I also had a concept based on http://www.microrax.com/ profiles.Maybe we should make it into a race then
-
Save 15% on ALL SFF Network merch, until Dec 31st! Use code SFF2024 at checkout. Click here!
S4 MINI Classic (S4M-C)
- Thread starter Josh | NFC
- Start date
If I'm being completely honest, the main reason I want to upgrade from my current setup (but probably won't ultimately... dang budget...) is for the two m.2 slots. The built-in RGB is really cool, too.
I would feel pretty silly upgrading to a new platform when another one is launching in a few days, though. Might as well wait a week or two and see what people think of Ryzen. (Not that we have any ITX news yet.)
Yeah, but I really trust AMD enough to bet on them. An the Z270i STIX has also great Linux support, wich is a huge plus for me, personally
not only, I mean the whole Linux part. Most of the new hardware used to have som small trouble with linux, but he was able to start a live cd without any problems
ah, OK. maybe it was only the wifi he was surprised to see it run out-of-the box. I could not find anything in that review I would consider as 'great Linux support'
Of course, ryzen can/will have some initial problems if new chips need to be supported. and also the way they organize llc might require different scheduling policy and/or configuration options from kernel but these things are pretty offtopic in the S4 Mini topic
ah, OK. maybe it was only the wifi he was surprised to see it run out-of-the box. I could not find anything in that review I would consider as 'great Linux support'
As I mentioned above Linux used to have some trouble with new hardware, for me personally it's great to have a board t owork out ofthe box with Linux without to invest more time to work arround that problems.
Yeah you are right, I remain silent regarding this topic in this thread
Last edited:
Wall of text ahead! Pictures included sparingly, for more pictures of my actions below: see the album of all i did here.
@Josh | NFC or mods, if this is too far away from S4 mini related talk, I'll gladly move this post to my S4-mini build thread.
Storytime: Okay guys, My Noctua NF-B9 Redux 1600 PWM came in.
Sadly it didn't come with the proper mounting screws for the NH-L9i, but I used the alternate set of 25mm-fan compatible screw that came with the NH-L9i and it mounted just fine.
ONE HUGE PROBLEM THOUGH: The 25mm-fan compatible NH-L9i screws you have to use to mount it, have bulgy heads and push the S4-mini's side panel out and leaves a clearly visible bulge on the side panel that I personally was NOT confortable having on a permanent basis.
We'd need to countersink/file down the bulgy heads of the screws and drill a little into the NF-B9's screw holes to make them sit flush. Without screws though, the NF-B9 seems to sit nice anf flush and squeezes up against the S4mini's side panel, leaving no side panel bulge, BUT... I dont think this is ideal though since you'd normally want at least 1 or 2mm of room between the fan and the side panel to mitigate turbulence, and properly deliver airflow to the fan, correct?
So now that I had the NF-B9 I decided to test a combo of 4 cooling solutions...I tested the NH-L9i stock, with the NF-B9 fan, the Zalman CNPS2X w/Scythe's 12x120mm slim fan and with Rosewill's 15x120mm fan.
Ease of installation note VS Nightmate CNPS2X Install: The NH-L9i was way easier to install, the CNPS2X had this great backplate that is highly compatible, but was a pain to line up properly with the motherboard holes to get it to mount correctly. I had to fiddle so much with the backplate trying to fit it properly to the back of the mobo even though it DID fit and didnt bulge the S4's side panel. But here's the most annoying and time consuming part (after you go through and build the HSF/backplate using the instructions): after applying the Thermal Grease (NT-H1), placing the actual CNPS2X HSF onto the CPU... the real pain in the neck was trying to align the HSF mounting holes to the mobo and screw together the HSF with the backplate ALL WHILE holding the backplate up against the mobo simultaneously, as it wanted to pull away from the mobo's backside unless you held it in place before mounting the HSF to it. >_> The NH-L9i has the CNPS2X beat in the ease-of-installation department, hands down, by a landslide.
After all that mounting ordeal, and after testing... I think I came to an already known conclusion with the temps, results were similar to Josh's results in his Mini-ITX cooler video.
