NSK3300 mATX Build for Family

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 6:00 pm

Just a few pictures of my mATX build in an Antec NSK3300:

Nothing like boxes full of fresh parts!

Mmmm, parts...

Inside the case - ready for installation.

Motherboard/cablegami

Upper chamber - SFF PSU and optical drive.

Finished!!

Undervolted using RMClock for FID/VID selection, power consumption comes to:

S3 Sleep (took some effort to get that working) - 4-7W
Idle - 1.0 GHz/0.800V - 50W
Full CPU + Graphics Load - 1.9GHz/0.950 V - 75-80W

As always, when undervolting, your milage may vary. I'm quite impressed with the 65nm X2-3600 in that respect.

The Asus hardware 'Q-Fan' feature keeps the stock CPU fan at 1500RPM at idle, 1800RPM at load. With the rear TriCool on low, the system is much quieter then the 5 year old Athlon T-Bird it is replacing.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:41 pm

Looks like a nice little system. The 3600+ undervolting is in line with what mine was able to do, I think mine would do 0.975V stable.

NSK-3300 is a nice little system. Only problem is the power supply fan is acting kind of flaky in mine, afraid it might be on its way to fan heaven. Gonna have to open the unit up and replace it sometime.

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:11 pm

I am hoping that the Antec stock PSU is immune to the issues that others have been having with Antec PSUs as of late. I have been using it as a media PC for a couple weeks now to try and show any instabilities before my family gets it. So far it's been rock solid. It's my first all-new build in almost two years now, so I'm excited to play with new parts a bit.

Not bad for $400... They thought of just ordering a Dell but when I saw what $400 gets you I said no way.

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:28 am

nice!

i'm planning to build something very similar in the near future:
x2 3600+
nf-m2 nview
nsk3400 - fan swap
501lj w/passive cooler
2gb ddr2 800

how are your cpu and hdd temps?

do the silicon grommets do a pretty good job of eliminating vibration?

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:32 am

The grommets seem to do a very good job, although the drive in there is pretty quiet allready (old Seagate 7200.7). Since the HD is mounted on the bottom surface, it doesn't have as much chance to transmit vibration into the case is it would sitting in a lightweight drive cage, mounted near the side panels. I screwed the drive in enough that it wouldn't go anywhere if the case is tipped, but not enough to compress the grommets a lot. I think it's probably about as effective as the HD-on-foam-block-on-bottom-of-case method. I'm thinking of drilling holes in the bottom of another case I have and putting in similar grommets myself..

Undervolted, I think the highest I got up to with 2xPrime95 + HDR Test was 36C-38C on the CPU, as reported by Asus Probe II.

I can install SpeedFan and take a look at the HD temps later.

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:23 pm

Hmmmm, I recognize that couch in the background. It looks familiar. I hooked up with a girl and spent the night on the couch with her. Can you get me her number? I'd love to hit that again.

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:25 pm

AND_YOU_ARE wrote:Hmmmm, I recognize that couch in the background. It looks familiar. I hooked up with a girl and spent the night on the couch with her. Can you get me her number? I'd love to hit that again.

I don't know man. It's your couch. Maybe you should call your GF and ask her?

Kretschmer · Post by **Kretschmer** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:37 pm

Wait, his sisters are coming back up?

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:40 pm

Kretschmer wrote:Wait, his sisters are coming back up?

No, my little sisters aren't coming to visit anytime soon. Someone's going to jail...

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:57 am

I like the toy plane propeller in the "finished" photo up there. It really brings home the "for family" aspect of this build.

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Wed May 02, 2007 7:54 pm

jbw wrote:I like the toy plane propeller in the "finished" photo up there. It really brings home the "for family" aspect of this build.

Haha... That's from a senior aero design class activity.

Sophomore year we all built balsa wood gliders. A lot of people had trouble even getting those to fly. Some people switched to Mechanical Engineering as a result.

Fast forward to senior year. We have all had all of the specialized aero classes. The challenge: build a rubber band powered aircraft capable of taking off from the ground under its own power.

I'd say 50% of the class didn't even get off the ground... And we are going to be designing airplanes after graduation in two weeks!

Scary, huh?

steevc · Post by **steevc** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:03 am

Jumper,

I'm thinking of building something very similar to this. I'm looking at using either a 4600+ or 4800+ CPU with that Asus MB. I've heard that it's fairly fussy about what memory it will use. What did you use?

Is the AMD fan reasonably quiet? I can manage without total silence. It's got to be better than my current system that I can hear outside the room.

I like the look of the NSK3300/3400 cases, but I had been hoping to keep my DVD writer and it looks to be too long. I'm trying to minimise the amount of new stuff I have to buy and keep the cost down, so I may compromise by getting the NSK4400.

I'll be running Linux (Kubuntu) and the system will be used for general internet plus some video editing and audio work. I'm not into games, so I hope to get by with the MB graphics for now.

My current system is a Duron 1200 in an Asus Aria case. It was quieter than when it was in an old tower, but got a bit too noisy when I acquired an old graphics card with a noisy fan. The time has finally come to get something more powerful.

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:15 am

steevc wrote:Jumper,

I'm thinking of building something very similar to this. I'm looking at using either a 4600+ or 4800+ CPU with that Asus MB. I've heard that it's fairly fussy about what memory it will use. What did you use?

