ISK300-150, Foxconn H67S, Sandy Bridge Pentium G620T build
Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 12:33 pm
Finally got time to take some snaps and do a short writeup of a recent build.
The machine in question is a mITX build for a family member, where it will be used as an HTPC. It will replace an old Acer Revo 3600 (single-core Atom), which is horribly slow, and not really up to the task of recording dual HD DVB-T streams through a USB tuner. The workload for the box is playing DVDs, MP3/WMA files, recording and playing back TV, live TV watching and occasional lightweight web browsing.
I decided to use this build to check out a couple of components that had me interested: The Antec ISK300-150 case and the new Sandy Bridge Pentium G620T 35W dual-core CPU. This is intended as a low-cost scrouge build, so apart from the case, CPU and optical drive, everything came from the spares locker.
Case: Antec ISK300-150
I had considered the ISK300-65 on a number of occasions, but at the time of ordering it wasn't in stock, and the ISK300-150 was about the same price. Getting 150W instead of 65W would eradicate any doubts about needing more power, so I figured I'd go for it. There has been some discussion about the noise level of the power supply, but it turned out as a pleasant surprise.
Motherboard: Foxconn H67S
I bought this for myself a few days before the B3 stepping debacle erupted. Since I didn't intend to use more than the two SATA/6Gbps ports, I didn't bother with a replacement board. Nevertheless, it drove me nuts when I tried to use it. Didn't want to boot off flash drives, crashed with alarming regularity in Windows at default settings and generally made me shout profanities in the general direction of Foxconn. I got myself another board and this one went in the spares box.
Recently i noticed that a new BIOS version was available. The readme only listed a problem fixed with COM ports ... yay, big deal. Nevertheless, I proceeded to fight the board for 4 hours to get it to accept the new firmware (DOS boot disk, forcing the update even though the utility complained it was up to date)... To my surprise, all the problems went away ... Can boot from USB flash drives, Windows is running stable - happy days
CPU: Intel Pentium Sandy Bridge G620T, 35W TDP
This turned up recently at some of the major online retailers where I shop for parts, but apart from an obscure Chinese site, no reviews were available. I wanted something for the Foxconn board, and the 35W TDP looked interesting.
CPU heatsink: Scythe Big Shuriken
Was looking at using either a Shuriken Rev. B or the Big Shuriken. The Shuriken Rev. B might have fitted an ISK300-65, but since the ISK300-150 has a thick power cable running from the back of the case to the power supply, that will get in the way of the little Shuriken. The Big Shuriken fits fine without the fan. Actually, I could fit the 100mm fan from the Shuriken Rev. B on top of the Big Shuriken heatsink, but I didn't want to bother with that, as I intended to run it fanless
Case fan: Scythe S-Flex SFF80B
Replaced the factory fitted Antec TriCool with this. It is connected to the chassis fan header on the motherboard with a Noctua ULNA (7V) adapter, which is neccessary as the H67S provides no voltage control for non-PWM fans. Apart from the PSU fan, this is the only fan in the system.
Hard disk: Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS
From the spares box. 5400RPM, 8MB cache, decently quiet.
Optical drive: Slimline Sony NEC Optiarc DVD-RW
Not fitted yet, going in later this week. Will update the thread with pictures then.
Memory: 1 x Kingston KVR1333D3N9/2G
Cheap as chips, nice and stable.
Some pictures:
Front view, cover off
Angle shot
Side shot
Motherboard and Big Shuriken installed
Another shot with motherboard fitted
Low profile memory fitted
Side shot of Shuriken fitted
Power cable refitted. Turning the power cable upside down provided a couple of millimeters of extra clearance, so the cable and connector actually clears the top of the Shuriken heatsink.
Closeup of the power cable turned upside down
As you can see from the pictures, with the amount of cables inside the box, you need better cablegami skills than I posess to use the expansion card slot for anything. I would expect the ISK300-65 to be better in this respect since the power board takes up a lot less space than the 150W PSU in the ISK300-150.
Will post some usage details, including power draw, temps & HTPC usage experience (1080p playback) later this week. The box is running nice and stable, and copes fine with whatever HTPC duties I have thrown at it so far
Hope someone will find this useful. Any questions welcome.
