Gaming in tight spaces - MAX11Lv3

[Utnorris]

Hey,
Did you get a chance to test the system before installing it? I am curious as to how well this board handles a 2600K and overclocking.

[miahallen]

Very briefly....BIOS options are pretty limited. 4-4.5GHz looks doable with the BIOS it came with, but only just.

[alpha0ne]

Re the suggestions you've received for the feet do you think clear solid plexi or glass would look OK ?, IMHO they would not detract from the rest of the build being see thru

[miahallen]

Yes, I think that would work very nicely...do you know where I can order some?

[alpha0ne]

^ Sorry no idea as to a supplier, do you know if plexi comes in bar form ???

[miahallen]

Not at the local stores If I could find some online who could ship here, that would be best.

I've been working on this beast all day....getting very close to finished I should have a nice update tomorrow

[Furball Zen]

Would you mind if they were layered to achieve the thickness you want? Like clear 1/4" and black 1/8"?

[miahallen]

That'd be kinda cool, as long as the edges were polished.

[alpha0ne]

I should have a nice update tomorrow

Ohhh goody, and once your finished could you please send this masterpiece to my place

[mav2000]

Plexi does come in a cylinder form. You could just take that and have it cut depending on the height you may need. I can get some locally, but I guess you have to look around and find it locally as well.

[miahallen]

Well sorry guys, I was planning to post more pictures yesterday, but I got a bit discouraged. There is a small leak in the front end....I have not identified the exact source, but I'm thinking its the hose-to-barb seal on the lower rad connection....its dripping once a minute or so. The other problem I ran into is upon my 1st attempt to power on the system, nothing happened....nothing at all! The PSU was pre-tested, but I neglected to test it after I finished rewiring it....but looks like I'll have to break everything down again to locate the problem.

[Utnorris]

That sucks. Hopefully you can get this turned around quickly. Sorry to hear about the headaches, but you have done this enough to know just keep your chin up and fight threw it. Look forward to seeing some updates when you have them.

[miahallen]

So, these are the pictures I neglected to post yesterday. Its late now, so I'll have to fill in descriptions tomorrow.

These are the brackets I made for the reservoir and the pump.


Reservoir mounted.


The bracket attaches to the case with the clips originally intended for the front fan filter.


The pump mounts to the back side of the bracket.


The SSD was screwed directly into the motherboard tray.


And I made some custom brackets to keep the HDD clinging onto the mounted SSD.


Like this:


I had to rewire this connector to power both drives...and I also tapped into the 12V and ground lines to power the optical drive, the LEDs on the bottom, and the pump.


Here's how it looks with the SSD & HDD mounted.


Added in the reservoir & pump bracket.


This is probably a better angle.


One more for good measure.


With the optical drive mounted, things fit fine except for the fill port...the SSD & HDD stuck out just a hair too far, so the fill port had to go. I'm going to mount a toggle switch there instead which will control the LEDs on the bottom, so they can be turned off when not wanted.


"Its almost hard to believe I got it all to fit!!!
Leak testing commences!

[defect9]

I'm still amazed at how much awesome you're packing into that tiny case.

[MrBean]

I luv the mod, and what you've managed to squeeze into the case.

The faux CF detracts from the effort though, why don't you ditch it? Will look much better without, as in earlier pictures....

[miahallen]

I'm essentially using it to cover up the rough cuts.
If I had access to a powder coater I wouldn't have used it. But I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

[MrBean]

No worries, a real good effort

How's the troubleshooting on the psu going?

[miahallen]

So, I mentioned during my last update that this project had run into two major problems. A water leak of which I was unable to identify the source. And the PSU's failure to power up with the system installed.

I'm happy to to say that my friend Norbert and I have successfully worked through each of the problems (as well as a few more) and the system is now complete! Read on for the details

We started off with the arduous task of breaking the system down to get access to the PSU.


Next we probed each of the pins on the 24pin connector, and everything was spot on. However, as we re-assembled the rig piece by piece and testing after every single change. We found that the PSU fan would not spin when we closed up the PSU due to the wires which had been cut short earlier. So we shortened them a bit more.


I also grabbed an extra 12V, 5V, and ground line to run to the LEDs, the pump, and the optical drive. I had previously planned to tap those lines into the SATA connectors, but it ended up being a mess, so this would help clean up wiring a lot!


Then we reassembled to being leak testing again, so that we could hopefully identify the cause/source of the leak. It didn't take to long to figure out that the hose had been punctured somehow up near the lower rad line. And cutting off the last 15mm of that line solved the leak problem....Yeah!!!


Then, curiously...after getting everything put back together, we found the PSU refused to run again which really got us scratching out heads. It took quite a bit of time and before we probed the PCIe connectors and found that I had swapped one of the 12V with one of the ground lines :-/ uggg....luckily we swapped them around and everything was happy once again. Nothing dead, phew!


This is what the layout looks like prior to putting in the optical drive tray....it's a really tight squeeze!


So, we finally had the rig running properly and started getting things set up correctly in the OS.....oh crap, I spoke too soon, the last thing I wanted to see at this point was poor temps....but the GPU was idling at 70C at stock speeds


So, once again we broke the system down enough to get a wrench in there and found the GPU block bolts were way too loose (how could I have missed this earlier, eeerrrr). Anyhow, I tightened up the bolts, and got back into Windows....yeah! GPU now idling at 30C....much better


The CPU now idles just above ambient and the GPU at about 8C above ambient. I'm not very impressed with this motherboard's overclocking abilities. It allows for Turbo mode overclocking only. So right now I have it set to Turbo up to 4.3GHz, but with a full load it drops back to 3.4GHz and even still throttles a bit down to 1600MHz to protect the VRM (I suppose). Oh well, hopefully the BIOS will improve in the future. I tested with v1.1 and v1.2. The CPU load temps are in the upper 50s and lower 60s.

The GPU was overclocked to a modest 900/1050, the GPU only needed 1075mV to get there, and the load temp equalizes in the low 60s after 20 minutes of Furmark burn in testing. Very good!

Unfortunately, Norbert is being relocated right now, so time to test the system was cut short. But I'm hoping he can run a few benchmarks for me so I can give you a better idea of the performance potential. Until then, I'll leave you with some final pictures of the rig











Thanks again for everyone's comments and criticisms...until next time

[Utnorris]

Glad to hear you figured out the issues. Even if the CPU doesn't overclock I am sure it will still play games just fine. Looks awesome by the way. What is noise like? Quiet or loud?

[Hondacity]

the fans are quiet but the looks ummm

[miahallen]

Glad to hear you figured out the issues. Even if the CPU doesn't overclock I am sure it will still play games just fine. Looks awesome by the way. What is noise like? Quiet or loud?

Very quiet. The two fans and the pump are all on speed control. So it's a whisper at idle, and a not bad at full tilt

the fans are quiet but the looks ummm

I'm guessing you're most opposed to the feet? Norbert plans to replace them when he finds something better. It was simply a lack of options at the moment.

[SMTB1963]

Heh, saw this build mentioned at [H]ard|OCP, and when I saw miahallen I figured it had to be the XS miahallen.

Packing all this power into these tiny spaces makes me think you might've been a watchmaker in a previous life...

Incredible!

EDIT: I really like the looks (and the feet, for that matter). Kinda brings to mind a short, squat, TOUGH dog - ala



DON'T WITH ME!

[Nullspace]

This is a fantastic build... and i'm sure it'll inspire more 'awesome in a tiny tin can' attempts.

John