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

While the board itself fits in the case, it's 244mm deep, and even with the PSU mounted flush to the front, there's only 241mm available. So there's going to be 3mm of overlap. The PSU is offset to the left a bit so it'll clear the board's PCB, but the 24 pin ATX connector is right on the edge and will very likely be a problem.

Ah dream ruined. So you're saying with the stock V6 front mount it won't fit at all, you have to double-sided tape the PSU to the front (and toward the left panel) and then it'll barely fit, but the 24-pin probably won't fit?

Turns out the board is nearly a year old, yet this is the first time I'm hearing of it, from OptimumTech's video.
 
Ah dream ruined. So you're saying with the stock V6 front mount it won't fit at all, you have to double-sided tape the PSU to the front (and toward the left panel) and then it'll barely fit, but the 24-pin probably won't fit?
Even if you did that I'm not sure it would clear. I think the only possibility is to rig up some way of mounting the PSU to the fan bracket, so it's oriented lengthwise - like the standard mounting, but on the other side.
 
Even if you did that I'm not sure it would clear. I think the only possibility is to rig up some way of mounting the PSU to the fan bracket, so it's oriented lengthwise - like the standard mounting, but on the other side.

Someone did it:




They screwed the PSU in one place from the front somehow and then wedged it between the 24-pin and the front panel at a slight angle with double sided tape. Not exactly an ideal solution, and it still interfered with the board a little and bent that start button.

I think what you're suggesting makes the most sense, you could use a 92-to-120mm adapter (or an SFX-L PSU) and mount it to the fan bracket. Or double-sided tape it to the front panel by the narrow side, would be less secure, but 3M tape is super strong. Of course then your cooling options are limited.

It's fun to think about, but no real practical reason to do it, unless you need another PCIe card. Now, if they made an X299 or TR4 board like that...
 
Last edited:
Someone did it:




They screwed the PSU in one place from the front somehow and then wedged it between the 24-pin and the front panel at a slight angle with double sided tape. Not exactly an ideal solution, and it still interfered with the board a little and bent that start button.

I think what you're suggesting makes the most sense, you could use a 92-to-120mm adapter (or an SFX-L PSU) and mount it to the fan bracket. Or double-sided tape it to the front panel by the narrow side, would be less secure. But 3M tape is super strong, then you could have a window.

It's fun to think about, but no real practical reason to do it, unless you need another PCIe card. Now, if they made an X299 or TR4 board like that...

Ah yeah, I even commented on the reddit post, didn't I. He does mention the PSU is wedged between the ATX connector and the case, and includes a pic. The front PSU mount in V6 makes this about as possible as it can get, but clearly still far from ideal.
 
I'm a V2 owner here, would like to know which month will the usb-c front i/o upgrade kit be advertised on sfflab ? Would be great if theres a "notify me" / mailing list to keep us updated. Thanks.
 
Ah yeah, I even commented on the reddit post, didn't I. He does mention the PSU is wedged between the ATX connector and the case, and includes a pic. The front PSU mount in V6 makes this about as possible as it can get, but clearly still far from ideal.

Curious, how much space is there left with the V6 front mount between the PSU and the front wall? Do they almost touch? And is the PSU centered or slightly toward the left-side panel?
 
Hi All

My NCASE M1 v6 has been up ard running for about two weeks. Spec and thoughts below:

Motherboard Rog Strix B450-I Gaming. Had the Bios updated by supplier (Scan UK 10 pounds)

CPU Ryzen 5 3600

Air Cooler Noctua NH-D9L with included 95mm Fan

PSU Corsair SF600 Gold 600W

Intel SSD6 SSDPEKNW020T8 2048.4 GB M.2 Drive, and my only drive. Boot 18-19 sec. Games, lol just fantastic!

Memory Corsair Ryzen DDR4 2x8GB 3200MHz Had to pull one on 1st Boot to get to Bios.

GPU MSI AMD RADEON RX 5700 This is the reference card build.

Original Mouse Deathadder Expert
Original Keyboard Phantom RGB
Original Monitor Dell U2515H 2560x1440

Window 10 Pro

Added after 1st week:

Noctua NF-S12A PWM as intake sided mounted. Case Fan header.

Noctua NF A9 PWM Exhaust inside attached to rear vents. The original NF-A9 + Second run off the supplied fan spliter (Included with the added second fan)

Your probably wondering why the two additional fans... well Ryzen 5 seems to run hotter than intel at idle, case at the top rear was also getting a little warm.
So bought this : Phobya temperature sensor, it was very cheap Amazon.

