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

AFD said:
All-in-one seems like a good choice if you're not comfortable going custom.
...
I've never tried water cooling, and have never done a SFF build before either.. but I'm positive that trying both for the 1st time would've been a recipe for disaster (at least custom water - I'm almost pretty sure I could manage a closed-loop without issue).
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A custom water cooling setup can be daunting, many things can go wrong because of small errors, like not cutting your hoses straight enough or having problems with the fittings not grabbing well enough. And when such things happen, you've got coolant all over your computer. It's best to try this outside of the case and on a larger case for the first (few) time(s).

A closed loop cooler doesn't have these problems as everything has been fitted and tested for you. So you just need to take care not to crimp or bend the hoses too far and you can't go wrong.

AFD said:
Wasn't crying, just talking (providing a response to others' posts in a friendly, non-combative fashion).
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I wasn't talking to any person directly, I was feeling a certain misunderstanding on the matter and I like to address anyone that needs to know. No hard feelings !

AFD said:
You seem like a smart guy/gal. Figure out a way to cheer up a little :)
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Thanks but I'm not mad or sad or anything. I'm just here to discuss and share knowledge. And since this year to enjoy the fruitful endeavours from very talented people like Necere.
 
Is one 240mm rad enough for a custom loop in a case like this? Is the performance gain with customs loops even factor in when there is only room for that? And you would have to run your fans at a pretty high Rpm. Or maybe i'm mistaken :p

That being said if i'm lucky enough to get one from left over stock or ebay
 
Phuncz said:
I wasn't talking to any person directly, I was feeling a certain misunderstanding on the matter and I like to address anyone that needs to know. No hard feelings !
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My bad. I thought you were calling me out personally and trying to start an argument, but I realize now you were just trying to be helpful, and clarify things for everyone.

Nerd hug :)
 
Air tree said:
Is one 240mm rad enough for a custom loop in a case like this? Is the performance gain with customs loops even factor in when there is only room for that? And you would have to run your fans at a pretty high Rpm.
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It all depends on a few aspects:
- Heat generated from CPU and/or GPU in Watt
- Radiator capacity sufficient for heat generated
- Fans suited for radiator used

If you are using a radiator with dense fins, you need a higher static pressure to get the air through efficiently. If you only need to cool a stock CPU and a less than high-end GPU (up to HD 78x0, GTX 660) than a "standard" 240mm radiator with Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans will probably suffice. If you are going to overclock and/or use a high-end GPU, you best watch for a radiator with a higher cooling "capacity" (more surface area, better heat dissipation) and probably higher RPM fans.

Necere had good results in the Ncase M1 with a Core i7 and a Radeon HD 7970 both cooled by a Swiftech H220, which is considered one of the best closed loop solutions.

AFD said:
My bad. I thought you were calling me out personally and trying to start an argument, but I realize now you were just trying to be helpful, and clarify things for everyone.

Nerd hug :)
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Thanks for being so understanding :)
 
I'm really conflicted right now, I have a chance that there could be left over stock from the 10% extra they ordered and i have a slight chance for one to come up on ebay, But with all that chance i would be postponing my build 4 months or so on a chance that i might get this case.. Sad Sad day.
 
commander_ said:
Did you make this render? If so, my goodness it's good. Where did you get the M1 model?
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Sir Necere made this render- and I agree it's great!

I know he mentioned using Sketchup for these images- I'm wondering if he's got it set up where there are models of each component that are getting dragged and dropped into the case- like he's entered the dimensions/constraints, and the various guts are all fitted (or not) based on the case model. If so, I'd love get my hands on such a software setup to play around with! Wondering where the models for the components come from- whether he drew say the AD2 and its tubing etc... or if its a downloaded model.. Either way, I love the drawings with all the components installed.
 
