[COMPLETED] 2200G with external brick on a budget

[Shahmatt]

Here is what I have built. Sorry about the photo quality. Lighting in the room wasn't very good.

Internal layouts with DC-ATX not installed:

The case is a Realan E-W80 (220x200x80mm height). The components you see are the Wraith Stealth cooler on 2200G, HyperX Fury 8GB kit, twin 6010 0.4A fans oriented to intake and MSI B350i Pro AC board. Underneath the board is a Transcend MTE820 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD.

A photo of the intake fans with dust filters stuck to the case fan bracket in reverse orientation.


The DC-ATX unit. This is a Pico-Box X300 rated for 300W with 16-24V input.


The DC-ATX, with a whole mass of cabling, stuck to the roof of the case with double-sided sticky tape. I also used wheel bearing grease to thermally connect the unit heat-sink to the roof. Also the cabling folds in neatly into the left (front of case) on closing the lid


The X300 is likely overkill for this project. However I may use this PC in situations where supply can be dicey. A buddy of mine in the business once told me to go with something that has plenty of capacitors, which this unit seems to have. Anyway Pico-Box very kindly offered me (as an extra) a 5.5mm input cable and jack which this case accommodates and helped seal the deal.

Overall finished product:


The brick is a 180W 19V generic unit from Aliexpress. It is quite large relative to the case and seems to get slightly warm. Though I initially pondered on an internal brick to minimize overall volume I realized that room would be tight, temps would be worse, and it would involve case modification to accommodate the AC input (something I don't have the time to do these days). So I went with the external brick to keep things simple.

Preliminary testing and temperatures:
For some reason I am unable to adjust the CPU clock and it is stuck running at 3.7GHz. The setting is greyed out in BIOS. I'll have to figure out how that works. VCore I have adjusted to 1.25V. The iGPU is 1500MHz, and SOC and iGPU voltages at 1.2V. I have left the RAM alone for now until I have temps under control, and temps are indeed a problem.

Ambient temperatures are around 30 degrees C here in tropical Singapore. Preliminary testing shows that the CPU idles at 45 degrees, but climbs quickly to 60 degrees under any light load, for example internet browsing. Running Passmark's 3D benchmark pushed temps to around 80 degrees and I scored 2690. I have not tried Prime95 yet but I'm not very hopeful it will stay under 100 degrees. The case is an oven, that's for sure, and the top and sides get quite warm to the touch.

What I have spent:
About 800SGD (610USD).

Other thoughts:
I may purchase another fan to exhaust on the other open-side. I'll decide after playing around with voltages and trying to lower the CPU clock (which is too high really for what I need). Also to be purchased is a 2.5" HDD to complement the SSD. Anyway, please do feel free to comment. Thanks for reading!

Edit, 14th April:
Some images of the internal cable arrangement and how the DC-ATX wires arrange when lowering the roof:


Edit, 15th April
Incorrectly stated that fans were 5010, when in fact they are 6010

 

[Shahmatt]

So here are some final build photos:

General appearance with dust filters stuck here and there:


2TB Firecuda and DC-ATX stuck to the roof a bit before final close up. Wires crawl untidily. I found the Wraith Stealth shield helpful in organizing wires.


All closed up


General workstation with the new build atop my old venerable 6 year old reliable (scheduled for server duties soon).


Final stats:
CPU @ 3.5GHz in order to save power, but safely overclockable to 3.725 if necessary.
RAM @ 3200 CL16
GPU @ 1525 MHz

Prime95 blend yields around 91'C at load
Playing TF2 yields average thermals of around 72'C.
Power consumption TBA (awaiting power monitoring gadget)

Overall quite pleased with the final outcome. Onward to the next SFF experiment.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

Hey it's looking good! Good to see the iGPU hitting 1500mhz.
As you know from my thread thermals can be a real issue in these cases. Even having my lid on standoffs didn't help much. Undervolting helps a lot. Strange you can't change CPU clock speed. Try finding the turbo setting and flick that off to start with.

