NCASE M1: a crowdfunded Mini-ITX case (updates in first post)

I am doing my own sleeved cables now and I was looking for a pinout for the SF600 and also I would like to know why the fan of the SF600 is constantly spinning? I thought it only does that when its under heavy load?!
 
I am doing my own sleeved cables now and I was looking for a pinout for the SF600 and also I would like to know why the fan of the SF600 is constantly spinning? I thought it only does that when its under heavy load?!

When I sleeved a set for my SF600 I made my own pin out simply because I didn't want to trust internet information on something like that. Your fan shouldn't spin up all the time, at least mine doesn't. Just take your time writing down the pins and marking them, I used little 3M label on the outside of the connectors, traced the lines and marked them down.

Alternatively you can also just sleeve and remove one wire at a time if you are concerned with messing something up.
 
I am doing my own sleeved cables now and I was looking for a pinout for the SF600 and also I would like to know why the fan of the SF600 is constantly spinning? I thought it only does that when its under heavy load?!

Not sure how warm it is in your setup, but mine sits next to me here and doesn't move at all on idle or light load (Browsing on chrome for example). There's a point where the fan starts and stops as the temperature rises and then a definite point where it will switch on for an extended period.
I was pleasantly surprised by the SF600 after reading some conflicting reports about noise.
 
I am doing my own sleeved cables now and I was looking for a pinout for the SF600 and also I would like to know why the fan of the SF600 is constantly spinning? I thought it only does that when its under heavy load?!

Mine eventually stays on once temperature equilibrium is reached. Usually after about an hour or so if I'm not doing anything CPU/GPU heavy. Also depends if my thermostat is set to 70f, or 73f. If I'm gaming, it stays on all the time. Never has it been audible, which is the important part IMO.
 
For those interested in the sx700-lpt, I recently switched my sx500-lg for one in order to have a little quieter build, and it didn't end well.... It seems that since the sx700's fan curve is entierely load based and not temperature based, the fan doesn't turn on even if the temperature rises. And since the Ncase tend to run hot, I get power failure everytime after 1h-1h30 of gaming.

Jeeez mother of Christ. How could anybody be so dumb as to make a power supply that has a fan profile based solely on load? This guys will never get things right for the love of God. Silverstone is a complete disaster. They simply can't build a damn useful SFX power supply that doesn't suck balls. Well, not that their cases haven't been plagued with lazy mistakes either for the past years.

Incredible. Simply incredible.

I suggest you sell it and go the Corsair route. Comments regarding their SFX units seem to be very positive overall.
 
Well, it's finally done. I think.
Good job! Still in the middle of my M1 v1 build if you want to know... :wacky:

"The bottom 14 cm slim fans are plugged into the graphics card fan header" -> do you simply rely on the GPU factory setting to change the fans speed or are you able to set it manually? Is there a software where to modify a speed curve or something like on an Asus BIOS for instance?
 
Good job! Still in the middle of my M1 v1 build if you want to know... :wacky:

"The bottom 14 cm slim fans are plugged into the graphics card fan header" -> do you simply rely on the GPU factory setting to change the fans speed or are you able to set it manually? Is there a software where to modify a speed curve or something like on an Asus BIOS for instance?

My Zotac 970 did not feature the Silent Fan option where the fans do not spin at low GPU usage, but I believe that may be changed using a BIOS editor. However, I am still in the process of gettnig my system tested and finalized in the sense of running stress tests and modifying fan speeds. I believe MSI's Afterburner can be used to set the fan profile. So far I've run Unigine Heaven 4.0 for a few minutes and temps were OK according to HWMonitor and GPU-Z. More precise results to come.

I would have gotten a lot more done this weekend if my wife hadn't decided suddenly that we needed a new toilet and floor in our one and only bathroom. Oh, and the plywood under the toilet had to be replaced. Oh, and the walls need to be painted, Oh, and the ...you get the idea.
 
I'm not 100% sure if it can been done or not, so I thought I'd put the question up here to see what people think. I wanted to install a custom water loop in my NCASE, but also have a 3.5" HDD as well - reckon it's possible? I wanted to install a window, so the only place to mount a (slim 240mm) radiator would be on the bottom. I'd use the external M1 reservoir, but I don't know about the pump - with only one HDD in the mount, there should be basically enough room to mount a pump the size of a 3.5" drive in the second slot I think, but I haven't managed to find anything online to corroborate my idea.
 