Air tree said:
I'm really conflicted right now, I have a chance that there could be left over stock from the 10% extra they ordered and i have a slight chance for one to come up on ebay, But with all that chance i would be postponing my build 4 months or so on a chance that i might get this case.. Sad Sad day.
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Whether its a leftover from Necere/Whahaa or an ebay sell the competition for a case will be heavy I'm thinking. This particular design case was a limited production run and probably won't be done ever again. Just my thoughts on the matter. Necere and Wahahaa could prove me wrong though. :D
 
I wonder how many of the cases are going to Australia.. I only know of 3 so far. Would be awesome to know how rare it ends up being over here.
 
Skott said:
Whether its a leftover from Necere/Whahaa or an ebay sell the competition for a case will be heavy I'm thinking. This particular design case was a limited production run and probably won't be done ever again. Just my thoughts on the matter. Necere and Wahahaa could prove me wrong though. :D
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Do you think i should risk postponing my rig (I don't have one right now) for 4 months with a chance that i won't get one. I'm considering it.
 
Why not just get a case like the Cooler Master Elite 130 (~50$) and get the Ncase M1 if the opportunity presents itself ? If it doesn't you can always wait for another good case to show up. Maybe another Ncase will be released ?
If you need a PC (not in the strictest sense ofcourse), why wait ? There is not much new hardware in tow for the next couple of months anyway.
 
Necere,

I would love to have cabling of the correct length ( less possible clutter ) when the M1 arrives. I'm going to buy the cables from moddiy.com and they accept custom orders.
So the idea is to order the cables in advance, so that I have them ready when the M1 arrives.

I will use the following hardware:

- SilverStone ST45SF-G Power supply
- Asus Maximus VI Impact + 4770K, bare core on water block.
- Slim sata ODD
- 3.5' Sata HDD on the front part of the bracket, between a fan and the power supply.
- Upcoming 8 series Nvidia card
- Sandisk A110 NGFF SSD for OS
- Kingstron 2400MHZ Beast 2x8GB memory sticks
- Modded Corsair H80i on the rear bracket. I will cut the tubes to the smallest length needed and will add a fill port on top of the radiator.

Here is a photo of the power connectors on the MVI impact:

http://www.vortez.net/articles_file/23274_maximus vi impact review - intro.jpg

The 8-pin connector seems to be in the same position of the Asus board you tested. The 24-pin is a bit up regarding your asus board.

So my question is, what is in your opinion the ideal length of the following cables ( excluding the length of the connectors ):

- 24 PIN EATX cable
- 8 Pin EATX cable
- PCIe cable ( considering the power connector in the graphics card is placed in the most common position, maybe add a little clearence just in case )
- power cable to the ODD drive
- Power cable to the 3.5HDD ( I prefer two separate power cables, one for the HDD and another one for the ODD )


This information will save me alot of time, and how knows, maybe other on this thread are also interested.

I also have another question related to the H80i. The height of the radiator with the two supplied fans is exactly 93mm. Will it fit? ( tubes will not be an issue as I am going to cut them ).

Thanks!
 
As far as I know Moddiy only do custom cables where all the wires are of equal length. For the M1 + Impact combination you'll want the wires between the lower numbered pins to be shorter (inside track), and the higher numbered pins to be longer (outside track). I've done custom cables for SG05 and FT03-mini and I had to make a formula that calculates the length of each wire individually. But if you do go with equal length wires, then you need to accept that the curve of the wires won't be so pretty. Check this picture of Necere's and imagine the MB connector higher, trace the two orange wires coming out of the left of the PSU and then compare with the length that will be needed for the outer wires.

GANd1DRm.jpg
 
single size individual cables are fine for me. I would even prefer it to come with a single sleeve to join all the internal wires.
What I don't want is to much cable filling a volume that is already short.
 
finas said:
So my question is, what is in your opinion the ideal length of the following cables ( excluding the length of the connectors ):
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I don't know. Maybe if I'd shortened the cables myself I could give you some recommendations. As Wisk said, it's a bit involved to figure out the optimal cable lengths, and it's going to vary somewhat between builds. I'm sure people will be posting their cable mods when the cases ship.

finas said:
I also have another question related to the H80i. The height of the radiator with the two supplied fans is exactly 93mm. Will it fit? ( tubes will not be an issue as I am going to cut them ).
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I recommend slim rads only in the guidelines, and that's for a reason. There's around 96mm between the motherboard I/O backplate (which is the standard limit on motherboard component height) and the side fan bracket. So the H80i w/fans probably technically fits, but I don't really know how you expect to route the tubing. Your RAM looks like it may be too tall as well.
 