My case is still warm to the touch and its running fine so I wouldn't worry about that.
Prime95+Furmark is what got my PC running it's absolute hottest but if temps do become a big issue then try "real world" testing instead and see how temps are. Run the most demanding game you think you'll play for half an hour or so. If it can cope with what you plan to use it for then no need to worry if it can cope at 100% in that crazy 30C ambient. Maybe I just think it's crazy since I'm in noticeably less tropical Scotland...

Looking forward to hearing your progress on the temps!

 

[Shahmatt]

Thanks for your comment.

I figured out the problem with the CPU clock. There is a setting called OCGenie which when enabled increases the clock to 3.75GHz and disables the multiplier. Disabling OCGenie gave me back multiplier control.

I downclocked to 3.5GHz and tried setting a lower CPU VCore (1.175V) in BIOS. However in Windows the VCore did not appear to stick. Voltages rise to 1.312 in HWmonitor. So this is a new problem.

Using Ryzen Master though I was able to undervolt to 1.175 which did stick. I ran Prime95 for 10 minutes and there was no instability with temps topping out at 85 degrees. This seems great but the voltages are stuck at 1.175, i.e. they don't drop when demand drops. I'm not sure how to fix the problem.

This seems to be a common problem with MSI boards and I read that LLC is a fix, but I'm not sure how that works exactly.

RAM is now set to 3.2GHz, CL16, and no instability. The GPU and SOC voltages change together on this board and currently they are at 1.2125.

As you say VCore is the greater contributor to temps. Dropping the VCore improved temps tremendously as with the 3.7GHz (auto voltage) Prime95 gave me temps of 102'C but stable.

I have more confidence in the case now as I've proven to myself that with a low VCore I am able to achieve desirable temps. However the motherboard is not helping. I do also have quite noisy case fans which push to 6000RPM at full tilt (not sure if HWmonitor reads this correctly). But for normal use and gaming I can keep these RPMs low.

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

Yes, LLC is the option you're looking for. I'm no expert in the area but as far as I'm aware it allows your CPU voltage to dynamically change depending on what it requires. This will be set to auto by default. By the sounds of it Ryzen Master is typically used for overclocking so it must be locking in your voltage for a stable OC. I would revert the Ryzen Master setting and go to your bios to find the LLC option.
LLC options are displayed differently depending on board but there are usually between 5 and 7 options either numbered or named (low, medium, high etc). It'll take a bit of trial and error but from what I've read and experienced you'll be looking at setting this to option 4 or 5. On my asrock Intel board option 4 out of 5 was the best in that it kept voltages hovering around what I set.
On my Gigabyte AMD board option 4 out of 7 (medium) was the best option (option 1 is called low, option 7 is called something like extreme).

So it may take a couple restarts, some options will allow your vcore to receive voltage higher than what you've set under load, some will allow it to receive up to what you've set.

Make sure your cpu isn't throttling too much with those temps, I found mine to throttle around 20% when it started hitting 95C. As you say though it's probably fine for day to day use.

You could try your fans with and without those dust filters too, maybe removing them would allow them to spin slower if they're proving too noisy for you

 

[Shahmatt]

Thanks for the information. I also experienced throttling when temps reached 95'C, so it looks like that's AMD's key number.

Yes the dust filters could contribute to the noise I'm sure. But I do intend to try to make it work. Dust is the bane of all PC's I've owned and cleaning it out has been such a nuisance.

 

[Shahmatt]

Here is an update:

Using LLC 'mode 8' (which, on this board, corresponds to nearly no over-volting for Vdroop) I've tamed the CPU VCore to 1.288V. Enabling AMD's Cool and Quiet setting caused the motherboard to lower voltages when idling and fixed that problem. The iGPU is set to 1525MHz at 1.2V. RAM is 3200MHz/CL16 at 1.34V. These settings seem to be stable for me.

Prime95 temps are 92'C. There is no throttling. Passmark's 3D benchmark yielded a score of 2793 with maximum temperature of 75'C. Not the best score I've seen on this APU but it's alright for now. Idle temperatures range between 40 to 45'C. Playing Team Fortress 2 temperatures rose to 72'C and there is some noise from the case fans, but it is not very loud.

