Completed Lone Industries L5 - 4.6L Mini ITX

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
Does anyone know if the 160W HDPLEX DC-ATX is able to fit in the L5 while still accomodating 2x 25mm fans?
I know the 200W variant is a challenging fit, but I'm not sure how the 160W variant sizes up against it's bigger brother.

Looks like it would be an equally challenging fit. The 200W DC-ATX has the advantage of being able to remove the outer heatsink. I haven't tested either of these units myself.

Here's the HDPLEX 160W DC-ATX over top the 200W DC-ATX (white):



With 4pin connector:

 

ebc92

Average Stuffer
Mar 4, 2018
73
71
That's actually very helpful, thanks for taking the time to put that together.
It seems the 160W version is slightly slimmer than the 200W variant if you disregard the space taken up by the security tab on the CPU 4pin connector.

I'll give it a shot - the dremel should make quick work of the safety tab. Making it fit when it doesn't is half the fun of SFF anyway :)
 

fabio

Shrink Ray Wielder
Apr 6, 2016
1,885
4,325
That's actually very helpful, thanks for taking the time to put that together.
It seems the 160W version is slightly slimmer than the 200W variant if you disregard the space taken up by the security tab on the CPU 4pin connector.

I'll give it a shot - the dremel should make quick work of the safety tab. Making it fit when it doesn't is half the fun of SFF anyway :)
You can see on my build here, and the 160W fit with no problem with the 25mm fans! I think also another use use the 200W with success with 25mm fans as well.
 
  • Love
Reactions: ebc92

Analogue Blacksheep

King of Cable Management
Dec 2, 2018
831
688
@fabio - Using Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste and a NF-A9, it idles about 51C and the highest I've seen it go is about 81C. I swapped the fan as the Scythe one made a rather annoying noise when it started to spin.
 

fleetfeather

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 20, 2017
99
84
Is anyone looking for a G-Unique internal unit for an L5? Gury is preparing a replacement one for me, which will be shipped by the end of Feb. I need to have my build finalised before then, so I was going to see if someone wanted to buy the G-Unique unit off me (instead of waiting at the back of the line).

It'd be 300w, mounts to the 80mm fan space, and is modular everything (two modular SATA, one modular 6+2 pin PCIE incase someone releases a LP >75w card)
 

Analogue Blacksheep

King of Cable Management
Dec 2, 2018
831
688
Some updates on the Shuriken 2. I've swaped the fan to the NF-A9x14 HS from my L9a due to turbulence noise from the NF-A9. It's been running fine and there is less noise. Currently averaging 63.7C as I type this.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lone

MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
after some huzzle with the german postal service (lost and sent back) and with great help from lone I got my L5.

The built will be primarily for mobile multichannel high resolution audio recording (24bit, 96kHz) and editing. No Gaming, so I decided to go without a discrete graphics card wich gives me a lot of Headroom in terms of cooling and space. I got a sandy bridge 2600k which is old but still powerful I guess. Beeing realtime and having to be syncronized on many levels DSP (digital signal processing) relies very much on single core speeds.

The case is great for that. I'm using the noctua L9x65 with the black 92x14 fan and one Noctua 80mm black swap case fan. Sadly a 2nd one wouldn't fit because of the heatsink of the hdplex 200w dc-dc.

CPU temperatures at medium browsing (20 open tabs) is below 40°C displayed by the software coretemp. In "AI suite 2" by asus its even lower 35°C. Can that be? Without the case fan its still at 45°C.

I made a stress test with "intel processor diagnostic tool" where the cores were at 100% for some minutes with some kind of particle calculations and the temps didn't surpass 72°C.

these numbers seem really good to me but I don't know if I can be sure. The ultimate realtime application of this built will be 5 hours of simultaneous hires recording of 16 channel in a very hot environment (Club, concert hall 50°C maximal ambient temp)

Can you recommend a benchmark and temperature diagnose tool? I never looked into these kind of things.

Is it a good practice to connect both fans (cpu and case) to the CPU fan header via Y-cable? Remember, no graphics card, so the only heatsource beside the cpu is the dc-dc.

Is it possible to build a switch for the case fan? maybe using one slot at the back. Reason for this is becasue the built is needed in the studio where silent operation is crutial AND on stage where silent operation is not needed but cooling is very important.

Would a switch disturb the rpm readout at the motherboard and interfere with the speed control of the fan?
(I already realized that the use of the splitter cable halves the number)

Is there anything to say against shortening the cables of the hdplex or do I have to consider some things I might not know yet?

Sorry if these questions have been answered elsewhere, I didn't get around to reading this and the hdplex 200w thread completely, so pointers to already existing knowledge recources are also very welcome :-)
 

MvKeinen

Caliper Novice
Jan 17, 2017
24
4
@Analogue Blacksheep - Not now, I plan to make some in the next few days, thx for asking. After seeing your pics I had a look inside the case once more and it seems that the ATX connector on my mb is even closer to the edge than it is on yours. It's the Asus p8h77-I. So no chance to fit it in there. Would be nice to have a 80x15 fan from notua at some point. But for normal use outside the extreme case I mentioned above it seems good for now. Using no graphics card I'm not really concerned about the heat of the HDplex DC-DC. I might be at 150w peak powering only the CPU and 2 SSDs. And the sustained wattage might be much less even. (uneducated guess, correct me if I'm wrong).
 

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
@MvKeinen - If your temps are good I'd stick with no case fans, or one case fan. This will be the quietest option.

I would keep CPU and case fan on separate headers (using a Y connector for two case fans if needed).

I'm sure it's technically possible to wire up a switch to turn on and off your fan. However, you're probably better off using software to control the fan.

You can certainly shorten the wires on the HDPLEX DC-ATX, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got some experience doing wiring. You could try hiding some wires by tucking them under the motherboard.