Hi all After completing my first mini-itx based project: Mail-itx which was nothing but a mini-itx motherboard, a small psu and an hd fitted in a very simple mailbox (very simple but I loved the idea), I decided to go further and try to create a fully passive cooled environment for my baby. To obtain this I took 2 big heatsinks and I'll use them as the lateral part of the case. Here is one with its measures: The cpu will be in contact with one of them by a custom copper block, which will also cover the other two big chips near the cpu. I still have to ask a friend for this, but I don't think I'll have problems... and I hope to get it for free Here are a couple of images of the case, made with sketchup. The front and rear panels will not be trasparent, but the roof will... maybe with a double plexy layer: the top one without any decoration and the bottom one with some engravings or paintings... still have to think about this. The 80mm exhaust fan in the back will be in use only if needed, maybe @ 5v or 7v depending on noise. I will turn it on/off with a switch on the front panel, maybe with a led. The vertical thing between the hd and the mobo is a small plexy panel, used to force air in the hd zone when the fan is spinning. Three 10cm neons here: two on the heatsinks to give a global light and one under the small plexy panel to light it. Should be nice... Aluminium panels will do the rest: the front, the back and the bottom part. I don't know if I'll use an optical drive... I have a laptop cd/dvd drive collecting dust and I should think about placing it somewhere... That's all for now, thanks for looking! Bye Francesco Comments HERE .
First of all... the optical drive issue: what should I do? Use it or not? If so, where could I place it? I prefer to leave the front panel as clear as possible, so the optical drive could be placed on the back... What do you think? Thanks for looking and commenting! Bye Francesco
If you're gonna have transparent roof, you better put that slim-drive under the mobo? So it won't block the view
Looking good so far - I like this sort of log. For optimum noise levels, you could have it boot a minimum Linux distro off a USB memory key
Thanks you all guys for the kind words and suggestions. hitman012: Well, I could do that. Not with a USB key (I don't have one and I'm not sure about the boot-from-USB feature in the epia mobo), but I have a DOM (Disk On Module) which is a thing like this: but only with 64mb of space. It has its own power cable with a nice mini-molex and, most important, has no moving parts... so no noise from it. It sits directly in the IDE connector on the mobo. I could install Geexbox (http://geexbox.org/) which is basically an HTPC Linux distribution. Very interesting... could give it a try. The problem is that I'm not sure about the final use of this machine... maybe an HTPC for my bedroom? In this case Geexbox could be the solution. I also have the possibility to get a WinTV PCI card (spare parts at work) so I could add the TV feature to this project, but I'm not sure about it. Unfortunately I'm not very expert with Linux (to tell the whole truth I've never used it ) and I'm a little afraid... anyway, there's time for this thing. Let's project the baby for now AJB2K3: Thankyou very much! I'll take a look at your project as soon as possible. Jipa: That's a good idea... I'll try to fit that drive under the mainboard with sketchup and see how it looks. I could also use an external USB case for the drive...
A good alternative to this is Puppy Linux which is also specially designed for Flash devices (i.e. minimising read/writes to the disk). It'll all fit into RAM and is lightening fast as a result
Fozzy: I'm sure that a copper block will be ok to transfer heat to the big heatsink. I've tried to run the mobo with a passive 9800pro vga cooler and the cooler gets only warm after hours of use. The copper block will be made by an italian waterblock producer, so I have no doubt that he will give me good advices on this thing. By the way, he made a custom waterblock set for another epia. AJB2K3 and hitman012: I'll take a look at those distros, I don't know them at all. Are them compatible with the epia motherboard? I don't know how to optimize drivers and all the things on a linux system... I just can install it I once tried to run Fedora core2 (or core3, I don't remember) on the epia and all went fine... not lightning fast, but smooth enough.
Nope i found DSL on http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ They advertise it specialied for itx series boards. Have you considered water cooling?
Yes I have... I think that the case is too low to fit a radiator. Maybe a very small one with an 80mm fan could find a place, but I prefer the "total passive" idea. But who knows... maybe next epia will be an under water epia
I was thinking about using 5mm aluminium panels instead of 2mm... more weight ok, but more stability and no need of other internal structures to keep the thing stable. What about the idea? The only problem that comes to my mind is related to the backplate of the mobo with such a thickness. Not very nice to see, but I could simply leave an open hole for the connectors...