Next steps involve purchasing installing a 2.5" HDD with cabling. Space looks quite tight though but will try to stuff it in, averagely!

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

Here is an update:

Using LLC 'mode 8' (which, on this board, corresponds to nearly no over-volting for Vdroop) I've tamed the CPU VCore to 1.288V. Enabling AMD's Cool and Quiet setting caused the motherboard to lower voltages when idling and fixed that problem. The iGPU is set to 1525MHz at 1.2V. RAM is 3200MHz/CL16 at 1.34V. These settings seem to be stable for me.

Prime95 temps are 92'C. There is no throttling. Passmark's 3D benchmark yielded a score of 2793 with maximum temperature of 75'C. Not the best score I've seen on this APU but it's alright for now. Idle temperatures range between 40 to 45'C. Playing Team Fortress 2 temperatures rose to 72'C and there is some noise from the case fans, but it is not very loud.

Next steps involve purchasing installing a 2.5" HDD with cabling. Space looks quite tight though but will try to stuff it in, averagely!

Sounding good what clock speeds do you have your CPU set to? Do you have turbo enabled?

 

[Shahmatt]

It's set to 3.5GHz with fixed x35 multiplier and CPU Performance Boost set to 'Disabled'.

I tried enabling the boost feature but that caused the CPU to push all cores to 3.7GHz immediately in Passmark and consequently also push the VCore to 1.4V. Not very good for temperatures. I was feeling queasy about testing temperatures at such a voltage so I just went back to disabling it.

But even in this state strangely Passmark pushes a single core to 3.7GHz while others remained at 2.9GHz or thereabouts. This is not so bad and voltages were under control, but it beats me what setting allows the software to override the CPU multiplier and go beyond, even for one core.

 

[owliwar]

Hey, I think your problem is quite a lot about how the fan on the cpu cooler doesnt have intake more than voltage.
could you mod the case?
I thing the fan is barely touching the side panel. if it is, I'd recommend marking where the fan is and drilling some holes there, it will greatly improves on temperature

 

[stree]

I think I can comment here, having a similar build. I too use the Realan EW80 case, ASRock 370X ITC-ac MB, with 2400G, 300 watt power supply and M.2 EVO 960 256GB boot drive strapped underneath and a Firecuda 1GB SSD hybrid drive. 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix@ 2933.
I only have the Wraith for cooling, no other fans. ( I just did a temp reading whilst typing this and a steady 25 degrees)
I have had this case a few years and have done many different builds in it, and I think this current one is the one I am happiest with so far.

I think there are a couple of things you could do to lower temps, ones I would do anyway.
Get rid of the secondary fans. They use power ( power = heat) and create noise, and from my experience restrict air flow rather than improve it.
Fit standoffs to the lid mounting holes in the case, this will lift the lid and create a useful air gap all round, assisting airflow.

There are other more drastic steps I would suggest, but they may not be practical right now, and may be more my personal choice, although this is brought about by experience!
In other words, that power supply. or rather, the cabling it has: it is really throttling airflow and that is of major importance in small cases like this. As I said, mine is a similar specced build, but I have no airflow issues and it runs much cooler, even under games.
I have to say at this point that the Wraith is a very efficient cooler and is more than up to the task of cooling your system given that all else is in place .and also that it would really detract from that case to hack or mod that lid in any permanent way. Make a thick card mock up of the lid to experiment with holes, slots, fan grills or whatever, but leave the lid alone.

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

It's set to 3.5GHz with fixed x35 multiplier and CPU Performance Boost set to 'Disabled'.

I tried enabling the boost feature but that caused the CPU to push all cores to 3.7GHz immediately in Passmark and consequently also push the VCore to 1.4V. Not very good for temperatures. I was feeling queasy about testing temperatures at such a voltage so I just went back to disabling it.

But even in this state strangely Passmark pushes a single core to 3.7GHz while others remained at 2.9GHz or thereabouts. This is not so bad and voltages were under control, but it beats me what setting allows the software to override the CPU multiplier and go beyond, even for one core.

I'll check my settings to see what I've done but all my cores sit at 3.4ghz under load, interesting that one of yours is going to 3.7ghz while the rest are going to 2.9. I found all my cores going to about 2.9ghz when throttling.

