Yet another Streacom FC8 thread! This time in its silver form...

[Borden]

Right well I thought I'd put some pictures up for those interested. This is my daily use computer and I wanted to make it as silent as possible. I've had this case for about a month now but have only just got round to finishing it as I had a few problems and kept changing my mind about some parts.

First hiccup was the motherboard. I had an Intel DH67CF installed, which has been completely stable since I've had it, up until I moved it over to the new case. It started having boot problems and I couldn't figure it out. I reinstalled it checking there were no shorts etc, it just wouldn't work as it did before. Anyway, it was still running on the old faulty chipset as I never got round to having it replaced, and the fact I only used two SATA ports meant it wasn't such an issue as I could use the SATA 3 ports. Anyway, it turns out that Intel have a 3 year warranty on their boards so this has now been sent off to them for a replacement free of charge!

Along with this, the boards placement of the 24pin power socket wasn't the best suited for this case. It prevented me being able to install more heatpipes for cooling, which is something I was concerned about. The decision was made to buy an AsRock Z77E-ITX as this has its power slot located to the right of the board and being a Z77 chipset I am able to undervolt the processor. It's a good little board, solid caps all round, fully featured and the BIOS is nice to use. I'm pleased with it.

For the hard drive storage choice, I decided I wanted to go as quiet as possible, but since I've always had fast drives I thought I'd compromise and have a quiet 7200rpm drive rather than a 'green' one. I went with the single platter 3.5" 1TB Hitachi 7K1000.D. While very quiet indeed, it wasn't as 'silent' as I wanted due to the mounting mechanism in the case transmitting a lot of the vibrations from the drive.

I then changed my mind and found a second hand 2.5" WD Scorpio Black 500GB. I mounted this on some bungee cord but I could still hear it due to the fact that everything else is silent in the case. I was happy to stick with this as I could have lived with it and it's by no means noisy, however, I then read up about the new WD Scorpio Blue 7mm drive (WD5000LPVT) which is much quieter still. This is the drive that is now sitting in the case. I couldn't believe the noise difference between what I thought was a quiet drive (Scorpio Black 2.5") and this new Scorpio Blue! There are literally no audible noises from this drive at anywhere more than a few centimetres from it. When it's seeking there is the softest clicking noise which cannot be heard from outside the case. Fair to say I was now happy with the noise output from the system!

With regards to the optical drive, Streacom has chosen to place the eject button to the left rather than to the right as it is in newer standard drives. This leaves a select few drives which will actually be compatible with the case and it was a bit of a PITA trying to find one. Eventually I managed to source a Panasonic UJ-225 and it was cheaper to buy it in an external enclosure than as a bare drive. This worked to my advantage as you will see in the pictures.


So the final specs for the rig are:

CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (temporary)
Motherboard: AsRock Z77E-ITX
GPU: AMD HD6450
RAM: 8GB Kingston
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3
HDD: WD Scorpio Blue 500GB (WD5000LPVT)
Blu Ray: Panasonic UJ-225
PSU: PicoPSU 150W

Anyway, I'm sure most of you won't have read the majority of that and are here to see the pictures, so here they are:

Note: Bending heatpipes is not easy! This was very difficult to do without buckling them and was only achieved through the use of pliers squeezing the sides while you bend.

I replaced the stock WiFi card with a spare Intel 5100 I had lying around.

Here's the underside of the drive tray showing the Scorpio Blue on some bungee cord.

And the top side with the SSD and optical drive.

Here you can see the clearance between the Pico PSU and the RAM...there isn't any. It's bending slightly but it's not causing a problem, I need to look into getting some ram without any heat-spreaders on. The Samsung Green would be ideal but it's a bit on the expensive side right now.

The additional heatpipes I bought were a bit too long and so had to be bent up and around to stop them interfering with the GPU and HDD.

Everything in place.

Rather than use a slim IDE-SATA adapter for the blu ray drive, I used the little PCB that was in the external enclosure. This meant I could use one USB cable connected straight onto a motherboard header rather than two cables for data and power. This saves a bit of fiddling and makes it easier in terms of cable management in such a small case.

All done and in situ:

At the moment, the GPU is running HOT! Earlier today it was sitting at 90c. I took it out and replaced the stock TIM with some Arctic Ceramique. That alone dropped the temperature by 15-20c. Either way, I don't think I can keep this in the case.

I plan on replacing this and the G620 cpu with an Ivy Bridge Core i3-3225. The main reason for having a separate GPU was to get round the frame skipping problems with the Intel HD graphics. This new Ivy Bridge cpu has the HD4000 graphics which supposedly reduces the problem to a point where it would be hard to notice. So as soon as I have this cpu, the GPU will be going.


While I am happy with the case and this setup, there are some things which would make life much easier.

Firstly, the inclusion of more heatpipes. Why did Streacom choose to only include two when it can clearly accommodate more?

Secondly, at the moment, the flanges which attach the drive tray to the case have to be placed underneath the mounting points on the sides of the case. This involves having to slide the tray into the case from the side. If you have a card in the PCI-E slot then you have to remove the card first (involving a fiddly, tiny screw which can wear away quickly) to then be able to remove the tray. If they had made it so that you could lay the tray on top of the mounting points, then you could easily just unscrew it and lift it straight out of the case. This would have made it 100x easier. You can't do that at the moment because the flanges for the tray would prevent the cover from sitting flush at the top.