Temp Test Methodology: All done in a room at 72f/22c ambient. I tested the following configs last night WITH MY S4 mini IN THE VERTICAL POSITION, with the S4 standing on it's non-vented side (just like Josh had it setup during his last 2 temp tests @ 4m:19s into his Mini-ITX Cooler Video here). ALL TESTS WERE DONE WITH the 7700K @ 4.8GHz stable at 1.25 vcore, with XMP on (2x8GB DDR4-4000), Speedstep/CPU C-states/Asus Core Enhancement OFF & LLC at Level 4. Fan curves were all using the ASUS' "Q-fan" PWM asjustment tool in the UEFI bios with fan curve preset of "Turbo" (which is a touch more aggressive than "default/standard") and leans more towards a ~20% stronger/louder fan curve than default).
Sound Level Methodology: I just sat the S4 mini 2 feet away from me at eye level on my desk, in a quiet home with ceiling/tower fans and Cenrtral A/C turned off for the quietest "i can hear a pin drop" setting.
Neat Discovery: Cool thing I found in the ASUS z270i's manual is that both the CPU_FAN/CHA_FAN's fan curves are tweak-able and controllable inside the UEFI bios! (it doesn't seem like the "AIO_PUMP_FAN" header has as much fan curve tweaking available in the UEFI as the other two headers)
Results: (listed in order of loudest to most quiet)
[Quietness(lol) 1.0-5.0 "loudest-to-quietest"]-(hottest core temp "usually core #3" @ idle/desktop) - Fan config
[1.0]-(58c)-Noctua NH-L9i with ONLY a Scythe 12x120mm PWM in the 120mm bracket plugged into CPU-Fan header (for fun)
[1.5]-(49c)-Zalman CNPS2X w/Scythe 12x120mm PWM in the 120mm bracket plugged into the CHASSIS-FAN header
[2.0]-(49/50c)-Zalman CNPS2X w/Rosewill 15x120 PWM in the 120mm bracked plugged into the CHASSIS-FAN header
[4.5]-(50/51c)-Noctua NH-L9i with stock fan
[5.0]-(52/53c)-Noctua NH-L9i with NF-B9 Redux 1600-PWM (looks great but by default. screws dont sit flush w/case & side panel has bulge)
Conclusion: So both at idle AND under a custom x264 load test, the Zalman CNPS2X & Scythe 12x120PWM/Rosewill 15x120PWM beat out the NH-L9i by 1-2 degrees INSIDE the S4-mini, which is nice (and we already knew that thanks to Josh's video, lol) ... BUT Sadly those 2 120mm slim fans were WAY louder than the Noctua w/it's stock fan, and the Noctua with the NF-B9 1600PWM was even quieter than the NH-L9i w/it's fan, at the cost of a minor temp increase (and it's mounting screws leaving a bulge in the side panel since it barely fit). The Scythe 12x120PWM is the one that is SUPER LOUD when it spins up, and it would be audibly/loudly spinning up just by opening up chrome or desktop apps, before I even loaded up a game. the Rosewill would spin up as often as the Scythe but its noise level was a little better.
So which setup will I stick with? Which do I recommend?? That's a tough question. If I gamed with headphones or in a louder environment and didn't mind the fan noise, I'd stick with the CNPS2X and the Rosewill 15x120mm. But since my S4 will be sitting 2-3 feet from me at eye level I need it to be as QUIET AS POSSIBLE when web browsing, running light desktop apps, or watching media. At full LOAD in a game, the NH-L9i setups were comparably about as loud as the CNPS2X combos were was at idle at the desktop... So ideally I'd LIKE to have the NH-L9i for my particular use case. And although i would PREFER the GREY color of the NF-B9 redux's 25x92mm fan since it blends in with the S4 mini and it seemed to run the quietest... it sadly wont fit without modding of the mounting screws and screw holes (kinda like the flush-mounted countersunk screws on the S4 mini's chassis).
EDIT: Conclusion PART 2: Okay so I went to work on the NF-B9 because I didn't' want to give up on it just yet! And I found some household items to help! I filed down the 25mm mounting screw heads with a little kitchen knife sharpener/file thingy, then I bored out the mounting holes on the top of the NF-B9 with an electric drill slowly until the new flatter screws could just barely sit flush with the top of the fan surface.
And it worked, they were flush!! I DID IT!
It fit inside the S4 mini... but with ZERO space between the side panel and the fan itself since it was all flush now without that bulge from before, it looked way better than the stock NH-L9i fan, YAY!!!...