Regards,
Gramkow
The machine in question is a mITX build for a family member, where it will be used as an HTPC. It will replace an old Acer Revo 3600 (single-core Atom), which is horribly slow, and not really up to the task of recording dual HD DVB-T streams through a USB tuner. The workload for the box is playing DVDs, MP3/WMA files, recording and playing back TV, live TV watching and occasional lightweight web browsing.
I decided to use this build to check out a couple of components that had me interested: The Antec ISK300-150 case and the new Sandy Bridge Pentium G620T 35W dual-core CPU. This is intended as a low-cost scrouge build, so apart from the case, CPU and optical drive, everything came from the spares locker.
Case: Antec ISK300-150
I had considered the ISK300-65 on a number of occasions, but at the time of ordering it wasn't in stock, and the ISK300-150 was about the same price. Getting 150W instead of 65W would eradicate any doubts about needing more power, so I figured I'd go for it. There has been some discussion about the noise level of the power supply, but it turned out as a pleasant surprise.
Motherboard: Foxconn H67S
I bought this for myself a few days before the B3 stepping debacle erupted. Since I didn't intend to use more than the two SATA/6Gbps ports, I didn't bother with a replacement board. Nevertheless, it drove me nuts when I tried to use it. Didn't want to boot off flash drives, crashed with alarming regularity in Windows at default settings and generally made me shout profanities in the general direction of Foxconn. I got myself another board and this one went in the spares box.
Recently i noticed that a new BIOS version was available. The readme only listed a problem fixed with COM ports ... yay, big deal. Nevertheless, I proceeded to fight the board for 4 hours to get it to accept the new firmware (DOS boot disk, forcing the update even though the utility complained it was up to date)... To my surprise, all the problems went away ... Can boot from USB flash drives, Windows is running stable - happy days
CPU: Intel Pentium Sandy Bridge G620T, 35W TDP
This turned up recently at some of the major online retailers where I shop for parts, but apart from an obscure Chinese site, no reviews were available. I wanted something for the Foxconn board, and the 35W TDP looked interesting.
CPU heatsink: Scythe Big Shuriken
Was looking at using either a Shuriken Rev. B or the Big Shuriken. The Shuriken Rev. B might have fitted an ISK300-65, but since the ISK300-150 has a thick power cable running from the back of the case to the power supply, that will get in the way of the little Shuriken. The Big Shuriken fits fine without the fan. Actually, I could fit the 100mm fan from the Shuriken Rev. B on top of the Big Shuriken heatsink, but I didn't want to bother with that, as I intended to run it fanless
Case fan: Scythe S-Flex SFF80B
Replaced the factory fitted Antec TriCool with this. It is connected to the chassis fan header on the motherboard with a Noctua ULNA (7V) adapter, which is neccessary as the H67S provides no voltage control for non-PWM fans. Apart from the PSU fan, this is the only fan in the system.
Hard disk: Western Digital Scorpio WD2500BEVS
From the spares box. 5400RPM, 8MB cache, decently quiet.
Optical drive: Slimline Sony NEC Optiarc DVD-RW
Not fitted yet, going in later this week. Will update the thread with pictures then.
Memory: 1 x Kingston KVR1333D3N9/2G
Cheap as chips, nice and stable.
Some pictures:
Front view, cover off
Angle shot
Side shot
Motherboard and Big Shuriken installed
Another shot with motherboard fitted
Low profile memory fitted
Side shot of Shuriken fitted
Power cable refitted. Turning the power cable upside down provided a couple of millimeters of extra clearance, so the cable and connector actually clears the top of the Shuriken heatsink.
Closeup of the power cable turned upside down
As you can see from the pictures, with the amount of cables inside the box, you need better cablegami skills than I posess to use the expansion card slot for anything. I would expect the ISK300-65 to be better in this respect since the power board takes up a lot less space than the 150W PSU in the ISK300-150.
Will post some usage details, including power draw, temps & HTPC usage experience (1080p playback) later this week. The box is running nice and stable, and copes fine with whatever HTPC duties I have thrown at it so far
Hope someone will find this useful. Any questions welcome.
Regards,
Gramkow