MODZERO JUICE - NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI #80 (COMPLETED 13.12.17)

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 0

I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. Unlike some of my previous builds this one should be pretty much stress free (fingers crossed). It's not a competition entry with a deadline, it's not a buddy build, nor a personal rig upgrade leaving me living off a test bench until complete. This one is a goody, a new LAN rig, in a chassis I'm super excited to build in. With no end date *cough* i60 LAN in April *cough*, so come along and enjoy the journey.

This is a sponsored project, for which I'm hugely grateful! Massive thanks go out to NFC Systems for their support, E22 for once again showing their faith in my work and indeed Gigabyte for taking the risk and hooking me up. :thumb:


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SPECS:

 

• INTEL CORE i5 - 6600K CPU
• HYPERX FURY DDR4 2400MHZ 16GB (2X8GB) RAM
• GIGABYTE GA-Z170N GAMING 5 MOBO
• GIGABYTE GTX 1060 ITX OC 6G GPU
• SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2-2280 250GB NVMe SSD
• HDPLEX Hi-Fi 250W DC-ATX PSU
• NOCTUA NH-L9i COOLER
• 2X SCYTHE KAZE JYUNI SLIM 2000RPM
• NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI CUSTOM CHASSIS

After my beloved Parvum Veer (MODZERO FOUR) took a savage thieving (of it's mod cubes) in order to complete my Thermaltake UK modders trophy 2016 entry I was left without my LAN buddy. That was back in late April. I'm pretty sure I'd seen the NFC PURIEL build someplace and went in search of more information. That took me to YouTube and there I met the S4 Mini.  

Once MODZERO OCTO was finished I kept coming back to that S4 Mini I'd seen. At that time the GTX970 was about as powerful a GPU you could fit in the little monster (although couple folks over on the SFF forums had got the AMD Fury Nano running pretty stable too..) but the 10 series was coming soon and with it I was sure one of the board partners would put out a great ITX card.

I'd contacted Josh at NFC about sending me the S4 Mini with the panels bare. At the time, very day I was driving past a BMW garage and had found a liking for some of their blues. A M4 in ESTORIL BLUE to be exact. The more I saw of it the more I liked it. From the chromed trim accents to the deep red of the rear light housing, I liked how the black of the grill contrasts against the blue metallic paint work. The actual paint work was done by B-Negative and he nailed it! Thanks buddy!I left the panels to truly harden then went about giving it a cut and polish. I had the color I wanted, so that was it, I'd base my S4 Mini around the aspects of the BMW M4 I liked.

THE NFC SYSTEMS S4 MINI

Many may already be aware of this chassis or at least Josh and his years of great work in the modding community, for those that aren't, this is the NFC S4 Mini. A 4.3l air cooled ITX chassis designed by Josh, manufactured in small batches and sold direct from his NFC SYSTEMS website. You can find out a lot more about it over on his page but for now I'll just show a couple shots of mine.


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This way up?


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Or this way?

I think I'm leaning toward the second, there are vents under the Alu wrap-around and as we know, heat rises. With the GPU being that end of the case, I think I may see some performance gains in this rotation.


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You can just about make out the vents under the Alu panel. 



As the build progresses I'll drive inside the chassis and show some of that, I may take a second pass at the cut and polish I think there are areas for improvement. 

Outside of the custom paint work and sleeved cables I plan to make some modifications to how both the CPU & GPU are cooled and try my hand with some other materials to help make some of the internals really pop.

Thanks for check it out, hope you stick around and enjoy the log.

J.

 

[B NEGATIVE]

Glad you like the paint buddy,always a pleasure for you.

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

this mini itx build has so many compromises if you just went slightly bigger you could have a 1080 and a 6700k.

[MODZERO]

16 minutes ago, Alaradia said:

this mini itx build has so many compromises if you just went slightly bigger you could have a 1080 and a 6700k.

