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

Yes, Qrash you are correct. After thinking it was a software problem I finally opened up the case earlier today and saw an antenna cable was disconnected from the motherboard WiFi card. Plugged that back in, says I’m connected but doesn’t actually work. Boot my system off a USB key and it works perfectly. So whatever I did in terminal over the last two days to fix the WiFi broke something. Decide it’s easier to do a clean install/upgrade then figure out and fix whatever I did. Download Ubuntu 18.04 beta. Can’t find my spare external to move the files from my boot drive so I create a second partition and move everything there. That breaks the boot drive. Boot up off the key again, use boot repair then reboot off the ssd. Create a new usb boot drive with 18.04. Reboot, install 18.04 fails at the end. Reboot try again, fails. Use boot-repair, WiFi cuts out and it doesn’t work. Reboot, try again, boot repair works. Reboot and hours later I have a working computer with WiFi again. I love/hate computers.

Still need to get the gtx-970 working but I played Torchlight 2 today and got over 40fps with my HD4000 so as long as I stick to indie/older games I still have plenty to play.
 
Still need to do some tuning and extra work, but the air cooled direct die 7900x is going okay so far:
SbNi8R0h.jpg
 
Stock temps under aida64 load for 49 minutes. As you can see, they had stabilized a long time ago.
Max 56C on 3 cores.

oqjdamh.png
 
Still need to do some tuning and extra work, but the air cooled direct die 7900x is going okay so far:
View attachment 67053

I thought most heatsinks were designed to make contact with the IHS and couldn't be tightened to be very much lower than that. Did you have to make a mod to the cooler's mounting hardware so that the heatsink could be set lower to come into contact with the die?
 
So you will recall my setup s broadly Gigabyte Z370N Wifi / i7 8700K / Be Quiet! Dark Rock TF / Inno3d 1080 Ti X3.

With no panels on the case my thermals are a dreamy 58c for the CPU cores and a very nice 67c for the GPU after a 30m stress test using the Spy thing in 3DMark. However, stick the panels on and the GPU is driving the temps right up to 87c with the CPU over 70c and the system alarm going off. So that's just not working out for me, but then I don't have any supplementary fans at all.

So what should I do? 2x slim noctua's under the GPU bringing air in or exhausting? Is it a 92mm at the back also exhausting or should it be input? I am a big fan of positive pressure as you can filter the air properly but I clearly need to prioritise cooling more than I'm used to in a build, which is surprising considering how tight the ML07 is.

Or should I perhaps bite the bullet and go for a Kraken G12/Eiswolf and 240 radiator on the bottom mount? I thought air cooling was supposed to be superior but putting the heat to be removed close to the edges of the case seems like a pretty good idea to me.
 
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So you will recall my setup s broadly Gigabyte Z370N Wifi / i7 8700K / Be Quiet! Dark Rock TF / Inno3d 1080 Ti X3.

With no panels on the case my thermals are a dreamy 58c for the CPU cores and a very nice 67c for the GPU after a 30m stress test using the Spy thing in 3DMark. However, stick the panels on and the GPU is driving the temps right up to 87c with the CPU over 70c and the system alarm blowing. So that's just working out for me, but then I don't have any supplementary fans at all.

So what should I do? 2x slim noctua's under the GPU bringing air in or exhausting? Is it a 92mm at the back also exhausting or should it be input? I am a big fan of positive pressure as you can filter the air properly but I clearly need to prioritise cooling more than I'm used to in a build, which is surprising considering how tight the ML07 is..

You will want the two bottom fans as intake. You only want to use them as exhaust if you use an aftermarket sink like the accellero III.

I find that I have about 4-6c better CPU temps if I use the 92mm fan as exhaust out the back. So my setup is 2x120mm bottom intake, 1x140mm side intake on the cpu cooler, 1x92mm fan as exhaust out the back.
 
So you will recall my setup s broadly Gigabyte Z370N Wifi / i7 8700K / Be Quiet! Dark Rock TF / Inno3d 1080 Ti X3.

With no panels on the case my thermals are a dreamy 58c for the CPU cores and a very nice 67c for the GPU after a 30m stress test using the Spy thing in 3DMark. However, stick the panels on and the GPU is driving the temps right up to 87c with the CPU over 70c and the system alarm going off. So that's just not working out for me, but then I don't have any supplementary fans at all.

