Man oh man...how time flies...

At the risk of appearing just like the slacker I am, I started this project about this time last year. Having been an AMD fan in the past, I planned to leap headfirst into the C2D dominance...sort of.

After reading up on how much the C2D was serving a five course banquet of pwn up to AMD, I knew I wanted one, but was stuck in an "efficiency" phase, still playing around with AMD's 35W and 65W processors. To avoid appearing as a bandwagon-jumper, I took a slightly different approach and went for the more conservative (in both power and...err, power) mobile processor, the Merom T7200.

At that time, very few desktop boards were made with the somewhat offbeat socket 479. One of these was the Aopen i945GTt-VFA miniITX that was one of the first mini boards to boast a PCI-E slot, albeit the bandwidth-limited X1 variety.

Some checking around for all the parts to fit the system gave me a mad, mad idea...and ultimately one that I have abandoned, much to my dismay. The idea was to make a system that was a joke unto itself. My eyeball told me that nearly every part was roughly 2/3 the scale of a full desktop tower, using less power and generally at less cost than a high-end system. My twisted sense of humor kicked in and I started on the path to build a full 2/3 scale model of one of the modding world's most ubiquitous cases: The Chieftec Dragon.

The Chieftec was chosen as one of the most overmodded, yet highly recognizable cases out there, and all for the purpose of fooling the viewer into thinking that this was the real deal. Parts and tools were collected, drawings were made, measurements taken, trick camera angles were all planned to hoodwink the public at large. All the mods planned were included only if they had been done many, many times before to ensure nothing too unique that might give it's secrets away. Watercooling, side window, etching, lights, custom paint...even the hardware catchwords such as "Core2Duo!"(Merom), "PCI-Express!"(X1), "SATA RAID0!"(2.5" laptop drives) were all calculated to veil the tiny monster's true identity.

Sounds great, eh? Well, I should've known it all sounded too good for me to make true. My plot to fool you all was just a tad too ambitious. After getting as far as having all the hardware together, compatible, working and loaded with Vista Ultimate (just had to see if it could run the most demanding OS), mockups built, tools purchased and modified specifically for this project, materials stockpiled...the mod died.

The hangups were pretty much the usual: Work, family, time, etc, with the only 'real' obstacle being the construction of a complete case, all from scratch. If I might be permitted to make some excuses for myself, that project would kick many an @$$, not just mine. All the glory (in my mind), all the recognition (Wordbiker who?), and the great joke I was going to have on the modding world just didn't kick me in my lazy behind hard enough to go through with it all, and I allowed all my excuses to cave in on my and bury the project in my half-remodeled shop. Don't bother kicking me, I've done it enough myself.

Always on the lookout for an easy out, I came upon the Aopen S120 case. Although not made to specifically accept the i945GTt-VFA, I saw the potential for at least a temporary home for all that hardware I'd accumulated, and with just a 'little modding', figured I'd be able to buy some time and (Ha ha!) someday finish the UberMicro dream.

If you've made it thus far through my preamble of shame, self-loathing and utter n00bification...I'm all over it now.

I make no promises with this mod. I am only offering it up as an apology to my friends that helped me with encouragement, their time and efforts to post this now, and have also dropped any pretenses of this being anything more than an attempt at finishing something that I started way too long ago. From now on, what flows, flows and we'll all see what becomes of it, myself included. Thanks for your patience, understanding and hopefully...your forgiveness.

On with the show.

OK, let's not break any new ground. We'll start with the case.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Aopen S120 case is a pretty cool concept: A layer-cake of individual case expansion modules to fit the builder's needs.




This case was designed to house all the hardware I plan to cram into it...with just a few exceptions.

