Calling Brix Pro owners

Blorgon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2014
Messages
363
Can anybody provide a couple high definition photos of the power switch from both sides of their Brix Gaming/Brix Pro motherboards? Finding nothing on the web.
 
You mean this kind of pics ?

BrixG-07b.png


BrixG-08b.png


http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/systems/72173-gigabyte-brix-gaming-gb-bxi5g-760/?page=2
 
You mean this kind of pics ?

Yeah, but specifically focused on the power switch, and what both sides of the motherboard look like where it's located. Looking for detailed closeups.
 
As you can see from one those pics, the switch is located where it has the RAM sockets on the other side, look at the screw hole and copper dot.
So you'd only need the one where you can see the switch:

http://scr3.golem.de/screenshots/1406/Gigabyte-Brix-Nvidia/GB-Brix-Gaming-NV-07.jpg
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/IMG_9135.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtvG7_R3_Mc

Yeah. I was checking those Hexus pictures out a little more closely. Tried to reply, but [H] went down.

My idea was to desolder the switch and wire a chassis mounted switch to the mobo. That switch placement has got to be the single worst design decision I've ever seen. I've been working on a custom chassis for a Brix Pro, but if the switch can't be removed, then my design will have to be trashed. :mad:

They could have easily designed the Brix around a 120mm fan, and a slightly beefier heatsink, but that's not possible as long as the switch is there.* The only way it could be improved is if you had a custom heatsink with heatpipes wrapping around to the other side of the motherboard, with a fan mounted to a heatpipe/fin assembly, sucking air through the top and bottom of the vertically placed chassis and blowing out the side. I don't understand why they thought a jet engine blower was a good idea...

* Using a 120mm fan would actually make the front USB/audio ports inaccessible, so you'd have to use extension cables...
 
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That switch placement has got to be the single worst design decision I've ever seen.
It's placement is no bad design decision, but if someone wants to remove it, then it is less than ideal.
But it seems to be a switch with 6 pins that you'll need to desolder. Probably two pins for the power-switch, two for the power LED and two for the HDD activity ?

I'm curious how this will pan out, I'm interested to see your build so keep us updated !
 
It's placement is no bad design decision, but if someone wants to remove it, then it is less than ideal.

I guess I'm being a little harsh, but even if somebody didn't want to relocate it, I still think it's silly to put the switch on the thermal solution side of the motherboard, because it needs to be pressed by a physical piece located on the chassis, which significantly reduces the available area for a heatsink and a bigger/quieter fan to occupy, and significantly increases the chance of some kind of structural failure.

I think Gigabyte did a great job with the Brix, all the way up to the thermal solution, and then it's like they threw their hands up and said "fuck it." They cut a pretty huge corner here, and I think it was a bad idea—not only for the Brix itself, but for the gaming/mid-high performance UCFF market, which I think has a lot of potential. But maybe I'm just biased because I want it to be a thing :D

I'll see if I can pick up a used Brix sometime and play around with it. I've done a lot of soldering/building in small spaces (guitar effect pedals), so I'm not completely out of my element here, but I haven't ever worked with this component scale before, and I'm afraid of toasting anything on the board.
 
I do appreciate Gigabyte taking a stab into making an UCFF PC. The only thing that puts me off are that it uses laptop parts and not desktop parts. I wonder if this will be the same for Asus GR8 and the Alienware alpha as well.

That said, the cooling design needs a big improvement. I feel that this could be helped by making it bigger to allow for bigger, better fans.
 
I do appreciate Gigabyte taking a stab into making an UCFF PC. The only thing that puts me off are that it uses laptop parts and not desktop parts. I wonder if this will be the same for Asus GR8 and the Alienware alpha as well.

That said, the cooling design needs a big improvement. I feel that this could be helped by making it bigger to allow for bigger, better fans.

You mean the processor and the memory? I honestly don't mind using SO-DIMM ram, and the 4770R is a fantastic processor. I don't see why that's an issue, honestly. Yeah, it only supports up to 1600MHz, but I can (and do) live with that (please don't take my [H] card for saying that). And using desktop parts would kind of negate the point of making such a small PC.
 
The Brix Gaming 760 (nvidia edition) only uses a i5 4200H (dual core w/ Hyper-Threading) and the GPU is actually an 870M (HardForum member from a different thread stated this).

SO-DIMM ram I honestly don't care as RAM only helps so much to a certain point (1600 mhz is more than good enough) for gaming.
 
The Brix Gaming 760 (nvidia edition) only uses a i5 4200H (dual core w/ Hyper-Threading) and the GPU is actually an 870M (HardForum member from a different thread stated this).

SO-DIMM ram I honestly don't care as RAM only helps so much to a certain point (1600 mhz is more than good enough) for gaming.

Ah, yeah. I don't really personally care about the Brix Gaming. The amount of PC gaming I do nowadays wouldn't require anything more than the 4770R's HD 5200 Iris Pro graphics, so the Brix Pro is the one I'm looking at.

Feeling kind of silly with my M1 with a GTX 770, when I don't even use the damn thing anymore.
 
I guess I'm being a little harsh, but even if somebody didn't want to relocate it, I still think it's silly to put the switch on the thermal solution side of the motherboard, because it needs to be pressed by a physical piece located on the chassis, which significantly reduces the available area for a heatsink and a bigger/quieter fan to occupy, and significantly increases the chance of some kind of structural failure.

I think Gigabyte did a great job with the Brix, all the way up to the thermal solution, and then it's like they threw their hands up and said "fuck it." They cut a pretty huge corner here, and I think it was a bad idea—not only for the Brix itself, but for the gaming/mid-high performance UCFF market, which I think has a lot of potential. But maybe I'm just biased because I want it to be a thing :D

I'll see if I can pick up a used Brix sometime and play around with it. I've done a lot of soldering/building in small spaces (guitar effect pedals), so I'm not completely out of my element here, but I haven't ever worked with this component scale before, and I'm afraid of toasting anything on the board.

Just curious, did you get any further with the Brix Pro idea? I'm considering doing something with it as well, as there currently is not really even an ITX option with an integrated GPU of this caliber.

The two problems seem to be (1) the power button and (2) fitting a custom heatsink.

Rather than removing the power button entirely, I'm thinking it should be possible to simply solder the wires for a standard set of header pins onto the top of the leads.

The heatsink would be a little more difficult, as there is a second chip that's also cooled by the same heatsink. (good picture here) If it's possible to create some sort of adapter block out of copper or aluminum, then that would open up more options to attach a standard heatsink or mount in a larger fanless case. However, so far I haven't found any specifications or dimensions regarding the heatsink layout... guessing it's a custom configuration from Gigabyte rather than an Intel standard.
 
This is really interesting. I was actually considering making a custom case for the 760 Brix, with some kind of additional cooling.

If I could find some kind of extension for the connector between the motherboard and the gpu board, i could reposition the boards to make them easier to cool.

The black connector on the left:
BrixG-08b.png
 
Has anyone figure out the pinout of the power switch yet? I just picked up a Brix Pro from Newegg (great price for black november) and am working on a cooling modification. Will post the pinouts once I have them unless someone else gets there first.
 
Looking for a new project and really fancy one of these tiddlers. My google-fu has evaded me. Anyone know of a company or a more up to date guide on making custom waterblocks? Would be interesting a get a double sided waterblock fabricated and try and shoe horn all the ancillaries into a case.
 
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