I'd disagree, in fact I'd go so far as to say you're wrong, You'd need to go much bigger to accommodate a full sized GPU like the 1080 and the cooling required to deal with a 135W cpu would add additional dimenions.. not to mention you'd need to move up to a SFX PSU to power said hardware. The result would be a totally different chassis coming from a totally different design stand point. The chassis does not exist to house that sort of hardware. It would no longer be 'Mini'. 4.3L! it's tiny! plus... sure why don't we all just rock GTX 1080s and i7 6700Ks.. cos that's easily attainable.

 

J.

[TheRandomness]

11 minutes ago, Alaradia said:

this mini itx build has so many compromises if you just went slightly bigger you could have a 1080 and a 6700k.

Except most people don't need a 1080 and you could easily have a 6700k in this system. Also, if everyone followed that logic, the standard size for a PC would be of a full tower. There's a certain niche filled from having a small build, and you get to brag about having a very high amount of power in such a small space. Also, it's much more portable. 

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

 

23 minutes ago, MODZERO said:

I'd disagree, in fact I'd go so far as to say you're wrong, You'd need to go much bigger to accommodate a full sized GPU like the 1080 and the cooling required to deal with a 135W cpu would add additional dimenions.. not to mention you'd need to move up to a SFX PSU to power said hardware. The result would be a totally different chassis coming from a totally different design stand point. The chassis does not exist to house that sort of hardware. It would no longer be 'Mini'. 4.3L! it's tiny! plus... sure why don't we all just rock GTX 1080s and i7 6700Ks.. cos that's easily attainable.

 

J.

dan case a4-sfx at 7.2 liter it is bigger and yes you need a a sfx power supply but this means you don't have to carry a 12v power brick with you and can also fit a 1080 and a 6700k and yes not everyone needs a 1080 but if your going to a lan a 1070 at least would be nice. also it exists

[PeachyUwUSenpai]

18 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Except most people don't need a 1080 and you could easily have a 6700k in this system. Also, if everyone followed that logic, the standard size for a PC would be of a full tower. There's a certain niche filled from having a small build, and you get to brag about having a very high amount of power in such a small space. Also, it's much more portable. 

yeah but 1070 which you could also fit would also be a big step up and is what you want to run games stably in general 

[TheRandomness]

38 minutes ago, Alaradia said:

yeah but 1070 which you could also fit would also be a big step up and is what you want to run games stably in general 

He could fit the Gigabyte mini 1070 in the S4 Mini easily. 

[MODZERO]

15 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

He could fit the Gigabyte mini 1070 in the S4 Mini easily. 

Yes, the 1070 ITX OC would fit with a little mod. This build doesn't call for one though. I run a GTX 1070 Founders in MODZERO X (my daily driver). JUICE is my LAN rig, I'll be using a 1080P monitor, very little a 6gb 1060 can't do at that res. Building a PC is not about how much money you can throw at it.. The chassis is the focal point of this project, everything that makes the S4 Mini what it is, is why I chose it.

 

J.

[HeroXLazer]

1 hour ago, MODZERO said:

Yes, the 1070 ITX OC would fit with a little mod. This build doesn't call for one though. I run a GTX 1070 Founders in MODZERO X (my daily driver). JUICE is my LAN rig, I'll be using a 1080P monitor, very little a 6gb 1060 can't do at that res. Building a PC is not about how much money you can throw at it.. The chassis is the focal point of this project, everything that makes the S4 Mini what it is, is why I chose it.

 

J.

I love the S4 Mini, Nice paint job.

[MODZERO]

On 12/15/2016 at 2:32 PM, HeroXLazer said:

I love the S4 Mini, Nice paint job.

Thanks,

 

I took a little break over Christmas but will have an update in the coming days. I've picked up my power adapter now, thanks to the great guys over at Kustom PCs and my better half (made for a funny gift, being so appreciative of a laptop power brick...).

 

Still waiting on Samsung to restock their Amazon store (my 960EVO is on back order) then I'll get cracking with some testing. I've a few fan configs I wanna try out on the CPU and a couple options for the GPU.

