Looking for tiny case (very samll micro-itx?) sub 7x12x12

[cbn]

that is 8inch by 4inch by 14inch

4h x 8w x 14 l
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so basically very long - sort of like a stand-alone dvd player or vhs player.
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I actually considered something similar to this but i think it was a slightly different model - not sure.

Are you concerned about the footprint?

If so, you might be able to stand it up vertically.

Looking at the following picture (and others) it doesn't look like any vents would be blocked with the case in the 4" wide x 8" deep x 14" height configuration. (imagine both usb 3.0 ports and the dual 80mm fan brackets pointing upwards towards the ceiling)

 

[cbn]

I'm a little worried about the antec ISK 300-150 ; multiple sites show complaints about the psu (early failure, fan failure and similar) as well as being next to impossible to replace. So I would want to understand better if this will be an issue before considering the antec.

Replacing the Antec ISK 300 PSU appears to involve some work, but it can be done.

http://www.rtftechnologies.org/general/computer2.html

Cliffs from the above webpage:

1. "Custom short cable was build to connect rear connector to power supply."

2. "Topower TOP-FLEX-300W power supply mounts in case in place of OEM supply. The OEM brackets are used, held in a friction fit on the tabs in the case. The power supply is not screwed into the brackets due to the diffrence in bolt holes. The power supply is held in place verticaly by the compression of the AYX power cable between the supply and CD tray."

Some pictures:

Flex ATX left, Antec ISK 300 PSU right.

Custom short cable used to connect rear connector to power supply.

Close Up picture of the Installation.

Distance shot of the installation. (Showing some cable routing.)

 

[you2]

Well to be honest I settled on the BSQ656 last week; should arrive tuesday (ground shipping from CA). It is the size of the antec 110 but seems to have a better layout. Bit unsure on the quality of the PSU; it has a lot of well rated caps (even if they are teapo) so it might be decent (I think I counted 11 or 13 from the picture). In any event we had an issue with a case of the form factor you mentioned; it is too long or too tall for the space we would like to place it. One thing that seems nice is that it is well ventilated and support fans (these super small cases don't have much in the way of fans). To be honest i'm hopeful the 1610+b75 run cooler than ivy bridge stuff. I know the z68 gets warm enough to bake an egg or burn your finger under normal use.

Are you concerned about the footprint?

If so, you might be able to stand it up vertically.

Looking at the following picture (and others) it doesn't look like any vents would be blocked with the case in the 4" wide x 8" deep x 14" height configuration. (imagine both usb 3.0 ports and the dual 80mm fan brackets pointing upwards towards the ceiling)

 

[Zap]

Replacing the Antec ISK 300 PSU appears to involve some work, but it can be done.

http://www.rtftechnologies.org/general/computer2.html

Cliffs from the above webpage:

I've seen that page before, and I disagree with some of the choices made. The guy probably knows a lot in his fields of physics and EE, but this system component choice looks more like "take an enthusiast build and shrink it."

OEM power supply (150W, right) is not capable of powering the system under full processor load.

Did he try it?

OEM intel cooler (left) did not sufficiently cool the CPU. A MitxPC LPHS1156 cpu fan was chosen due to its all copper design and 37.4CFM fan, however, the fin density on this cooler is too high yielding low airflow and poor performance in practice. It yields only about 2 degrees cooler CPU temperature then the stock intel cooler.

Did he try it? Properly installed Intel heatsinks are sufficient for stock clocks.

And how did he not know the tiny wafer of a 1U heatsink would be a terrible performer? "Aftermarket" does not automatically mean "much better."

 

[you2]

My last 4 systems have been intel systems; and have run fine on intel stock coolers (2 of the 4 overclocked - moderately). Sure they get a little warm - my current non-overclocked 2500K system with all 4 processors running 100% for 2 hours measures around 75C which is warm but in spec (it drops to around 29-32 at normal load; to rephrase it I run something computational for 4 - 8 hours 3 or 4 times a month).
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However - this is a full tower case with 2 120rpm fans; I would not want to run a 2500K at 100% in a antec 110/bsq656 since these cases have just a single cpu fan (though no clue if they would actually run that much hotter).
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Hum. Anyways the model i had seen earlier was silverstone ml03b - though I think the one you pointed out has better ventiliation (i did not compare them to see exactly how they differ) but from the picture it would not surprise me if the ml03b has less veritcal clearance.

 

[you2]

Well the case arrived; it actually seems pretty decent and the psu portion in the case seems to run very very cool.
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Having said that this build is not going well. If i place a dimm in the outside slot i can get it to boot.
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However if i place a dimm in the inside slot I cannot get any video but the fan spins like it is doing a correct boot.
(this board has no diagnosis lights so the only hints are the lights flashing on the keyboard and the fan spin/stop spinning).
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I keep hoping there is a resolution to this issue without returning the motherboard. Feel free to suggest something.