My Zotac 970 did not feature the Silent Fan option where the fans do not spin at low GPU usage, but I believe that may be changed using a BIOS editor. However, I am still in the process of gettnig my system tested and finalized in the sense of running stress tests and modifying fan speeds. I believe MSI's Afterburner can be used to set the fan profile. So far I've run Unigine Heaven 4.0 for a few minutes and temps were OK according to HWMonitor and GPU-Z. More precise results to come.

I would have gotten a lot more done this weekend if my wife hadn't decided suddenly that we needed a new toilet and floor in our one and only bathroom. Oh, and the plywood under the toilet had to be replaced. Oh, and the walls need to be painted, Oh, and the ...you get the idea.
Heh, I totally see the idea! I am sure she wants you to practice more on watercooling by making you working with the toilet! :p

Thanx for the MSI's Afterburner software, will check how it looks. Hopefully it will be compatible with my Gainward GTX 970.
 
Does anyone have good knowledge of VRM cooling? I plan on replacing my ACX heatsink with the Xtreme III but leaving the ACX backplate and midplate. I know those passively cool the VRMs, but I'm guessing the ACX fans were pushing air onto those plates helping keep things cooler. If I have two F12s underneath the Xtreme III exhuasting air out will I see an increase in my VRM temperatures vs. having the F12s intaking air onto the GPU?
 
I'm not 100% sure if it can been done or not, so I thought I'd put the question up here to see what people think. I wanted to install a custom water loop in my NCASE, but also have a 3.5" HDD as well - reckon it's possible? I wanted to install a window, so the only place to mount a (slim 240mm) radiator would be on the bottom. I'd use the external M1 reservoir, but I don't know about the pump - with only one HDD in the mount, there should be basically enough room to mount a pump the size of a 3.5" drive in the second slot I think, but I haven't managed to find anything online to corroborate my idea.

At first I thought it'd be possible if you went with something like the Apogee Drive II pump/block? I have that and I think it's great. However, I think you'd need to downsize to a 2.5" mechanical hard drive if you want it to work though.

Or being it's 2016, use a NAS or network storage :D
 
At first I thought it'd be possible if you went with something like the Apogee Drive II pump/block? I have that and I think it's great. However, I think you'd need to downsize to a 2.5" mechanical hard drive if you want it to work though.

Or being it's 2016, use a NAS or network storage :D

You could also use some hook-and-loop tape (Velcro) to secure it onto your PSU (or anywhere else it'll fit).
 
image.jpeg
I went from air cooled CPU with stock FE 1080, to twin H75 for both CPU and GPU, and now back to air cooled...
 
Artirc accelero III?
can you share some info regarding the noise and the temps?
 
At first I thought it'd be possible if you went with something like the Apogee Drive II pump/block? I have that and I think it's great. However, I think you'd need to downsize to a 2.5" mechanical hard drive if you want it to work though.

Or being it's 2016, use a NAS or network storage :D

I did look at the Apogee, but I'm just not entirely sold on the aesthetics of it. In terms of space it should work fine with a 3.5" drive.
 
Artirc accelero III?
can you share some info regarding the noise and the temps?
Arctic Accelero IV - I skipped the large backplate heat sink. The two white EK Vardar fans are powered by the video card via an adapter and splitter.

Noise:
Fan curve is set on the aggressive side
- better than stock GTX 1080 FE blower, - slightly worse than H75 associated noise. Even though the H75 has a pump, 120mm push on radiator, and 92mm for VRM assembled with it.

Temperatures:
Ambient: about 26c
GPU overclocked to ~2050mhz
FE: 40c idle / 85c+ load
H75: 40c idle / 60c load
Accelero IV: 40c idle / 65c load
 
That looks like a NH-U9S CPU cooler. Is there room on the side panel for a 14cm fan with that CPU cooler, or only a 12cm?
Correct on the cooler.
I don't know if a 140mm fan would fit (I don't have one) but I am thinking about switching the 120mm SP fan that's on the side to an AF fan (I don't have any AF fans) I'll try to take some measurements to see if a 140mm AF fan would fit with the heat sink.
 
