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

Black No. 0142 with no ODD top now living comfortably in Tyro, NC. I'll check all parts this weekend when I have proper time. Also, can someone re-link spreadsheet?
 
Here a link to pictures from my build (Swifttech H220, Asus Impact, EVGA Geforce 780 Hydro Copper).
You can see what I mean by video card slanted and not the cleanest cable management. I am happy anyway since everything works perfectly so I guess the PCI_E express slot and the video card can handle it. Been gaming on it for 3 days now with no issues.

http://imgur.com/a/cV1I6/all

It a risk but I think it a much smaller risk then many people would believe. They make those PCB's fairly strong. I seen sagging video cards run for years with out issue. Defiantly not something I would recommend or risk someone else money with but it a risk am willing to take with my own money in this instance.

Truthfully am more worried about the H220 pump failing then the video card failing.

I think it due to fittings/tubing. When I install the h220 radiator it pushed down on the EK CSQ G1/4 Thread 90° Fitting Adapter attached to the GPU. I pushed really hard to get the skew in to attach the radiator and notice afterward that the video card was bent like that.
If it is the fittings being pushed down by the rad, try this:

1. Move the AC inlet to the alternate location
2. Reinstall the fan bracket on the higher screw holes

This pic shows what I'm talking about:



This is exactly the scenario this workaround was intended to address.

Edit: Just confirmed steveo2400 was banned. What's up with that?

Steven got banned. Don't know why or how....but that's his status.
If I had to guess, he may not have read the rules first (see the parts regarding vendors at the bottom).
 
So the Noctua NH-C12P officially barely fits with the Asrock Z87e:




I think the top panel touches the heatsink :eek:, but barely any pressure on it.
 
Thanks for all the images. That helps a lot. Sounds like you got a good one. I assume the holes line up properly for the fittings on the inside? Were the thread inserts loose on yours?

I guess so :D. All the holes line up properly and with a little adjustment before you tighten the screws the ports in the back line up dead center as well. The thread inserts seemed fine. I've installed and removed the reservoir a couple times now.

Edit: upon further inspection I've noticed the acrylic on mine is slightly crooked. You can't tell by looking at it but if you run a finger along the whole edge you can feel the parts that stick out over the acetal edge. I'm hoping I can remove some of the shavings with distilled water tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
Steven got banned. Don't know why or how....but that's his status.

That's too bad. I wonder how to find out what happened. I was glad to see a contact that could answer questions and provide status.

Hey adamantium you get your case yet?

No not yet. Still sitting around waiting. Parts just waiting around too. I cancelled my vacation day today and went back to work since I still hadn't received any news. Around noon today I got my first update that one of my packages had been processed through the sorting facility, and about an hour ago I got an update that it had left the sorting facility. Sounds like it is moving real fast. I suspect they are employing the Stooge Sort algorythm, or even better the Bogosort. Maybe they just ran out of truck drivers. ;) Anyway I plan to pick it up in the morning at my local post office if it arrives overnight. I already called them and told them to hold it so that I am not waiting all day for the mail man to visit. I hope they can make the 19 minute trip from the sorting facility to my local post office in the 15 hours or so that remain before they send the trucks out. The lady at the post office said the trucks don't go out for parcel deliveries until around noon. Of course they will have to sort it when it gets there too (not sure which algorithm they will use). If I can get my hands on one of them, it will give me something to do while I wait some more for the other one to arrive. I hope all this waiting is about to become a distant memory.
 
If it is the fittings being pushed down by the rad, try this:

1. Move the AC inlet to the alternate location
2. Reinstall the fan bracket on the higher screw holes

I completely missed the fact that the AC inlet could be moved over. Thanks!

That definitely would of saved me some trouble.

It amazing how flexible of design you came up with.
 
I guess so :D. All the holes line up properly and with a little adjustment before you tighten the screws the ports in the back line up dead center as well. The thread inserts seemed fine. I've installed and removed the reservoir a couple times now.

That is good to hear. Thanks again for the info. Can't wait to see some running with the reservoir.
 
Update after taking Necere advice.

Video card is still slanted but I can physically push it to a straight position now. Before this was not possible. The reason it still slanted is the tube going from radiator to video card I made slightly to long so it applies downward pressure on the video card.

I am going to leave it as is because draining the entire loop and refilling it would be way to much work and am pretty sure the video card going to be alright.

On the plus side I can remove and install the radiator easily now that I don't have to force it over the fittings.

For other people considering a similar build with careful planning and measuring am pretty sure you can do a full loop using a Asus impact, H220 while keeping a long video card straight.
 
I've been spending a few hours today putting my M1 together. Still playing with it, but I wanted to ask:

Is there a post or guide on what all the different screws are for? Some look to be for the fan filters, others I have no idea what they are. I'm sure someone has explained it in the 450+ pages but my searches have come up short.

Thanks!
 
I've been spending a few hours today putting my M1 together. Still playing with it, but I wanted to ask:

Is there a post or guide on what all the different screws are for? Some look to be for the fan filters, others I have no idea what they are. I'm sure someone has explained it in the 450+ pages but my searches have come up short.