The base system spec is:

Intel Core2Duo Merom T7200
Aopen i945GTt-VFA miniITX
2X 1GB G-Skill DDR2667 SODIMMs CL5-5-5-15
HIS H155HMF256EDDE1LN-R Radeon X1550 512MB, PCI-E X1
2X 160GB Seagate 7200RPM SATA1 2.5" HDDs in Matrix RAID0
1X 160GB Samsung 5400RPM IDE 2.5" HDD for archive
2X Transcend 4GB Compact Flash drives on Addonics SATA/CF adapters, running in RAID0
Panasonic slim slotload DVD-RW running on an Addonics SATA/slim drive adapter

At this point you may be wondering how I crammed all those SATA drives onto a miniITX board with only two SATA2 headers. The only expansion slots available were the PCI-E X1 and a miniPCI slot. I chanced upon a SATA RAID controller for that miniPCI on Ebay for a fraction of what one costs new, and added a simpler IDE-SATA adapter that doesn't have RAID.




This allowed me to play around with an attempt at running the CF drives in a RAID0, hopefully to boot from my choice of OS by simply popping out the cards and popping in new pre-loaded ones (from shutoff, no hot-swapping with these).




As I said before, I did get it working and saw the CF RAID array, but never did get an OS loaded onto it. The CF drives are a bit small for Vista Ultimate, which is what I loaded to see how much the hardware could take. Vista performance tests were surprising with results like the RAID0 laptop drives matching a single Raptor, the X1550 not being as abysmal as expected, and the T7200 coming in about level with a Conroe E6400-6600 as measured with Sysoft SANDRA.

After having my fun on the bench, I got to jumping a few hurdles with how everything was to fit into the case.

Each expansion layer for the S120 is designed to house either more storage or a single expansion card...of the PCI variety. The layer comes with a PCI riser card, but both the interface and the size of the HIS X1550 were an issue. It cost some dough, but the solution was a bit of hacking on the doubled PCI slot bracket and an X1 ribbon riser that let me put the card exactly where I wanted it.

As I'm also crazy/stupid enough to add watercooling, extra drives and more GPU/CPU than this type of system ever sees, it has become an exercise of stuffing 10 lbs of dookie into a 5 oz sack.

With the expansion (nearly) maxed out, the challenge is one of mere physical dimensions. The S120 is less than 8" wide, 8" deep and 7" tall. All the stuff being small laptop size helped, but I also wanted the watercooling system to be completely internal. Yeah, I hate myself for creating such torture.

Fortunately there are some smaller cooling systems out there, and with the craze being what it is, there's blocks for nearly everything. My approach was to use an already existing system, though not as it was intended. The Thermaltake Tide Water for SLI looked about right, was rated for more than my estimated max system wattage (thanks to the power gamers and their monster GPUs) and even included a pair of blocks about the right size. The radiator is also small, as is the pump (I'm getting ahead of myself, just wanted to give an overview of all that's going to be crammed into the case).

Next up, layer cake.

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Layer 1 starts below the motherboard.



The mobo standoffs are much taller than normal allowing a 2.5" HDD to be mounted beneath. The HDD is mounted to an access panel that can be removed from the case bottom, so there's no need to remove the mobo. This is the default drive position, and the only one available if you're building a simple system without expansion layers.

Layer 2 is everything on top of it, though still just the basic case.



On the right theres a small gap where a stock pair of 60MM case fans were. I removed them in an attempt to run the entire case cooling on one fan...more on that later.

Layer 3 is the first expansion, made for a PCI card. Here you can see the clearance cut for the riser ribbon.



The layers are pretty slick. Each one hooks onto the front of the previous layer, then fastens with just two screws.

Layer 4 is designed for either storage (3.5" HDD) or a slim optical drive.




I modded this layer pretty heavily, trying to fit both the slim DVD-RW and the pair of Seagate HDDs. Pics of that later, for now I'm just showing you my rough fitting process.

Layer 5 is where most of the Tide Water will be housed. Inside that black box is a slot-type fan, the radiator, exhausting out the back of the case. Due to obvious size restrictions I wasn't able to use the plastic reservoir that came with the cooler. A custom res will be built to fill the space in the top right corner with a fill port facing out the back.






This is in essence the top layer for hardware, the other layers just finish it off and cover it up.

Layer 6:



Layer 7:



(Don't mind the fingerprints )

A bit more background:

As my mind was spinning of on the Epic Mod, like puzzle pieces, everything started fitting together. The theme was easy enough, especially easy for those of you that received the DVD I burned for the staff last holiday season containing all the Pure Pwnage episodes up to that date.