The Temp Sensor has been inserted inside my cooler, just for interest 28c @ idle, 34c under load Grim Dawn Max settings.
CPU @ idle anything from 40-50c Max I have seen under load 64c

Ryzen 5 Apparently, the more you cool the more power it will draw, higher temps. Ryzen continues to do this till it reaches its sweet spot 62c
It will do this becase it's constantly Boosting! In my case from 3.6Ghz- 4.2GHz So yes, I've seen all my cores hit 4.2 at once with 2-3 cores all the time, just watch the temps.

Sorrry about that, the case NCASE M1 v6

Well, I've been looking at the NCASE N1 for years couldn't quite justify the price to myself, but having come from a PARVUM case i thought it was time.

The build quality is like that of a watch simply superb with fantastic attention to detail, the best I've ever seen. The additional screws, bracket, filters, optional front panel (used in my case)
Fan grills, alternate power supply bracket, and rubber gromets is all you could wish for.

I'm now the proud owner of the BEST Small Form Factor Case you can buy at a reasonable price, not aware of anything better currently available.
 
Last edited:
I'm a V2 owner here, would like to know which month will the usb-c front i/o upgrade kit be advertised on sfflab ? Would be great if theres a "notify me" / mailing list to keep us updated. Thanks.
I don't know yet. I'll suggest that to w360.

Curious, how much space is there left with the V6 front mount between the PSU and the front wall? Do they almost touch? And is the PSU centered or slightly toward the left-side panel?
It does touch; the way the bracket works is to hold the PSU against the wall of the case for stability. The PSU is offset to the left by a few mm.
 
Got my new x570 build up and running over the weekend.

The chipset fan (X570 I Aurus Pro WiFi) sounds like death. I set the PCH fan curve to silent, but it's still audible from 20 feet away. It's a high pitched whine that even has a death rattle at times. It's constantly switching between different speeds, which makes it even more annoying. It doesn't turn on at idle, but starts up under any sort of load.

The cooling around the PCH should be fairly good. I have a Noctua C14 on the CPU with two 140mm fans as intake, as well as a 92mm rear exhaust fan, and a NF-A12x25 PWM next to the C14 as an extra intake, plus two more under the GPU as exhaust.

I've ordered a NF-A4x20 PWM and a 4-pin VGA adapter (the PWM connector Gigabyte uses for the chipset fan header) to attempt to replace the stock fan. There's no way I could tolerate it.
 
Got my new x570 build up and running over the weekend.

The chipset fan (X570 I Aurus Pro WiFi) sounds like death. I set the PCH fan curve to silent, but it's still audible from 20 feet away. It's a high pitched whine that even has a death rattle at times. It's constantly switching between different speeds, which makes it even more annoying. It doesn't turn on at idle, but starts up under any sort of load.

The cooling around the PCH should be fairly good. I have a Noctua C14 on the CPU with two 140mm fans as intake, as well as a 92mm rear exhaust fan, and a NF-A12x25 PWM next to the C14 as an extra intake, plus two more under the GPU as exhaust.

I've ordered a NF-A4x20 PWM and a 4-pin VGA adapter (the PWM connector Gigabyte uses for the chipset fan header) to attempt to replace the stock fan. There's no way I could tolerate it.

This is the first report I've read about such a noisy X570 chipset fan. I had seemed like the motherboard companies were choosing good quality fans. Let us know how the 40 mm Noctua does in both noise and cooling.
 
This is the first report I've read about such a noisy X570 chipset fan. I had seemed like the motherboard companies were choosing good quality fans. Let us know how the 40 mm Noctua does in both noise and cooling.

It's a little bit frustrating as I went with the Gigabyte over the ASRock board specifically because reviews found the Gigabyte board to have a quieter fan. Maybe I just got a bad one, but there do seem to be some other users out there suffering from the same problem.

Some good info here about the replacement process:

https://www.overclock.net/forum/246...yte-x570-i-aorus-pro-chipset-fan-upgrade.html

Noctua offers 40mm fans in both 10mm and 20mm thick models. I'm trying the 20mm model as it's quieter and there appears to be enough room to find a way to mount it.
 
Got my new x570 build up and running over the weekend.

