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

lemkeant said:
Nice but it wont be easy to disassemble incase you need to change a part or something. Still looks great
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Thanks! These small cases are never easy to assemble or disassemble ;). Never the less, I know what you mean and I thought in using some sort of valve system but I didn't.
 
OverRated said:
21c is will help your temps a lot instead of default settings you should only run the FPU test with the others un ticked.
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The default settings for AIDA64 has Stress CPU, Stress FPU, Stress cache, and Stress system memory already ticked. Is there a reason why I should only have Stress FPU ticked for stress testing? I didn't seem to have any issues with those four ticked.
 
lemkeant said:
I'm really thinking about just getting an Apogee Drive. How'd you mount your pump though? With the long barbs from the pump, it make tubing routing fairly tough
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HAHA funny you say that i had a Apogee Drive II to start with and i found it really hard to find a good tubing route in the end i gave up, The AD II its fittings just stuck out to far and it didn't sit very well on my impact, So i needed up buying the EK impact block then mapping out a tube route in under 5 minutes, The DDC pump i mounted facing the side panel just screwed it down to the bottom of the case with rubber feet, a few other people have used my idea as well.



Ace of Six said:
The default settings for AIDA64 has Stress CPU, Stress FPU, Stress cache, and Stress system memory already ticked. Is there a reason why I should only have Stress FPU ticked for stress testing? I didn't seem to have any issues with those four ticked.
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The FPU test puts the most load on your CPU so temps will be higher than what they would if your running them all.

In temps CPU vs FPU the FPU test will be around 20c hotter than AIDA64's CPU test.
 
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OverRated said:
HAHA funny you say that i had a Apogee Drive II to start with and i found it really hard to find a good tubing route in the end i gave up, The AD II its fittings just stuck out to far and it didn't sit very well on my impact, So i needed up buying the EK impact block then mapping out a tube route in under 5 minutes, The DDC pump i mounted facing the side panel just screwed it down to the bottom of the case with rubber feet, a few other people have used my idea as well.
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I think your solution looks good and also solves the priming issues that the AD2 has because the reservoir is not naturally above it.
 
WiSK said:
I think your solution looks good and also solves the priming issues that the AD2 has because the reservoir is not naturally above it.
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Yer no need to turn the case onto its front for filling also the pump has no chance to run dry.
 
OverRated said:
HAHA funny you say that i had a Apogee Drive II to start with and i found it really hard to find a good tubing route in the end i gave up, The AD II its fittings just stuck out to far and it didn't sit very well on my impact, So i needed up buying the EK impact block then mapping out a tube route in under 5 minutes, The DDC pump i mounted facing the side panel just screwed it down to the bottom of the case with rubber feet, a few other people have used my idea as well.
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Hmmmm...interesting. I'm assuming the fittings were more of an issue with the board itself? I'm running the AsRock and there's quite a bit of room there. I'm trying to keep things internal and not have to use the outer res. Not to mention the price since I've already dropped $$$ on the H220 itself.

I might just leave mine ghetto-fied like I have it if my replacement H220 pump doesnt do any good. Hoping my previous pump was just garbage and the drastic temp change isnt solely because of it
 
lemkeant said:
Hmmmm...interesting. I'm assuming the fittings were more of an issue with the board itself? I'm running the AsRock and there's quite a bit of room there. I'm trying to keep things internal and not have to use the outer res. Not to mention the price since I've already dropped $$$ on the H220 itself.

I might just leave mine ghetto-fied like I have it if my replacement H220 pump doesnt do any good. Hoping my previous pump was just garbage and the drastic temp change isnt solely because of it
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I have a thinker rad so the fittings almost touched it but i was trying to use the rad with the ports facing the back, I would just take the H220 pump out run a DDC pump and keep your rad with in built res, I don't buy swiftech they seems at the bottom end of watercooling.
 
