I have a Dream...The Dreamcast SFF build!

[BLLDoesTech]

Just now, Ross Siggers said:

Wait what was the fourth sonic game on Dreamcast?

I have Adventure 1 & 2, and I recently managed to find a copy of Shuffle. It's a terrible game, but rare to find selling on the used market so i had to snap it up. I also have the initial release copy of Phantasy Star Online, that came with the Adventure 2 demo disc. I really want a good condition copy of Sonic Adventure 2 Birthday Edition though...

fourth is just sonic the hedge hog

I listed as sonic

[Ross Siggers]

10 minutes ago, BLLDoesTech said:

fourth is just sonic the hedge hog

I listed as sonic

I didn't know that was re-released on Dreamcast. Although there is a version of green hill zone in Adventure 2.

[BLLDoesTech]

56 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

I didn't know that was re-released on Dreamcast. Although there is a version of green hill zone in Adventure 2.

It wasn't officially released, a friend of mine (idk how he does it) burnt the classic to a disk, so I could play it on my dreamcast

[TacoSenpai]

Following because of Dreamcast.  I think Adam Koralik would think this is pretty cool.

[Ross Siggers]

28 minutes ago, LordOTaco said:

Following because of Dreamcast.  I think Adam Koralik would think this is pretty cool.

If this ever got to Adam for a review, I'd be scared of him breaking it, have you seen how he unboxes things  

[TacoSenpai]

1 hour ago, Ross Siggers said:

If this ever got to Adam for a review, I'd be scared of him breaking it, have you seen how he unboxes things  

Welllll he can't be worse than Linus right?

 

He was pretty careful when he got that Magnavox Odyssey from his friend

[BLLDoesTech]

8 minutes ago, LordOTaco said:

Welllll he can't be worse than Linus right?

 

He was pretty careful when he got that Magnavox Odyssey from his friend

that thing is almost 50 years old so he kinda has a reason for being careful

[Ross Siggers]

So I did a lot of cutting today;

 

-  Smoothed quite a few of the existing stand-offs down beneath the motherboard. I left most of the front ones for now.
-  Did a rough cut out of the rear. Ventilated or appropriate I/O shield? I've not decided yet.
-  Reduced the size of the latch that holds the lid closed. It now clears the graphics card nicely

-  Cut the fan hole on the underside. Rough, needs tidying(like all the cuts so far).

- Removed the internal ribs on the back of the case, to flush mount the motherboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ended up pushing the motherboard as far back and into the corner as I could, so the rear I/O should have perfect access being flush to the rear of the case, but unfortunately this means the power plug(DC barrel connector) for the board will stick out, then loop back inside the case. Messy, but beyond getting a 90* plug to make it less obvious, I'm undecided on what to do with that just yet. But I'd rather it be this way, than move the whole board forwards, lose internal space, and port access at the rear. There's actually a pleasing amount of space up front now

Another result of this is that the RAM has moved from it's initially planned placement; I haven't cut the floor for it yet, but the hole I cut out for the fan has given me a nice large piece of 'Dreamcast plastic', so I can make it tidy and subtle when I do. You can see the dotted marks if you zoom into the last picture, and how far across the sticks have actually gone. 

 

Everything all still just about fits, with the massive hole in the bottom and the rear cut away, it's definitely starting to look like a PC chassis! And after removing more from both halves of the shell, it's really starting to feel flimsy when it doesn't have stuff in it  

 

p.s. Yes I am using my Dremel on the floor on an old bed sheet. Don't ask.

[Ross Siggers]

Bonus picture! ...don't worry, it will be filtered when complete.

I wasn't sure what would be better for airflow; cutting to the edge of the fan, or to the edge of the cooler. I think I made the wrong choice, but I also think it'll make a negligible difference. 
 

[TacoSenpai]

That fan on the bottom looks really cool for some reason I'm thinking of how it would look like with a spinning dreamcast spiral.

