Hello from Arizona!

Hi all! I'm Nate.

I'm a student and a programmer who loves computers. Especially ones that are small, quiet, or both. And undervolting.

Rather than talk about myself, how about I talk about my computer?
I built my first PC in 2011. It was a pretty "standard" tower, in an Antec 300. 42.8 liters.
Then I saw a video of a PC someone modded into an xbox 360 chassis. Oh boy.
That's the very moment that got me started towards SFF and I haven't looked back. I even took my old out-of-warranty RROD xbox 360 and very hackily turn it into a PC - though I eventually dismantled it when I noticed the xbox 360 wasn't very pretty in the first place.

Since then I swapped my motherboard with an ITX board and have been on a Chassis & cooling adventure, trying to find a balance between size and noise.

First case I switched to was a Bitfenix Prodigy. 26.35 liters.
That was too big apparently. Next up was Cooler Master Elite 120. 20 liters.
Cooling in the Cooler Master case was ironically a major pain, got tired of it and moved into a Fractal Design Define Mini. 40.6 liters.

This is turning into a roller coaster. The fractal was too big (again), so next up is Azza Z. 16.85 liters.
Surprise suprise, wasn't happy with the Azza. Though this time it was down to build quality & design than anything. It looked good on paper but was surprisingly bad when I actually put a PC in it.
Last case is a Fractal Design Node 304. 19.6 liters. Certainly not small compared to what's around this forum, but I get to stick to a pretty darn quiet ATX power supply, a near silent tower cooler on the CPU, and virtually no limits on GPU choice. I've had it for over a year now so I guess that makes it a keeper.

Now that was just my daily PC... I've also had a smaller project or two

I made a Pico-PSU powered APU machine in the Antec ISK 110. 3.7 liters.
Loved the size of that one, but those APU's just didn't have the muscle for me to want to use it regularly...

And my current mini project is in an In Win BM639. Around 7-8 liters. I've been planning to add a discrete GPU to it, and just haven't decided whether I want to go Pico PSU, HD Plex 250, or an internal PSU...

Welp, that's all of it. Hope you guys don't mind the relatively long introduction

 

[BirdofPrey]

Whereabouts in AZ? You said you're a student and programmer (programming student?), so I'd guess Tempe (unless you're one of them dirty, dirty Wildcats )

Any idea what GPU you might pick up? That's probably the biggest determinator of whether or not an HD Plex would work well for you.

 

[jeshikat]

Welcome to the forum!

And my current mini project is in an In Win BM639. Around 7-8 liters. I've been planning to add a discrete GPU to it, and just haven't decided whether I want to go Pico PSU, HD Plex 250, or an internal PSU...

Lots of expertise on pushing internal DC-DC power supplies to the limit here, mainly just need to know your parts list to know how much power you need.

 

[Phuncz]

Hi and welcome ! I've been on that size roller coaster too, I loved transplanting builds at a point, learning a lot every time.

 

[NateDawg72]

Whereabouts in AZ? You said you're a student and programmer (programming student?), so I'd guess Tempe (unless you're one of them dirty, dirty Wildcats )

North Phoenix actually. Currently taking business classes at the moment before I dive back into computer science.

I was interning as a programmer at a local business way past the internship end date (they just didn't want to get rid of me!) so they hired me as a junior programmer.

Oh, and for GPU I've been using an under clocked OEM gtx 660 as a placeholder. I'm thinking of getting a "1050" or whatever the next one down from 1060 would be.

Welcome to the forum!

Lots of expertise on pushing internal DC-DC power supplies to the limit here, mainly just need to know your parts list to know how much power you need.

Not too much power.
Intel core i3/i5, < 65w
8GB DDR3
1 SSD
And a ~90-120w GPU.

I have a pico PSU 160xt & 192 watt brick, but my brick seems to have issues at low loads. Under about 40 watts it buzzes loudly and rapidly fluctuates between 10-40 watts on my killawatt. Above that, it goes silent and the power is stable. Anyone else had that issue?

Hi and welcome ! I've been on that size roller coaster too, I loved transplanting builds at a point, learning a lot every time.

Thanks for posting that! It's cool to see what cases others have gone through after my rapid fire case swapping of just a couple years ago lol (though you're tempting me with that NCase M1).

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!