 

 

J.

[ccRicers]

I love to see S4 Mini builds, they tend to look very nice. Slick blue paint job on the case as well. Look forward to see the work you'll be putting into it. This build is perfect to whoop ass at 1080p.

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 1.0

Well, now Christmas and New Years is out the way things are coming together nicely. Pre-Christmas I was still two key components shy of a POST. The M2 drive and a power adapter. I'll share my tale of the 960 EVO another time, as for the power brick, well that made for quite the odd Christmas morning gift unwrap. Turned out, my other half had being sending cheeky emails to KustomPCs. Knowing what I needed, they sent the power adapter inside a Corsair VS450 box. She then wraps the VS PSU box and come Christmas morning I fain adulation as she watches me remove the wrapping paper with an expression of 'erm...this isn't right', just as I then get over excited at the sight of the Dell ADP-330AB B Power Adapter inside.. She* is a keeper. I'd no idea she'd hooked that up, much impressed.


 


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I've had the Gigabyte goodies out ready for a box bench test. The plan being, I'll test all hardware stock (as we all do...) outside the chassis first. Then run some stress benches with all the hardware test fitted in the S4 Mini before I start working on the cables. I'm running a 95W CPU and a GTX1060 + M2 SSD off a 250W PSU, I wanna be certain I'm not pushing my luck. 

 


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It's a cracking little board, logical placement for SATA (yeah Impact... whats that all about!) and the 8PIN/24PIN are both where they should be.. surprising how many ITX boards are still getting this wrong.

 


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GIGABYTE GEFORCE GTX1060 ITX OC 6G - When they teased this and it's big brother the 1070 ITX OC a few months back I got really excited. I'd already been eyeing up the S4 Mini but none of the GPU offering at the time (under 8") were doing it for me.. back then it was a toss up between the Asus GTX970 ITX or AMD FURY NANO. Having just moved from the 980 to the 1070, the thought of buying a 970 gave me no pleasure. I'd have loved a FURY NANO but that 175 TDP wouldn't have left me much headroom.

 


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It's a chunky little monster with a beefy heatsink. It absolutely fills the S4 mini GPU space but seeing as the 1060 PCB is a little less tall then the its big 1070 brother I'm hoping I'll be able to mount the power socket without any further mods.

 


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I'm using the Noctua NH-L9i, I may or may not swap out the fan.. with such a small chassis, cooling is key. But I'm a sucker for aesthetics. Don't get me wrong, I like the signature Noctua fan color, however I prefer the nickel heatsink under it. Same with the GPU, so I'll at least try swapping out both 92mm fans for these Sythe 12mm 2000RPM 120mm beauts. 

 


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The S4 Mini has those two 120mm mounting points, one over the CPU, with the other above the GPU. I'll run a suite of benches with the stock cooling options then repeat with the slims. See how we get on. 

I'm working on a custom backplate for the 1060 with a matching plate for the chipset. Exploring a few different approaches with that. Once I have the designs I'll see what you guys think.

 

J.

 *the power adapter

 

[MODZERO]

 

UPDATE 2.0

Over the last few days things have moved along nicely. These are simple phone shots and for some silly reason  when resizing (I thought they looked cool at the time), I made them B&W. Won't be going that again.. 

 

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I'm really enjoying the S4 Mini chassis, it's the first independently produced small production run case I've bought. Josh over at NFC, clearly loves what he's doing. His enthusiasm comes through in everything. Already a world class modder and scratch builder (just check these out) he's also producing great content for his YouTube channel with the S4 Mini chassis clearly being a passion project for him. This is how the chassis looked when It turned up at my door. Before I sen it south to the mighty B NEG and his spray-gun of justice...  (Not that you can really tell.. cos I made the bloody images B&W!! haha).

 

 

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I loaded up all the hardware and got windows installed onto the M2 drive.. I was expecting that to be a headache but everything worked as it should, happy days! (first time using M2) As I'm replacing all the cables for the HDPLEX with custom made 18AWG wire based replacements I didn't bother installing the PSU and ran it as seen above.