BUT...after testing it this time with a flush panel the temps actually went up by 4-5 degrees from 52/53c idle to 57/58c idle... DANG IT!!! I think the NF-B9 (or any cpu case-fan for that matter) needs some space between it and the side panel to function optimally... so i took off the side panel and literally in a matter of 3-5 minutes the temps DROPPED down to 50/51c idle!!! Which is actually inline with the performance of the NH-L9i's stock fan (with the side panel ON)
So while I had the side panel off still, I powered down and swapped out the NF-B9 with the stock NH-L9i beige fan and my temps went down AGAIN to 46/47c! So according to my testing (and i verified my thermal NT-H1 applications on all tests)...
the NF-B9 is sadly 4c hotter than the stock NH-L9i fan overall. So after all that I put my side panel back on and my idle temps were back to the 50/51c i noted above with the stock beige fan. OH ALSO, if i drop my 4.8GHz OC and go back to the 4.2GHz stock and set my BIOS to auto with Speedstep enabled (so the chip will Turboboost itself to 4.5 when it can) its stock vcore is 1.22v and it sits turbo'ed at 4.5 all the time and the temps drop to 46/47C with the side panel ON. So that's a nice temp for you guys out there looking to plop a i7-7700K/NH-L9i/HDPLEX-300 into an S4 mini, without delidding.
NF-B9 Final Thoughts:
Oh well, so all in all the NF-B9 was a BUST even though it's stylish and I tried my best to get it to fit as an alt to that stock/ugly beige fan of the NH-L9i. I'm a temp whore soooo... yeah, I'll live with the ugly beige fan sitting on my Noctua NH-L9i, peeking through the holes of my side-panel, in the name of LOW IDLE TEMPS! AND IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A BETTER PERFORMING HEATSINK FOR AN S4-MINI that can mount the beige NH-L9i fan or any other 90/92mm fan, please... speak up! I'd like to have the best one to have all my idle and load temps as low as possible, because Once I pop out my 7700k and delid it next Wednesday with CLU, there's no turning back to get pre-delid temp readings for science/for others' consideration.
@Josh | NFC or mods, if this is too far away from S4 mini related talk, I'll gladly move this post to my S4-mini build thread.
Storytime: Okay guys, My Noctua NF-B9 Redux 1600 PWM came in.
Sadly it didn't come with the proper mounting screws for the NH-L9i, but I used the alternate set of 25mm-fan compatible screw that came with the NH-L9i and it mounted just fine.
ONE HUGE PROBLEM THOUGH: The 25mm-fan compatible NH-L9i screws you have to use to mount it, have bulgy heads and push the S4-mini's side panel out and leaves a clearly visible bulge on the side panel that I personally was NOT confortable having on a permanent basis.
We'd need to countersink/file down the bulgy heads of the screws and drill a little into the NF-B9's screw holes to make them sit flush. Without screws though, the NF-B9 seems to sit nice anf flush and squeezes up against the S4mini's side panel, leaving no side panel bulge, BUT... I dont think this is ideal though since you'd normally want at least 1 or 2mm of room between the fan and the side panel to mitigate turbulence, and properly deliver airflow to the fan, correct?
So now that I had the NF-B9 I decided to test a combo of 4 cooling solutions...I tested the NH-L9i stock, with the NF-B9 fan, the Zalman CNPS2X w/Scythe's 12x120mm slim fan and with Rosewill's 15x120mm fan.
Ease of installation note VS Nightmate CNPS2X Install: The NH-L9i was way easier to install, the CNPS2X had this great backplate that is highly compatible, but was a pain to line up properly with the motherboard holes to get it to mount correctly. I had to fiddle so much with the backplate trying to fit it properly to the back of the mobo even though it DID fit and didnt bulge the S4's side panel. But here's the most annoying and time consuming part (after you go through and build the HSF/backplate using the instructions): after applying the Thermal Grease (NT-H1), placing the actual CNPS2X HSF onto the CPU... the real pain in the neck was trying to align the HSF mounting holes to the mobo and screw together the HSF with the backplate ALL WHILE holding the backplate up against the mobo simultaneously, as it wanted to pull away from the mobo's backside unless you held it in place before mounting the HSF to it. >_> The NH-L9i has the CNPS2X beat in the ease-of-installation department, hands down, by a landslide.
After all that mounting ordeal, and after testing... I think I came to an already known conclusion with the temps, results were similar to Josh's results in his Mini-ITX cooler video.
