m-ITX Cases: SEED MA-280B and Cooler Master Elite 100

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MikeC
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m-ITX Cases: SEED MA-280B and Cooler Master Elite 100

Post by MikeC » Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:14 am


BillyBuerger
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Post by BillyBuerger » Mon Oct 19, 2009 1:32 pm

I recently just bought the cooler master elite 100 case. I will agree that the PSU is terrible. Although somehow people on the newegg reviews were saying that it's quiet. I know at SPCR we're a little weird on noise, but how anyone can even come close to saying it's quiet is beyond me. Anyways, aside from the PSU, I'm liking it. But I am doing a number of mods to it. I got it because it's one of the smallest cases I've seen that supports microATX boards. And since I had some laying around, it seemed like a good fit. It would be fun to try fitting something more powerful in here with some of the mods.

Here's my setup.

- AOpen i915GMm-N
- Pentium M 725 (1.6GHz)
- 2GB DDR2 667
- Hitachi 100GB 2.5" SATA
- Linksys wireless PCI
- PicoPSU 150XT
- Scythe Kaze-Jyu 100mm

Some of the mods I've done so far.

- Remove the PSU. This makes room for small expansion cards like the wireless card I'm using. Of course, there's no room to the expansion slot itself. So I'm going to have to cut out some metal to cover the PSU location and have a couple holes for the wireless antenna and PicoPSU plug.

- The CPU is way at the front of the motherboard so the heatsink actually hits the drive cage. Cut out some of it to make room. This also interferes with the CD drive but I'm not using that.

- I plan on drilling out a couple larger holes so I can soft-mount the hard drive.

- The hole pattern on the top vent is spaced the same as both 80 and 100mm fans. I used a couple of silicon fan mounts to mount the kaze-jyu to the top of the case blowing in over the motherboard/cpu. Not that this setup needs much.

- I've also though about trying to find a decent 60mm fan and mount it in front of the CPU. I'd have to cut out more of the drive cage for that. But I really need very little airflow. And then I wouldn't have to have the fan on the side.

reboot
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Post by reboot » Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:40 am

We'll be waiting the pics of your mod. :D

BillyBuerger
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Post by BillyBuerger » Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:33 pm

Just cut out the PSU plate tonight and put holes for the wireless. Still need to make a hole and mounting for the power plug.

Image Image Image

victorhortalives
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Post by victorhortalives » Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:27 am

IMO all these ITX cases are no use unless they can manage a 12cm fan. Plus there is more than likely another inevitable problem - proximity to the user !

I'm working my way down to a case of the right size with my Zotac ION system.
This has only one fan - a slow spinning 12cm Scythe. There is a 64GB SSD plus a 90W PICO PSU with all other data at the end of a GB LAN in a NAS.

I started off in an Antec P182 (!) and now have it in an Antec 3480. This has the advantage of being on the floor on a carpet and reachable w/o the need for osteopathy.
Any smaller and it would have to be on my desk and so inevitably noisier !

Any thoughts on a small but tall case (say 35cm high by 10cm wide and 20cm deep) with a side 12cm fan grill (preferably on the opposite side to where I am seated ) ? The DVD slot would have to be vertical but not centred.

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Post by dawza » Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:30 pm

You can easily mod a 120x20 fan (there is a low-speed YL that meets this spec, which is silent at 5-7V) into this case by drilling four holes into the mesh top. It is just a bit shorter than your spec, but otherwise should work:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/t_3500_60w

I have actually built a C2D E5200 9300-based system (Zotac) in this case. You will want to replace the stock power brick with a fanless one, although the stock DC board should be more than enough for an ION. A 90W+ Pico PSU would be needed for a "real" system.

The only caveat is whether the heatsink height on the ION board will give you enough clearance. However, even if it were taller than the HS on the Zotac C2D ITX board, you should still be able to fit one of those super-thin Scythe fans- and with its lower heat output, the ION should be just fine.

BillyBuerger
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Post by BillyBuerger » Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:22 am

I finished getting the PicoPSU plugged into the case. And since I had a couple spare 19" LCDs with VESA mounting holes, I went and strapped this thing to the back. This is kinda nice. It's not silent yet though. The kaze-jyu fan is a high speed PWM version from my shuriken. It's paired with the fan header which supports some fan speed control, but the fan control sucks. Using manual settings, there's very little difference in speed from 60-100%. Drop it to 53.3% (the next step down) and the fan stops AND the fan warning sound starts going off. This happens with any fan I tried not just the PWM one and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn off the fan warning which sounds like an alarm clock. Ug. So I want to get a low speed kaze-jyu fan which hopefully will be quiet enough at the 60% setting. Second, the laptop drive is not particularly quiet especially when hard mounted like it is. So I want to decouple that some how. Probably will use some of my spare Antec silicon grommets.

Here's some more pictures.

Image Image

wkeller
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i3-530 in Elite 100

Post by wkeller » Tue Feb 09, 2010 12:02 am

Great mod! I think this is also an excellent case for the new Intel i3-530 cpu/gpu (30/70W) with eg an Asrock H55M-Pro mATX board and a 120W PicoPSU. The stock Intel cooler is 4.6cm, so I think it should just fit. Any comments?

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Post by wkeller » Fri Feb 12, 2010 2:40 am

@BillyBuerger: I bought a Gigabyte H55M-USB3 which fits nicely in the Elite 100 casew i3-530 cpu (73W TDP) and stock cooler. I want to replace the PSU but dont know if Pico 120W 12V is enough (cpu+2.5"+2x2GB). And the 110W DC/DC power brick has fan is not silent either. Any suggestions?

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