HotBox

[Jonsta]

Hi all!

This is my first post on TBCS. Sorry if I missed any introduction threads but I decided to post a worklog of my latest PC build straight up.

I decided I needed a small, portable PC for my room and I needed it to perform three roles. I needed a home theatre box for when I eventually get myself an LCD television, I needed a small form factor pc (my main gaming rig sits outside in the garage, next to a tin door. When gaming on a day off, it can definitely get to over 40-45 degrees in there), and I needed a portable gaming rig for going to LAN parties and having some fun in real time.

I thought I could fill all three of those roles, so I present the idea of the 'HotBox'. It's probably been done before, but I thought of the idea, so I ran with it.

I call it the HotBox because I forsaw powerful gaming parts inside a small case, and naturally that means heat. I also wanted to recycle a few parts from my older gaming rig.

I've already customised the case, but unfortunately I lost all my photos due to Apple's train wreck of a software, iTunes. I'm not a very good painter, and I'm a first time modder, so I can't guarantee that this is going to be a super awesome worklog

I still have yet to build the case but I also need to repaint the interior panels, so I'll have a few photos to share.

Right now though, I'll show you what I'm using.

Note: These photos will originally be replaced with some of my own photos of the parts.

I needed a small case and I wanted something with a relatively good power supply. Not knowing that Lian-Li created an awesome aluminium Mini-ITX case that could hold a normal ATX power supply, I chose the Silverstone Sugo SG05 case. Still a great case. I'm going to be painting the case red, for a start.

This is one of the leftovers of my old gaming rig. I admit it's not the most powerful card you can put in these things, but having two 8800GTs left over from my old gamer, I just had to use one. This is a Galaxy 8800GT 512MB GDDR3, and its one of the first batch to come into the country. Most of these batch failed but I lucked out with my two.

Silverstone actually sells this Blu-Ray player, which makes sense because they assumed that by having the Sugo require a slimline drive, they'd also opt in for the drive that just so happens to fit. They were right

This is the mainboard I'm using. A J&W MINIX 780G that I thought was perfect for my little brute. It's a shame that there is only a PCI-E x4 instead of a full 16 lane slot. Lucky it's a 2.0.

The motherboard has an AM2+ socket on it that will also support AM3 processors. The motherboard manufacturers recommend using a processor with a 65W maximum TDP on the board. Being the HotBox, I chose a 95W AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black edition for a little bit more power.

Two sticks of 2GB Corsair 800MHz So-Dimm Gaming memory ensures that I have enough RAM to run notepad, internet explorer, MSpaint and iTunes at the SAME TIME. Also Crysis.

The Silverstone comes with a really good 120mm front fan on it, but this is a mod, so it has to go. In it's place is a stylish Zalman 120mm red LED fan for ultimate bling bling.

Storage comes in the form of a Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drive. The story here is that I had two left over etc.... same as the 8800GT.

Tomorrow morning (it's 11PM here) I'll be posting the testing pics of the hardware and hopefully some painting.

Jonsta

EDIT: Could a mod please move this thread? I accidentally posted it here instead of in Works in Progress.

[x88x]

Sounds fun. One thing though; have you purchased the MBB yet? There are several mini-itx MBBs available that use full-size DIMMs and a full bandwidth PCIe x16 slot.

EDIT:

Also, welcome to TBCS!

[blueonblack]

I'll also add a welcome, and commend you on your choice of case and processor. As you mentioned (and named the project for), this is a lot of heat going into this little box. It will be interesting to see how you handle it. Are you planning to air cool or water cool? (I would think water would have to use an external radiator and reservoir with that tiny case, but it could be done.)

[Jonsta]

x8: Unfortunately I'd already bought the motherboard. However I've tested Fallout 3, Farcry 2, and Need for Speed: Shift on full details, and all run perfectly.

bob: I'm going to go for an advanced air cooler, but I'll need to find a specially sized one for this case, as the standard air cooler is really loud!

Sorry for the blurryness of the photos, it's an iPhone.

Picture Update:

Here's the motherboard in all it's glory. I've added the two RAM sticks and installed the CPU here. I liked this motherboard because they crammed so much **** onto a Mini-ITX board, yet managed to keep the layout relatively clean.

The case itself came with a slim-DVD to IDE adapter, and I was tempted to use it, until I saw that the drive itself came with a lighted slim-DVD to SATA adapter, seen here installed on the rear of the drive.

