Log Just in case you wanted to see another Chopin build

[Recold]

Just wrapped up my Chopin based build yesterday and thought i would post a few pics. As has already been mentioned, space is at a premium for routing cables. It was doable and i took someone's advice to plug everything in outside the case before putting the motherboard in. While i think this had its advantages, it was a little tricky getting the MB and backplane into place.

I did hook up the front panel Audio and USB, which required routing the Audio cable all the way around the MB. It really wasnt that big of deal and I wasn't overly concerned with having a few cables showing especially with the stuffing of the PS cables near the front of the case.

This was primarily my replacement HTPC and a little overkill at that. Temps average 50c when doing most anything light duty and 35c when idle. Noctua fan is barely audible but i can hear it. Gigabyte MB seems to be doing well and havent had any issues so far.

The Goods
CPU - Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 chromax.black
Motherboard - Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini ITX AM4
Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
SSD - Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Case - In Win Chopin HTPC Case w/150 W Power Supply
(forgot to include the memory box but its in there)

Power Supply Connections

Top View

Rear View

Motherboard Bottom View (SSD didnt stay and was moved to top slot)
This view shows the L9A bottom plate.

Front View

Angled Top View

Home Sweet Home (shown with my old NUC for size comparison)

The New HTPC in its place

 

[DrLeroy]

I do like me a good chopin build!
looks good.

 

[Recold]

Im curious if anyone has ever attempted to knock or cut out the rectangular plate from under the 2.5" drive caddy. I removed the bottom cover of the case and then removed the bigger of the 2 caddys. Underneath it and towards the front of the case was this rectangular plate that almost looked like it could have been knocked out. I hit a few times with the handle of my screw driver but it didn't seem to want to budge. Not having the necessary tool to cut it out, i put the caddy back in and finished the build.
My thoughts were that if that plate were removed, a lot of the PS wire bundle, unused plugs and front panel USB cables could be stuffed down into the area underneath. The plate looks to be in the right spot to be able to do this. Cutting it out could be a little challenging and messy though without the right tools.

 

[BaK]

My thoughts were that if that plate were removed, a lot of the PS wire bundle, unused plugs and front panel USB cables could be stuffed down into the area underneath. The plate looks to be in the right spot to be able to do this. Cutting it out could be a little challenging and messy though without the right tools.

Some place to hide the cables could be indeed welcomed.

Apart from that, clean build, good job!

 

[Recold]

If i had searched a little better here, i might have seen this post. He did an awesome job of routing cables and somehow got some of the excess tucked into the area i was talking about without cutting into the case. Not sure how i missed this. Maybe sliding back the front part of the case frame is what allowed him to do it.

Log - In-Win Chopin - Ryzen5 3400G - Cable Route Planning

Thanks for the SFF.NETWORK community help with my first SFF build. I gave up on my (Build for Two PCIe 4.0 Gen4 NVMe M2 storage devices). The PCIe 4.0 technology was too new. Also, I scrapped planning for a build with two PCIe storage devices altogether! Meanwhile I did complete this Chopin -...

smallformfactor.net