The chipset fan (X570 I Aurus Pro WiFi) sounds like death. I set the PCH fan curve to silent, but it's still audible from 20 feet away. It's a high pitched whine that even has a death rattle at times. It's constantly switching between different speeds, which makes it even more annoying. It doesn't turn on at idle, but starts up under any sort of load.

The cooling around the PCH should be fairly good. I have a Noctua C14 on the CPU with two 140mm fans as intake, as well as a 92mm rear exhaust fan, and a NF-A12x25 PWM next to the C14 as an extra intake, plus two more under the GPU as exhaust.

I've ordered a NF-A4x20 PWM and a 4-pin VGA adapter (the PWM connector Gigabyte uses for the chipset fan header) to attempt to replace the stock fan. There's no way I could tolerate it.

Have you updated the mobo bios? Many of the manufacturers are adding new bios updates for the chipset fan issue.
 
Have you updated the mobo bios? Many of the manufacturers are adding new bios updates for the chipset fan issue.

Yeah I'm on the latest BIOS. Gigabyte doesn't yet have the option to set a custom fan curve for the PCH fan, which could help. My Noctua fan gets here today, so hopefully I can figure out a way to attach that and just be done with it.
 
My Accelero III is working pretty well, but has also posed a new challenge.

Now that I have two fans (I'm using Noctua NF-A12x25) as exhaust on the bottom of my case, I have a resonance problem. I'm thinking about installing the low noise adapter on one of the fans to see if that eliminates the resonance, but I'll lose a little bit of cooling as a result.

Anyone else had this problem?
 
Well I put the LNA on one of the fans and resonance is gone, so I'm happy.

Also replaced the chipset fan with the 40mm Noctua. It's noticeably quieter, however it turns out it the chipset fan wasn't the main source of the high pitched noise. I have some pretty bad coil whine now that seems to crop up when the GPU exceeds 70C and that's what I was hearing. It's the same graphics card I've had for a year and the coil whine has just cropped up in this build. Annoying but I don't think there's much I can do about it. I reset the core and mem speeds to stock on my card and that helps a little bit as it takes longer before the coil whine kicks in.
 
Well I put the LNA on one of the fans and resonance is gone, so I'm happy.

Also replaced the chipset fan with the 40mm Noctua. It's noticeably quieter, however it turns out it the chipset fan wasn't the main source of the high pitched noise. I have some pretty bad coil whine now that seems to crop up when the GPU exceeds 70C and that's what I was hearing. It's the same graphics card I've had for a year and the coil whine has just cropped up in this build. Annoying but I don't think there's much I can do about it. I reset the core and mem speeds to stock on my card and that helps a little bit as it takes longer before the coil whine kicks in.

Did you have any difficulty replacing the original 30 mm chipset fan with the 40 mm Noctua? I wouldn't have thought the mounting holes would line up for the larger fan.
 
Did you have any difficulty replacing the original 30 mm chipset fan with the 40 mm Noctua? I wouldn't have thought the mounting holes would line up for the larger fan.

Removing the 30mm fan was easy. The mounting holes don't line up, so I just used some foam double sided tape to attach the 40mm Noctua on top of the heatsink. It feels pretty secure. It just barely fits under the bottom 140mm fan on my C14.

I'll post some pictures soon.
 
Longshot, but did anyone here buy a V6 ncase m1 and are not planning to use the blank/power button only front i/o thing?
If so I'll buy it!
I'm looking for one since I never use my front i/o and I managed to break some of the USB 3 pins on my Mobo because the USB 3 front header cable that came with my v1 was so thick and hard to plug in accurately in a crowded build... :(
 
Longshot, but did anyone here buy a V6 ncase m1 and are not planning to use the blank/power button only front i/o thing?
If so I'll buy it!
I'm looking for one since I never use my front i/o and I managed to break some of the USB 3 pins on my Mobo because the USB 3 front header cable that came with my v1 was so thick and hard to plug in accurately in a crowded build... :(

So sorry to read about your broken pins. All USB 3 front header cables are, in my opinion, ridiculously stiff and difficult to manage. This is not unique to the M1.

For anyone else facing similar routing difficulty I recommend buying a Low Profile USB 3.0 Header Extender Cable. These have a ribbon-like cable between a low profile male connector (for the motherboard USB 3 socket) and a female connector for the front panel USB 3 cable. This is much more flexible and allows you to route the front panel cable along the back or bottom panels of the M1 or even behind the motherboard. In fact, I sometimes add extension cables to my fans so that I can route those wires along the edges of the M1 frame instead of across the middle of the case. Sometimes a longer route is a tidier route.
 