So what should I do? 2x slim noctua's under the GPU bringing air in or exhausting? Is it a 92mm at the back also exhausting or should it be input? I am a big fan of positive pressure as you can filter the air properly but I clearly need to prioritise cooling more than I'm used to in a build, which is surprising considering how tight the ML07 is.

Or should I perhaps bite the bullet and go for a Kraken G12/Eiswolf and 240 radiator on the bottom mount? I thought air cooling was supposed to be superior but putting the heat to be removed close to the edges of the case seems like a pretty good idea to me.
I'm not sure what gave you the impression that air cooling was superior, but it's just not the case. Liquid cooling lets the cooler always pull fresh air over it, while an air cooler will always only have access to what's inside the case. Not to say air cooling is bad, just far more dependant on air circulation than liquid cooling. You should definitely use the bottom fans as intake, letting the gpu breathe no matter which cooler you use for your cpu. 92mm on the back for exhaust, and personally I'd still go with an aio on the side as an intake. If you still want to stick with air then side fans need to be intake as well, but if you stick with air then the gpu is going to heat up the air the cpu gets no matter what configuration your fans are in.
 
I'm not sure what gave you the impression that air cooling was superior, but it's just not the case. Liquid cooling lets the cooler always pull fresh air over it, while an air cooler will always only have access to what's inside the case. Not to say air cooling is bad, just far more dependant on air circulation than liquid cooling. You should definitely use the bottom fans as intake, letting the gpu breathe no matter which cooler you use for your cpu. 92mm on the back for exhaust, and personally I'd still go with an aio on the side as an intake. If you still want to stick with air then side fans need to be intake as well, but if you stick with air then the gpu is going to heat up the air the cpu gets no matter what configuration your fans are in.
Given the same transfer surface area and good airflow, they are equal. Air coolers with large fin arrays can do just as well (or better), but require good airflow through the case to do so. This can be easier or harder in a sff case, depending on the design and configuration, because the small volume means it takes less airflow to cycle all of the air in the case, but also means it can easily be blocked by components and turned into a hotbox.
 
How about an Alphacool Eisbaer 240 /Eiswolf combo? Copper rad so should shift heat well.

I think you'll be disappointed if you rely on the bottom radiator mount. Unfortunately, without extensive modding, there just isn't enough clearance down there for good cooling.
- A 240mm radiator side mounted will get you to a happy place with the Eiswolf though.

Best bang for your buck would be to stay on air for the CPU and convert your GPU to a hybrid. Even a 120mm rad mounted in the forward position will drop your GPU temps down to your original levels.
Perhaps the only disadvantage is the messy tubing runs. But certainly it wouldn't be deal breaker.
 
Given the same transfer surface area and good airflow, they are equal. Air coolers with large fin arrays can do just as well (or better), but require good airflow through the case to do so. This can be easier or harder in a sff case, depending on the design and configuration, because the small volume means it takes less airflow to cycle all of the air in the case, but also means it can easily be blocked by components and turned into a hotbox.
That's exactly what I mean though. In the ncase, an air cooler is always going to be eating hot air just due to there not being anywhere else to get air from. In a larger case you've got more room to separate components and allow more sources of fresh air and more potential exhaust points, but here every source of air is passing through some source of heat before getting to the cpu. Water cooling solves this by putting the cooler against the side of the case where it can suck in cool air from outside the case, so it's always going to have an advantage in this case.
 
That's exactly what I mean though. In the ncase, an air cooler is always going to be eating hot air just due to there not being anywhere else to get air from. In a larger case you've got more room to separate components and allow more sources of fresh air and more potential exhaust points, but here every source of air is passing through some source of heat before getting to the cpu. Water cooling solves this by putting the cooler against the side of the case where it can suck in cool air from outside the case, so it's always going to have an advantage in this case.

What about top-down coolers like the NH C14 and the Dark Rock TF? They pull air directly from outside of the case.
 
That's exactly what I mean though. In the ncase, an air cooler is always going to be eating hot air just due to there not being anywhere else to get air from.
Wrong, my air cooler is feeded with fresh air. You need to think how to achieve it, there are so many possibilities with the numbers of fan the case can support so you need to sit down and think a bit of the best setup.
 
Interesting discussion which reflects roughly where I was but the potential downsides of mechanical failures and evaporation are an avoidable issue if you go for air.

To my mind best to worst is; Custom loop - > Air - > AIO - > stock with the middle two broadly equivalent in terms of performance but with additional downsides from the AIO.

