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

EightCounts said:
Mine was delivered on Monday and the shipping status didn't update until it was in my hometown. I wouldn't worry. Very nice case BTW.
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This was the case for me as well.

In other news, I'm not sure what my issue was with my 4790k, but updating the BIOS, cranking the fan profile, and turning off my XMP profile brought it down to where it should be (35C idle, 80C load) with the stock heatsink. I have to imagine it was some sort of BIOS issue, because my "turbo" fan profile from before can't have been that much worse than the "max" aka 100% all the time profile I'm using now. Thankfully my NH-C14 arrives today so I'll be able to turn it back down.

Conclusion: Anyone with an ASUS Z97I-Plus and a 4790k, make sure you update your BIOS. Mine shipped with 0408, now it has 2105.
Hanakuso said:
Maybe too early but anyone know the GTX 970 temps in the M1? MSI, PNY, Evga all have blower style coolers. Manli apparently has the Titan cooler but it's not sold in the US
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I don't have a 970, and the 970s seem to all use a non-reference blower cooler, but I'll tell you my experience to help you get an idea. My reference EVGA 980 gets to around 80C, which is the default "temp target" setting, and maxes out around 60% fan speed, which is reasonably loud but not any louder than the box fan I often run in my room. It's not really noticeable with closed back gaming headphones on and bullets whizzing around you. Idle noise is low, about 30% fan speed. Those are all still the default settings, obviously you can tweak temp and power targets along with fan curves to prioritize different things. I don't have any fans on the bottom of the case right now.
 
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Anyone fitted a reference design GTX980?

I noticed there seems to be a gap in the side panel on most GTX970´s that would let air escape into the chassi again instead of going out the back.

Before cashing out a load of extra bucks for a GTX980 i just wanted to make sure this is not the case with the 980?

*EVGA Superclocked GTX970 seems to have closed casing so that could be an option.
 
WiSK said:
There is a bit of an opening, but it's fine. Not a hot card anyway :)
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Thanks, do you reckon the fan of the ST45SF-G would become loud at that load (estimated to 55-60% with 4770K and GTX980?)?

ST45SF-G:
ST45SF-G-Fan-speed-curve-comparison-with-V1-&-V2.jpg


The fan of the SX600-G seems to run at lower rpm's.

SX600-G:
sx600-g-06.jpg
 
I'm just curious has anyone managed to get both 140mm fans working on the c14? I know necere said it wouldn't work because of the sfx but has anyone else managed to do it maybe with a different orientation or something? I sifted through the thread and couldn't find anything about it.
 
88records said:
I'm just curious has anyone managed to get both 140mm fans working on the c14? I know necere said it wouldn't work because of the sfx but has anyone else managed to do it maybe with a different orientation or something? I sifted through the thread and couldn't find anything about it.
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It shouldn't really matter, as long as you have the fan on top. Temperatures for one top fan versus top and bottom are effectively the same. See http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/noctua-nh-c14_5.html
 
I have finally got my Silverstone 600w PSU so my M1 is finished and I am happy with it.

My setup:

2 x Noctua 120mm fans on the bottom blowin in
1 x Noctua 120mm fan on the side blowing at the Noctua L12
1 x Noctua 92mm fan blowing out at the back
1 x Silverstone PSU SFX mounted with the fan pointing out from the case
1 x Radeon GFX board, has a fan but can not be heard when not gaming.

Everything runs with low noice adapters and PSU is very silent.

Currently the Noctua L12 has no fans attached to it, I am thinking of adding a 92 and a 120 mm fan to it again, maybe it is overkill? I have no 3.5" drives at the moment so thinking of adding another 120 fan on the side too.
 
Hopefully some more come around...I missed out on this by a day since I was out of town when the sale went on :(
 
88records said:
That's actually pretty fascinating, I expected a much larger difference. Damn if I knew I had no height restriction I would have gone for dominators.
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I suspect it's due to the fact the fins are so short in the direction of airflow. Very little resistance, it's not like a super deep or dual tower cooler where the flow restriction is greater. Although I'm actually not sure those super big tower coolers really benefit that much from a second fan either.