 

The HDPLEX really is a great bit of kit! years of using overly power equipped PSUs left me worried a 250W DC-ATX PSU wouldn't get the job done. On a side note they've just replaced this a 300W model (yeah... :wallbash:) with a different layout for the connections ( better suited for the S4 Mini). However this one is going a great job, If I were to swap out the 1060 for say the 1070 then maybe I'll look at buying the 300W. 

 

 

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My original intention had been to sleeve all the cables, but after I'd test fit the PSU.. and it left me with this...

 

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I quickly became skeptical. I'd read over on the SFF forums users pushing the HDPLEX had benefited from the larger gauge wire (stock being something like 19AWG). So that's the current plan. It's gonna be tight with just the larger diameter wire let alone trying to sleeve 24 cables in 4mm Teleios. I'll look at sleeving the accents.. fan wires, switch, the power connector cables. Maybe I'll sleeve a couple from the GPU/CPU, see if it looks good.

 

 
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I have a couple Parvum switches so thought I had this covered... turned out the S4 MINI uses a 16mm switch, oops. Not to worry, KUSTOM PC to the rescue. Again, room is super tight with the 24PIN mobo connection sitting right up in-front of the switch.  

 

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This is the first project since moving house.. I've turned my office into a right state trying to find all my 'bits and bobs'. I'd convinced myself I had a stash of terminals, but could I find them... no. I'd convinced myself I had extra 22AWG fan wire, but could I find it... no. Luckily E22 hooked me up with a rapid resupply, thanks guys.

 

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With everything loaded up stock the system pulled just shy of 245W from the wall. looping the Unigine Valley Benchmark the Noctua NH-L9i kept my 95W i5 6600K under 40'c and silent whilst the stock cooler on the Gigabyte GTX1060 ITX OC maxed out at 62'c with the fan at 40%. Granted it's winter, I live in North Wales (it's cold) and without the HDPLEX fitted in place both components see better airflow. I was surprised all the same. Even so, I wanted to try removing the 92mm fan/shroud on the GPU and mounting a 120/12mm fan over the GPU instead.

 

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I think that looks ace! a pair of thick copper heat pipes, with the heat sink making contact on the  RAM and VRMs (nice work Gigabyte).

 

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With the slim 120mm Scythe fan in place, the GPU fit perfectly (lucky!). I'm a huge fan of SpeedFan I've used it for years, long before PWM became the norm and manufacturers included half decent fan control software with their motherboards. So the plan was simple enough. Install SpeedFan, control the RPM of the 3PIN chassis fan based on the GPU temp. Only for some unknown reason SpeedFan was unable to see fans (thought it did detect the correct controller). A quick search found others with Gigabyte Z170 based boards experiencing the same. When it's all done, I'll come back to it.. I'm sure I'll find a fix. For now I used another little app to do the same (arhh, I can't remember what is was called).

 

I ran the same loop of Valley and found the performance to be around the same. With one large difference. Whilst both solutions kept the GPU around 60'c, it took the Scythe running at 60% to pull it off. A touch too loud for my liking. 

 

The Gigabyte Z170N Gaming 5 only has two fan headers too, and I'd intended to make use of some Dazmod ridged LED strips powered from a fan header (makes for simple dimming control). By using the chassis fan, I wont be able to do that. 

 

That's it for now. Thanks for reading. What do you think, stick with the stock cooler or tweak the slim RPMs to reduce the noise and roll with it?

J.

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 3.0

Things have moved along a little further so I'm back again to share my progress. A few things have happened since update 2.0. NFC hooked me up with a couple extra side panels for whats coming up next :dremel: I bought some EK Monarch blocks for the RAM (not they'll be WC'd) to provide a little extra height between the DIMMs and the PSU.. lets start there, RAM.