[Ross Siggers]

22 minutes ago, LordOTaco said:

That fan on the bottom looks really cool for some reason I'm thinking of how it would look like with a spinning dreamcast spiral.

OH LAWD that'd be funny. But I've tried drawing a spiral on a fan before, and it's ridiculously hard to get right :( 
 

I do intend on keeping the orange power triangle, and the original power button though ;) 

[TacoSenpai]

41 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

OH LAWD that'd be funny. But I've tried drawing a spiral on a fan before, and it's ridiculously hard to get right
 

I do intend on keeping the orange power triangle, and the original power button though

Oh yeah I don't even see how you would be able to do it I guess you could put a miniature dreamcast sticker on the center part of the fan see how many people you can trip out lol

[Ross Siggers]

UPDATE TIME!! Just a small one today.

The mounting screws for the motherboard ended up falling in a really awkward place, slightly offset from an old mounting point, but not far enough away to have a flat surface to drill. You can see in the third picture where the black marker indicated the spot I need to drill out; the plastic is thinner and uneven, a big no-no for mounting holes. So I did some interesting on-the-fly remoulding... After cutting the original mount off, with the aid of some excess plastic trimmings, I used a soldering iron to fill and smooth out the area, into a solid surface perfect for drilling holes into. I'm actually kind of proud of how this worked.

 

Original threaded stand-off

 

cut flush with a dremel

 

the tiny bit of plastic just to the right, gets shoved in the middle and melted down

 

The end result! It's the weird textured bit in the middle of the picture.

 

Holes can now be drilled, and 35mm tall standoffs fitted. They will be shortened slightly to drop the board as low as possible, and also have the threaded ends trimmed a tiny bit. I'll use some strong glue or epoxy to make sure they stay where they are for the final fitting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see the board lines up great, I got the rear I/O exactly where I wanted it to be, albeit the fan hole on the underside needs a little adjustment now. The RAM fitment is very satisfying the way it is, but the board does still need to drop down. At least now I know exactly where to cut to make it tidier.

 

 

 

 

I also trimmed out the entire rear of the case, on the top and bottom halves, another step that makes me think, "wow this really is starting to look like a PC chassis".

I'm not as worried about cooling now I've seen this, at least for the processor; The CPU cooler sits near the back of the case, and I've decided to mesh this instead of using the I/O shield. It'll exhaust nice and freely to the rear, and up front I'm planning on reusing the original Dreamcast exhaust port with a new 40mm Noctua. Potentially the 4 controller holes might be exhausts too, but I'd prefer to fill them with usb ports.

 

 

 

We have an issue where the lid mechanism fouls the back of the board, but this will be fixed when we lower the board to it's final position.

 

[kelvinhall05]

Man, this is awesome! I think I said this before, but sleepers and SFF are my two favourite things in a PC build

 

If you know how and have resources to do it, I'd try 3D printing something for a backplate.

[Ross Siggers]

5 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

I'd try 3D printing something for a backplate.

That's an idea... as long as it's well ventilated, I feel like to get the same airflow through it the printed part would end up being quite delicate... Unfortunately I can't do any of this myself but I think I know a friend who may be able to help when the time comes. I was actually planning on contacting him to print me a fan mount, as the files are freely available as part of an existing mod

 

Just an fyi, this PC will not be the most dust resistant. I'm obviously filtering the underside intake. but apart from that filtration is not a priority 

[SukaroBlue]

This build looks amazing. When it's finished you should make it run a dreamcast emulator for shits and giggles.

[Ross Siggers]

So the M.2 to PCIe 3.0 adapter came.... Damn its a tight fit. What are peoples opinions of the cable running sandwiched between the two boards? 

 

It only fits that way, so to route it around the outside of the case I'd need to buy a much longer one, which I've not seen online so far. 

 

 

Right angle off the M.2 port... 

 

 

 

Then under the graphics card to the far side... 

 

 

 

Then a sharp loop back into the x16 connector. 

