Hi everyone, This is one of the most experienced modding communities I know of so I'm posting by bizarre sounding question, here. I want to build a small water cooled mini-itx case, and to make it slightly more interesting I want to make it a perfect cube. Being that the standard format for mini-itx motherboards is 6.7" x 6.7" (17x17cm), I chose to do a 7" cube case. And I'm planning on using 1/8" material for the case During my design phase I realized that I have a slight problem, if a single slot GPU is placed in a pci-e x16 slot (I'm planning on using GIGABYTE's GA-H55N-USB3 motherboard), it hangs of the motherboard about 1/2" ( a single slot card is about .75" wide, but some of that is over the motherboard). This is a problem considering, that with 1/4" material taking up some of the 7" (1/8" on both sides) the components have to fit in a space that is 6.75", and with the graphics card overhang it comes out to be about 7.2". So my question is does anyone know of something, that will plug into the pci-e slot and then go up and in (I a little room in both directions) so that I can do this? I know there are cables and risers but, they don't really fit what I'm trying to do, here's a sketch-up of the design (sorry it's not great, it's my first time using sketch-up) You can see how close it is. The pump and HDD will go in the hole on the bottom right. The big silver thing to the left is a mini-itx psu, everything is on spec (or pretty close to it). If you're wondering how I'm going to get the power cables and the water tubes to the top section, I was planning on running them on the outside (single sleeved and pretty colors of course). Thank you
There are flexi risers (I bought one off ebay, is great but didn't end up using it! Apart from that i can't seem to find a fixed card that would suit your needs :S Will continue looking later tonight
Yeah I looked at those cabled risers, and since I only need to go a little bit over they seem like overkill. Also I don't really have anything to mount the GPU with if I go with one since they offer no support. This is when BTX sounds handy.
I think you can get shorter cabled versions of the flexi risers. Supporting the GPU. What gpu will you be using? The rear panel of the case (if designed and build to do it) can support most of the weight of the card, and a custom support bracket for the other end of the card could be made up to make sure the card is stable.. Was planning to do that for o² before I went to a largher case design. Thinking about it I may redesign it again as I do have the parts to make it SFF... hmm
I was going to use a low profile gt240 since it's the nicest low profile card I can find (actually msi has a 5670 low profile, but it's too long, very thick, and not easily available yet). Your're right about only having the rear panel support it, and I could make some sort of bracket if it's needed. From the top of the pci-e slot to the the top of the case is 4.375" (11.11 cm), which is really close to what a standard width card is (really depending on where they measure from), so it might be possible (with a cable riser of course) to get a full size card in there. I was just planning on a low profile and if full sized card fit than it was just a bonus. Whats the shortest length you can find, I found this one http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/pe-flex16-p-759.html#options 1" long but it's really expensive. I found a 5cm one but I don't know the price http://www.ameri-rack.com/ARC1-PELX16-Cxm.htm Most of the ones I've found are 15cm long. Another problem arises on bandwidth I say 66mb/s pop up on a lot of the 15cm ones. which isn't that much. Granted a shorter one will probably be better.
The price is fine, but I want a riser that still allows the card to stick straight up (sorry I didn't say that before) but justs bumps the pci-e slot inward a little bit. I need this because a standard gpu sticks out over the motherboard to far with its thickness, so I need to bring it in a little bit. But thanks for looking. The only really good one (pci-e gen 2.0) that is short and I know the price of is 56$. Which is a lot for an adapter cable if you ask me (considering similar longer ones sell for 10$)
linitx have various flexi riser cards. I take it you want to be able to move the oritetation of the PCIe slot 'up' one position? If so you could go with a shorter cable and fold it to fit. Your issue however will be that I can not see it fitting snug with the bracket on a back plate and you would also need to insulate the riser so as to not short anything out.
Thanks, those are bit cheaper (though slightly longer?). You are correct I want to move the pci-e slot in (towards the CPU) one position. As for the fit, thanks for pointing that out, I assume you are saying that the GPU will go "in" one slot and interfere with the audio ports, not allowing the bracket to rest on the outside of the motherboard?? If that is the case than the fix would either push the GPU back a little and have the DVI cable go into the case a tad, or the more probable fix which is raise the card up above the audio ports and then have it secure in (considering it will be a low profile). I hope that made sense, thanks for all the help guys. PS: this might sound like a dumb question but I might as well ask it, is there a way to bend silicon, as to not destroy it's electronic capabilities. As could I bend a rigid riser to make it work without making it useless, I suspect I can't but I might as well ask.
You'll end up breaking the copper traces on the fiberglass board. Tried that myself once. Though that was more of a foot to the side of a case thing......
Bit of a misunderstanding going on there, circuit boards aren't made out of silicon they're made out of fibreglass (or for cheap circuits, paper) impregnated with resin. On the surface of the board (and on high density boards buried between layers of fibreglass) are very thin strips of copper that make the electrical connections. You can't bend normal circuit boards, there are flexible circuit boards but they have to be designed to be flexible. The only place silicon is used on a circuit board is as the dies of microchips mounted on it, they're normally encapsulated in epoxy resin and will have little leads or solder bumps sticking out to make contact with the copper on the circuit board. A silicone compound similar to bath sealant is sometimes used to stick larger components onto a circuit board to support them. Moriquendi
^Right I knew that (well actually I only knew that circuit boards aren't silicon, I didn't actually know what they were) I just got dumb, thanks for reminding me and suppling new information. I don't suppose those flexible circuit boards are cheap, easy to come by, and made for what I wan't? I don't suppose getting it hot would make a circuit board bend (if it's resin and fiberglass than probably not) but if they make a plastic one then it's possible?
It will get flexible, unfortunately you need to get it pretty hot, which will make the components fall off. A flexible riser cable is really the way to go.