If you still have the case assembled with hardware you could use a string to make a rough estimate of the cable lengths. that would be more than enough for me :)

Regarding the H80i, there will be no tubing to route as I will cut them to fit. But I completly forgot about the memory modules. I'll either use a fan with a smaller diameter, or low profile fan, or no second fan at all.
 
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I just measured the ram modules, and they are taller than the IO backplate by 17mm, so it will not work with the fans that are shipped with the H80i, and it will also not work by replacing one of the fans with a slim one. The pcb height of the memory module is small so what I'm going to do is to replace the kingstron heatspreader with a low profile one. This way I will be able to use the fans that come with the H80i.
 
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Air tree said:
Do you think i should risk postponing my rig (I don't have one right now) for 4 months with a chance that i won't get one. I'm considering it.
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If I were you I would contact Wahahaa and see what they have left over or any spares you can buy. If he says the chances are slim to none then I would buy something now. Whatever may come on ebay next January will be auctioned and not a straight buy out I'm thinking. That means it will go at a high price. More than its actually worth most likely. So unless you got some deep pockets you probably won't win the bid. There are some good mitx cases on the market that will do good enough for folks. I'd say look at those as alternatives.
 
NnmTNlk.jpg


^ Lemme in! :D

finas said:
I would love to have cabling of the correct length ( less possible clutter ) when the M1 arrives. I'm going to buy the cables from moddiy.com and they accept custom orders.
So the idea is to order the cables in advance, so that I have them ready when the M1 arrives.
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I'd really like to order custom Silverstone cables in advance as well, but it seems like a gamble to spend that much money without actually having the case in hand to figure out exact lengths. Really wouldn't mind cutting & sleeving myself, but I'd probably feel more comfortable if I had a spare set for reference or back-up.

I'll probably just end up installing the stock cables at first, then taking measurements for order (or DIY) at that point. Heck, I'm half-tempted to go older than old-school, and just de-sleeve the stock set (maybe cutting to suitable length), leaving the colored wires bare and zip-tied in sections.
 
AFD said:
NnmTNlk.jpg


Heck, I'm half-tempted to go older than old-school, and just de-sleeve the stock set (maybe cutting to suitable length), leaving the colored wires bare and zip-tied in sections.
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That's how I thought it was done! Had been my plan all along!

I want in too!!!
 
AFD said:
I'd really like to order custom Silverstone cables in advance as well, but it seems like a gamble to spend that much money without actually having the case in hand to figure out exact lengths. Really wouldn't mind cutting & sleeving myself, but I'd probably feel more comfortable if I had a spare set for reference or back-up.
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Make the initial investment of buying the correct crimping tool (MDPC-X or Lutro) then you can make your own PC cables for any modular PSU. Wire is cheap, pins are cheap and the connectors are cheap. No need to sleeve it, all black wires can look really nice if they are cut-to-fit.
 
WiSK said:
Make the initial investment of buying the correct crimping tool (MDPC-X or Lutro) then you can make your own PC cables for any modular PSU. Wire is cheap, pins are cheap and the connectors are cheap. No need to sleeve it, all black wires can look really nice if they are cut-to-fit.
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Do you ever use 16 AWG?
 
Never (18AWG is fine), but I always make sure to split the load so that no single wire is carrying more than 6 amps.
 
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WiSK said:
No need to sleeve it, all black wires can look really nice if they are cut-to-fit.
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I agree. All black, or even all yellow electrical wire looks pretty good unsleeved..

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WiSK said:
Never, but I always make sure to split the load so that no single wire is carrying more than 6 amps.
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So basically, if I use 18AWG wire and close to stock layout (identical pinouts of course), I should be fine? And it's safe to have wire length staggered (unequal positive & negative length) to achieve a nicer curve?


