I have been reading this thread pretty thoroughly (at least I hope so!) as I have been eying the Q11 for a while. Finally bought one but it is taking forever to ship (got the silver one so it's shipping from Taiwan).
I have in the meantime bought the components and would like to hear what people think of them so far! I'm somewhat nervous though as I'm not the most experienced person with building my own rigs but hope this thread has done me well enough. I was inspired by Tweakzz' set up that used an H50. I want it powerful but also quite cool. I game a bit and do a lot of graphics and some 3d modeling.
MB: Gigabyte H67N-USB3-B3 Mini ITX
CPU: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge 8MB
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Fermi 732MHZ 1280MB
RAM: Corsair XMS 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1333
PSU: Corsair Professional HX650W (maybe a bit much?)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 120GB 2.5IN SATA2
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 16MB Cache 7200RPM 3.5IN SATA
DVD: ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24X SATA
FAN: Coolermaster Blade Master 120 Black 120MM 600-2000RPM
CPU COOLING: Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 High Performance CPU Cooler System
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64BIT
In total, including shipping, shipping insurance, and tax, it was about $1600 CDN ordered online. After some mail in rebates I can get it down to about 1500. Not too shabby..
So I ended up putting the thing together.. I went with a corsair TX650W instead for the PSU. It was quite a pain seeing how this was really my first PC build ever, but I managed. It was frustrating at times though.. The case barely shuts and the EVGA GTX570HD BARELY fit in the case. with the power plugged in it was extremely tight.
Booted it up and everything went well however one major problem! Anywhere from 2-5 minutes into using windows 7, my monitor loses all video connection and turns black regardless what I'm doing - surfing the web, opening a program etc. The computer seems to still be on as the fans are still running and power light and HDD light is still on. But the only way to get my monitor working is to do a reboot. Tried plugging them into everything. I tried two different monitors, both at the same time etc. Same thing happens. all monitors plugged in go black and lose video connection... I've scoured the net but can't quite find an answer. Could this be a PSU problem? Hardware damage (I was a bit rough on the stuff getting chords and cooler in there over the video card and whatnot but I don't know)? As I mentioned, the GPU was very tight in there to the point where the power plugs (2x 6 pin connectors) for it had to be crushed in there to even have the video card fit. Could very bent wires be an issue? anyone heard of this? My pecs are above (although as mentioned, went non modular with the PSU) and have the newest drivers installed, though it did it before I even installed it. It's such a tight and packed build that the thought of opening it and taking it apart again is so exhausting!
thanks...