Thanks!
Yeah, that's something I still need to do. Once my case arrives I'll take a picture and label them. In the meantime, there's this post from a couple weeks back. It's a little cluttered because it's Phuncz's pic with my labels edited in (in red), but it should still be useful.
 
Upon closer inspection I don't see any stress cracks in the acrylic and from an angle it looks beautiful. I do wish they spent a little more time cleaning the inside of the acrylic :p

IMAG0092.jpg

Reservoir lines up a couple mm above the bottom of the i/o shield
...

Damn that looks awesome. I wish I could convince myself to go watercooling, but I'm apparently looking at about 400$ just to get my GPU cooled. Nice piece of hardware that reservoir is.
 
Wish my reservoir would hurry up I'm still waiting on a few other parts but there all in the mail i hate waiting 2-3 weeks for parts from the US.
 
So the Noctua NH-C12P officially barely fits with the Asrock Z87e:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/princecupid214/Ncase M1/DSC_0777_zpsf7e05726.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/princecupid214/Ncase M1/DSC_0775_zps2e69e63c.jpg

I think the top panel touches the heatsink :eek:, but barely any pressure on it.
Could you tell me how far it is from the heatsink to the side panel? Do you think it could be plausible to fit a 25 mm thick fan and a 30 mm thick single 120 mm radiator there?

From the pic I'm estimating that there's only around 50 mm or less of space but it would be nice to know for sure with a proper measurement.

I'm curious as to whether it's possible to build a very low noise high performance gaming system by using an ATX psu and using the mobo space to cool both the cpu and gpu with a single fan in a heatsink+rad "sandwich".

A single 120 mm rad is plenty to cool a gpu and the Noctua NH-L12 heatsink leaves enough space for a rad+fan(+shroud/duct). I think it would be very interesting if the beefier NH-C12P could also be used like this.

Here are the measurements of the heatsinks:

iDUjbKH.jpg
1XSydTr.jpg


The NH-C12P at 91 mm tall is about as tall as the NH-L12 at 93 mm inluding the 25 mm fan (66 mm without the fan). Phuncz wrote that the distance from the NH-L12 heatsink to the side panel is just over 70 mm. The NH-C12P heatsink is 25 mm thicker which leaves 45 mm which isn't enough for a 25 mm fan + 30 mm rad. But he also wrote that there is about 55-60 mm left over the cpu which hopefully refers to the space between the NH-L12 (with fan) and the side panel. 55-60 mm would be enough for the heatsink+rad "sandwich".
 
Could you tell me how far it is from the heatsink to the side panel? Do you think it could be plausible to fit a 25 mm thick fan and a 30 mm thick single 120 mm radiator there?

From the pic I'm estimating that there's only around 50 mm or less of space but it would be nice to know for sure with a proper measurement.
Without the fan bracket, there's 135mm available for the CPU cooler. With the fan bracket, it's 130mm.
 
Wow

I am shocked to learn that Necere doesn't have a case yet.

I thought you'd be one of the first....with a cool dedicated serial number and all.
Same with res and adamantium ? Why no love for the designers
 
Wow

I am shocked to learn that Necere doesn't have a case yet.

I thought you'd be one of the first....with a cool dedicated serial number and all.
Same with res and adamantium ? Why no love for the designers

He must have a case or he wouldn't of been able to do the different cooling setup reviews :rolleyes:
 
He must have a case or he wouldn't of been able to do the different cooling setup reviews :rolleyes:

He had the prototype (or prototypes) for a period of time for testing before the 2nd IGG campaign began, but has no case of his own currently. The_Cheese now has the prototype for his generous contribution, and if there were others, they were probably sent back to Lian Li.

I agree that Necere & W360 should have received early VIP cases, mostly as a perk for their hard work, but also so Necere could have done earlier test fitting on the Demci filters, as well as for reference in answering others' questions (ie, screw identification).
 
He had the prototype (or prototypes) for a period of time for testing before the 2nd IGG campaign began, but has no case of his own currently. The_Cheese now has the prototype for his generous contribution, and if there were others, they were probably sent back to Lian Li.

I agree that Necere & W360 should have received early VIP cases, mostly as a perk for their hard work, but also so Necere could have done earlier test fitting on the Demci filters, as well as for reference in answering others' questions (ie, screw identification).
I still have the first prototype, actually, though it's not in an entirely usable state (had to transplant the cables to the 3rd sample, which went to The_Cheese). The second sample went to w360 for evaluation (that's the one that had subpar exterior panel edges due to NCT vs. laser cutting).

It's true I should have had one of the production cases air shipped to me so I could sort out the filter business and whatever else; I just didn't anticipate that I would need to at the time those arrangements were being made. The filter thing is really my fault for waffling on; they'd have had the order page up on their site 6 weeks ago if I hadn't emailed them to hold off on it because I thought I could come up with a better design. Now it's the holidays and the person that was arranging that won't be back until a week into January. Ah well.