Has anyone tried using two 120mm closed loop coolers in the M1 side bracket? To be more specific, i'm considering getting an NZXT Kraken G10 bracket and fitting a Corsair H55 or maybe H80i on it to cool my GPU, while having another H80i cooling the CPU. Is this even possible?

Before someone suggests a H220 instead - I had some very bad experiences with it.

Sorry if this has already been answered.
 
My Demciflex filters finally arrived today. Very nice looking fine mesh and shiny metal like frames. Installation was pretty straightforward and easy too. The psu filter didnt even require sticky pads - it stayed firmly without them.

I snatched a couple of pictures with my crappy phone. It isnt nearly as sleek looking system as many people have here with custom loops and sleeved cables. Heck, even my 240mm rads mounting screws arent matching pair lol. Where did you guys get yours?

http://imgur.com/a/NN5eV#jVIie01

Future plans:
-new 550w sfx psu
-short cable set
-120mm bottom fan (slim?)
-matching screws :rolleyes:

Edit:

It seems the mesh is so fine Im experiencing a few degree raise in temperatures... :( dustproofing is still probably worth it.
 
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I finally have my M1 in hand :D

When I placed the order I had it shipped to my folks' house because I didn't know where I would be living when it arrived... had relocated to another state.

I visited over X-Mas, hoping the box would arrive. I had to fly out on Dec 28th, box was delivered Dec 30.

My dad was going to ship it to me but kept forgetting (which was fine, given that I wasn't in a hurry).

Last weekend I flew back for a visit and noticed that my dad had lost the outer box... so I was glad he didn't ship it to me.

I just used it as carry-on luggage on the plane and now I have it safe and sound at home.

It's every bit as beautiful as the pictures :D
 
Phuncz said:
Since this week, the fan of the ST45SF-G has also reared it's ulgy, noisy head in my model. I've had it for 3-4 months now and I never noticed it. Now I can suddenly hear it. NoiseBlocker fan is already on it's way :D
But the coil whine is new, I haven't heard people complain about it on the ST45SF-G. Are you sure it's not the GPU ? Because it is most common with GPU's. It's a miracle you can actually use a GTX 690, because it is "close" to the limit of the PSU.
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I tried the noiseblocker fan and found it to be pretty loud. I ended up mounting a 25mm thick fan on the outside and flipping the power supply around. The first time I did this and got it back together the psu was making a vibrating noise. Had to take it all apart again and luckily it was gone. Pretty unimpressed with this expensive little power supply! My real cost for it is... let's see... $95 + $25 for reasonable cables + $30 for NB fan + $8 for a quiet fan = $158 not to mention countless hours messing with it. Just my $0.02 hopefully you will get a quieter NB fan than I did.
 
I got my demcifilters too. Black looks neat and slick, but I was curious to try something a little brighter. Real attention grabbing when the case is open. Not quite as good with the panels on?

I find these filters significantly finer than the stock filters that come with the case. They do restrict airflow a bit more, and give higher temps, but they definitely trap more dust, keeping the system cleaner. They just need to be cleared more regularly to keep temps in check.
















 
I haven't bought Demiflex's yet as my build isn't happening for 4-6 weeks. I really should get some soon though.

Okwchin, you've convinced me I need a funky colour on the plastic of the filters.
Maybe yellow for the asus mobo or green for the Nvidia GPU? Maybe red because I like red... Decisions decisions.
 
Red I can see working quite nicely in this case. The partially visible filters with changing viewing angle I can see working better with the red filters… Remembering that you really cannot see much colour from your mobo, or the GPU with the panels closed, only something that you appreciate with the panels off, and in your mind, much the same as having sleeved cables in this case.