Hey, I think your problem is quite a lot about how the fan on the cpu cooler doesnt have intake more than voltage.
could you mod the case?
I thing the fan is barely touching the side panel. if it is, I'd recommend marking where the fan is and drilling some holes there, it will greatly improves on temperature

Yes completely agree with this. Slots on my lid are what allowed me to keep my temps under control on a similar case but I know Shahmatt is not keen on modifying the case.

@Shahmatt I think lower voltages help quite a bit to start with. I found exhaust fans to help too. I'd try orienting your case fans to remove hot air and remove the dust filters from them since they won't be needed when exhausting. If these are on intake then they may just be circling the hot air around the case.

Having tried my lid on 5mm standoffs I found that to be of negligible difference but everything is worth a shot if you can't find time to change out or modify your lid.
I don't believe the PSU or cabling will be affecting CPU temps in your layout given that mine is similar.

I think your number 1 enemy is the lack of intake on the lid as mentioned above.

 

[stree]

My lid is solid......this is the layout. Hence I think more fans or hacking the lid is the wrong way to go about this.. from experience.

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

My lid is solid......this is the layout. Hence I think more fans or hacking the lid is the wrong way to go about this.. from experience.

We must have had different experiences as a slotted lid and exhaust fans on my most recent build is what helped me, going from 100C+ with a solid lid to 80C max with a slotted lid. Both tests were 100% CPU and GPU load. These were 30 minute tests to allow everything to warm up and even out.
I'd be interested to know your temps, under 100% load with lid on and off.

 

[stree]

Before I consider that, may I know what your spec and usage is?

 

[Shahmatt]

If I'm not wrong @Flumper Dinkle uses the E-W60, whereas @stree and I use a E-W80. That's a 20mm height difference. I guess while both cases have limited headroom above the cooler, the E-W80 suffers less from this.

 

[Shahmatt]

My lid is solid......this is the layout. Hence I think more fans or hacking the lid is the wrong way to go about this.. from experience.

You got the G'Unique. Is that a Type D? Very cool. I was most tempted but had to pass because I needed to build this sooner rather than later. Also you've managed to fix in the power socket through a COM port. I wondered if that was possible. Did you know before buying or did you risk it?

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

Before I consider that, may I know what your spec and usage is?

I was hoping you'd have them to hand.
Build log is in my signature, spec is largely similar to the build posted here:
2200g @ 3.4ghz 1.1v (Noctua L9a)
iGPU @ 1500mhz 1.1v - SOC @ 1.075v
8GB Corsair Vengeance @ 3200mhz
250GB M.2 SSD
Gigabyte AB350N itx board
HDPLEX direct plug 160W
HDPLEX AC-DC 160W
2x noctua 40mm (exhaust orientation)
Case is the Realan E-W60

Usage is mainly gaming but as stated my temps were recorded under 100% simultaneous stress tests. Real life usage obviously results in cooler temps (about 10C cooler)

If I'm not wrong @Flumper Dinkle uses the E-W60, whereas @stree and I use a E-W80. That's a 20mm height difference. I guess while both cases have limited headroom above the cooler, the E-W80 suffers less from this.

Yes your cases should have more headroom. This is why I'm confused that one of you have no issues with thermals and one of you have things pretty hot and why I'm interested to hear @stree thermals.

 

[Shahmatt]

Hey, I think your problem is quite a lot about how the fan on the cpu cooler doesnt have intake more than voltage.
could you mod the case?
I thing the fan is barely touching the side panel. if it is, I'd recommend marking where the fan is and drilling some holes there, it will greatly improves on temperature

Yes but the clearance is around 15 to 20mm. It's not much but it seems to be enough to limit temps to 80'C. This is fine for me.

I think I can comment here, having a similar build. I too use the Realan EW80 case, ASRock 370X ITC-ac MB, with 2400G, 300 watt power supply and M.2 EVO 960 256GB boot drive strapped underneath and a Firecuda 1GB SSD hybrid drive. 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix@ 2933.
I only have the Wraith for cooling, no other fans. ( I just did a temp reading whilst typing this and a steady 25 degrees)
I have had this case a few years and have done many different builds in it, and I think this current one is the one I am happiest with so far.

