The most perfect mini Hack Pro ever

[Badeendje]

History:

Some 2 years ago, I bought myself some mini-itx stuff, and fell in love with it!

Not only is the mini-itx platform extremely silent, but also it creates a lot of space around your desk!

At the time I used it as bedroom htpc with mediaportal, but soon enough I saw Leopard was available in distro's for the pc and thought, I got to try that!

Well as I'm a civil engineer, and use vectorworks to draw my schemes, I was already familair with MacOs, all the way back since mini-cad 7.

But this mini-itx board had this major problem, onboard gma950 with lvds, and as you might know lvds is one of the most problematic things to get working.

So I tried to install and use it on more pc's in next half a year or so, till I got to the point I understood enough and wanted to make something proper.

As I really like mini-itx I decided it'll be a mini-itx hack pro!

 

 

 

The Problems:

 

Half a year ago I decided to build a Hack Pro mini, but where to start?

Well I already knew what case I would want to use, I already had one, so that one was easy.

The motherboard proved more difficult, but after about a month I found this almost perfect motherboard.

This motherboard had one major drawback, onboard x3100, no lvds this time but d-sub only, yuck!

Luckily this board has a full Pci-e x16 slot, so the search began for a perfect gfx card.

This proved to be more challanging than I expected, and in the end only 1 card with 1 specific cooler would fit, it would cost me another 5 months to finally get ahold of one!

Now I finally got this far, I decided to order everything else, and since parts are starting to poor in, I decided to write this log as lots of people showed interest in it.

 

 

 

Parts:

 

Now up to the juicy part!

 

Case: Nexus Psile 10a

 

 

I fell in love with this case the moment I saw it, when I saw some cheap mini-itx parts I ordered it right away!

Not only does it look nice and mac-like, it's also very well thought out and gets the best out of the space it uses.

Take a look at the photo's of this review to get an impression; http://www.hoc.hu/index.php?p=articles&amp...p;y=277&z=2

The Panasonic DVD-Ram UJ-875S does come with the case, plus a slimline-ide converter, which makes it a pretty good deal for the money.

There's no doubt I could get a better case anywhere else, since I already have one, I decided to go with yet another one

And there's one other big plus, it's a Dutch design/fabricate, ok, 99% of you here might not even care about that part but I do

 

 

 

Motherboard: Commell LV-678

 

 

The picture almost shows it all, apart from the lack of both dvi and firewire it has it all!

It has a Q35 chipset with quadcore support, regular desktop ddr2 support, real pci-e x16 sot (!), and as bonus 6 sata 300 ports (wtf?! )

Alright, this is just the perfect motherboard, not only is it as close as you can get to a full-blown desktop board, it also has a full blown bios with overclock and voltage settings!

Though the overclock option sounds tempting I'm more interested in undervolting, as I don't have it shipped in yet I can't tell how low a voltage it actually supports.

All the other boards I went through always had some concessions, this one simply has it all.

I wasn't going to use the onboard gfx anyways, and I can live without the firewire.

 

 

 

PSU: PSB-1000 150 watts + FSP150-AAA

 

 

These are special made for the Nexus Psile, a picopsu wouldn't be able to power all of this, so I had not much of a choise, which I don't mind.

A good quality 150 watt psu is enough to power a good mid-range pc, one psu with 150 watt doesn't always equal another one with 150 watts, google for reviews on q-tec psu's...

 

 

 

DVD-Drive: Slim-line to sata converter

 

 

You might have noticed the dvd-drive uses a slimline to ide converter, and my motherboard doesn't have a single ide port, bummer.

But no stress, they got a solution for that!

A simple 25 USD/18 Euro PCB solves all of that.

Also I'm considering going blu-ray already, there's one nice drive that fits this case, the Panasonic UJ-225.

It's to expensive so I'll probably won't get it before the end of this year, but it's nice to know there are already compatible slimline blu-ray drives.

 

 

 

Wifi: Original Apple Atheros card

 

 

Ofcourse I wanted to fill that mini-pci slot with wifi, 300n to be exact! but there seemed to be no 300n Mini-Pci cards, just Mini-Pci-e cards, let alone one that would work on osx.

Then I remembered seeing this guide;

http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/Dissection-E...me-n/index.html

A good possibility! It uses the exact same chipset as the macbook pro Mini-Pci-E cards, so I had to get a hold of one!