My justification to myself for the VLP RAM even with clearance is that I'll have more space for tube and cable routing if I ever water cool in the future ;) Plus it was the cheapest kit at the time I got it.
 
cv643d said:
2 x Noctua 120mm fans on the bottom blowin in
1 x Noctua 120mm fan on the side blowing at the Noctua L12
1 x Noctua 92mm fan blowing out at the back
1 x Silverstone PSU SFX mounted with the fan pointing out from the case
1 x Radeon GFX board, has a fan but can not be heard when not gaming.

Currently the Noctua L12 has no fans attached to it, I am thinking of adding a 92 and a 120 mm fan to it again, maybe it is overkill? I have no 3.5" drives at the moment so thinking of adding another 120 fan on the side too.
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Wait a minute. You're gonna have one 120mm fan blowing immediately into another 120mm fan, through the L12 and into a 92mm fan?

And then you're adding another 120mm fan so it will blow against the empty side of your PSU? You do know there's enough room to stack at least two 120mm fans in that spot, right?? :D


Wow. And Phuncz thought I went overboard with my fan setup! :eek:
 
No hard feelings AFD, if you benefit from your setup, who am I to say you are wrong ? Sometimes people take it very seriously what I say, even though it's an opinion. I tend to give a more general advice to people reading and it's mostly focused on omitting what isn't strictly necessary.
My opinion is that at a point, you are getting diminishing returns with the number of fans (in this case). This isn't always true with all builds, but I still believe you don't need more fans than the ones supplied with the components, in the Ncase M1.

Maybe Necere should have designed a case with support for more fans:

_huge_fan_cooled_case_mod_3.jpg

But with side-panels :p
 
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Phuncz said:
No hard feelings AFD..
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Never! :)

I do agree that my ancillary fans aren't really necessary, but after recently adding the low-noise adapters, I'm very happy with them and the circulation they provide (and yes, I know the LNAs add even more wire and points of failure :p). I'm not 100% sure yet, but those 3 extra fans might actually prove to be more useful once I plug up the top panel with my new IreK Demci filter.
 
We want positive pressure in the M1 and to do this all fans have to be sucking air into the case, right? I plan on using five fans:

- Two - push/pull on my H75 radiator (side panel)
- One on the fan mount next to the radiator (side panel)
- Two on the bottom of the case

All five fans will be on low noise adapters.
 
Synomenon said:
We want positive pressure in the M1 and to do this all fans have to be sucking air into the case, right? I plan on using five fans:

- Two - push/pull on my H75 radiator (side panel)
- One on the fan mount next to the radiator (side panel)
- Two on the bottom of the case

All five fans will be on low noise adapters.
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You just need more fans pushing in than pushing out.
If I were you, I'd use the fan mount next to the radiator as exhaust and the others as intake.
 
I haven't taken the PSU fan into account yet. Should the PSU fan be facing out so the PSU gets fresh air or should it face in so the coil whine is less audible...

Which orientation do I want (to keep positive pressure in the case)?
 
Synomenon said:
I haven't taken the PSU fan into account yet. Should the PSU fan be facing out so the PSU gets fresh air or should it face in so the coil whine is less audible...

Which orientation do I want (to keep positive pressure in the case)?
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Either way is acceptable. PSU intake fan facing inward would act as another exhaust (slightly reducing positive pressure). PSU intake fan facing outward really shouldn't have much, if any effect on case pressure.

If you're talking about coil whine from the SX600.. whenever I happen to hear it on mine, it emanates from the top of the PSU (so orientation wouldn't make any difference). The quiet chatter of the PSU fan isn't audible from the top, but from the intake facing outward.. this should be less noticeable facing inward (though I'm not sure if anyone's actually done a comparison).