I ran with it, buying up stickers, "talkies" that had all the catchphrases from the show...even an UberMicro sweatshirt I was going to pose for you in...like a true poser. I still like the theme (as well as the show) and may still incorporate some of that when I get past the cramming stage to the making it pretty stage.

I found all kinds of stuff in 2/3 scale, including a mouse and k/b set made for kids, a Miglia speaker set (impressive sound for such small speakers BTW) and the smallest scale widescreen LCD I could find, a 17" Hanns-G. Here's a practice pic I took:



If you squint...does that look like a 22" Dell widescreen?

Here's the mouse for comparison:




I'm still wanting to let this mod flow and be whatever it will be, so any themes, suggestions or helpful critiquing is welcome.

That's all for tonight.

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What can I say other then it's "Uber-Neat!"

Well..at least one thing, I find it odd that you spend alot of time focusing on the low power usage aspect of the CPU itself, and then stuff it full of HD's and watercooling, lol.

Isn't it how much power the complete system sucks from the wall be the most important factor if you are truely after and "Energy Effecient" PC?

Nothing like pointing out the obvious here, I am sure you have reasoned this all out in your head at some point and it makes sense, I just wanna hear the explination

EDIT: BTW...you have the patients of a Saint to pack all that crap in there...It woulda hit the wall after about 1 day...I like to have a big wide open test bench myself!

Quote: Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro What can I say other then it's "Uber-Neat!" Well..at least one thing, I find it odd that you spend alot of time focusing on the low power usage aspect of the CPU itself, and then stuff it full of HD's and watercooling, lol. Isn't it how much power the complete system sucks from the wall be the most important factor if you are truely after and "Energy Effecient" PC? Nothing like pointing out the obvious here, I am sure you have reasoned this all out in your head at some point and it makes sense, I just wanna hear the explination EDIT: BTW...you have the patients of a Saint to pack all that crap in there...It woulda hit the wall after about 1 day...I like to have a big wide open test bench myself!

I am so glad you asked Necro...

Yes, I do have a plan in place for power. My initial tests with pretty much all the hardware I listed minus watercooling showed the system drawing as low as 35W @idle and 78W @load, running Vista's performance benchmarks. 78W might not seem like much, but the PSU is an external type, like a laptop power brick, and it's rated for 90W. Even if that's a conservative estimate, it's still too close to max rating to rely upon, and I also wanted some stability and headroom for overclocking (yes, I did mention OC. Both the board and GPU are capable of it). I purchased an aftermarket PSU brick rated at 120W that even has a cooling fan which should be enough to run whatever I can throw at it.

Although the watercooling was also a part of my initial plan to show off, from what I've read and experienced...it's a necessity if I want to OC this puppy. Even at stock speeds the NB chipset can reach temps of 50c+! That seems like it's too hot, but remember that this chipset and CPU were originally designed for a hot laptop environment. It is designed to take those temps without damage, but since this is a MODT (Mobile On DeskTop), they did allow for some adjustments in the BIOS, unlike most laptops. My hope is that by putting some better cooling on there I can run it at a mild OC and not have to worry so much about causing damage. BTW, I did test the Tide Water cooling system on my Kill-A-Watt tester and it showed a very reasonable 15W power draw while running...and some of that was overhead for the power adapter. I'll be running four blocks, not two (NB, SB, CPU, GPU using the stock Tide Water blocks and a pair of ThermalTake all copper chipset blocks, run in parallel circuits), but power should be about the same.

The extra storage, CF adapters and stuff were all part of my mod idea, chosen to have a scale appearance, but my research also showed that it all was very power efficient too. I hadn't ever seen any performance specs on RAID0 laptop drives, and since they are typically a generation or two slower than desktop drives, I wanted to try and see if I could eke out more performance without adding a bunch more power loss. The Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA drives I'm using draw about 1W @idle and 2.9W @load each, total peak 5.8W. A single WD Raptor of any capacity draws in the 11.6-11.8W neighborhood, and performance is nearly identical. Yeah, I had fun trying to find the sweetspot for performance vs. power efficiency, and laptop stuff is so much better these days. Now if you figure in the price...it does less well.

