Chopin w/ an HDPlex 200W

[desmou]

Hi all,

I'm attempting my first basic case mod and could use a little input. I really dig the inwin chopin case for its size, but I'd like to be able to put some higher end, higher TDP cpus in it, and for this the 150W stock power supply just doesn't cut it.

So I started looking around for replacement PSUs, but since the stock one is such an unusual shape, I could hardly find anything that would fit. I'd also like to keep the system brick-less, since it's such a great perk of the chopin compared to other SFF cases of similar size.

Enter the HDPlex 200W NanoATX combo. It's just the right size that I managed to squeeze it in without cutting up the case too much, and comes with an internal AC-DC adaptor brick. Perfect I thought - so I went for it and here's my current situation:

The HDPLEX 200W AC-DC is front and center, and it pretty well in the space where the stock PSU was, and you can see the DC-ATX nestled snugly in the bottom right corner.

I used a 24 pin extension cable, and the 6 pin cable routes through the back. Pretty darn cool I thought - granted I've never attempted anything like this.

But here's my problem, I'm so close, yet so far - It doesn't look like I have room for the C14 to JST ELR-03V to fit through the back:

It's pretty heartbreaking that it's come down to this one issue where all I needed was just a few extra centimeters..

The C8 to JST ELR-03V option will probably fit better, but I'm unsure what the pros and cons of using this 'smaller' plug would be, if any:

Thanks for your time and I'd appreciate any feedback on how I could have gone about this more elegantly, or what my next steps should be.

 

[DwarfLord]

Why don't you plug the dc-dc unit directly on the motherboard, as intended ?
It doesn't fit ? (height perhaps ?)

 

[desmou]

Exactly - that was my plan, but I was surprised to find it's just too tall to fit directly on the MB. I'd also need to remove the front heatsink to fit there, since it was up against the wall.

I tried putting it in the 'back' side of the case too, near the 2.5" drive bays, but it wouldn't fit there either, even with both heatsinks removed.

 

[6FeaT]

The drawback to the C8 connector is that it's not grounded, which is (afaik) a little more dangerous. I'm not well-versed in such matters, but I have seen that discussed here and on other forums/Discords. You might be able to ground it somehow. I recommend reading more about it.

Another option, which may or may not fit (you'd have to measure/check documentation) and requires soldering, could be to rewire the C14 entry into a C6 entry. This is a relatively common mod for Skyreach 4 Mini owners to make their system brickless (the Mini doesn't have a cutout that fits the C14, but has one that fits C6).

I guess you could also figure out a way to mount the C14 and just have the inlet protruding slightly from the case. It sounds like that wouldn't be ideal for you, but it could be a good backup option if all else fails.

 

[scatterforce]

Why not go with a pig-tail approach? Something like this that Sliger uses to save space.

 

[desmou]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. It's good to know I at least have options.

That pig-tail isn't bad at all, though I'm a little afraid of it getting tugged on, since I'm planning on traveling with this machine a lot. I'll probably do this if all else doesn't work.

I'm going to give the C8 a shot and report back. C6 sounds ideal, but I don't trust my soldering skills quite yet. For the C8 I guess I'll just mount the ground cable to the case itself...? I did some digging on this but I'm still not too clear what to do with it.

 

[Frenzy]

What "high end. high TDP cpu's" you plan to put in it ?!. I'm a bit puzzled you say the 150W PSU can't cut it, cause you're also limited by the NH-L9a (or i), which strictly speaking is designed for 65W TDP on paper. The NH-L9a cant handle more than say ~90W in practice?

So the cooler is a bigger limiting factor than the 150W PSU was. I have a 3700x with the NH-L9a, I don't see it paired with anything higher than 3800x realistically for gaming. Forget any rendering or any load that taxes all cores, you'll be thermal throttling in seconds.

NH-L9a-AM4

The NH-L9a-AM4 is the latest, AM4-specific revision of Noctua’s award-winning NH-L9a low-profile CPU cooler for AMD Ryzen-based HTPCs and Small Form Factor (SFF) systems. At a height of only 37mm, the NH-L9a is ideal for extremely slim cases and, due to its small footprint, it provides 100% RAM...

noctua.at

btw. I also have a chopin as HTPC, but with 65W TDP cpu (i5-4670k).
I modded a PCIE Wifi card in/on it.