DEMCiflex has a good article about positive pressure..

http://www.demcifilter.com/cu1/Optimizing-Performance.aspx
 
Urelure said:
Mine is actually properly updated:
XrMjvYp.png


It's going to Norway though, so with tarnsit and especially customs i wouldn't be surprised if it is still a couple of weeks away.
Haven't ordered the components anyway, so its not a big deal.

I wouldn't worry about the lack of info.
Either way its one of those things you can't do anything about, so might as well just lean back and let it play out:cool:
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Had the same same status as yours on September 23rd. Mine is already in Poland, so yours should be in Norway or at least Europe as well :)
 
AFD said:
Never! :)

I do agree that my ancillary fans aren't really necessary, but after recently adding the low-noise adapters, I'm very happy with them and the circulation they provide (and yes, I know the LNAs add even more wire and points of failure :p). I'm not 100% sure yet, but those 3 extra fans might actually prove to be more useful once I plug up the top panel with my new IreK Demci filter.
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I will be keeping my old twin frozr 580 for a while, so i plan to populate all 4 120mm fan spots on the case (or the one directly over CPU will depend on cooling setup). I plan on running them on low speed through the asus software.

My logic is this:
I am sure the two bottom fans aren't needed for supplying air to the GPU. Its rather the fact that they are big enough to help push air past the GPU pcb, which should help forcing hot air that might get trapped further up.
Edit: AND, I would think if you do put fans on the side bracket and not on the bottom, air pressure will be higher in the top half of the case working against the hot air rising, so you might end up with the GPU actually getting air from up top. and not having a clear path out. So either no fans or at least fans in the bottom. I might be over-complicating this A LOT, but i am used to the standard bottom front to top back diagonal airflow in most atx cases so this is kind of new. I do want to go LC, but not untill i get a new GPU.

Also for the spot over the PSU i plan to have the PSU fan facing inward, and my hopes are that airflow from the 120 fan could delay the more noisy PSU fan from kicking in. restricted intake, and stationary PSU fan might make this effect neglectable though. Especially since it seems the semi fanless profile is not ideal on the SFX 600 in the first place.

I dont plan on exaust fans. As long as the air is forced up, I am sure it will find it's way out anyway.
 
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I have a quick question on the international shipping of the ncase. Are all cases shipped to the U.S. first, and then sent to their final locations from there (As i have seen, you did some quality control on all of them) ?
Because everyone here seems to be using USPS tracking, but my tracking number is only valid for DHL. And it still says "Shipping from Taiwan to target country (Germany) .
 
Urelure said:
My logic is this:
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Urelure, logic can only bring you so far :)

I noticed over the years on enthusiast forums many times people writing "this is best way to put fans because X airflow, Y pressure, Z hot air rising". Then they build their rig and assume they did it the best way.

But rarely see people test their system to actually find optimum solution.

Start with no case fans, stock CPU and GPU fans, PSU fan inward. Check component temperatures. Now add fans one at a time, checking each time for differences in behaviour.
 
WiSK said:
Urelure, logic can only bring you so far :)

I noticed over the years on enthusiast forums many times people writing "this is best way to put fans because X airflow, Y pressure, Z hot air rising". Then they build their rig and assume they did it the best way.

But rarely see people test their system to actually find optimum solution.

Start with no case fans, stock CPU and GPU fans, PSU fan inward. Check component temperatures. Now add fans one at a time, checking each time for differences in behaviour.
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Unfortunately not everyone has the time to test everything in so thorough way.

Personally i have some sort of "vision" and if it works good enough, thats propably the way how its going stay unless i have some real need to switch stuff around inside the computer. Never mind what i want to do, i just dont have the time unfortunately.
 
WiSK said:
Urelure, logic can only bring you so far :)

I noticed over the years on enthusiast forums many times people writing "this is best way to put fans because X airflow, Y pressure, Z hot air rising". Then they build their rig and assume they did it the best way.

But rarely see people test their system to actually find optimum solution.