Thirdly, it would make so much more sense to have the optical drive eject button in the newer position to the right. So many more drives are available for less money with the eject button in this position. It seems that they have restricted the number of supported drives and now sell a Streacom branded Sony 5600S for a much inflated price.


Anyway, hope this post has been of some interest to people. Well done if you read it all

 

[Borden]

What voltage have you got the CPU at?

Have you checked the wattage it pulls?

At the moment I have it set to an offset of -0.11 I think. In terms of wattage, I haven't measured it yet. It's plugged into a multi-way splitter and so it wouldn't be an accurate reading. When I have it in a more convenient location and it can reach a wall socket just for the computer then I'll test it, but I'm not too bothered by that really as I know it won't be using much. My old setup had near enough the same parts but with a 2500k and that would idle at around 35W so I expect this to be much lower. Anyway, here's a screenshot of the power usage/voltages as estimated by software for the processor:

Nice writeup

The DH67CF has issues with temps on the northbridge in this case. The northbridge heatsink needs airflow over it. In mine (B3 revision) I ended up replacing the tiny northbridge heatsink with an old modified shuttle ICE. The heatpipes from the ICE were bent to fit into the heatsink on the side of the case. this made a HUGE difference in northbridge temps and overall system stability.

Also as Bigsy said, 2 heatpipes really is enough for majority of CPU's. My i3 2120-T has very reasonable temps with just the 2 heatpipes even with the northbridge plumbed into the same heatsink.

The optical drive was a pain for me too. I found a Sony BC-5600s that fit perfectly though so I'm happy Like you the drive I found was external so I ripped it out the caddy and made my own 4-pin floppy style molex connector to micro sata power.

I did see your thread actually, and like you I had problems with the northbridge overheating. I tried to find some northbridge heatsinks which I could mod to use as you did with the heatpipe but there weren't any I could find without breaking the bank. I ended up using a Zalman NB heatsink which helped a lot. The problems with booting still persisted after that mind.

RE: The heat pipes. I guess they only include 2 because that's all that's needed. The spaces for more are simply to accommodate different setups ie differing cpu socket locations.

My llano runs not far off 3.7Ghz and holds perfectly expectable temps with just the 2 heatpipes included.

I really think that 2 heatpipes is enough for any cpu, anymore powerful cpu power will probably just overpower the passive heatsink anyway. The case will only dissipate a limited amount of heat no matter how many heatpipes you add.

Obviously if you have some kind of active airflow over the big heatsink and a high wattage cpu I could see the point of more heatpipes but as it is I don't.

While it might be enough with just 2 heatpipes, I feel that for peace of mind having some more in there if they can fit is worth it. I still maintain that they should include more heatpipes. Especially so considering that this is a 'premium' product and that their competitors include more heatpipes with their cases.

 

[Borden]

I didn't need the power from the i5. I want to move over to the Ivy Bridge Core i3 with HD4000 graphics, so this is just a stop gap until then. Afterwards I'll use it in one of my family's PC's.

Also, it was better to sell the 2500k before the Ivy Bridge equivalents came out!

 

[Borden]

Nice build. Thinking of going mini itx with the same board and a pico psu. Do you think that the ram spacing would be ok with no heatspreaders? It still looks quite tight.

As jamesfreddie says, I should think that the Samsung Green memory will be fine with it. Even if it still hits the pico psu, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is with mine.

It looks worse than it is in my image. It doesn't take much force to bend it that much, it certainly doesn't feel like it's being put under too much pressure that it would damage it anyway.

 

[Borden]

Hi

I've recently started to build a media centre using the Streacom FC8 case and unfortunately I've managed to collapse my heatpipes. It would be great if you could tell where I might be able to get some from.

Thanks

Simon

Ah that's unfortunate. They are surprisingly easy to damage, very fragile things!

I can't give you a link to where I got it as they are classed as a competitor. I can say that they are 'Gelid (Ø x L) 6 mm x 300 mm' which should get you on the right track.

I originally bought the 200mm ones but sent them back as I didn't think they'd be long enough. It's better to get some which are a bit too long as I did and then bend them out of the way tbh!

 

[Borden]

Im thinking of going the same route but worried about the GPU - I do some video editing/after effects work so Im guessing this will a) need a decent graphics card b) be a little taxing for it? (Unless after effects, premiere pro etc use the CPU more?
If not - anyone got any ideas for the most efficient high powered passive graphics card to use?

Just seen this! I can't really comment on the requirements of those programs but the card I have in mine (HD6450) is really the highest I could recommend. It gets very hot and anything faster whilst doing video editing I'm sure will create even more heat.

Is there any reason you changed out the wifi card on the MB? I have the same board and the wifi appears to be rubbish (in fact basically non existent) so wondering if changing the card out would give a big benefit.

Well I had it lying around and I've always had good experiences with Intel Wifi cards so didn't see any reason not to. I didn't try the stock card myself, I just assumed it would be rubbish. Using the Intel card with the AsRock wifi antenna and had no problems so far.

 

[Borden]

Hey, glad it's helped you!

I agree with you, I think an undervolted 77W CPU will be fine. How often do your run at 100% CPU? Not that often I bet. Games wouldn't run at that level for extended periods. The case cools my CPU more than adequately so an updated design such as in the EVO should work great with your i5.

You are correct again with regards to the GPU causing more of an issue. In my case it's due to the fact that it's a passive card and as you say there is nowhere for the heat to go. Having a fan cooled card should make a hell of a difference but I can't really comment on how it will do with a more powerful card like the HD7750. You just have to try it and see!