Temp Test Methodology: All done in a room at 72f/22c ambient. I tested the following configs last night WITH MY S4 mini IN THE VERTICAL POSITION, with the S4 standing on it's non-vented side (just like Josh had it setup during his last 2 temp tests @ 4m:19s into his Mini-ITX Cooler Video here). ALL TESTS WERE DONE WITH the 7700K @ 4.8GHz stable at 1.25 vcore, with XMP on (2x8GB DDR4-4000), Speedstep/CPU C-states/Asus Core Enhancement OFF & LLC at Level 4. Fan curves were all using the ASUS' "Q-fan" PWM asjustment tool in the UEFI bios with fan curve preset of "Turbo" (which is a touch more aggressive than "default/standard") and leans more towards a ~20% stronger/louder fan curve than default).
Sound Level Methodology: I just sat the S4 mini 2 feet away from me at eye level on my desk, in a quiet home with ceiling/tower fans and Cenrtral A/C turned off for the quietest "i can hear a pin drop" setting.
Neat Discovery: Cool thing I found in the ASUS z270i's manual is that both the CPU_FAN/CHA_FAN's fan curves are tweak-able and controllable inside the UEFI bios!
(it doesn't seem like the "AIO_PUMP_FAN" header has as much fan curve tweaking available in the UEFI as the other two headers)Results: (listed in order of loudest to most quiet)
[Quietness(lol) 1.0-5.0 "loudest-to-quietest"]-(hottest core temp "usually core #3" @ idle/desktop) - Fan config
[1.0]-(58c)-Noctua NH-L9i with ONLY a Scythe 12x120mm PWM in the 120mm bracket plugged into CPU-Fan header (for fun)
[1.5]-(49c)-Zalman CNPS2X w/Scythe 12x120mm PWM in the 120mm bracket plugged into the CHASSIS-FAN header
[2.0]-(49/50c)-Zalman CNPS2X w/Rosewill 15x120 PWM in the 120mm bracked plugged into the CHASSIS-FAN header
[4.5]-(50/51c)-Noctua NH-L9i with stock fan
[5.0]-(52/53c)-Noctua NH-L9i with NF-B9 Redux 1600-PWM (looks great but by default. screws dont sit flush w/case & side panel has bulge)
Conclusion: So both at idle AND under a custom x264 load test, the Zalman CNPS2X & Scythe 12x120PWM/Rosewill 15x120PWM beat out the NH-L9i by 1-2 degrees INSIDE the S4-mini, which is nice (and we already knew that thanks to Josh's video, lol) ... BUT Sadly those 2 120mm slim fans were WAY louder than the Noctua w/it's stock fan, and the Noctua with the NF-B9 1600PWM was even quieter than the NH-L9i w/it's fan, at the cost of a minor temp increase (and it's mounting screws leaving a bulge in the side panel since it barely fit). The Scythe 12x120PWM is the one that is SUPER LOUD when it spins up, and it would be audibly/loudly spinning up just by opening up chrome or desktop apps, before I even loaded up a game.
the Rosewill would spin up as often as the Scythe but its noise level was a little better.So which setup will I stick with? Which do I recommend?? That's a tough question. If I gamed with headphones or in a louder environment and didn't mind the fan noise, I'd stick with the CNPS2X and the Rosewill 15x120mm. But since my S4 will be sitting 2-3 feet from me at eye level I need it to be as QUIET AS POSSIBLE when web browsing, running light desktop apps, or watching media. At full LOAD in a game, the NH-L9i setups were comparably about as loud as the CNPS2X combos were was at idle at the desktop... So ideally I'd LIKE to have the NH-L9i for my particular use case. And although i would PREFER the GREY color of the NF-B9 redux's 25x92mm fan since it blends in with the S4 mini and it seemed to run the quietest... it sadly wont fit without modding of the mounting screws and screw holes (kinda like the flush-mounted countersunk screws on the S4 mini's chassis).
EDIT: Conclusion PART 2: Okay so I went to work on the NF-B9 because I didn't' want to give up on it just yet! And I found some household items to help! I filed down the 25mm mounting screw heads with a little kitchen knife sharpener/file thingy, then I bored out the mounting holes on the top of the NF-B9 with an electric drill slowly until the new flatter screws could just barely sit flush with the top of the fan surface.
And it worked, they were flush!! I DID IT!
It fit inside the S4 mini... but with ZERO space between the side panel and the fan itself since it was all flush now without that bulge from before, it looked way better than the stock NH-L9i fan, YAY!!!...