Start with no case fans, stock CPU and GPU fans, PSU fan inward. Check component temperatures. Now add fans one at a time, checking each time for differences in behaviour.
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Seems like solid advise:)
I have enough fans to at least test out the temps first and see what works best so its not like there are any investments involved.

iippo said:
Unfortunately not everyone has the time to test everything in so thorough way.

Personally i have some sort of "vision" and if it works good enough, thats propably the way how its going stay unless i have some real need to switch stuff around inside the computer. Never mind what i want to do, i just dont have the time unfortunately.
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Well, having the time is highly relative. Hanging around here trying to decide what to do, and fiddling around with a build in progress is half the fun. AND, i expect the rig to be extremely noisy if the airflow isn't optimal due to my, for the time being, open air GPU cooler. The poor old 580 needs to work hard on modern games.
 
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Zurec said:
I have a quick question on the international shipping of the ncase. Are all cases shipped to the U.S. first, and then sent to their final locations from there (As i have seen, you did some quality control on all of them) ?
Because everyone here seems to be using USPS tracking, but my tracking number is only valid for DHL. And it still says "Shipping from Taiwan to target country (Germany) .
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Those that pre-ordered before Aug had the option of getting shipment from Taiwan. Those that pre-ordered after August was shipped from USA.

Yes, my and some help checked every case that arrive in USA, we then ship it form NJ, USA to everyone.
 
You guys are way too worried about positive pressure. Just blow the case out once a week/month and it'll be fine.

I'm actually running without any case fans at the moment. Just the 140mm on my NH-C14 which is effectively a case fan as it's so close to the side panel. Plus the blower on my 980, which is probably getting most of its air from the bottom vents. PSU fan facing out to give it that nice cool air. I can hear the clicking noise if I'm right next to it, but it seems to be inaudible once you get about a foot away.
 
Bobalias_LeShay said:
You guys are way too worried about positive pressure. Just blow the case out once a week/month and it'll be fine.

I'm actually running without any case fans at the moment. Just the 140mm on my NH-C14 which is effectively a case fan as it's so close to the side panel. Plus the blower on my 980, which is probably getting most of its air from the bottom vents. PSU fan facing out to give it that nice cool air. I can hear the clicking noise if I'm right next to it, but it seems to be inaudible once you get about a foot away.
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It's less about positive pressure and more about sufficient airflow. And I wouldn't say I am worried. Just thinking out loud.

That being said my current rig is the first I've built where I made sure to have positive pressure and it really makes a big difference in regards to dust, so i hope an intake fan or two makes sense in regard to the temps. Wouldn't sacrifice too much noise for it though. I would rather clean out my heatsinks every couple of months, than to listen to unnecessary fan noise every day.
 
I received my M1 on 9/20 so that was pretty fast shipping.

My impressions are that it has that awesome Lian-Li build quality and I just love the silver color. It really pops compared to my old previous Lian-Li black cases. It's a little smaller than my Compact Splash and much lighter owing to it's aluminum construction versus the steel of the Splash.

Sadly, I'm going to leave it in storage for a couple of years since I already have the Splash and I can't justify having 2 higher end PC's with 2 little girls running around taking up all of my time. Thanks Necere & wahaha360 for such a quality case design.
 
CHANG3D said:
same here :(

need a case for saturday if not tomorrow... I don't want to strip out my current M1 v1
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It's no problem for me atm. My build is sitting on a cardboard box on my desk, waiting for arrival of the case. It's been like that for the past couple of weeks, I'm sure a few more days won't hurt it!
 
It would seem my case arrived to Finland this morning...now its only going to take a week or so for the customs to process it -__-

well, maybe not, but just sad i wont be getting it for the weekend no matter what. Customs should have contacted me via email/phone, but apparently they want to do things the snail-mail-way.
 
Mine went in the Monday shipment, and has just been scanned in at the New Jersey USPS facility. I guess USPS is taking their sweet time.
 
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