Edit. Or you meant "cant cut it" it in relation to sound? That could well be indeed.
You could mod a better fan in the existing PSU also, i've seen it done.

Edit 2. AMD examples ofcourse not so relevant as they dont have an IGP

 

[Kilrah]

I have an L9i successfully moving 130W continuous from a 9900K, but it's helped by good case airflow which definitely isn't something in the Chopin (have one too with a 7700K in it and it's getting uncomfortably hot since there are no case fans, heat just stays trapped inside).

Can't you move the DC-ATX into the area around the m.2 next to the CPU, and move the AC-DC all the way to the front?

 

[desmou]

After seeing Noctua claim on their site that the NH-L9i could supposedly handle a 9900k I thought it'd be fun to try. I'd like to see how powerful a chip I can squeeze into this size, so I can use it to offload bursts of heavy computation to, like compiling code.

So I put the 9900k w/ the NH-L9i in the Chopin and was able to install an OS, but I was getting random reboots whenever I put some pressure on it. Any stress-testing, or even things like enabling XMB in the BIOS, and strangely some specific things like changing themes in KDE, would cause a reboot. Without a lot of knowledge on how to test that sort of thing, it seemed likely that it wasn't getting enough juice.

So I then tried it hooked up to a Corsair SF600 PSU I had laying around and the issues disappeared, validating my suspicion, and I forked out for the HDPlex 200W.

When the HDPlex arrived I hooked it up and did some stress testing using Intel's 'extreme tuning utility', and was pretty shocked/disappointed to find that the chip was power throttling before it even started thermal throttling. Temps with full load on all cores was ~85c, which obviously isn't ideal, but workable I thought since my typical use case wouldn't be nearly as heavy.

Can't you move the DC-ATX into the area around the m.2 next to the CPU, and move the AC-DC all the way to the front?

Right?! I really wanted to make that work. The AC-DC alone does fit perfectly that space, right on top of the m.2, but w/ the cables jutting out of it I couldn't find a way to make it work. It's not shown in the pictures, but there's a 4 pin coming out the back of it that loops around and into the 6-pin on the MB that just got in the way. Next time the thing's in pieces I'll take some pics of this situation.

 

[Kilrah]

Bah

Power throttling must be a BIOS/XTU setting. 200W should be just about enough without a GPU... unless the 200W rating includes significant current on the 3.3 and 5V rails and not just the 12V one, never looked at the 200W HDPLEX closely. In any case it's pretty tight.
Also rotate your L9i 90°, as it is the air is trapped by the RAM/IO block and can't exit after passing between the fins.

 

[goose1969x]

You can technically get a 400ac/dc in the bottom and get the Dynamo 360 combo on the back. The 160 and 360 unit is thin enough to fit. Still doesn't solve your thermal issue though.

 

[nphillyrezident]

Exactly - that was my plan, but I was surprised to find it's just too tall to fit directly on the MB. I'd also need to remove the front heatsink to fit there, since it was up against the wall.

I tried putting it in the 'back' side of the case too, near the 2.5" drive bays, but it wouldn't fit there either, even with both heatsinks removed.

Have you looked at this? https://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT

Not quite as much umph as the hdplex but looks like it has a 200w "peak" - it's almost a full cm shorter so would probably fit right on the motherboard. Considering "upgrading" to this setup to eliminate the noise coming off my stock chopin PSU.

 

[denywinarto]

Hi did you ever solved this? Im thinking of doing the same
Have you tried dismantling the casing of ac-dc?

 

[DrLeroy]

Did you consider upgrading the internals of the inwin PSU? I considered this at one point for one of my older systems, looking inside the unit, you could with better cooling and upgrade of a few components push the unit closer to 200w.

that said, a few people have successfully run 9900's(Non K) in the Chopin, do you need cores with igpu, or do you need clock speed? what is determining that you require a higher TDP cpu?

 

[jakejm79]

What about a standard 12V AC-DC adapter (they are available in 4"x2" form factor up to 250W) and then just a standard plug in PICO PSU (that should be much smaller than the HDPlex). You can even go with a lower wattage (and smaller) PICO and power the EPS directly from the AC-DC adapter.