Ideally, I'd like to make a single SATA power cable w/4 connectors.. medium run from PSU to front SSD, short run to empty SSD beside it (future upgrade), then a medium run over to the HDD rack, and another short run over to last HDD beside it.

Sort of like this for my initial config of 2 drives (1x SSD, 1x HDD and will probably upgrade to 2x each eventually)..

[}------X--O------X--O
 
Is there any PSU (ATX) with modular cables that might fit the case? Been trying to look for one but not sure what measurement that needed to stay below 140mm?
 
AFD said:
So basically, if I use 18AWG wire and close to stock layout (identical pinouts of course), I should be fine? And it's safe to have wire length staggered (unequal positive & negative length) to achieve a nicer curve?O
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Absolutely safe to have different lengths yes. Well unless some cables are 20cm, and others are 3 meters, but unlikely in this case.

And you don't even need identical pinout to the stock cabling, as long as all same voltages are connected together. You'll see in stock cables of the ST45SF-G that they crossed some wires around, e.g. pin 1 connects to pin 2 and vice-versa. It's okay for Silverstone to cross them like this because they both carry the same voltage. You see in ATX pinout that both of those pins are orange (3.3V). The stock cables are actually a big mess of cross overs. I gave up quickly trying to figure out their logic.

Why do I say that? Because I suggest instead of trying to copy what Silverstone did, just connect pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2 and so on. You'll get a nice clean curve of wires and it works perfectly thanks to the simple pinout of the ST45SF-G. Warning: doesn't apply to a Seasonic or Corsair or something, they have proprietary pinout.
 
WiSK said:
Why do I say that? Because I suggest instead of trying to copy what Silverstone did, just connect pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2 and so on. You'll get a nice clean curve of wires and it works perfectly thanks to the simple pinout of the ST45SF-G. Warning: doesn't apply to a Seasonic or Corsair or something, they have proprietary pinout.
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Is this the answer to my prayer? Is there really another way to connect the wires of the ST45SF-G so that I can have a clean looking, single sleeved 24-pin?
I don't want to end up with the cable looking like a ball, so I have been looking for solutions to this problem.
Is it really that simple?
 
zyler said:
Is it really that simple?
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It can be. Depends entirely on the orientation of the PSU and the position of the ATX socket on the motherboard. With the M1, looking at how Necere had the PSU mounted, then it looks like you can achieve a nice curve.
 
WiSK said:
It can be. Depends entirely on the orientation of the PSU and the position of the ATX socket on the motherboard. With the M1, looking at how Necere had the PSU mounted, then it looks like you can achieve a nice curve.
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I think my main question was if it is physically possible with this particular PSU to restructure the wiring to eliminate most of the cross-overs, but that's nice to know too :D

Edit: techically, not physically
 
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Couldnt you just retain the OEM curve of the cable by shortening each cable individally wit the same amount of inches?
 
Which way are you guys planning to put that PSU? If the fan is facing towards side panel, it's partly blocked by that side panel. And if it's facing the other way, it's getting warm air from the radiator (if H2O). Although then it would help that air to clear out of case.

I'm planning to use 45mm radiator and that leaves me only 15mm between the radiator and the psu (using 25mm fans). So in my plan that PSU would help the radiator, but i'm just afraid that sound from the PSU fan then. Maybe that is just another thing that have to be tested in action when the case arrives. Planning to cut those wires too, so I have to decide how will I mount that PSU to get the lenght of those wires right.
 
FinBuilder said:
Which way are you guys planning to put that PSU? If the fan is facing towards side panel, it's partly blocked by that side panel. And if it's facing the other way, it's getting warm air from the radiator (if H2O). Although then it would help that air to clear out of case.
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Good question, assuming this will be the psu... I thought I'd place it vented out (partially blocked albeit), in an effort to get rid of heat in the case, but I'm no expert on such matters and would also welcome advice either way.
 
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