Figured I might as well for my first post, if I haven't made one already, would be about my current in progress stealth APU build in an old Lenovo Thinkcentre brick SFF case. Apologies for the length.
It originally started as a Thinkcentre M0830 SFF with a socket 775 Intel Celeron E3400 from my work as an unneeded or working unit, which either the board or CPU was dead. Here's a pic of the first night having the rig:
Obviously I gutted the original MB, CPU, Ram, and HDD and started test fitting some parts I've had laying around. Those parts are a ASUS TUF B350M-Plus Gaming board, a random HP GH40L SATA DVD-RW drive and at first a stick of TridentZ RGB memory. Pic of the initial proof of concept:
At this point I was happy that the case at least houses a standard mATX MB. The PSU is a TFX form factor, so there are options available there. I had the original test locally and it has passed. I verified that the 24 pin is a standard pinout. The original PSU has limit some aspects of this build via the number of connectors on it, but that will change with the purchase of a new PSU. The TridentZ memory wasn't going to work as it was too tall and prevented the HDD, OCD shroud from fully seating. Since then I have purchased some Team Group DDR4 memory and this set clears with a couple mms to spare. After all the test fitment, it was time to take things apart and clean out the case, and boy, did it need it:
After some time with a wire brush, both hand and drill mounted, and a rub down with some 70% Isopropyl Alcohol, I'd say it cleaned up quite well.
After the cleanup, drilling out a couple rivets, I masked off the outside of case and the area around the fan grill and painted it with some flat black Rust Stop paint from ACE Hardware. Wasn't looking for perfection, but it came out quite well.
I tested the fitment of the MB again after updating the BIOS and verifying the new memory worked. I found that the AMD Wraith Spire cooler will fit into the case with about five millimetres of clearance to the side panel. From the specs I could find, the Wraith Spire is 71mm tall. Upon my initial measurments, I figured I had about 79 to 80 mms of room for the CPU cooler. The stock cooler more or less verified that, but because of the width couldn't be more than 106 mms wide. You will have to clock the AMD logo to the left so it doesn't press against the upper chamber. Forgot to take a pic before swapping the cooler to my X370 board that's back on my test bench. I don't really plan on running a cooler taller than at most 65 mm, so it will either be Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 or NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 as both of those are 95 mm wide or less. Picture of board on the bench while updating BIOS and after reinstalling Win10 on my Intel 750 SSD, prior to new memory(No APU yet hence the GTX 770 installed:
Pics with PSU, DVD drive, and new 80mm Noctua Redux fan installed:
There were a couple front panel items that I've had to look into fixing. Mainly the button, LEDs, usb and audio ports. The power switch and LEDs were quite easy to deal with, allowing me to reuse the original button. Found the switch via PPCS by Apevia, it snaps right in the front panel as the LEDs fit in the slots and just need to be hot glued in. The LEDs are from TITANRIG by Phobya. The USB and audio, was a bit more of a venture, but I landed on a solution, THAT FITS with little custom work. I grabbed an I/O panel for a HP Pavilion 500 desktop. Thankfully it had no PCB or anything and it slotted in perfectly. Only mod I was trying to do was drill a hole for the second USB 3.0 port, but the plastic cracked, but not badly enough to not use. It's a gem and cost less than the initial option I was about to attempt which was a front I/O panel from Lian Li. Pics of original propriatary I/O BS:
Pics of new I/O panel pieces and fitment:
Now things are more 'standardized' and made compatible with newer consumer boards. As of now, the B350M board is sitting out of the case till I get the cooler of choice, plus the initial APU(Athlon 3000G) to at least get the rig functional and work on other upgrades later(M.2 drives, B450M board, two SSDs, and a 3400G or possibly a 4000 series APU).
Comments and suggestions are welcome, advice too as updates will come as things progress.
It originally started as a Thinkcentre M0830 SFF with a socket 775 Intel Celeron E3400 from my work as an unneeded or working unit, which either the board or CPU was dead. Here's a pic of the first night having the rig:
Obviously I gutted the original MB, CPU, Ram, and HDD and started test fitting some parts I've had laying around. Those parts are a ASUS TUF B350M-Plus Gaming board, a random HP GH40L SATA DVD-RW drive and at first a stick of TridentZ RGB memory. Pic of the initial proof of concept:
At this point I was happy that the case at least houses a standard mATX MB. The PSU is a TFX form factor, so there are options available there. I had the original test locally and it has passed. I verified that the 24 pin is a standard pinout. The original PSU has limit some aspects of this build via the number of connectors on it, but that will change with the purchase of a new PSU. The TridentZ memory wasn't going to work as it was too tall and prevented the HDD, OCD shroud from fully seating. Since then I have purchased some Team Group DDR4 memory and this set clears with a couple mms to spare. After all the test fitment, it was time to take things apart and clean out the case, and boy, did it need it:
After some time with a wire brush, both hand and drill mounted, and a rub down with some 70% Isopropyl Alcohol, I'd say it cleaned up quite well.
After the cleanup, drilling out a couple rivets, I masked off the outside of case and the area around the fan grill and painted it with some flat black Rust Stop paint from ACE Hardware. Wasn't looking for perfection, but it came out quite well.
I tested the fitment of the MB again after updating the BIOS and verifying the new memory worked. I found that the AMD Wraith Spire cooler will fit into the case with about five millimetres of clearance to the side panel. From the specs I could find, the Wraith Spire is 71mm tall. Upon my initial measurments, I figured I had about 79 to 80 mms of room for the CPU cooler. The stock cooler more or less verified that, but because of the width couldn't be more than 106 mms wide. You will have to clock the AMD logo to the left so it doesn't press against the upper chamber. Forgot to take a pic before swapping the cooler to my X370 board that's back on my test bench. I don't really plan on running a cooler taller than at most 65 mm, so it will either be Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 or NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 as both of those are 95 mm wide or less. Picture of board on the bench while updating BIOS and after reinstalling Win10 on my Intel 750 SSD, prior to new memory(No APU yet hence the GTX 770 installed:
Pics with PSU, DVD drive, and new 80mm Noctua Redux fan installed:
There were a couple front panel items that I've had to look into fixing. Mainly the button, LEDs, usb and audio ports. The power switch and LEDs were quite easy to deal with, allowing me to reuse the original button. Found the switch via PPCS by Apevia, it snaps right in the front panel as the LEDs fit in the slots and just need to be hot glued in. The LEDs are from TITANRIG by Phobya. The USB and audio, was a bit more of a venture, but I landed on a solution, THAT FITS with little custom work. I grabbed an I/O panel for a HP Pavilion 500 desktop. Thankfully it had no PCB or anything and it slotted in perfectly. Only mod I was trying to do was drill a hole for the second USB 3.0 port, but the plastic cracked, but not badly enough to not use. It's a gem and cost less than the initial option I was about to attempt which was a front I/O panel from Lian Li. Pics of original propriatary I/O BS:
Pics of new I/O panel pieces and fitment:
Now things are more 'standardized' and made compatible with newer consumer boards. As of now, the B350M board is sitting out of the case till I get the cooler of choice, plus the initial APU(Athlon 3000G) to at least get the rig functional and work on other upgrades later(M.2 drives, B450M board, two SSDs, and a 3400G or possibly a 4000 series APU).
Comments and suggestions are welcome, advice too as updates will come as things progress.