The CPU cooler I'm happy with because it's very close to the grille and able to breathe clean cool air in across the heatsink. The GPU is the issue because it's set away from the bottom grille and will probably pull in as much warm air circulating inside the case as it does cool air from outside. It's definitely the weak link. I thought my stock GPU cooler looked like it was a pretty good one - three fans and a massive heatsink but it's too far away from the outside to really work properly and this is I think the weakness. If I had 1337 dremmel skillz I might be able to build a funnel or intake manifold which ensured the fans only pulled air from outside but that's not really where I am.

So I could just stick a couple of slim fans below it. The GPU is not quite a 2.5 but I'm stuck with slims anyway. If I were to replace the current cooling solution with an eiswolf or Kraken G12 is there enough clearance at the bottom to fit everything there or will I have trouble placing the 120 radiator? It does seem a bit tight down there.

Still liking the idea of Eiswolf/Eisbaer LT in combination if there's enough heat dissipation in the slim 240 plus standard 120 to do this.
 
I think you'll be disappointed if you rely on the bottom radiator mount. Unfortunately, without extensive modding, there just isn't enough clearance down there for good cooling.
- A 240mm radiator side mounted will get you to a happy place with the Eiswolf though.

Best bang for your buck would be to stay on air for the CPU and convert your GPU to a hybrid. Even a 120mm rad mounted in the forward position will drop your GPU temps down to your original levels.
Perhaps the only disadvantage is the messy tubing runs. But certainly it wouldn't be deal breaker.
Don't think I have the room to stay on air for the CPU and have a side radiator - it's all too much for one little case to handle. Perhaps my best bet will be to just get my 2x 120mm slim fans and a 92mm exhaust, and see how that works. If it's still poor then ditch air and go water - I like the look of the EKWB MLC range assuming those monster rads fit..
 
Don't think I have the room to stay on air for the CPU and have a side radiator - it's all too much for one little case to handle. Perhaps my best bet will be to just get my 2x 120mm slim fans and a 92mm exhaust, and see how that works. If it's still poor then ditch air and go water - I like the look of the EKWB MLC range assuming those monster rads fit..

You have plenty of room for a 92mm tower cooler and a 120 AIO radiator. Also, you might think about the accelero GPU cooler if you want to stay with air.
 
I got my case today, and have moved things over now, only thing I'm a little thoughtful about is maximum temperatures, but I also know that the i7-8700K got some massive spikes in temps from time to time. I got two Noctua NF-F12 intake fans, one in the side and one in the front bottom, plus NH-U9S cooler. Should this be within decent while running AIDA64 Stress test?
 

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I got my case today, and have moved things over now, only thing I'm a little thoughtful about is maximum temperatures, but I also know that the i7-8700K got some massive spikes in temps from time to time. I got two Noctua NF-F12 intake fans, one in the side and one in the front bottom, plus NH-U9S cooler. Should this be within decent while running AIDA64 Stress test?
*Snigger*

(and sorry, it's not my setup so can't comment)
 
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Direct Die 7900X OC and temps under gaming load:

View attachment 68428

Very nice, but even you are using a direct die adapter and liquid metal for your CPU cooler, is there a sensor bug on the CPU temps? How can the idle temp for the cores like 14°C? What is your room temp?

My i5 8600K (5 Ghz all core OC) uses liquid metal on die and I use for my Ncase, three 420mm external radiators (1260mm total) for cooling and my idle temps are 1 to 2°C over room temp (like my water temp around 1-2°C over room temp), I could never under room temp, so I'm very confused about the sensor temps.
 
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Very nice, but even you are using a direct die adapter and liquid metal for your CPU cooler, is there a sensor bug on the CPU temps? How can the idle temp for the cores like 14°C? What is your room temp?

My i5 8600K (5 Ghz all core OC) uses liquid metal on die and I use for my Ncase, three 420mm external radiators (1260mm total) for cooling and my idle temps are 1 to 2°C over room temp (like my water temp around 1-2°C over room temp), I could never under room temp, so I'm very confused about the sensor temps.

I was curious about this, too, because HWmonitor and RealTemp give me different readings. Ambient in my office is between 15C-22C depending on if I'm using my window AC unit. Despite having central air, I like it cold, so I have two methods to keep my office really chilly. Right now it's 68F in here, or 20C. HWmonitor shows me idling at 16-19C and Realtemp shows me at 21-23C. I think it's an issue with HWmonitor reading idle temps because when I run cinebench the numbers mirror each other pretty well under load.
 