Today I recieved this and a few other hard drives back from Samsung as replacements for some faulty ones I sent out. It isn't the best drive on the planet, but it has 500GB of storage, and it was pretty much free.

This is the FSP 300W power supply that came with the Sugo case. I've heard stories of these powering GTS 250s when it came to crunch time, but they were also using energy efficient 65W processors. I can only hope that it can handle my 8800GT, PLUS that awesome Phenom.

Speaking of my 8800GT, here's the dusty bastard. I got that sticker with the motherboard and didn't want to waste it. The 8800GT supports 1080p, right?

My word, that is a lot of cables to manage. I'll have to chop some off so that I can maximise airflow inside the case. I threw a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium x64 edition on the setup and everything went fine. No exciting screwups here!

This was one of the first things I painted. As I said before, I dont have too many shots of the case modding process itself, but I'll do what I can.

My spray painting setup. I know it looks a little silly, but if I use the back of my truck as the spray bench, worst case scenario is that I overspray and *gasp* make the inside of my tray look nicer. Here you can see the hard drive cage and the cage for the slimline DVD burner. I decided on a matt black color for the interior, as it looks better than the bare steel, and will go nicely with the shell's red exterior.

That's all the pics I have for now, but stay tuned, I'll have more.

Jonsta

[x88x]

Looks good. One thing I would caution you on when painting the case parts is to watch any contact areas. I forgot about that when I was painting my case and ended up with a lot of spots where the paint chipped off when I finally assembled it.

For the CPU cooler, I got this guy a while back for my s939 setup because it was specially designed for SFF cases; looks like it won't work for AM2/3, but this looks similar in size/purpose.

[Locum51]

Looks good! Can't wait to see more!

[Luke122]

Hmm.. is that 8800 going to fit in that small case? It looks like it's a good deal longer than the mobo!

Awesome so far! Lets see some sketches/mockups of the case!

[Jonsta]

I see we have a Zalman fan! (no pun intended) I'm a Zalman guy too. Which one of those fans would be quieter? I noticed that the Phenom fan is about as loud as Aretha Franklin at a screaming contest.

Here you can see the I/O shield plate mounted in the back of the black painted case. I reckon that "Australian Export" matt black came up pretty good!

Also mase sure the ventilated PCI expansion slot cover was the same colour as the rest of the case.

Even inside the SFF case, the motherboard still looks tiny. It was really easy to mount, however. I thought I was going to have big problems working inside this case with my sausage-like fingers, but it seems that Silverstone designed a good one, here. I also noticed I had a bunch more room than I expected for a CPU cooler as well. Maybe water cooling is an option.

But for now, I'll stick with plain jane air-cooling. Here you can see the Zalman red LED fan fitted in the front, with the original fan grill that came with the case. It's on the back if you missed it

That's all the pictures I have for now, but I'll probably be posting more assembly pictures tonight. Till next time!

Jonsta

[x88x]

IDK about the 8700, but my 8000 was never loud enough for me to hear over the system fans (two ~20dBm 120mm).

Watercooling would definitely be interesting to see in that small a case (especially since it wasn't designed by the morons who designed the case I based my mod in). The biggest problem I see would be fitting the rads in. Extrapolating from my system, I would say that for those components, to get decent cooling you'll want at least 2x120mm rad area, which might be a problem in there....though it looks like you could fit a 140mm and a 2x80mm, which would actually give you more cooling...though I think the 80mm rads tend to be thicker (at least thats what the product pics look like)...anyways, it'll definitely be interesting if you decide to go that route

EDIT:
I forgot to ask before; how fast was the turn-around with Samsung? One of the drives in my fileserver died, and I'm gonna have to be sending it in soon...

[Jonsta]

my 8000 was never loud enough for me to hear over the system fans

it'll definitely be interesting if you decide to go that route

how fast was the turn-around with Samsung?

The 8800GT is retardedly loud for the first ~4 seconds of startup due to them not being recognised by the video drivers for 4 seconds before the first POST screen. It fits in the case great, with about 2mm of clearance from the fan, and just long enough to get the PCI-E 6-Pin in the back.

Water cooling seems like a good option until I realised that I'd have to mount the rad externally, and never having done that before, I'd like to get some normal watercooling experience in before i go that far.

And the Samsung drives? I used to do returns for a computer store so from sending the drive to recieving it: two days.

Unfortunately I dont have any pictures on hand but tomorrow will be the final assembly of the mod and then I can start searching for parts to drool over that I wanna add but I can't afford

Jonsta