 

[Zap]

Try running the board with a different PSU and outside of the case. Try resetting BIOS with the jumper. Try different RAM from another system.

 

[you2]

Sadly I tried all of those crept bios reset-i also put the ram in another system (the only real prolbem is my other systems all have 1600 ram and this needs 1333; but it should still work). I will try bios reset tommorrow. The extermal psu was hcg-400.
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hum. not in love with this motherboard as there are no diagnosis at all. even my motherboards from 1990's would beep at me if they were unhappy.

 

[Zap]

Having said that this build is not going well. If i place a dimm in the outside slot i can get it to boot.
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However if i place a dimm in the inside slot I cannot get any video but the fan spins like it is doing a correct boot.

I was thinking about this. I just need to get it straight in my head.

So, the system actually works fine if you don't have RAM in the slot closest to the CPU? Am I reading that right?

If so, I'm thinking maybe bent pin in the socket.

 

[you2]

Yes; that is correct. Actuall asrock support responded and they said something similar (they didn't mention bent pin but that the socket might be bad). The new board arrives today. Hum I wonder if i could fix this board.
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The one thing that I was surprise is that the board has no diagnosis (and when I checked the manuals for the other mini-itx board they also had no diagnosis). Anyways new post tonight after I try the new board - i'll examine the pins when I take this one out to see if there is something obvious.
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I really do like the case - the drive bay is pretty neat - and the internal portion of the psu runs very very cool; the only negative is that the usb header is very tight and has to be cramed next to the cpu/memory. The other cables (sata, power button/led) have plenty of length.

I was thinking about this. I just need to get it straight in my head.

So, the system actually works fine if you don't have RAM in the slot closest to the CPU? Am I reading that right?

If so, I'm thinking maybe bent pin in the socket.

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When I pulled the motherboard I examined the slot quite carefully and couldnt' spot an actual bent pin (or similar). There was one pin that was either missing or slightly discolored but I wasn't too sure if that was the actual defect.

 

[you2]

New motherboard resolved the issue. Took less than 20 minutes to swap boards; booted first time with no issues.
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I can show pictures if interested. THe only complaint is the usb (noted above) - here is a picture of that:

Hum. Oddly I don't think anand allows us to attach photos.
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I really do like this case; it is very easy to work with and has a nifty drive bay.
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After the fact I found this link which shows measure power usage of various processors (including g1610:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/trinity-vs-ivy-bridge_12.html#sect0

(this is with ASUS P8Z77-V Delux so my actual usage (asrock b75) is likely a bit lower)

With an i3-3220 I could probably come pretty close to stressing out the psu with full load (cpu+gpu+dvd) but with the 1610 it would be a real struggle to exceed 80watt which I think is quite a comfortable margin (assuming this data is accurate) and in normal use I'm probably closer to 50-60 watts.
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Anyways after 8 hours of prime95 the system peaked at 42C and generally speaking everything felt quite cool (2500k/z68 (no overlock) under normal use is hot enough to bake an egg) - idle temp is around 29-30C (these are with the top off and cpu fan at 100% - which I think I will leave as it seems to make no noise).
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These might not be optimal temps but they seem quite reasonable to myself.
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In the worse case the g2020 (from that link) adds 7 watts so that probably would have been fine and it adds a bit more performance (clock + extra 1MB cache) but I would feel uncomfortable pushing an I3 at 100% load (stress test cpu+gpu).
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It remains to be seen with regards tot he longevity of this psu but as long as the power is clean (don't have an o-scope) I would think at this stress level it would do quite well; but I would not want to run prime95 on an I7 in this configuration
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I do highly recommend the case as not bad looking and extremely easy to work with - this thing is the same size as the antec 110 but has a very well designed drive cage and good length in wiring without being excessive (as mentioned the only wires of concern are teh usb header and hd audio - for the asrock mb - the hd audio was a non issue and I'm not sure there is a mb configuration that would create an issue; for the usb cable it has to be jammed between the cpu and inner ram slot (I could imagine a mb design in which it fails to reach the usb header) - on the z68/2500k system I have the ram generates a bit of heat and I would be unhappy. I was initially unhappy here but after running prime95 and memtest for a while - there seem to be very little heat generated from that area of the mb (also the b75 remains very cool - the z68 itself gets extremely hot (burn finger ) - given the tight case this also sets me at ease as I was worried that it would be similar to the z68 and have a lot of heat with little air flow.
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Not sure if the heat reduction in the bridge is due to ivy or less data flowing.
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As I mentioned I have photos but no place to host them. Not sure they would be that interesting.

 

[Zap]

:thumbsup: Glad it is working out for ya!

 

[you2]

So I picked up one of those P44 watt thingys; and I'm not 100% sure I believe the numbers but this is what it sez:
15 watts when turned off (seems high)
24 watts when idle (seems ok i guess)
35 watts when both processors running 100% (prime95 using both cores); seems low.
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What do you think ?