Ongoing Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards (2 Viewers)

[freextr]

I',m also interested. I'm preparing to build a passive system too. With the serener product and I'd like to know whitch cooling pipes are u using? (by the pictures of svenhatt posted it is the HP 29 i think). I want to cool a mini itx board, first wanted the zotac itx f or something similar, but now I'm waiting for the new boards with the pineview CPU and ion next generation GPU (i hope that will be no bigger changes in the positioning of the chips on the board). When I collect the money will be sending the photos of my work.
thx in advance
p.s. - this will be my graduate work including the media portal implementation

 

[enzym]

Hallo guys,

being fascinated by passive cooling and the braun atelier design (sorry, only German link available) I decide four years ago to build my own passive braun atelier htpc and started building about two years ago.

I didn't use an ITX-Board, anyway i think my htpc has something to do with the subject.

One problem was to get these components in a braun atelier case (outer Dimension: 445mm x 360mm x 60mm):

• µATX Mainboard with Core i3 530 (2x 2.93GHz) an 4GB RAM
• ATX Power Supply (PicoPSU with Toshiba 65W Notebook power supply)
• 3,5" Harddisk
• 2,5" Harddisk (SSD Kingston)
• DVD-Rom Drive (Slotin)
• VFD Display
• Y.A.R.D. (infrared Receiver)
• DTV DVB-C Card

After some different attempts i finally managed to get my htpc working the way i planned.
Here are some pics:

Finding a solution fpr passive cooling was quite difficult, because the braun atelier design didn't allow to use for example heatsinks on the left or right side of the case.
So I ordered a 4mm aluminium groundplate an screwed it togehter with the main heatsink, with is connect through two heatpipes with the cpu/gpu. A third heatpipe ist connected to another heatsink in the back of the htpc.
The groundplate itself is working as a heatsink while transferring heat to whole case / cooling the power supply.

The core system (Mainoard, Core i3 530, 4GB Ram, SSD) needs about 20W IDLE and 60W (full load). With all the other components (3,5" HD, DVB-C, DVD, Y.A.R.D., Display, Bluetooh Dongle) power consumption is between IDLE 35W (MePo in Basic Home) and load 50W (HDTV redording while playing a x264 1080p video).

The IDLE temperature (MePo) of the whole system/case is 35°C, while the CPU/GPU is about 45°C. Under full load (Prime95 - 65W) for several hours temperature wil raise up to 45°C (system) an 70°C (CPU/GPU).

OK, here two pics of the result:

greetings,
Christian

 

[polarie]

AW: Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards

wow - amazing case ...

congratz ... and it fits perfect to the other Braun-Components ...

realy impressing ...
also that you built in a mATX board ... good job mate ... real good job ...

 

[polarie]

AW: Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards

still alive (the thread)
... hope to post some new pictures of the "next-gen" case similar to the first one i posted here
but now with a mITX AMD-785 HD4200 onBoard motherboard & a VFD-Display ...
inspired by the serener from svenhat ...

pictures to come ...

 

[ichessblumen]

another news from polarie's and my project.

the enclosure from the first post is still alive and I did some improvements.

- in BIOS increased FSB to 599 which results then in 2x1.8 GHz ( not higher otherwise BSOD)
- in BIOS assigned 512 MB of RAM to the onboard gfx
- installed a second 2GB RAM
- installed latest nvidia drivers

After that I let it run the whole night on a 1080i (Sky HD Sport1) broadcast and pressed Shift+1. The result was 1 per mille dropped frames.

My video settings for this machine: (I use SAF 4)
- video h.264: MPC audio: ffdshow
- TV h.264: Cyberlink PDVD 9

Well, when switchin from one HD broadcast to another the first second is abit slow, but then it runs smooth.

I think polarie will come up with new pics these weekend with the new front plates .


Meanwhile I've ordered a mini dtx board ( Zotac NM10) and a small ATI 5450 for evaluation.
this board has two expansion slots.
then is one left for a digital devices double dvb-s2 tuner.

this board is slightly 30mm larger than a mini-itx board and will fit in our passive enclosure. more to come with a review from testing this weekend.

 

[polarie]

AW: Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards

well just a short picture info
from my side here ...

front-plates will go to "Mr.Galvanic" today ...
and i hope to get them back this week in Elox-Black ..

my Metall-Smith also got a special imortal Steel Version (no scratches possible)
but i don't know when i can have that in my hands

 

[ichessblumen]

ahh, another step forward. Looks good so far.
I'm really keen on to see the black anodized front plates this week ;-)

From a first glance I've to say that the slim-line drive needs a covering.

Meanwhile I've tested the Zotac NM-10 mini dtx mainboard with a ATI HD5450 (1GB DDR3).
Here's the setup:
320GB HD 2.5"
4GB of RAM (DDR2 800)
Win7 / SAF 4 / catalyst 10.7 / Mediaportal 1.1.0 final as client.

All I wanted to know was...Is this rig capable of doing 1080i with vector adaptive deinterlacing, which is the supreme discipline for a htpc.
I can confirm it works rockstable.

So, maybe we've found here the ultimative combination for multiseat, master and client environment.

More 2 come.
ieb

 

[polarie]

AW: Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards

covering the drive will be not important - couse the plates will be black anodized

but the Steel version that will come will be "stealth" the slotin drive ...
so it will be a clear front ...

 

[polarie]

AW: Passive Cooling Thread / Projects with several enclosures on itx-boards

short encloser picture update

if i have the time later today - i'll try to make a foto in use (VFD) ...

 

[ichessblumen]

wow, looks fantastic. is that acrylic window also made by the laser company?