BUT...after testing it this time with a flush panel the temps actually went up by 4-5 degrees from 52/53c idle to 57/58c idle... DANG IT!!! I think the NF-B9 (or any cpu case-fan for that matter) needs some space between it and the side panel to function optimally... so i took off the side panel and literally in a matter of 3-5 minutes the temps DROPPED down to 50/51c idle!!! Which is actually inline with the performance of the NH-L9i's stock fan (with the side panel ON)
So while I had the side panel off still, I powered down and swapped out the NF-B9 with the stock NH-L9i beige fan and my temps went down AGAIN to 46/47c!
So according to my testing (and i verified my thermal NT-H1 applications on all tests)...
the NF-B9 is sadly 4c hotter than the stock NH-L9i fan overall.
So after all that I put my side panel back on and my idle temps were back to the 50/51c i noted above with the stock beige fan. OH ALSO, if i drop my 4.8GHz OC and go back to the 4.2GHz stock and set my BIOS to auto with Speedstep enabled (so the chip will Turboboost itself to 4.5 when it can) its stock vcore is 1.22v and it sits turbo'ed at 4.5 all the time and the temps drop to 46/47C with the side panel ON. So that's a nice temp for you guys out there looking to plop a i7-7700K/NH-L9i/HDPLEX-300 into an S4 mini, without delidding. NF-B9 Final Thoughts:
Oh well, so all in all the NF-B9 was a BUST even though it's stylish and I tried my best to get it to fit as an alt to that stock/ugly beige fan of the NH-L9i. I'm a temp whore soooo... yeah, I'll live with the ugly beige fan sitting on my Noctua NH-L9i, peeking through the holes of my side-panel, in the name of LOW IDLE TEMPS!
AND IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A BETTER PERFORMING HEATSINK FOR AN S4-MINI that can mount the beige NH-L9i fan or any other 90/92mm fan, please... speak up! I'd like to have the best one to have all my idle and load temps as low as possible, because Once I pop out my 7700k and delid it next Wednesday with CLU, there's no turning back to get pre-delid temp readings for science/for others' consideration.
AND IF ANYONE KNOWS OF A BETTER PERFORMING HEATSINK FOR AN S4-MINI that can mount the beige NH-L9i fan or any other 90/92mm fan, please... speak up! I'd like to have the best one to have all my idle and load temps as low as possible, because Once I pop out my 7700k and delid it next Wednesday with CLU, there's no turning back to get pre-delid temp readings for science/for others' consideration.
@michaelmitchell pointed out the Thermolab LP53.
@CubanLegend
I would have just used short screws placed through the bottom side holes instead of longer ones passing through both sets
I would have just used short screws placed through the bottom side holes instead of longer ones passing through both sets
@CubanLegend
I would have just used short screws placed through the bottom side holes instead of longer ones passing through both sets
I agree. Actually, you can just use the stock L9i screws, put them through the bottom holes, and if you have a screwdriver that is skinny enough, screw them in through the top holes. That's what I did. Sadly, @CubanLegend got the same results as I did. Much higher temps because of the "flushness."
Thank you. I'll have to check that out and see if it's worth holding off on the delid.
good point. I didn't think of it I. The heat of the moment.@CubanLegend
I would have just used short screws placed through the bottom side holes instead of longer ones passing through both sets
i didn't have a screwdriver small enough at the time. @LodisKnight what we're your temps/CPU/clocks?
thats sketchy as it could unbalance the CPU fan
Painting the NF-A9x14 is not an option because the main bearing shaft is molded into the fan blade assembly so it cannot be removed without damaging the fan. I will be using dye(powdered not spray version) on my fan but have not acquired all the supplies to do so yet, which also includes procuring a backup fan in case things go horribly wrong.
Mine is a 7700T so it's a little different of a scenario than yours. I wish SFF setups were a LITTLE more common (not a lot, because then we wouldn't all be so cool) so I knew what my temps were supposed to be.
I have V-Sync enabled and the monitor is 60Hz, so all these benches cap at 60fps. Also, "Gaming" means Tom Clancy's The Division at 1080p on all Ultra, 8x MSAA, and V-SYNC (60 Hz/fps).
Ambient: 20C
This is after a delid (which affected it about 2C):
Idle: 38C <--- I feel like this is high, but maybe it's not
Gaming: 45C
AIDA64 Load (2+ Hours): 76C
Here are my Gigabyte 1070 temps as well, in case anyone is curious:
Idle: 28C
Gaming: 54C
Unigine Heaven (everything maxed, 1080p): 66C