But they seemed extremely rare to find, then I hit on a dead dented airport extreme, looked like it had fallen of a flat building, on an auctionsite.

I quickly mailed the guy with an offer, and he must have tought I was crazy, next thing I know I had it at home.

Quickly I tried it on my old mini-itx system and it worked out of the box! Brilliant! The joy!

 

 

 

GFX-Card: Sapphire Ultimate 2600xt

 

 

Since my case doesn't have much space between the Pci-e x16 connector and the wall of the case, I was dumbfounded with a problem, which card would fit?

Any cooler wouldn't be able to suck in any air, since there's also foam at the innerside of the cap closing the case, hmm.

Also I wanted dual dvi as some time in the future I want a 2nd 23" Cinema screen, plus it needed to be silent, ofc.

After searching I found some supported XFX 7300gt/7600gs cards but they're like real old and I was sure I could get something better.

I noticed some asus and msi passive cards but always would they have the heatpipes going the wrong direction, or a to large heatsink, or a heatsink that was to low or to high.

Most passive options are dual slot options, those are a no go.

Then finally I found this one, but it wasn't anywhere for sale, it took me half a year to find one on ebay Germany that actually shipped to my country, and that I won (3rd time I won, 3x scheepsrecht jongens )

And this morning (8 november) I finally had the postman deliver it to me, I could almost cry!

Not only is this card fully supported, the heatsink also fits the 3650xt and 4670xt since they use the same pcb, but also it fits some 9500gt's!

This gives me some wonderful upgrade possibilities

 

 

CPU: Intel D820

 

 

Why would I go with this one? simple...

My budget ran out, and I got this one from work from a broken HP Pavilion PC.

Besides that I want to test if a quad doesn't get to hot, since my desktop pc already has a nice q6600 G0.

Probably in january I'll get me some proper cpu, but till then this is what I'll need to bare with.

 

 

 

CPU-Heatsink: Scythe Ninja mini

 

One of the best cpu heatsinks around, this time in a mini version.

After doing dome meassurements with the case I already had and the dimensions on the Scythe site, I quickly came to the conclusion it should about fit.

In some review I read the top bolts can be taken off to win another 2mm, a good thing to know.

 

 

 

Memory: Dane Elec 2x1gb PC6400

 

I had these still laying around on my desk, so decided to use them for now.

Probably in january I'll upgrade to 2x 2gb sticks, but I have no real use for them yet.

 

 

 

Harddisk: Western Digital 1Tb Green Power hard drive

 

 

Well finally the choice was made in favour of the 1tb drive instead of the 7200 rpm notebook drive.

Not only is it plenty fast, it's silent as well and doesn't run hot, plus it saves some 5~6 watts of power as well!

Now is that not brilliant? I think it is

At the time SSD's become affordable I'll upgrade to a SSD plus notebook drive for storage.

 

 

 

Bluetooth: Bluetooth USB 2.0 Mini Class 2.0

 

 

 

While testing I couldn't find a single bluetooth chipset not recognised by osx, so I decided to go with the smallest one I could find.

This brandless mini bluetooth stick will do the job nicely I think.

I hate dongles sticking out the back of the case, I always seem to brake and loose them easily.

 

 

 

2nd SATA Cable: 90 Degree 20cm cable

 

Fixing pc's of relatives and friends I came across some stubb(o/u)rn Acer barebone (what else you expect from Acer?).

After opening up I found this nice black short sata cable with a 90 degree angle connector!

Since the space behind the connector is real small and I wanted to lay the cable under the motherboard back to the front, I quickly swapped this cable with one I had laying around, as I yet have to see a place selling 20cm sata cables, let alone a 20cm sata cable with an angled connector!

I peeled off the sticker with the acer part number and nobody will tell where it came from now! (As you can notice I really have something against acer )

 

 

 

Peripherals: Full Apple Setup

 

So what parts else I'm going to use on this wonderfull barebone?

An Apple Aluminium keyboard, not only does it resemble the aluminum used in the case (I think it's the other way around ), it also types the best!

You simply can't get a better keyboard, and it's known pc users come in the local Apple store all the time to buy one, even making up excuses for it.

I come there often and hear it all the time, just such a fun sight to see!

Besides that I'll be using the Apple mighty mouse (Hence the bluetooth dongle), I really like the flat pill like shape of the mouse, especially the trackball is superb.