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I'd never removed the heat spreaders from RAM before... years ago back when all RAM came naked, I added heat spreaders a time or two but never this way round. It was easy enough, I used a low temp on my heat gun and gently warmed up one side of the RAM at a time. Once warm I slid plastic card (like a gym or library card) in under the heat spreader. Repeated that a few times and off they popped.


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They look much better now. 

The majority of my free time over the last couple weeks has been spent on the wiring. I mentioned last time I'd intended on replacing the stock (thinner AWG) wires with new cables made with thicker 18AWG black wire. Well that turned into an epic battle between the function vs aesthetic gods.. 


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Oh, I put the cooler back on the GTX1060, it's a much tighter fit but the cooling (mainly noise) is so much better for it. I'll look at tarting it up a little down the road. The odd thing is.. the orange on the cooler matches the orange on the 960 EVO drive. As they are, the only two components you see on that side of the chassis, it sorta works... as is... But I guess we'll see.

But anyway, you can see the 6PIN GPU cable. The stock HDPLEX cable is yellow/black 21 AWG (not sure...) wire with a single 8-PIN at the PSU end and a 6+2 x2 at the other. Strapped up, fitted, you could barely see the new cable. 


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But then things started to get complicated, well, crowded. I made the 8PIN EPS which turned out okay considering it had to bypass the 24pin to be routed correctly. However the 24pin is where the battle truly begun. The thicker AWG added a lot of bulk compared to the stock HDPLEX cable (if you were to simply cut the stock cable to length). I reassembled the build and booted her up. everything worked a treat. But they really ain't much to look at.. 


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So the war begun. 



Bare black wires certainly look better then the HDPLEX cables but it's not much of a build without some sleeved goodness. Firstly, I had decided I had plenty of room to sleeve the EPS and GPU cables. I also took the HDPLEX power connector cable desoldered the stock wire, replaced with new wire and sleeved them.

ATTEMPT TWO:

 


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I hated this when I did it*. the EPS cable looked smart, clean, the cable combs made a color combo work and pulled your focus. But the 24pin looked fat and untidy. I didn't like that the power switch red cables popped as they were much shorter then the others. I knew I didn't have enough room to sleeve all 24 but felt as the positioning would hide the others, sleeving a few would add something. 

*annoyingly, looking at it now. I kinda like it.  



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The EPS was different, half the wire needed to remain bare in order to pass under the 24pin to get to its PSU connection. It was the pattern I didn't like. I love the colors, the chassis pulls cues from certain 'M' class BMWs with it's estoril blue paint job. The sleeve was picked to highlight aspects of the motherboard (the red DIMM and PCI slots) and to further that BMW scheme connection. The colors are a combination of the brand logo and the 'M' logo. So first time round It looked like this, a repeating pattern. But with only 8PINs it's too much and with only 6PINs for the GPU and 4PINs on the power cable.. I could not repeat the same pattern.

So it didn't last.

 

ATTEMPT THREE:

 


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I swapped the red switch sleeve for black and took the color out the 24pin. I went with 3 black to cover the bare wire beneath and one gray to pull in the Noctua Redux fan. I also redid the EPS wire (I didn't take a better photo...) I needed a pattern based on 4 wires, something I could repeat on the GPU and power cables. So I did. The EPS became gray, blue, light blue, red. With the remainder in black.

 


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I repeated the same for the GPU to match the EPS. At this point, had gone with 2x blue 2x grey on the power cable. It was getting there, but I still didn't like it. The 24pin still looked fat and untidy, I liked the use of combs on the GPU cable and was happy I'd found a pattern I liked but by matching the EPS it meant that you mainly saw the grey, red, black wires on the GPU cable when really you could only see the grey, blue, light blue on the EPS. So they looked totally different.

So it wasn't to be. 

 

ATTEMPT FOUR:

 


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I had to do something about my fat untidy 24PIN. The main problem I was/am having is the 24PIN sits higher on the mobo then it's bottom edge on the PSU. So the cut lengths have to allow for a bridge type bend in the middle, A: to allow the PSU end to connect lower then the mobo and B: to run that 8PIN EPS under it.