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
cool, I wish I knew about those beforehand.
Looks like the power button only front io faceplate is only compatible with the new front i/o setup of the v6.
I hope they end up selling those individually....

Luckily the rest of the build came together really nicely
 
o0XJMZdm.jpg
W62UPspm.jpg
XOeDI5om.jpg
tgMNarIm.jpg


Finally built a new high end system after almost 9 years away from the hobby. I used a NOS (new-old-stock) Silver NCASE M1 v1, First Edition I had in storage that I got after backing the original Indiegogo campaign in 2013.
Back then I bought one of each color offered thinking I was going to upgrade more frequently. The black NCASE M1 is still running an old Ivy Bridge Core i5 system I migrated into the case back in the day.

Even with all this high end stuff crammed in, the layout is surprisingly roomy and no bunched up cables between the radiator fans and the components. Lots of unblocked/line-of-sight airflow between the radiator and the cpu/mem/mobo/psu. I just used the cables that came with the Corsair PSU, the platinum series PSUs come with extremely high quality cables, I was very impressed. Just took some work routing everything.

The only snag I ran into was that I messed up plugging in the front USB 3 header and messed up a pin on the motherboard. The front USB 3 cable and plug are so thick and more difficult than I remember to plug into a densely packed motherboard. :(
I realized don't need or use front I/O anyways so I just removed the cables and ports from the front of the case, so now I have USB A and mini-jack shaped ventilation holes :vomit: .

I seriously hope that the new front I/O setup for the V6 will be eventually be sold separately so I can get that clean, power-button-only look on the front. If I didn't have this first-edition M1 sitting around, I would have totally purchased the v6. Great case, thanks wahaha360 and Necere for all the work that went into it.



Specs:
NCASE M1 First Edition (Silver)
Core i9 9900K
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB CL 14-14-14-34
ASUS ROG STRIX Z390i
NZXT KRAKEN X52
CORSAIR SF750 750 Watt PSU
CORSAIR MP510 1920GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Ti FE
2 x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Fans
 
View attachment 198395 View attachment 198396
View attachment 198397 View attachment 198398

Finally built a new high end system after almost 9 years away from the hobby. I used a NOS (new-old-stock) Silver NCASE M1 v1, First Edition I had in storage that I got after backing the original Indiegogo campaign in 2013.
Back then I bought one of each color offered thinking I was going to upgrade more frequently. The black NCASE M1 is still running an old Ivy Bridge Core i5 system I migrated into the case back in the day.

Even with all this high end stuff crammed in, the layout is surprisingly roomy and no bunched up cables between the radiator fans and the components. Lots of unblocked/line-of-sight airflow between the radiator and the cpu/mem/mobo/psu. I just used the cables that came with the Corsair PSU, the platinum series PSUs come with extremely high quality cables, I was very impressed. Just took some work routing everything.

The only snag I ran into was that I messed up plugging in the front USB 3 header and messed up a pin on the motherboard. The front USB 3 cable and plug are so thick and more difficult than I remember to plug into a densely packed motherboard. :(
I realized don't need or use front I/O anyways so I just removed the cables and ports from the front of the case, so now I have USB A and mini-jack shaped ventilation holes :vomit: .

I seriously hope that the new front I/O setup for the V6 will be eventually be sold separately so I can get that clean, power-button-only look on the front. If I didn't have this first-edition M1 sitting around, I would have totally purchased the v6. Great case, thanks wahaha360 and Necere for all the work that went into it.



Specs:
NCASE M1 First Edition (Silver)
Core i9 9900K
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB CL 14-14-14-34
ASUS ROG STRIX Z390i
NZXT KRAKEN X52
CORSAIR SF750 750 Watt PSU
CORSAIR MP510 1920GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Ti FE
2 x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Fans

Looks like a very clean build, which is even more impressive given that you used the power supply's original cables. Well done!

For the stiff USB 3 front panel cable, see the solution I recommended in a post earlier today. I hope this is helpful.
 
Just an
My Accelero III is working pretty well, but has also posed a new challenge.

Now that I have two fans (I'm using Noctua NF-A12x25) as exhaust on the bottom of my case, I have a resonance problem. I'm thinking about installing the low noise adapter on one of the fans to see if that eliminates the resonance, but I'll lose a little bit of cooling as a result.