It's a pity you actually have to brake it apart every half a year just to clean it up as filt gets stuck underneath the ball and stops working.

I could go for some white Logitech mouse but I don't mind cleaning it to much.

Right now I got 1 23" Apple Cinema screen, and want to buy a 2nd one.

Since I don't like the new one I'll be happy to see the price drop of the old ones so I can get me a cheap 2nd hand one in about a year time from now.

For sound I'l be using the H/K Soundsticks II, they give the best sounds for the money and look real nice too, an addition to any mac/hack.

 

 

Next:

 

Each time I get some part in I'll let you know, there are some parts which I already got at hand;

- Wlan card

- Scythe Ninja mini

- CPU

- Memory

- PSU + powerbrick

- GFX-card

- 20cm 90Deg cable

 

As soon as I start building I'll post some pics and screenshots so all of you can follow my progress, if I'll update my Hack Pro mini (it's pretty much identical to a real mac pro) I'll update this tread.

Everything should be here within 2 weeks.

You got anything I should know or any possible upgrades you want to show me, please be my guest!

 

 

 

Updates:

 

11-11-2008 Case delivered to my home

14-11-2008 Motherboard + slimline adapter and bluetooth stick arrived

28-11-2008 picked up a gigabyte 8600gt passive card to replace the 2600xt ultimate

04-12-2008 blu-ray drive arrived

[vbetts]

The pentium D isn't the greatest thing in the world, but it's okay. It'll do you fine.

[Badeendje]

I know, it's the first thing I'll replace but I simply don't have any money till the end of the month to spare.

Also it runs hot so I hope the undervolt options the board has help me in any way to cool it down.

In the end I'll use some c2d or q2d.

[relikwie]

That barebone surely is clean and stylish. It could have been an apple mac-mini XL

Hope you can keep the inside cool.

 

I was wondering, what would you change to configure it as a HTPC?

A videocard w/ hdmi/dvi out which can handle HD and a C2D

[Badeendje]

I'd probably go with this board;

 

http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/ipcboard_view....proname=NC81-LF

 

The ATI 3200HD has full 1080P acceleration support, and the ati upscale filters are somewhat better than intels and nvidias.

Also the x2 cpu's are pretty cool, and I managed to get mine in my mediaportal pc (livingroom htpc) at 0,9v at which it would run passively.

There is also some nice Twinhan dvb-c pci card with cam support for hd tv, that would probably the best setup.

I know it doesn't have wifi, but that can be made easily inside with a converter.

[MacBookJoe]

I'm currently working on something smiler.. Still in the planning stage, you actually answered a few questions for me.. what PSU and GFX options.. thanks for that. I'm trying to build a Mini-ITX hack into a Apple Cube case.. using its original internal frame to mount the guts. I'll be very interested to hear how your turns out.. the mini Ninja is a great find!

 

J.

[relikwie]

I'd probably go with this board;

 

http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/ipcboard_view....proname=NC81-LF

 

The ATI 3200HD has full 1080P acceleration support, and the ati upscale filters are somewhat better than intels and nvidias.

Also the x2 cpu's are pretty cool, and I managed to get mine in my mediaportal pc (livingroom htpc) at 0,9v at which it would run passively.

There is also some nice Twinhan dvb-c pci card with cam support for hd tv, that would probably the best setup.

I know it doesn't have wifi, but that can be made easily inside with a converter.

 

Thanks for that.

[pirloui]

Really a very nice case, just too bad it's so expensive.. (looks like 200€)

[Badeendje]

Case came in today, motherboard tomorrow.

This is a week earlier than expected, got to order a hard disk today to have it in time.

Can't decide between a Western Digital Green Power 500gb, 750gb and 1000gb atm.

Don't need 1tb but it's sure is handy to have at hand, though the 500gb fits my budget better.

[vbetts]

I'd just go for the 500 gb. Sure, this probably isn't the cheapest project you've worked on, but you can still keep some costs down.

[Badeendje]

I went with the 1tb as there was a 16 euro rebate on that one, and it was hardly more expensive than the 750gb one.

The package came when I was at the college, they will have to come back tomorrow to deliver it, so no pics yet.

No data on the hard disk yet, hope before the weekend.

[FragmanBob]

awesome build. must've been time consuming

[Badeendje]

The latest parts came in today, I'll try to get as much done as possible before midnight.