Arctic Accelero IV - I skipped the large backplate heat sink. The two white EK Vardar fans are powered by the video card via an adapter and splitter.

Noise:
Fan curve is set on the aggressive side
- better than stock GTX 1080 FE blower, - slightly worse than H75 associated noise. Even though the H75 has a pump, 120mm push on radiator, and 92mm for VRM assembled with it.

Temperatures:
Ambient: about 26c
GPU overclocked to ~2050mhz
FE: 40c idle / 85c+ load
H75: 40c idle / 60c load
Accelero IV: 40c idle / 65c load

Thanks, so for you the accelero come with a little bit more noise and more temps thant the H75?
So would you recommand staying with the H75 over the Accelero?
 
Arctic Accelero IV - I skipped the large backplate heat sink. The two white EK Vardar fans are powered by the video card via an adapter and splitter.

Noise:
Fan curve is set on the aggressive side
- better than stock GTX 1080 FE blower, - slightly worse than H75 associated noise. Even though the H75 has a pump, 120mm push on radiator, and 92mm for VRM assembled with it.

Temperatures:
Ambient: about 26c
GPU overclocked to ~2050mhz
FE: 40c idle / 85c+ load
H75: 40c idle / 60c load
Accelero IV: 40c idle / 65c load
Is this the fan(s) you're using? EK-Vardar F4-120ER (2200rpm) White – EK Webshop

Those are pretty powerful which may explain why it's so loud. Do you have them set as intake or exhaust? From what I've read and been told on here you can actually get slightly better overall case temps putting them in exhaust with maybe a couple degree increase in core GPU temp.

How are your VRM temps with that setup? I'm about to do something similar but I want to leave my ACX middle and back plates to passively cool the VRMs. Hoping my temps won't go crazy.
 
Correct on the cooler.
I don't know if a 140mm fan would fit (I don't have one) but I am thinking about switching the 120mm SP fan that's on the side to an AF fan (I don't have any AF fans) I'll try to take some measurements to see if a 140mm AF fan would fit with the heat sink.

If a 140 mm fan fits it needs to have the 120 mm fan mounting holes for attaching it to the side bracket.
 
Thanks, so for you the accelero come with a little bit more noise and more temps thant the H75?
So would you recommand staying with the H75 over the Accelero?

I only ran one bench session of Unigine Heaven after I assembled the Accelero. I will run more GPU temperature tests and fan curve tweaks tonight.

For now, I would recommend the H75 for slightly better performance

Personally, I am going to stick with air cooling. I prefer the simplicity of air cooling.
 
Is this the fan(s) you're using? EK-Vardar F4-120ER (2200rpm) White – EK Webshop

Those are pretty powerful which may explain why it's so loud. Do you have them set as intake or exhaust? From what I've read and been told on here you can actually get slightly better overall case temps putting them in exhaust with maybe a couple degree increase in core GPU temp.

How are your VRM temps with that setup? I'm about to do something similar but I want to leave my ACX middle and back plates to passively cool the VRMs. Hoping my temps won't go crazy.

Yes those are my fans. I had used them on my radiators before and seem more quiet. They were connected to the MB CPU fan header back then. Now the fans are powered by the video card, set with an aggressive fan curve. I'll play around with the fan curve to dial in noise vs temps.

I initially set the fans as exhaust. However, there isn't a lot of room around my NCase on my desk, and everything around the PC got super hot (NAS, router, modem, etc) even the fans themselves felt hot to touch. There were 90c+ spikes on my GPU right before I shut down the stress test. I'm not really sure what happened. I thought I'll have to repaste the heat sink, but the heat sink was super hot. After I changed the fans to intake, the GPU ran cooler. I'm not happy to dump 300w+ of heat into my case, so I may keep tinkering.

I don't know how to measure VRM temps, do you have any tips?
 
Yes those are my fans. I had used them on my radiators before and seem more quiet. They were connected to the MB CPU fan header back then. Now the fans are powered by the video card, set with an aggressive fan curve. I'll play around with the fan curve to dial in noise vs temps.