I have yellow filters for obvious reasons :p, but kinda like the sleek look of black when the case panels are on. Have yellow on the case for now for the sake of yellow :). Doesn't cost a huge deal to try a few colours actually…
 
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IncubusBob said:
I tried the noiseblocker fan and found it to be pretty loud. I ended up mounting a 25mm thick fan on the outside and flipping the power supply around. The first time I did this and got it back together the psu was making a vibrating noise. Had to take it all apart again and luckily it was gone. Pretty unimpressed with this expensive little power supply! My real cost for it is... let's see... $95 + $25 for reasonable cables + $30 for NB fan + $8 for a quiet fan = $158 not to mention countless hours messing with it. Just my $0.02 hopefully you will get a quieter NB fan than I did.
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I can't hear my NB-fan at all, maybe if I put my ear right up to the fan grill, close all doors and kill all the birds yapping about.

I hate to see you blame the PSU since most of us running it at high load, expecting it to be flawless despite it's miniature size. Are you sure there isn't a cable catching the NB fan ?
 
okwchin said:
I got my demcifilters too. Black looks neat and slick, but I was curious to try something a little brighter. Real attention grabbing when the case is open. Not quite as good with the panels on?

I find these filters significantly finer than the stock filters that come with the case. They do restrict airflow a bit more, and give higher temps, but they definitely trap more dust, keeping the system cleaner. They just need to be cleared more regularly to keep temps in check.


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Great...now I have to go orders these to color match my build.:rolleyes: Looks awesome!!:D
 
Phuncz said:
I can't hear my NB-fan at all, maybe if I put my ear right up to the fan grill, close all doors and kill all the birds yapping about.

I hate to see you blame the PSU since most of us running it at high load, expecting it to be flawless despite it's miniature size. Are you sure there isn't a cable catching the NB fan ?
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It's likely that I was unlucky and received a loud NB fan. I have heard from others that have had the same problem. Yet most don't seem to get loud ones. I am sure it wasn't hitting a wire as I ran it separately and it makes the same noise.
 
I think the bigger variable is the amount of ambient noise people have. I bring my computer to many places. At home I can hear all of the fans on idle. At various workplaces, most of which would fit the definition of a relatively quiet office, I can't even hear the computer at idle, even with my ear on the case, and I will quite happily accept how little noise it makes while mining with both CPU and GPU. If I lived in the city then I'm sure noise would not be as big an issue as it would be for a quiet suburb.

I personally find the psu fan and NB fan quite loud. But I see that in an normal office type environment, or a room with ducted air conditioning combined with a degree of increased noise tolerance, the NB can be of an acceptable loudness.
 
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Yeah I've been wondering about this too. While I don't live in busy city, we have lots of trees and birds close by and I also have multiple computers in the same room as my home computer. So the background noise makes it your ears less sensitive. Because your ears adjust to the most silent part of your environment, you get different toleances to noise.

Something which I noticed to the extreme yesterday when at a new, unoccupied building. It was so quiet, I felt deafened by my ears' tinnitus, that high-pitched tone you hear in silence when you've been in loud environments too much.

I find it very odd people call random quiet hardware "noisy" or "loud", maybe the solution is to introduce more background noise somehow. I did, my NAS is not far from my main PC and it drowns almost all noise that comes from my PC.
 
Also depends on how long you sit in a quiet room. Sitting in one for an extended period also seems to bring your ears back to a higher sensitivity. I find myself able to turn the volume down on my music right down over the period of an hour, and still hear most of it ok. There are slight spectral losses as you drop the volume, but its interesting to observe how perception is so easily affected, and very much contextual
 
After looking at other peoples builds with this case I want one so badly. I so wish there would be a 2nd run of these cases.
 
Diverge said:
Wait until they release the new silverstone SFX PSU, assuming it fits without motherboard issue. Then go dual gpus, all watercooled. Then you have the most sexy & powerful SFF system in the world :p
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what i had in mind was a GTX 670 short board model, a black gold twin sat/tv tuner, onboard mPCIe wifi+bluetooth module and a massive mSATA drive in the other mPCIe.mSATA skt, possibly drop the PSU to the floor of the case, at the front, possible because of the short GPU, mount the pump above it, use the external rad that's available, and water cool the lot on a slim 240 RAD, if it'll still fit with the relocated PSU. as for additional storage, i'd have to re-evaluate space as and when i came to it, perhaps a second mSATA card, connected to a regular SATA skt via a mSATA to SATA III 6Gb/p Adapter or perhaps something like this slotted into that 3rd expansion slot ;) http://www.microsatacables.com/sata-iii-dual-port-to-msata-x-2-with-pci-e-bracket/
 
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I want to water cool my system, I'd rather go custom loop for the looks and future use of the parts over an all in one. I am aware of the specific reservoir for this case but I don't like that it is mounted outside of the case, so I am looking for a solution.