I use HWinfo64 to read all system sensors, this should show you correct temps for everything. Anyway great results for this monster CPU.
 
Which orientation is recommended for Arctic Accelero Xtreme III ? Intake or exhaust and what is the difference in temperature?

- GTX 1070 FE
- 2x Noctua NF-F12 PWM
- i7-7700K [email protected]
- Noctua NH-U9S

sorry for my bad English...

Exhaust is recommended, that way the heat is pushed out the bottom of the case. With intake the GPU heat is pushed up raising temps on the CPU.
 
I put on a 4.8ghz all core OC and got these temps when running a 2578 cinebench test:

1pCTn69.png



It's super toasty when I have all cores at 48, but I never actually put the system under any kind of load like this outside of tests, so I'm not worried about it.
 
Still pretty sick results, you use "just" a Noctua NH-C14 with one 140mm fan (I have the same CPU cooler used for my first Ncase and hit easily 60°C and this just with a old delidded Intel i7 with OC), that's amazing result in just a small case with such a monster CPU as you have.
 
Trying out the Asetek 545LC. Looks a bit more tricky then I expected to install. Anyone using it and have tips? I'm planning on a push/pull config.

2WD9JXT.jpg
 
Trying out the Asetek 545LC. Looks a bit more tricky then I expected to install. Anyone using it and have tips? I'm planning on a push/pull config.

View attachment 68910

I don't usually comment on liquid cooling, but here goes.

For a push-pull setup the radiator will have to be mounted on the rear half of the fan bracket. In this location I believe most users have had to install the CPU block onto the motherboard first (plus, connect any cables to/from the CPU block), then attach the radiator and fans to the fan bracket, and finally rotate the fan bracket into place which causes the hoses to spiral around the CPU block. Plugging in the radiator fans at this point may be difficult so figure out how to attach them earlier or use fan extension cables to make it easier.
 
I don't usually comment on liquid cooling, but here goes.

For a push-pull setup the radiator will have to be mounted on the rear half of the fan bracket. In this location I believe most users have had to install the CPU block onto the motherboard first (plus, connect any cables to/from the CPU block), then attach the radiator and fans to the fan bracket, and finally rotate the fan bracket into place which causes the hoses to spiral around the CPU block. Plugging in the radiator fans at this point may be difficult so figure out how to attach them earlier or use fan extension cables to make it easier.

He has an Asetek 545LC which is a 92mm AIO, so I am guessing he plans on mounting to the rear fan mount. I haven't seen anyone mount one in a Ncase yet.
 
He has an Asetek 545LC which is a 92mm AIO, so I am guessing he plans on mounting to the rear fan mount. I haven't seen anyone mount one in a Ncase yet.

Shoot. I kind of missed that important fact! Never mind!
 
Shoot. I kind of missed that important fact! Never mind!

Yeah I only caught it because I follow the Dan A4-SFX thread and a lot of the v2 owners are mounting this AIO. I have seen a few people who have, or want, the side window talk about using this AIO in the Ncase but I haven't seen anyone actually do it yet.
 
Yeah I only caught it because I follow the Dan A4-SFX thread and a lot of the v2 owners are mounting this AIO. I have seen a few people who have, or want, the side window talk about using this AIO in the Ncase but I haven't seen anyone actually do it yet.

I recall seeing a 92 mm radiator on the rear panel, but I couldn't say when. Also, I'm not sure if the radiator was on the inside or outside of the case. The Asetek is sealed so mounting on the inside will be easier and it looks like the hoses aren't too long.
 
Sorry for the confusion but I thought my pic would of cleared up anyone not familiar with the 545LC
 
Sorry for the confusion but I thought my pic would of cleared up anyone not familiar with the 545LC

Not to worry, it was my fault. Hopefully, someone here can help you. As rfarmer stated, a few people will be interested to see how this cooler works in the M1, especially those who want the window panel.
 
Trying out the Asetek 545LC. Looks a bit more tricky then I expected to install. Anyone using it and have tips? I'm planning on a push/pull config.

View attachment 68910
I had this installed on my M1 before. If you’re thinking push pull, then maybe mounting one of the 92mm on the outside of the rear panel would help with interior space. It’s been a couple of years, but here’s how I think I mounted it: Mount pump/plate to the cpu first. Try to might the inside 92 to rad before turning the radiator until it fits well onto the rear panel, but without twisting/kinking the tubing. Screw the outside fan through housing into radiator holes. Hope this helps!
 
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