1998 Minitower/Ryzen sleeper

Beige

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Jul 20, 2018
7
15
Not really sure this fits the bill as a "small form factor" PC. However, the box is pretty crammed with very little room left. This rig is my daily driver and performs quite well and doesn't make much noise after I volt-modded the water pump on that Fury X video card.

Sorry for the crappy pictures shot with my Xiaomi Mi A1.



It contains:
Gigabyte B350m mATX / Ryzen 1600x / Corsair AIO CPU cooler / 16GB / 512 m.2 / Fury X / BD-RE optical / 1000W PSU (total overkill)

It ended up like this because I had that 1kW PSU and the Fury X left over. Oh, and the original hardware from '98 had crapped out so the case was up for grabs. Drilled some holes for fans and cable management. The old CD-ROM and floppy drive now holds the slimline BD-RE and some USB ports.



As you can see the GPU's radiator is sucking in hot air from the CPU radiator. Not an optimal solution but I never see temps over 65C. The two lowest PCIe slots are holding a plate with room for two 2.5" drives. Not in use at the moment, I could theoretically fit another GPU, lol....



92mm in the rear, also some hand-drilled vents



The PSU is quite long and almost makes no room for that optical drive.


Hope you like or at least have a laugh! :)
 

TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
Sleeper builds are some of my all time faves.

It’s SFF as far as I’m concerned since you have maxed out your available space and used “big” components in a small chassis.

Love it.
 

HZCH

Trash Compacter
Jul 21, 2018
35
23
Looks nice and cramped enough ;)! How is it quiet in general?

Airflow-wise, I would remove the 92mm rear fan and mount an old school fan grill, to see if the airflow from your two roads gets an easier exhaust path. But then, looks like it's a lot of work for a test :p

About your front intake: were the cutout already there? I have an old HP case (win98 era of I remember correctly) but there's no opening on the front face (a side of a 2cm gap under the case)...
 

Beige

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Jul 20, 2018
7
15
Wow, sure got more response than I thought it would! Good you like it, guys! :)

I pulled out a better camera to shoot some close-ups, this time even more undressed.



Yeah, that fan hole in the front is .very. DIY to say the least. Haha. Air gets through, though. The hole in the back was easier as I used a 90mm hole saw on my drill. Haven't done any tests without the exhaust fan - maybe it would perform just the same. One annoying thing is that the PSU won't spin its fan at all with this "light" load. Not very convenient and it makes me want to replace the PSU just to get more air out of the damn box!



The smaller radiator, cooling the CPU, is positioned a little higher than the aft radiator, to make room for the tubes between it and the graphics card. No tubes were harmed in the wrestling process, I promise. Both rads hangs off those white brackets which used to be drawer rails from some IKEA furniture... I really want to paint those red or black. I'll post pics if I dismantle these if anyone is interested.



Not much clearance from the outer shell / case cover and the rads. But there is no contact, no vibrations are coming through. The power cables from the PSU goes downstairs via the empty drive bays. Also, I just had to replace the green power led with a red one. Now don't take me for an AMD fanboy! I simply chose it to be all-AMD because of the bang-per-buck sweetspot.

I might replace the guts in the future. Would be cool to stack 2 GPUs in there and perhaps a custom loop..
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,582
Yes sir- this is the very representation of sff-ness. tightly packed. how many liters is this? This is just... drooooooll.....

I wanna see it with the cover on...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mtthwmths

CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,233
2,556
Great job. Reminds me of a TJ-08 build as it has a similar layout. Did you paint the frame black yourself?
 

Beige

Efficiency Noob
Original poster
Jul 20, 2018
7
15
I did indeed spray paint the chassis with engine paint. Has a rough matte finish and supposedly is tougher than regular paint.
The volume of the thing, uhm let me guess.. about 35x36x18 cm, heck I suck at maths. Equals just about 'nuff :thumb:
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,582
I did indeed spray paint the chassis with engine paint. Has a rough matte finish and supposedly is tougher than regular paint.
The volume of the thing, uhm let me guess.. about 35x36x18 cm, heck I suck at maths. Equals just about 'nuff :thumb:

Here's a handy dandy calculator-https://www.sensorsone.com/custom-tool/lwhv-set-units-calculator/?ctlunit=millimetres+%28mm%29&ctlfctr=mm&ctwunit=millimetres+%28mm%29&ctwfctr=mm&cthunit=millimetres+%28mm%29&cthfctr=mm&ctvunit=litres+%28L%29&ctvfctr=L