 

[GrogStache]

On 12/11/2018 at 11:38 AM, Ross Siggers said:

What are peoples opinions of the cable running sandwiched between the two boards?

I think that idea works great. The cables should be well insulated and provide you some of that buffer you'd want between the components anyway, shouldn't they? 

[Ross Siggers]

16 hours ago, GrogStache said:

I think that idea works great. The cables should be well insulated and provide you some of that buffer you'd want between the components anyway, shouldn't they? 

Yeah I hope so, it's not touching the motherboard because of the rear part of the cpu bracket. It's just that it presses against the rear of the graphics card, quite close to the die. 

 

Obviously can't test such things until its at least powered on though. The list of things to do before first boot is quite small;

 

Internal psu 

I checked up on my order, and it turns out it hadn't been processed correctly. Craig, the guy who runs KMPKT, said he'd look into it. Also in light of desicion change, he said he'd be happy to change the order from a Dynamo 360, to a Dynamo Mini, which is basically the same power and size as the HDplex I mentioned before. So hopefully that'll ship soon. I didn't post pictures but I already have my 230w external brick. 

 

 

GPU cooler

I still have to do all the little jobs to get this finished. I have to get new hardware, and tap the oversized holes on my cooler to match. And finally, get one of those higher rated fans to go with it. The skylake i7 has Intel 530 on board graphics though, so things can be tested without this if I have to

 

 

[ccRicers]

That's some pretty great progress for the Dreamcast mods. I also have had no problems with PCIe cables being sandwiched between the boards. I'm a bit wary about the connection being x1 speed though... even the GTX 1050 might bottleneck somewhat with that, when x4 should be fine. Does the m.2 slot support x4 PCIe speed?

[Ross Siggers]

On 12/15/2018 at 12:15 AM, ccRicers said:

That's some pretty great progress for the Dreamcast mods. I also have had no problems with PCIe cables being sandwiched between the boards. I'm a bit wary about the connection being x1 speed though... even the GTX 1050 might bottleneck somewhat with that, when x4 should be fine. Does the m.2 slot support x4 PCIe speed?

Well, this is the seller on eBay I bought it from. Take everything you read with a pinch of salt...anyway, I'm coming to you LIVE FROM THE STX BUILD WOOOO YEEAAAH WHADDUP FORUMS!

 

I'll write up a bigger post soon, needless to say I've not had much luck getting the GPU working so far, and this isn't the final power supply I'll be using. But hey, it boots, it works fine under load, yeah. That's progress, because until now all my parts were untested. So I'm relieved really xD 

[kelvinhall05]

8 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

Well, this is the seller on eBay I bought it from. Take everything you read with a pinch of salt...anyway, I'm coming to you LIVE FROM THE STX BUILD WOOOO YEEAAAH WHADDUP FORUMS!

 

I'll write up a bigger post soon, needless to say I've not had much luck getting the GPU working so far, and this isn't the final power supply I'll be using. But hey, it boots, it works fine under load, yeah. That's progress, because until now all my parts were untested. So I'm relieved really

Sounds cool, I'm kind of inspired to do an STX build now (who knows, maybe I'll sell my build and make an STX one ).

[duniek]

this riser is x1 only, this company (adt link is making various risers - on aliexpress you can buy one like this but with wider ribbon (x4 speed)

 

on gtx 1070 i lost onlu 11-12% effinency between x4 and x16 speed 


 

[Ross Siggers]

@duniek That's good to know, I've still not got a GPU together to test on this system yet. Do you have a link to the x4 version? The wider cable may give me issues reaching it to the right place, but we'll have to see...   I actually have another update coming, but I'll leave it till after Christmas to sort the photos out. And maybe add a little more progress, who knows.

Until then, Merry Christmas everyone  

 

[thevicparable]

Awesome build!

 

I'm starting my own in an old PS2 case soon. Like you I'll have to mount the motherboard upside down and was wondering how to go about it. I've never seen those super tall stand-offs before. Where did you get them?