I am building this exact same build (ION board with Core 2 Duo). Would a Shuriken without fan on top, be able to cool a Core 2 Duo by just the case fans?

Hello,

here's a confirmation for anyone planning a similar built: I have a Zotac 9300 and a Celeron 3200 together with a Big Shuriken in an ISK 300. It all fits fine. I removed the case fan completely. A Fan Mate throttles the Shuriken to close to miniumum speed. It's actually mounted at the slot where the TriCool switch was located before.

Temperatures are ~50 °C on the CPU and ~65 °C on the GPU. Out of the box. Impressive! (I actually don't trust the GPU reading fully because the figure is so low.... on the other hand, the heatsink gets just "very warm", not "hot".)

The loudest component now it an old 60 GB WD 2.5" hard disk which I still had lying around. Maybe I'm going to suspend it just for the sake of it.

A bit more details and photos is posted at the MP forums: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/compl ... tup-74339/

Cheers,

jayrock

So I've started building my ISK-300 with a 9300ITX. So far so good except foe the snag I'm in with the brace/drive cage that goes from front to back on the case. The cage hits the Shuriken 3 I'm using.on it. I'm currently deciding whether to cut the case or the sink.

One more thing to note is, the Shuriken 3 will fit with the fan cage on the case, so you can have your exhaust fans to take advantage of the built in airflow. You can build the Big Shuriken in, however you cannot have the fan cage as it juts into where the fans would normally sit.

I'm sorry, forgot to mention this *minor* detail. I also cut the drive cage. Cutting the backet didn't have any noticable negative impact. Can be seen here: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attac ... c00682.jpg

A futher not, I don't have an optical drive, an I'm uncertain whether it can acutally be mounted. From just measuring it it seems to fit when things are mounted and connedted, but I'm not sure if there's enough space to actually move it in with the plugs connected.

/jayrock

Any idea what the best heatsink might be for this case without making any modifications? I'm planning to do a build using it once the new Westmere chips and ITX boards come out. (Hopefully that'll be before the end of January.)

Probably one of the sinks that they used in the review. If the Shuriken doesn't fit without modifications, there really isnt much you can pick from considering how small it is.

And I can confirm an optical drive will fit, there is plenty of space even after you cut the bracket.

Can you take a photo of the optical drive mounted together with the Shuriken?

Thanks,

jayrock

I can't yet as I haven't modded the cage to fit yet. Probably in the next few days I can.

had any one seen a mod to fit a 3.5 hdd inside the ISK?
i have a pico PSU so i don't really need the stock psu

Removing the psu opens room for a 3,5 i think. its probably harder to fit it ifu have a standing case. Ill check it out when i get mine in 2 days

I think its a thight fit with a 3,5" disk. it can be done with some modding, removing some metal (seen in picture 4 in the link) in the front I THINK would make room for as an example a tripple 3.5"drive bay that can be fitted where the psu was.

i would like the pair this case with the H55-ITX

I agree... if you removed the PS you could easily mount a 3.5" drive in there on the bottom of the case. I had one mounted above the PS (using velcro and some wire ties) but did not like how it fit in relation to the other components. As others have suggested, there are ways to make it work. The most obvious to me is leaving out the slim CD/DVD drive as well as the 2.5" drive caddy and sitting it in the open space. But even that would take some work.

FWIW - I got this case a week ago from buy.com for $62.00 and free shipping. They are still available

I wonder if it's possible to fit a Scythe Samurai ZZ inside that case (when using a non atom board) looks like it would be the ideal CPU cooler for that case. Since most of it can be fitted to the rear and all the fins line up perfectly with the fans.

http://www.scythe-eu.com/produkte/cpu-k ... ai-zz.html

It says that it's 94 mm tall, but judging from the images then it must be including the fan, so it's just 69 mm tall in reality.

Great review, and this is a perfect contender for a future Atom+Ion HTPC...

This case proved to be my most silent build, ever.

Asus AT3N7A-I with the original 4cm fan thrown out, stock fan replaced with two 8cm Noctuas running at minimum RPM via Zalman Fanmate plus a SSD =WIN. I use it as HTPC with Arch Linux and XBMC, which plays movies and music from my fileserver.

With those two Noctua fans and no other moving part, the case is dead silent. I had problems with fan noise with every case and fan i tried so far - but few times i found out that my HTPC in this case was running overnight, and i didn't even noticed .

The CPU/GPU (whatever it measures) runs a bit hot at 50C when playing videos, but since it doesn't have problem with that plus i never put a 24/7 100% load on it, i honestly don't care.

What i dislike on it is length (could be a lot less longer) and the cable lengths could be a lot shorter, except the power cable which would be better 2-3cm longer.

This case would benefit from an intake above the CPU area, where that "Antec Design" part is, which seems to be just as wide as the ODD.

Mod that part for a 120 mm fan, and cut a hole in the top. Make a shroud between the fan and the CPU, I bet even the stock HS will work pretty good this way. The fan frame on the side can be removed.

been building a system with the 150 version of case, jw minix 785g mobo, amd sempron 140.

some points to note

scythe big shuriken does fit - the heatsink part anyway, with the drive tray in place. The fan in in its standard position clipped to the top of the heatsink does not - it fouls on the drive tray. currently I have moved the fan so that its underneat the cutaway in the drive tray, towards the back of the case. as the previous poster mentioned, that space is exactly right for a 120mm fan, so I may mount the scythe fan (or a fatter one) to that tray instead. And/or, the shuriken should fit in the original position with either the corner of the fan cut off, or part of the drive tray snipped away.

there's one big point to note - I got the 150w version of this case. it was a mistake. The 150psu version has an IEC connector coming into the back of the chassis, right in the middle of where the heatsink / fan of any decent cooler is. In the pictures in the review, its blanked off (because its the 65w version). the 150w versions PSU is a lot more like a "small atx" psu (it even has a fan) than the pico-style one that appears in the 65w review.

fool that I am I built the rig with that connector unscrewed (because it was in the way), and then put it back together and then "oh heck, where can this go!".

at the moment I have a BUW (Butt Ugly Workaround) of unscrewing the internal IEC lead from the case back, leading the external IEC in through the hole, and making the internal->external IEC-IEC connection inside the case.

I may buy a pico PSU, and use the 150w in something else.

oh, and I ditched the antec side fan frame entirely. seems unneeded.
CPU temps of 44 (less than 20 above ambient, hot day here today) CNQ disabled (some bluescreens, not found the cause yet).

FWIW the Antec Mini ITX Case ISK300-65 @ $43 from Amazon

You beat me to it. I am going to order another one...

So how good is the 65W PSU?

I have no interest in the case, slim DVD. But I have a Foxconn mini-ITX/Atom 330 with a 5.25 and 3.5 bay with a dreadful ~200W PSU. $43 for a 65W PSU is a good deal.

What do you mean by "how good?" It is fine for what I do. I am running the following system set up for almost a year. It is my workstation/file server and has not missed a beat. My wife does not even realize it is turned on unless she sees the blue light on the face. She has even been doing some desktop publishing with CS3 on this system. It is crazy slow but does the job. I originally had the mobo/proc/memory/slim drive in a shuttle k45 that lost the mobo but the power supply in the K45 sounded like a small airplane. This is MUCH nicer and much smaller.
-Zotac mobo (I forget which one)
- e5200
- 2 gigs ddr2 800
- two 2.5" sata laptop drives (one = OS, one = data)
- leftover slim DVD from an old laptop

This is awesome to read. I think this may make my decision to get the ISK300-65 clear since I also have a 90w power brick I can try if the power isn't sufficient.