I think I can have it build today and installed by tomorrow

[Boot Camp]

The latest parts came in today, I'll try to get as much done as possible before midnight.

I think I can have it build today and installed by tomorrow

Don't forget the pictures!

[Badeendje]

The motherboard

 

 

Shot this pic to show the heatsink on the board, haven't seen much pics around with the heatsinks on it.

Note some of the chipsets got heatsinks too, nice details Commell!

On the left (hard to see) a 2 euro coin for size comparison.

 

 

 

Slimline DVD-Drive:

 

 

Somehow I ended up getting a UJ-846S instead of a UJ-875S like before and advertised on the net?

Ah well, it shouldn't matter to much as I'll replace it anyways as soon as I get the chance.

Not the ugly ide connecter, yuck, got to do something about it.

 

 

 

Slimline DVD-Drive #2:

 

 

Much better!

Take a note of the construction with which the drive is fastened to the case.

It's actually fastened to the case under the motherboard, so if you want to replace it you got to take the whole barebone apart, hmm...

I guess this is only a small sacrifice, but I knew this before I started.

 

 

Frame of the case:

 

 

What you see here is the frame of the case, it's made out of 1 big piece of aluminum and holds everything together.

On the pic you can see the Acer 90 degree angled connector, facing to the front of the case.

As you can notice there isn't that much space for a regular sata connector, I'm glad I forsaw this.

The whole sata connector will be laid under the motherboard.

* Note to self, I should connect the power plug before fastening the motherboard atop of it...

 

 

 

Hard disk in aluminium frame:

 

 

On this pic you can see the whole aluminium piece nicely

Also note the coolingfins for the hard disk on the left and right.

The white sata connector is the one you get with the case, the sata to molex converter isn't.

Though you get one with the case I decided to use another one as the original has 2 sata plugs and I'll only be using one for now.

Also I already partioned the hard disk, I went with a 128 x 1024 MB partition for osx and a 800 x 1024 MB partition for storage leaving 3,5 gb unused.

This was only done for cosmethic reasons and I like to use 2 different partitions

 

 

 

The Feet:

 

 

What you don't see in the reviews is the case has aluminium feet, with rubber rings which you can attach to it.

These rings reduce the amount of vibrations, some eye for detail!

 

 

 

The PSU:

 

 

The little big psu delevering 150 watts of juice.

It's screwed to the backside of the front of the case.

The long opening is used for the dvd drive, on the top side of the psu is a small piece where you can attach the cable which runs to the backside of the case.

 

 

These are the pics for now, may post some more in a few hours

 

 

 

 

Cables:

 

 

Look at all these cables, so messy! I got to do something about that.

Small case + lots of cables equals the horror.

The next 2 pics show my result, and I think it's next to the best possible in this case.

 

 

 

Cablejob:

 

 

Where are the cables? All tucked underneath the motherboard

Had to cut 1 cablebinder in order to get all the cables underneath it, the clutter was to thick.

The cable for the hdd led is under the motherboard as well, I find a flickering led distracting.

 

 

 

Side Cablejob:

 

 

The 12v powercables have been tucked away in the open space in the inside of the frame.

There's one exception, the 12v cable for the cpu is actually tucked away underneath the motherboard,

it doesn't share the same 12v line as the hard disk and optical drive.

[stellarola]

Looking real good, brother. Can't wait to see the final result.

 

-Stell

[Badeendje]

I changed the d820 for the q6600 from my desktop pc, it wouldn't boot with the d820.

Next problem is the UJ-846S drive, it simply won't work with the adapter, I'll need a whole other drive.

The UJ-875S was a no go too, so it might be a Panasonic/Mat{censored}a problem and as you know they're not really good with firmware updates.

Took some more pics, will post them later, first got to rebuild it (took it apart to remove the optical drive) and have the installation finish.

 

Also the bios has no overclock/voltage settings as mentioned in the manual, that's a real bummer.

[Badeendje]

I'll continue next week, I wasn't able to install osx on it and have no working pc now to uplaod the pics.