Anyone else had this problem?
Just an FYI optimum tech... YouTube had better results with the bottom fans doing intake
 
  • Like
Reactions: xSDMx
like this
Just an
My Accelero III is working pretty well, but has also posed a new challenge.

Now that I have two fans (I'm using Noctua NF-A12x25) as exhaust on the bottom of my case, I have a resonance problem. I'm thinking about installing the low noise adapter on one of the fans to see if that eliminates the resonance, but I'll lose a little bit of cooling as a result.

Anyone else had this problem?
Just an FYI optimum tech... YouTube had better results with the bottom fans doing intake
 
Just an

Just an FYI optimum tech... YouTube had better results with the bottom fans doing intake

I'll have to consult YouTube. Someone over at the smallformfactor.net forums told me Optimum Tech found exhaust to be the best configuration :ROFLMAO:
 
I'll have to consult YouTube. Someone over at the smallformfactor.net forums told me Optimum Tech found exhaust to be the best configuration :ROFLMAO:

With a window side panel, Optimum Tech found having the bottom fans as exhaust and the rear fan as intake (so rear to front airflow through his NH-U9S) was most effective.

Before the window side panel became available, others with hot running graphics cards found exhausting air out the bottom works best with the Accelero Xtreme III or IV heatsinks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Epos7
like this
With a window side panel, Optimum Tech found having the bottom fans as exhaust and the rear fan as intake (so rear to front airflow through his NH-U9S) was most effective.

Before the window side panel became available, others with hot running graphics cards found exhausting air out the bottom works best with the Accelero Xtreme III or IV heatsinks.

Interesting that the window affected the results so much. I have my rear fan as exhaust with my C14 as intake. CPU temps seem pretty good but now I'm curious to try the rear fan as intake.
 
Interesting that the window affected the results so much. I have my rear fan as exhaust with my C14 as intake. CPU temps seem pretty good but now I'm curious to try the rear fan as intake.

With a window side panel it is not possible to intake air through that panel, of course. Intaking air through the bottom panel distributes heated air from the GPU throughout the rest of the case, increasing the CPU temperature. So, he tried using the rear fan as an intake and set the bottom fans as exhausts.

I am interested your results with the rear fan as an intake in the case of a non-window side panel and a top-down CPU cooler,
 
Specs:
NCASE M1 First Edition (Silver)
Core i9 9900K
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB CL 14-14-14-34
ASUS ROG STRIX Z390i
NZXT KRAKEN X52
CORSAIR SF750 750 Watt PSU
CORSAIR MP510 1920GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Ti FE
2 x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM Fans

Been doing some temperature testing and with an ambient temperature of about 26 C, my system idles at an average of 37 C.
Under a Prime 95 CPU stress test load, temps seem to top out at an average of 59 C. When I use the Intel extreme tuner software to stress the CPU, it will hit a 64 C average.

The GPU will idle at 45 C and top out at about 74 C when running benchmarks like Superposition and Heaven.

These temps are way better than I ever expected from an ITX build, but the 240 AIO mounted in the NCase seems to be working perfectly, the left side of the case is actually cold while the right side gets very hot. Thinking of fitting some exhaust fans somewhere.

If I do a basic 50 multiplier overclock to the 9900K, temps will shoot up to about 85 C for the CPU under load, GPU temps go up about 2 C across the board, most likely due to the temperature in the case being warmer.

Never undervolted before but I think that will definitely be necessary to tweak things further. I see a lot of overclocking guides out there but I cant seem to find anything in depth on undervolting, so taking my time with this. At stock the system seems fast enough for work, and more than enough for games.
 
Has someone broken the user contribution spreadsheet? I can no longer see compatible hardware.
 
Thanks! After rebuilding my v5 dozens of times over the past year, I feel like I was well prepared for my v6 rebuild, haha. PSU cables are unsleeved custom lengths. Main specs are 9900k + 2080 Ti.

Yo do you still have that sf750 for sale, by chance? Sorry for the squirrel.
 
Hi

Does anyone have any experience with the internal power cable failing? Just had my SX-600-G Fail on me. Shoehorned in an old AX850 i had lying around, but i can’t use the internal power cable that comes with the case. If i try it it trips the cirquit breaker. I had to remove the top cover and connect the PSU to the wall with directly with one cable. When i do this, everything works fine. Don’t know if these two issues are connected.
 
Back
Top