OC which is at around 70 degrees anyway. It seems to be in the worst place possible, the airflow from the case fans slightly miss it and it just sits outside the range of the PSU fan.

RobH · 7 Aug 2009 at 16:17

Well I removed the ASUS heatsink and cleaned up the MCP with some Akasa TIM cleaner. I then installed the Zalman heatsink using some Arctic Silver, the temps have dropped by about 20 degrees on the MCP, it's sitting at 75 now which is a lot better than 95 and all the random crashing.

RobH · 7 Aug 2009 at 19:41

betaspin said:
It is surprising that the Zalman performs so well given its low weight. It seems to be able to make much better use of the limited airflow from the cpu cooler than the stock heatsink though.

Yeah, the Zalman weighs about the same as the ASUS one I took off but it seems to work better, I did add the Arctis Silver as well which probably helps. The stock one has a fake heat pipe on in, it's just a metal tube that doesn't actually help the cooling.