So this time round I thought I'd sleeve four cables all black on the 24PIN to hide the wires underneath. I also trimmed a few to drop the high point on the cluster of wires. I bound them to pull them in tight under the sleeved cables above.

 


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Which worked (for the most part).. it dropped the 24PIN cluster enough to make the 4PIN power cable (now grey, blue, light blue, red pattern) sit above it. 

 


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I also took the GPU cable and flipped it, so the pattern would show more of the blues. Added more combs to the GPU and power cable then reworked how the power cable routed through the chassis to the PSU.


and that's where I'm at... do I like it? no. Do I like it better then the previous attempts? sure. I don't really like the look of cable combs and don't feel my runs are quite on point. But I keep telling myself it's not finished.. I've got the back plates coming and the frame side panel to come, then a glorious tempered glass pane to finish it off. So for now, I'm leaving it. I need to move forward with those two bits. Once they are in, If I still don't like, I'll try again. It's all a process. 

Thanks for checking it out. What do you think? Should I go back to bare wire? try a different color combination? rework the lengths? or do you like it?

J.

I don't know who struck first, wire or sleeve. But we know that is was me that scorched the ends

 

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 4.0

Back again with another little update. Not a great deal has progressed over the last couple weeks (mad how quickly these weeks seem to fly by) my other half is unwell, and caring for her is slowing things down. Which, in this moment, made me think of this scene from Monty Python the Holy Grail... start at 0:50.

https://youtu.be/grbSQ6O6kbs?t=55


Hahaha, so, whats cracking. well, a few things. Firstly, I'm redoing all the cables. But I'm doubling up rather then starting over. Which meant another visit to E22.


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I've bought enough terminals and wire/sleeve to make a second 24pin. I had an idea to separate the two rows of 12 wires, dropping one row down, to run along side the other. It's difficult to visualize but I think the end result could be good. keeping the bulk of the 24PIN down at the floor of the chassis. It's just an idea, we'll see how it turns out. If it's a success and I'm left with enough supplies I'm going to make a second (third if you count the factory HDPLEX cables) set of EPS and GPU cables. I'm pretty happy with those as they are, but whilst I'm waiting on some of these other bits (I'll cover them a little further down) it's nice to stay busy. Plus, I'm going to drop the red from the sleeve pattern and maybe the lighter blue too.


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The extra two side panels turned up (Thanks again Josh) in a textured black powder coat (which I really like). But it's gotta go. A buddy has a homemade sand blaster set up in his garage (he uses it to engrave and sell slate souvenirs), he thinks he can strip the powder coat with relative ease (I'll take some pictures when he goes it, let you know how it goes).


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Once stripped, I'll be sending both panels down to the wonderful B-NEG for some special attention. Dan is going to CNC the middle section of the panel and and cut the mounting points for the glass. I'm currently working on the CAD for this, although it's not going that well. Fingers crossed, the blasting will happen next week and I'll be able to get the panels off to NEG in time for his next visit home. 

 
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I had been on the fence with this one.. originally I'd wanted to fit a small 12x2 display into the Alu wrap-around of the chassis. The inner chassis frame has a perfect cut out for this directly behind the GPU and if you were so skillfully inclined you could pull it off. Only I've gone with a GPU that is at the upper limits for the S4 Mini to house comfortably and to mount such a display directly behind such a GPU, whilst possibly, maybe, possible... it would certainly have a knock on effect to your thermals, perhaps damage the display too (pretty sure they are rated <60'c).

So what to do..

Well, I bought a bigger one. THIS ONE to be exact. I know I've already mentioned it, but if you're in the UK, the guys over at Kustom PCs do a bang up job. They have a truly great selection of products. I used one years back on a build I'd done in the Silverstone FT03. 