As for the patience...I claim no saintly qualities whatsoever. I have the patience of a finish carpenter, that's all.

It is a tedious mod, even moreso since this case is even smaller than the one I planned to build at 2/3 scale. I do have a lot more work done than I'm showing though, so keep an eye on the thread. I'll have plenty more wacky ideas, as well as some blingy and cool mods to show that could be used even on a full desktop.

Thats just outright AWSOME !!!!!! I cant believe you got all that stuffed in that case ( 7" TALL)

I love it that you got a monitor anf K/B , mouse to finsih off the total look of it.

First thing I thought of was that mini cooper add " Smallzilla!!! "


Keep up the great work , I'm watchin fer DaYuM sure

Quote: Originally Posted by Wordbiker I am so glad you asked Necro...

Well..now I regret it, my head hurts after that post!


J/K...lol

Glad to see you have done your homework here bro, and then some!

I remember late night chats on MSN about that AMD EE cpu, looks like you have realy gone the extra mile in your research...most impressive!

+Rep!

Quote: Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro Well..now I regret it, my head hurts after that post! J/K...lol Glad to see you have done your homework here bro, and then some! I remember late night chats on MSN about that AMD EE cpu, looks like you have realy gone the extra mile in your research...most impressive! +Rep!

Thanks Pat.

Yeah, since both Intel and AMD were bragging about the efficiency of their chips, I had to find out whether it was all just marketing babble or for real. This machine is definitely a result of those convos and the research. I know that efficiency isn't a concern for most PC enthusiasts, but it matters a lot more when you're the one paying the power bills, or the one that has to listen to a loud rig running 24/7. The rig I'm on right now is running a 35W Sempron 2800+. It does fine for what it was put together for, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well the Merom does for general use as my main rig, using even less juice.

Now that I'm thinking about it, this PC is very "Green" for power usage. Maybe I should paint it green to match, eh?

K...lets just see how "Far" you are willing to go to make this "Green" rig even more energy effecient.

I just had one crazy idea that might save a bit.

With so many HD's (Other than the OS drive ) how about adding a "Power" switch to the other drives? (Including the Opticals)

A simple toggle switch spliced inline to the 12v+ should do the trick, you could do them individually to make it conveinient...not sure if you would need a reboot to "Enable them" but you probably would.
(I would research that a bit more before trying doing it "Hot"..wouldn't want you to fry anything)

EDIT: You could fashion a "Plug in" in between the PSU molex and the HD itself from some old molex connectors and pins...a bit of extra long wires, solder and some shrink wrap will make for a real "Slick" job and you wouldn't have to "Butcher" the PSU wiring.

I often pull the power plug to the optical and extra HD's just for extreme benching purposes, so I have more power available to where it's needed most to ensure extra stability.

Also..there are several "Power states" that can be enabled on Core 2 Duo's, not sure if that applies to your CPU exactly....some can reduce its power usage to nothing in a "Sleep" mode...there was a big article on this in MAXIMUM PC a few issues ago, I think it had more to do with the OS than anything...most modern CPU's have this ability.

EDIT: I take it you will take advantage of the ability to reduce the CPU multiplier/voltage at idle, I think most Intel based motherboard can do this in the bios...if not, you can use Speed Fan, or Crystal CPUID....if you need some help configuring it, I have dabbled with it before.

Thanks Necro, all very good suggestions, but I don't think I'll go as far as you are suggesting with the software and OCing until I have a working rig together again. This worklog is at this point more about the build...and there's plenty of that to come, although none of it should have an impact on playing around with the hardware once it gets there. I will keep your suggestions in mind through the process in case there's something I need to add hardware-wise.

I'm not sure how well the pictures will show it, but the modular layers are even modular themselves. The outside is plastic, molded all in one piece with a slot that a slim drive pokes through, or a plain bezel that blanks it off. A frame made of four sheet steel pieces slides on from the inside and screw to the plastic. An inside stamped tray drops into this and determines whether the layer is for expansion cards, an optical drive or for storage. Of course...I'm not using anything as it was intended, so out comes the modding tools.