I used this Patriot stick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820220088

Is the AMD fan reasonably quiet? I can manage without total silence. It's got to be better than my current system that I can hear outside the room.

The motherboard has a feature called 'Q-Fan' that will slow the CPU fan down from where it normally runs automatically. I had to turn it on in BIOS and check a box in the Asus Probe software (just once, never had to load the software again) to get it up and running. The stock fan spins at 1500-1800RPM with Q-Fan on. The whole system is quieter then my desktop box (see sig).

Keep in mind your stock fan might end up running a bit faster with the faster/hotter CPU. I undervolted the X2-3600 down to .800V @ 1.1GHz and .950 @ 1.9. I would give the stock fan a try, and if you don't like it, get something else.

I like the look of the NSK3300/3400 cases, but I had been hoping to keep my DVD writer and it looks to be too long. I'm trying to minimise the amount of new stuff I have to buy and keep the cost down, so I may compromise by getting the NSK4400.

I had plenty of room left behind the DVD-RW... I don't think length would be an issue. Take a look at the 5th picture down - plenty of room. If you want to measure yours I can take a look for you.

I'll be running Linux (Kubuntu) and the system will be used for general internet plus some video editing and audio work. I'm not into games, so I hope to get by with the MB graphics for now.

I've booted the Fiesty Fawn Ubuntu LiveCD on it. Everything seemed to detect correctly except the screen resolution is wrong (need to install display drivers) and no wireless signal (Linksys' fault). If I could get undervolting working on the CPU in Ubuntu, I might even use it as my family's main OS.

My current system is a Duron 1200 in an Asus Aria case. It was quieter than when it was in an old tower, but got a bit too noisy when I acquired an old graphics card with a noisy fan. The time has finally come to get something more powerful.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your new system! My family has an Athlon T-Bird 1.13, so it's going to be a big upgrade for them.

steevc · Post by **steevc** » Thu May 03, 2007 12:13 pm

Jumper wrote:
steevc wrote:I'm thinking of building something very similar to this. I'm looking at using either a 4600+ or 4800+ CPU with that Asus MB. I've heard that it's fairly fussy about what memory it will use. What did you use?
I used this Patriot stick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820220088

I'll see what's available here. I was thinking of getting a pair of 512 as I understand I may get some speed benefit. I used to know what was what with memory, but I've got behind the technology lately.

Jumper wrote:
Is the AMD fan reasonably quiet? I can manage without total silence. It's got to be better than my current system that I can hear outside the room.
The motherboard has a feature called 'Q-Fan' that will slow the CPU fan down from where it normally runs automatically. I had to turn it on in BIOS and check a box in the Asus Probe software (just once, never had to load the software again) to get it up and running. The stock fan spins at 1500-1800RPM with Q-Fan on. The whole system is quieter then my desktop box (see sig).

Keep in mind your stock fan might end up running a bit faster with the faster/hotter CPU. I undervolted the X2-3600 down to .800V @ 1.1GHz and .950 @ 1.9. I would give the stock fan a try, and if you don't like it, get something else.

I like to run things like Folding@Home, so the CPU is likely to run hot. I'll try the stock fan and see if it's quiet enough for my needs.

Jumper wrote:
I like the look of the NSK3300/3400 cases, but I had been hoping to keep my DVD writer and it looks to be too long. I'm trying to minimise the amount of new stuff I have to buy and keep the cost down, so I may compromise by getting the NSK4400.
I had plenty of room left behind the DVD-RW... I don't think length would be an issue. Take a look at the 5th picture down - plenty of room. If you want to measure yours I can take a look for you.

I've seen reviews saying that some will not fit. My old NEC is about 19cm long. I'm also not keen on having the HD in the bottom of the case as I will lose a PCI slot. I'll be using one for a TV card, but who knows what else I may want in there? I don't anticipate needing more than two PCI cards in the near future.

Jumper wrote:
My current system is a Duron 1200 in an Asus Aria case. It was quieter than when it was in an old tower, but got a bit too noisy when I acquired an old graphics card with a noisy fan. The time has finally come to get something more powerful.
I'm sure you'll enjoy your new system! My family has an Athlon T-Bird 1.13, so it's going to be a big upgrade for them.

I should hope I would notice a difference. Things have moved on in terms of CPU performance in the last few years, but I probably won't have much more memory (768MB now). I'll go for 1GB to start, but the board has plenty of slots.

Thanks for your help

steevc · Post by **steevc** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 3:59 am

In the end I went for the NSK4400 case. This was partly so I could use my old DVD and partly to just have more space in the case to make working in their easier. I went with the Asus MS with an X2 4600+ and 2x1GB.

I have to say I'm impressed by the connectivity of this MB. If you can get hold of the optional adapters then you can connect just about anything to it. I was looking at getting an ATX board for more PCI slots, but I think I can get by with 2.

I've only tested it briefly by booting an Ubuntu live CD, but it seems pretty quiet.

The next step is to transfer my drives and get it running some real apps. Then we'll see how hot/noisy it gets, especially with a distributed processing app (e.g. dnet) running on both cores.

Update: Got it all running now. With the case closed up I can hear the CPU fan, but it's not obtrusive. The CPU is running flat out, but only at 40C.

I may consider a quieter cooler at some point. Is there anywhere I can find a list of options that compares their noise level to the standard AMD unit?