I could get a small reservoir like the swiftech micro res, or go without a reservoir at all, but that would be a pain to bleed.

I found that some radiators have built-in reservoirs which is just a little tank on one end of the radiator which hold coolant. I don't know if it will fit in the case with a sfx power supply and most likely a swiftech apogee water block / pump.

If anyone knows of the answer if it will work or that it won't because the reservoir is suppose to lead straight down into the pump so it doesn't run dry I'd appreciate a reply :D
 
Loving these builds and kicking myself for not buying one when the first round of orders opened. Hopefully there will be another batch soon.
 
darxider said:
sound advice. i got full of myself (thinking "i had done it before many times; it's going to be okay"), so i went ahead with full assembly...and nada!

thanks for the link. will try that. i hope nothing is DOA and that i've made a mistake somewhere. we'll see...

will check the ATX cable(s), sure. thanks for mentioning that. i tried my best to figure out which side attaches to which component (PSU/MB), but maybe i've made a mistake somewhere. i will also have to try testing the power switch on the M1 to make sure it is not the source of the problem.
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it's alive! :)

i took it apart completely and reassembled it back, going step by step, making sure that the bare minimum is working. it's kind of a long story, and i think i had made a mistake last weekend when i put the SFX bracket back when i was building it first, and it (maybe) caused a short or something (i'm not sure about this, but it's possible). even the bare minimum would not turn on; my last resort was to press the Clear CMOS button, and then tried shorting the power-button pins on the motherboard, and felt the air stream from the PSU fan on my hand! anyhow, turned out one of the RAM modules was faulty. i then took my time and put everything back in as best as i could; i'm pretty happy with the results of my cable management. it's very late now, so i'll post pictures tomorrow.

thanks again for helping me.
 
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parts:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/32xEx

pictures:


question: what are good softwares to stress-test the CPU, memory, and GPU? i'd prefer if they're free. i'm running at stock clocks now, to make sure everything is working as it should.
 
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long time lurker, have my m1 case in hand as well. havent bothered to update that log thing with the numbers of your case (actually dont even know my number). just been following peoples builds. but i thought i would mention there is a deal on amazon for noctua nf-f12 fans. not sure if its a great deal but 19.99 on amazon for the noctua nf-f12 fans. goes for 32.99 on newegg.

http://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NF-F12-PWM-Cooling-Fan/dp/B00632FL8A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393184771&sr=8-1&keywords=noctua+nf-f12

hope this helps someone out. have fun and happy building.
 
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darxider said:
question: what are good softwares to stress-test the CPU, memory, and GPU? i'd prefer if they're free. i'm running at stock clocks now, to make sure everything is working as it should.
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Prime95 and IntelBurnTest are both free and seem to be the de facto standard. I used a trial of AiDA64, since Prime95 isn't recommended for Haswell CPUs. Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility also does some stress testing, but it didn't seem as intense for some reason.

Nice build btw!
 
What are people getting for M1s on the market? I think I have to let mine go and I'm not finding a lot of data?
 
jojo69 said:
What are people getting for M1s on the market? I think I have to let mine go and I'm not finding a lot of data?
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There hasn't been any on ebay for a while (so market value is probably higher now), but someone posted this earlier..

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=ncase+itx&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc

I'm sure you'll have a dozen PMs about it by tomorrow. If not, there's a guy that's been desperately bumping a thread here at [H] looking for one..

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1806799
 
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