Sorry, already cut the bottom out of this layer. Eggs must be broken.




The next step was filling it back in, but in a way that would allow the 2.5" drives to be turned sideways and mount so they can be serviced and give pass-through room for all the power wires, data cables and hoses. I took some scrap aluminum 'L'-channel and made some rails, which was tricky with all the tiny screws and tight tolerances.



Some creative notching and bending was used to utilize the screw locations and slots already in the frame and not interfere with the layers slotting back together.






It took about three attempts per rail, some rethinking and then I finally got the slim optical drive to fit again.



Then on the underneath layer, the PCI riser stabilizer bar was applied (it was useless once I went to a ribbon riser) another piece fabricated to cross the other end, and aluminum bars will be fabricated to hold the HDDs sticking up into the next layer.



Another view showing the slots left to reassemble the layers.




I'll have to try and take some pictures that show how narrow the spacing is. It looks like plenty, but some parts wouldn't fit if they were off by a single millimeter.

I'd like to show you some of the work I've already completed for the watercooling system in the next post, but my work is focused on getting all the layers together. The radiator level with the pump is proving...difficult, especially when I keep having "good ideas" that just make it more difficult. *sigh*

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OK, so I couldn't sleep and the shop is too cold to work in right now...time to post older work.

The first concept I had was to be very visual and not quite as cramped, so a lot of the work I did was for show, but there is a specific issue with this board that required custom work anyway: none of the chips have anything close to standard mounts. Google "Pentium M Waterblocks" and you'll see what I mean.

I did as much research as I could on the blocks that come with the Tide Water, figured they were within my capabilities to make work, took a chance and bought the unit...and got lucky. The blocks are close enough for the CPU and GPU, and the additional chipset blocks also worked out for rough size.



After looking over commercial and homemade holddowns, I took careful dimensions and drew out what I thought might fool some people...and what would look good.




I also cut some UV acrylic plastic to both stiffen the mount and add a bit of color.



If you're wondering, the Tide Water uses a mixture of tubing sizes. I'm trying to make it all work with 6mm tubing, which is pretty close to 1/4" tubing...but not quite. I really just wanted it to be glowy under UV light...and it is.



I took this last one just to show the scale of the rad and pump. Smallest I've ever seen, and pretty darn quiet.



Today I worked on trying to fit that rad within one of the layers. As small as it is, with the stock housing it is about 2mm too tall, so I'm "taking measures" to slim it down, fit it within restrictions and move it back further toward the rear of the case for better airflow (it exhausts through a PCI slot, so I enlarged the opening) and to make more room for a custom reservoir that I'd like to have show in the front of the case to indicate flow and fluid level.

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Like I said, I had to move that rad back a bit further, requiring some metal and plastic cutting. With the casing on the Tide Water unit was interfering by just 2mm, so I figured I could slide it back towards the PCI slot, then duplicate the bolt and screw patterns on the top plate, saving those precious 2mm for the level below it and creating some more room in front of it. After removing some metal with a nibbler, I marked the rear plastic and went at it with a cutoff wheel, a coping saw, a file, a sanding block and then a jeweler's file.





After that I tested the fan housing out.




After filing a little more clearance, I filled the slot in again with some hex Dragonmesh for maximum airflow.



I bent the edges over carefully and it stayed pretty well. I left it loose for the fitting so I can paint the case easier later.



Came out looking pretty nice from the back!



Now that I knew it would fit, I marked all the screw locations, drilled them and mounted the fan.



This also included cutting a pair of vent holes on the side of the slot-type fan that from what I've read shouldn't be blocked or the fan won't work as designed.




Now that everything fit loose, I had to cut a little more clearance at the back to allow the top plate to drop in with everything attached after the layer is applied, otherwise it would bury the screws. Since I lost the part of the Tide Water casing that holds the radiator in place, I'll have to wait til I'm almost done and bond it into place with thermal adhesive, or perhaps the reservoir could be made to hold it in place from the sides. The radiator had some thermal grease on top of it before to allow the aluminum casing to dissipate even more heat, and I figure the case top will serve the same heatsink function.

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