As for serials, since they're being distributed more or less randomly to (nearly) everyone else, I don't really feel like I should be exempt from that. I know some people were kind of bummed they didn't get a low number because they backed early or were on the list or whatever else, but I understand why w360 elected not to try to do that. Coordinating between manufacturing and packing the cases with the correct serial, color, top cover, and then making sure the shipping company gets everything right and hoping everyone gets exactly the right thing, all through phone and emails from halfway around the world... I can't blame him. He's got his hands full as is with replacements for damage/defects, or the few people that got the wrong color.
 
It's true I should have had one of the production cases air shipped to me so I could sort out the filter business and whatever else...

I sure could have used an air shipped one for the reservoir. We could have had pictures, video, and the assurance that the thing fit properly before production. Lucky it sounds like that wasn't necessary. I would have paid for air shipping myself if it had been offered as an option, and I would have lobbied for delivery to Long Beach California if bulk delivery to New York had been discussed. But alas it wasn't to be. Some lessons to be learned.
 
Los Angeles, CA here. Still no case or update to the tracking number.

I got mine delivered on the 24th. It's sitting at the USPS facility though since I was out of town. I was shipping #26. You should be getting yours very very soon.
 
#0545 (Black with ODD) arrived safely in the SF Bay Area on the morning of the 27th. It's spectacular!

Is anyone out there willing to sell their 3.5" drive cage? Necere/wahaha360, do you have a spare you could sell me? I'm building this as a NAS box/HTPC.
 
Does anyone have a render/pic with the Frozenq res with cpu/gpu water cooling? Ideally with the Apogee Drive II ? I have a general idea of the fittings that will be needed but something to look at would be nice. I saw a render a while back with a full loop but I want to say it was with a prototype reservoir.
edit: I know I will need 90 degree fittings off the gpu. Not really sure what else is needed for the adII/res/rad. I've seen all the older renders, I was wondering if anyone made a more recent one.
Not that this will even matter unless frozenq gets back to me about my scratched res and the missing mounting inserts.
 
Last edited:
Got the FrozenQ Reservoir just now. Looks great.Thanks adamantium for helping put this together.
 
#575 arrived yesterday in MI. Was just able to pick it up today though. Didnt get a chance to open it but I'm sure it will be fine.

Asrock Z87 + H220 combo being assembled tomorrow!
 
Just opened my package last night. Been making sweet love to it ever since. So many finger prints all over it now!

Question: For those of you with ODD, what slot-loading blu-ray drive are you guys getting? It seems like this (link) is the the only blu-ray slot-loading drive available today on Newegg/Amazon. Can we even take the Panasonic UJ-265 out of the bracket? What would you guys recommend? Or is it better to disassemble an external blu-ray drive, etc, assuming that we absolutely want an ODD internally?
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I am on the east coast, in the US.

The USPS attempted a delivery a few days ago, but required a signature. They left this at the door (my address removed):

wR6a0bQ.jpg



The box was in pretty good shape:

2pnkZZw.jpg


I have #0136:

J0KzUjG.jpg


And a few size comparisons against other Lian Li cases (sorry for poor picture quality):

pa8JG8C.jpg


R9eRzkI.jpg


I'll detail my build later.

Thanks for a great case guys!!!!

-1o57
 
#282 arrived in Nowhere, Maine on the 24th. Would have told you guys earlier but we just got power back today.

This is my first high end case (fully aluminum, over 100 bucks) and I'm really surprised how sturdy things are. I thought I'd have to be more careful handling it, but everything that's not a fan vent has much less flex that I was anticipating.

I thought I'd be able to be really patient for everything, since I wasn't getting too antsy for the case to arrive. But now that I have it, I'm crossing out the days waiting for Kaveri to be available. I can't wait until I can start building. Already got the SSD, so now I've only got another 500 to spend before I can put everything together.

Big thanks to everyone involved in making this a timely reality. It's the second best Christmas present I got next to the electricity coming back on.
 
My #338 arrived in SoCal yesterday. Transplanted my Prodigy. I later realized that I was sent a black case when I ordered silver. Probably not worth the hassle of sending back.

Amazing, gorgeous enclosure. So glad the dream was finally realized.
 
can't help but feel a bit saddened to see new M1s popping up on ebay at a steep premium.
 
can't help but feel a bit saddened to see new M1s popping up on ebay at a steep premium.

How are they steep? The 4 I'm seeing are currently bid at $215.00, $235.00, $ 242.50, and $250.00. Given the fees it seems pretty reasonable to me.

Edit: Ok the one guys "buy it now" price of $700 is a bit ridiculous.
 
can't help but feel a bit saddened to see new M1s popping up on ebay at a steep premium.

I almost had to put mine up, but then unexpected bonus hit for the first year ever, and now my build is back on track!

I ordered a Heatkiller GPU-X³ for my 290X today as well as the tubing and stuff needed to expand the H220 I already have, and then I ordered my Asus Z77-I Deluxe and the Swiftech 450 watt PSU today. I should have everything complete for me to dedicate the 11th to getting this built.

I'm so excited this is moving forward!
 
Back
Top