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They are great little displays and very easy to program. I was looking at the layout of the motherboard and spotted the internal USB header is placed just below the PCI slot (the display is USB), and once I've put the glass side panel on it's not as though this build has lots of epeen watercooled glory to behold. so I thought..


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The USB header is directly beneath it, making connecting it simple and clean. The module is the exact width to nicely fill that space between CPU and GPU too. 


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Mounting it should work out pretty well too. I plan to use the 120mm fan mounting holes above the IO. I'm working on the design atm (I'll share my designs in the next update).  The plan is to frame the display, with the mount also framing the the Noctua cooler (on two sides). That should nicely hide the IO and cover the nasty green PCB on the display. I'm working on the mount being made from 3mm ALU which I'll powder coat along with the side panel frame to match the rest of the internal powder coating. If it all goes to plan the mounted position of the screen will run flush with the GPU once that has it's custom back plate.


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That's it for now. I'm hoping as my other half continues to recover I'll be able to put more time back in to this, I'm pushing to have the CAD work finished in the coming week so I can finalize dimensions for the mounts on the glass. I'm attending Insomnia 60 in April and this is coming with me.. so ultimately that's the completion goal. 

Hope you enjoyed this little progress report, I'll come back soon with designs for you guys to give me some feedback on. 

Cheers

J.

[NoobCase]

damn... subbed again  Still look up your Hex Gear R40 build from time to time

[ccRicers]

Nice use of the display, would make it stand out from other S4 builds out there. Also love the photography, the red and blue colors really pop out.

[BeardRex]

This is the most porn of a Mini ITX build I have seen in quite a while!

[MODZERO]

On 2/10/2017 at 3:21 PM, NoobCase said:

damn... subbed again  Still look up your Hex Gear R40 build from time to time

Nice, thanks. I'm revisiting the R40 build in a few months. I need this one done in the next 6 weeks (lead times on fabricated parts may mean I miss that deadline) then I start MODZERO JABBA, which is an epic Parvum X1.0 Custom that has been in the design phase for well over a year. That'll be a quick turn around I hope which will free me up for MODZERO 42 (Forty v2). 

On 2/10/2017 at 11:06 PM, ccRicers said:

Nice use of the display, would make it stand out from other S4 builds out there. Also love the photography, the red and blue colors really pop out.

Thanks, I'm currently working on the model for the display. It's taking me an age to get sorted. Thanks for the kind words.

On 2/15/2017 at 9:34 PM, BeardRex said:

This is the most porn of a Mini ITX build I have seen in quite a while!

Haha, cheers buddy. 

 

J.

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 5.0

Nothing too exciting folks, life has been hectic but I wanted to touch base and share the little news I've got. With Insomnia 60 (LAN) just a couple weeks away it seems I'm not going to finish this build in time. Which is disappointing but fine. I'm not letting anyone down, it's not a show piece and it'll still be coming with me. 

I'm still to send the side panels down to B NEG for some CNC love and until I do that I can't finalize dimensions for the glass. But it's all in hand and we'll get there. 

So what have I gotten done. 


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Ricardo over at COLDZERO (check em out if you've not already) hooked me up with the backplate mock up (top left, above). Which I'm pretty much happy with. Think I'll drop the NFC logo from the backplate and put it elsewhere. Maybe add a little 'sponsored by' or 'powered by' to proceed the E22 and GIGABYTE logos. 

You can also see, I've pretty much finished the bracket design. The original was intended to be ALU (and it may go back to being so if this doesn't work out) but I had a thought, why not have it match the backplate. So I reworked the design and sent it over to Ricardo. 

All being well it'll have the same design vents as the backplate running along that chassis mount side (to help clear the air kicked up from the CPU heatsink and should fit just about flush with the GPU. Fingers crossed those two bits will be with me before LAN. 

In other news, we've finalized the design for MODZERO JABBA (the next project), that'll be coming this summer. Can't wait to show you guys!

This weekend I hope to remake my cables, so I'll report back then. :thumb:

J.