[LogicalUser]

very interesting, all the case needs is that machined aluminum front grill from the Mac Pros & it'd be a perfect mini-version

[Badeendje]

Got lucky yesterday. just the last thing I tried actually worked;

 

- installed kalyway 10.5.2 on my other barebone with 945 chipset

- upgraded to 10.5.5

- booted into single user mode

- mount -uw /

- rm -rf /S/L/E/ATI*

- rm -rf /S/L/Extensions.mkext

- placed the hard disk in this barebone

- up and running but no sound, gfx, wlan

- applied latest airport update to get wlan working again (was recognised but kept being unavalable)

- funny is my firmware was actually updated from 1.4.0 to 1.4.8.0

- applied LastExiles 2600xt patch

- extracted the realtek 888 drivers from the ideneb 10.5.5 dvd

- applied voodoo 9.5 kernel 2c

- installed chameleon with dsdt

 

full working hack mini pro :censored2:

 

- Non functional: optical drive

- Non functional: only sound out, no mic in

- updating in the future unsure but should work.

 

I should be able to have the other photos up by this evening, from there benching starts;

 

 

Space: Front

 

 

 

 

 

There's enough space to put all the cables away through the front, which keeps the side clean from cables.

Also nothing hits each other, I was afraid it would be to tight.

On the right you don't see the power button cable, while testing I always use a screwdriver.

 

 

 

Space: Inside

 

 

As you can see no cables all over the place

Found the heatsink a nice place to put the wlan cables away.

Note the northbridge heatsink and the gfx heatsink don't hit eachother, I had no idea if they would and it was sort of a gamble.

 

 

Space: Top

 

 

Q: How much can you fit in a 4 liter case? A: All of the above

 

 

Space: Other side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's more space than you might think

The fan is blowing the air through the cpu heatsink out of the case.

It's pretty much inaudible but the hard disk is.

Hoped the WD Green Power would be as silent as everyone claimed it to be, but my 7200rpm WD Scorpio is far more silent.

 

 

That's it for now

I'll be closing the case as soon as I see it runs stable for about a week and doesn't generate to much heat.

Besides I need another wrench to get those bolts off, with a ruler I found out I have 0mm between the top and the heatsink, but there's foam between them...

Also I'm considering buying this drive;Link to specs

Or does someone know something better? It's 90 euro cheaper than a 2x blu-ray writer (Panasonic UJ-225).

[Zaria8]

Hi. I got here via Google while searching whether Scythe Mini Ninja can be installed in a Psile case.

Unfortunately, I see that you are having trouble closing the case.

What I would try to do if I were in your shoes is get the bolts off, remove a few fins and give a slight bent to the heatpipes if needed. That should make it possible to close the case and since a few fins are removed it could also enable you to install the original psile fan retention mechanism if you want.

 

For encouragement, you can see here SPCR Mini Ninja Review a bigger version of ninja having its bolts off.

Keep us posted of any developments.

[Badeendje]

Already removed the bolts and it's closing perfectly now.

It already closed well, as long as you use the bar where you normally attach the casefan to, this puts the top under pressure.

 

What I changed;

 

- Added a slow rotating silent case fan between the cpu heatsink and the gpu heatsink, haven;t tried if i keeps the case cool enough yet, because;

- I bought the sata blu-ray slot-in drive from nec, should finally give me a working optical drive and besides it wasn't that more expensive over a dvd drive.

 

It runs stable for a week now, some benches I made (with the generic cpu management kext on to save some heat);

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/90057

 

One thing more, the usb bluetooth module turns out to use the 2.1 protocol, that wasn't advertised on the site, some luck there.

 

I still want to upgrade to 4gb of memory soon and might try to get a hold of some faster cpu with 1300 fsb.

Since there aren't any clock settings in the bios like mentioned in the manual, aaww.

[Bucket6]

whys your q6600 so underclocked ... cause it is rated 2.4GHz not 1.86 ... or is that geekbench not reading right

 

nice build though, makes me want on of those cases

[Badeendje]

The generic cpu management kext makes speedstep to work.

Somehow that test isn't using 100% cpu cycles and I'm getting another result each time I run it.

Since I don't know yet how to disable it yet I'll let it be for the moment.

As soo nas I find out I'll (got time to read myself in on it) do another test.

[Zaria8]

Already removed the bolts and it's closing perfectly now.

It already closed well, as long as you use the bar where you normally attach the casefan to, this puts the top under pressure.

 

I'm writing again to ask for some clarification.

Do you mean you are able to use the original fan-holding bar but when you do so it puts pressure on the mini-ninja's top fin?