I initially set the fans as exhaust. However, there isn't a lot of room around my NCase on my desk, and everything around the PC got super hot (NAS, router, modem, etc) even the fans themselves felt hot to touch. There were 90c+ spikes on my GPU right before I shut down the stress test. I'm not really sure what happened. I thought I'll have to repaste the heat sink, but the heat sink was super hot. After I changed the fans to intake, the GPU ran cooler. I'm not happy to dump 300w+ of heat into my case, so I may keep tinkering.

I don't know how to measure VRM temps, do you have any tips?
Interesting. I'll have to play with it myself. I'm going to start with exhaust and see how temps do.

Sadly, the only way to test VRM temps is with a temperature gun. They can be had on Amazon and the like for <$20, but it would be nice if there were built in sensors as overheating VRMs can be very, very dangerous.

My challenge is my plan to keep the middle and backplates on which will make measuring temps harder (the plates spread the heat so I won't get an exact reading). I figured I'd ask if you had concrete numbers as that'd help me make a more educated guess on mine.
 
I recommend going back and searching this thread for build that use the Dark Rock TF. I recall that due to its size it can interfere with the power supply or the graphics card, depending on where exactly the CPU socket is on the motherboard. I think there was an issue in one build with the RAM too. The NH-U9S is smaller and will definitely fit. Most who have used it have seemed happy with it. Overclocking may be limited, though.

Another option is the Scythe Kabuto II. It fits more easily than the Dark Rock TF, but is larger than the NH-U9S. Tough decision. If the Dark Rock TF fits your motherboard without bumping into anything else, it may cool the best. But what do you do if it doesn't? Good luck.

Thanks for pitching in. Just last night I found a dark rock on the same motherboard: Dark Rock TF & Asrock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac says that the bottom heatsink touches ram but I'm not sure if it would still be the case with corsairs lpx ram. Looks like a really close fit to the gpu as well. Yet I still can't decide.
 
Thanks for pitching in. Just last night I found a dark rock on the same motherboard: Dark Rock TF & Asrock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac says that the bottom heatsink touches ram but I'm not sure if it would still be the case with corsairs lpx ram. Looks like a really close fit to the gpu as well. Yet I still can't decide.

Those photos belong to CyberShot. Here is his post from early this year. He eventually decided to mount hte Dark Rock TF with the ends of the heatpipes facing downwards. This required him to use a PCI-E Extender to shift his graphics card down one slot. In htis orientation the side of the lower set of fins on the Dark Rock TF made contact with the first RAM module so that had to be trimmed away. The bottom of those fins are only 20.2 mm above the CPU surface, so no non-ECC DDR4 RAM will fit within that limit. All in all, it doesn't seem like a good fit, despite the contention of Dark Rock's Motherboard Compatibility Check webpage. Good luck with your build and post photos when it's done.
 
Last edited:
r
Those photos belong to CyberShot. Here is his post from early this year. He eventually decided to mount hte Dark Rock TF with the ends of the heatpipes facing downwards. This required him to use a PCI-E Extender to shift his graphics card down one slot. In htis orientation the side of the lower set of fins on the Dark Rock TF made contact with the first RAM module so that had to be trimmed away. The bottom of those fins are only 20.2 mm above the CPU surface, so no non-ECC DDR4 RAM will fit within that limit. All in all, it doesn't seem like a good fit, despite the contention of Dark Rock's Motherboard Compatibility Check webpage. Good luck with your build and post photos when it's done.
Thanks for that! seems like I will have less of a headache going with the NH-U9S.
 
I'll have a look at the reviews for the kabuto tomorrow. Any idea how they compare given the different form factor ?

No, sorry, but Phuncz uses one. Here is a post he made 2 years ago about it. If you search this thread for "Kabuto" and even limit it to posts by Phuncz or cowsgomoo you will find good information. The Noctua NH-C12 is discontinued, as is the larger NH-C14, but some people have posted about finding some still in stock.
 
No, sorry, but Phuncz uses one. Here is a post he made 2 years ago about it. If you search this thread for "Kabuto" and even limit it to posts by Phuncz or cowsgomoo you will find good information. The Noctua NH-C12 is discontinued, as is the larger NH-C14, but some people have posted about finding some still in stock.

Yeah the NH-C14 isn't hard to find still. Newegg still carries them from time to time.

NH-C14 - Newegg.com
 
Back
Top