[MODZERO]

UPDATE 6.0

Multiplay Insomnia Gaming Festival 60 is but days away! JUICE was always earmarked for competition in time for this event. It is after all, primarily my new LAN rig. That wasn't to be, with a number of speed bumps along the way, sadly JUICE won't be finished in time for LAN. But it will be coming.. 

Oh yes, I present, MODZERO JUICE STAGE 1.0...

or at least I will present it a little further down... sorry.

JUICE is running off a single 960 PRO 256gb NVMe drive, I'd not intended to add anymore storage. But will all my games installed on two 250gb SATA SSDs in my main rig and LAN being so soon, I thought about how best to make use of those SATA SSDs. 

So I bought one of these..

I thought, I'd pull the two drives from my other rig, label them and hot-swap between the drives as and when. But, I had visions of losing a drive or disconnecting it when in game. So I went a different route. 

The NFC S4 MINI can mount two 2.5" drives in front/behind the GPU. Yet I'd previously written this mounting option off for three reasons.  



Challenge accepted.. :rock:


...

Firstly I took my two drives (two different drives) and covered the backside in matt black vinyl. Mounted them on the cage then proceeded 'to throw all the toys out the pram' when I couldn't find the two last screws... (They were holding my power connection in place... why I used two of the screws for this job I've no idea...)


...

It was almost a none starter.. not only is it tight, but the cables actually foul the clear CMOS pins on the board. I'd had to be sure the wires ran between the pins... the whole build would have to be dismantled to sort that, had it been the case. 


...

With a sizable gap between the CPU cooler and the PCI riser (where my Matrix orb will be fitted) I planned to run the SATA power cables directly down to the PCB and across to the PSU.


...

I'm not a huge fan of heatshrink cables and SATA (at least this choice of connector) is level leet when attempting the heatshrinkless approach, alas I'm not pOpe so I rolled with it (I'm already planning to redo it when I move on to Stage 2).


...

Not a flattering angle, but you get the idea. I'd just been training the bends and had sagged the sleeve. :rolleyes:


...

With it fitted to the SSDs, now came the PITA. I'm not all too confident with soldering, but how else am I going to get any better. With the harness in place and the PSU in there too, I had a lot of already short cables to shorten and solder... with the prospect of starting over if I messed up (I only had the exact number of SATA terminals) hanging over me, a mistake at this point would have been a rage quit. haha..


...

Done, all the connections were solid, the heatshink suffered as the wires heated up but with that end of the loom being down running along the PCB I wasn't too concerned. 

Next was the bloody 24PIN, well, all the other cables really! If you've been following along you'll remember I've not been a huge fan of my pervious efforts. I loved the colors... individually, but struggled to make them work once fitted in a combination that really blended with the color scheme.

I touched on it a couple updates ago (I think) but I'd bought more sleeve in just the blue and the grey. So the plan was to re-sleeve the GPU, POWER and CPU. Then make a new 24pin.

 
...

The old one was just a little too long in many of the wires which caused it to push up against the RAM more then I'd like.. I took my time, dropped the partial sleeve from last time and it worked out much better IMO.


...

This time round i was able to have the PSU end come up from the bottom, which would enable to power adapter cable to run flush over the top, much better then before. 


...

Lastly I used more of the matt black vinyl to mute the silver/red motherboard stickers. 

SO....

It's not finished.... 

But.


...


...


...


...

What do you think?

J.

1. Knowing I was putting a toasty GPU in there I'd always thought the SSDs would get cooked
2. The HDPLEX molex/sata power connection on the PSU was tucked in tight at the back of the chassis partially under the motherboard.
3. I'd not seen anyone else fit the drives and do a cracking job of the power/sata cable routing.
   

[NoobCase]

Your insane... loose much sleep over those cables?

[MODZERO]

18 hours ago, NoobCase said:

Your insane... loose much sleep over those cables?

More then I should have, for sure.

 

J.

[NoobCase]

6 hours ago, MODZERO said:

More then I should have, for sure.

 

J.

With great power comes great responsibility