I think there are a couple of things you could do to lower temps, ones I would do anyway.
Get rid of the secondary fans. They use power ( power = heat) and create noise, and from my experience restrict air flow rather than improve it.
Fit standoffs to the lid mounting holes in the case, this will lift the lid and create a useful air gap all round, assisting airflow.

There are other more drastic steps I would suggest, but they may not be practical right now, and may be more my personal choice, although this is brought about by experience!
In other words, that power supply. or rather, the cabling it has: it is really throttling airflow and that is of major importance in small cases like this. As I said, mine is a similar specced build, but I have no airflow issues and it runs much cooler, even under games.
I have to say at this point that the Wraith is a very efficient cooler and is more than up to the task of cooling your system given that all else is in place .and also that it would really detract from that case to hack or mod that lid in any permanent way. Make a thick card mock up of the lid to experiment with holes, slots, fan grills or whatever, but leave the lid alone.

I believe you've mentioned the standoff recommendation in an older thread somewhere. It's quite an original idea and simple to implement.

The reason behind having intake fans was mainly because I wanted to limit dust. I understand that it could make a bad situation worse, but in order to get a low dust case I thought I'd test it and see.

Using the CPU fan alone, with standoffs, would yield a case very prone to dust. So the case fans are to control airflow, but conversely I run the risk of hot spots. In particular the DC-ATX unit and internal HDD (installed today) are in the corner and could be in hotspots. But this I mitigate by thermally contacting the DC-ATX heatsink and HDD surface to the roof.

Thermals are no longer an issue actually. I've maintained stock frequency and overclocked the GPU. This was always the intention and I went into this project with this final outcome in mind.

 

[Shahmatt]

Here is an update on this build.

Over the last couple of weeks I replaced my monitor with a LG 25UM58 21:9 ultrawide. The GPU output resolution increased from 1920x1080 to 2560x1080 but with around 6% loss in display area (see Displaywars link).

Though conventional wisdom would suggest at least a 29" display for ultrawides I decided to try the smaller screen due to limited desk space. Though initially I found it difficult to work with the smaller sized print it only took a couple of days to become accustomed to it. It is quite a nice display and productivity stuff, like working with spreadsheets, is much easier to do.

Trying out Team Fortress 2 on this display caused temperatures to climb more than I expected to 85'C. I guess the GPU is working a lot harder than before on account of the 30% increase in resolution. It also did not bode well as TF2 is not the most graphic intensive game I think the GPU can handle. In addition I got a blue screen crash with GPU error suggesting that, despite all the Prime95 stress testing, the overclock was not stable.

In order to tame temperatures and give the GPU more headroom I succumbed and lowered the CPU to 3.3GHz, which under LLC Mode 8, caused the maximum VCore to top out at 1.24V. The GPU/SOC voltage is now reduced to 1.1875V and frequency back at 1500MHz.

I've also been progressively tightening memory timings and found that the HyperX's were stable at 3033@CL14. However I reverted back to the sweet spot of 3200MHz and am now testing timings at CL15.

I purchased a 4010 exhaust fan for just $1.50 from Aliexpress but it had an incredibly annoying whining noisy, so I put it away. Better 40mm fans may be needed. The 4010 did not improve the CPU and System temps much but I think it could be useful to circulate air to other parts of the case (HDD and PSU) and minimize hotspots.

The intake 6010 fans work very well but I found diminishing returns when the RPMs climbed more than around 3800 when gaming. So I capped it at a constant 3800 when in a 70 to 88 degree range. This provides a steady constant low noise which is much less annoying compared to the ramping up and slowing down noise these fans make. I also setup a steep climb to 100% (6000 RPM) beyond 88, but this temperature is hard to touch now. Overall gaming is a lot more comfortable on the fan noise front.

I'll be buying a couple of better quality 2 or 3pin 4010s to help with exhaust. I'll also need a Molex D type to fan splitter to power it up. Will take a couple more weeks I guess.