Concept The Slim Machine: a 4L gaming build

[CC Ricers]

Now I have a new video card! I was originally going for a GTX 1050 Ti with my Amazon credit, but I didn't have enough credit to cover the tax. So I fell back to a GTX 1050 mini by Zotac.


No open component shots yet. But I now have the graphics card to test fit again, and it is the perfect size for this.

 

[CC Ricers]

Hey guys, I'm actually doing something.

I went and started the cutouts for the back panel of the case. This is the most complex piece of the case, so everything else shouldn't take too long in comparison. However, my friend's shop doesn't have any sort of milling machine so I improvised. Drilled a whole lot of guide holes along the two big cutouts so that later I can finish the cuts with the jigsaw with more ease.

Here's the other side with no tape so you can see it more clearly. Left side will be the place for the I/O shield, and the right side is for the adapter panel that takes in the GPU and power connector.

Closeup.

Flipped back around, showing also the countersink holes I made for the four M5 screws that hold the panel to sides of the case.

The top hole is at an optimal diameter, allowing the screw head to go a bit further in so that there are more threads to attach the joiner pieces at the other side. The bottom hole is flush to the surface but the screw won't penetrate well enough. So some holes need to be countersunk a bit more. I'm really eyeballing it with the hole diameter, but the alignment of the holes are all measured out.

Another closeup to show how the GPU bracket fits in with the adapter panel that I'll put into place. The bracket looks like it runs into one of the screws, but since it's a tapered head it actually is free of interference on the opposite side.

Next up, finishing the cuts and making the adapter panel.

 

[CC Ricers]

No further work yet on the case. The holidays have been slowing me down. But I have a new job and more income coming my way. Also I plan to soon buy a HD-PLEX Silicon riser cable with some of my Christmas money.

For now, the measurements of the case are 98% final so I've made some better mockups on two layouts I'd like to use for the case. They are to scale- 2 pixels = 1mm.

The first one is with my current set up of parts, with the mini GTX 1050.

This layout supports up to four 2.5" hard drives stacked on the bottom panel of the case and attached to the front. To accommodate the hard drives, the graphics card MUST not be longer than 5.8" which is a common size for the smallest mini GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti cards. Now that this is about one inch shorter than a mini ITX motherboard. The HD-PLEX DC 160W unit is at the bottom edge of the case. Power cables can run in the space beneath the graphics card, to connect to the AC-DC unit at the top right.

Now for the second layout, a more daring proposal, the "YOLO power build" using a GTX 1060 6GB and with the same 160W power setup.

With this setup, you'd only have room for one 2.5" hard drive, but having a GTX 1060 powering a 1080p monitor at 144hz can be worth it. The reason I'm speculating this setup is, although this graphics card is rated to run at 120W, power consumption is actually lower at 1080p gaming- closer to 90W. So as long as I use a 1080p monitor and a 35W CPU, I could theoretically stay below 160W power and rarely hitting the peak load of 200W.

If it turns out to work it would be a great power-sipping machine that can rip through games at 1080p.

 

[CC Ricers]

Here's where I am with this project: I won't have access to the workshop power tools for at least a month. So for now my rig still sits mostly naked in a makeshift bench testing tray.

Also, I have not been able to get my recently acquired HDPLEX flexible silicon riser, so I have to go back to using the 5cm Sintech riser and with the card oriented in the other direction.

So because of that, I am reverting my design a bit, by taking from what I've attempted with the Mini LP and reusing and cannibalizing already-made parts for that case, since it wasn't updated in a long time. Effectively, it will share elements with the Mini LP but still at larger dimensions to support full-height cards at any orientation.

UPDATE: I salvaged the motherboard tray I made for the old design, just snapped off the rear side that would no longer be of use.

Placed on top of the components just to show how the openings line up.

The sides aren't perfectly straight, so some filing down of the edges is required.

 

[CC Ricers]

Some more updates for today. No pictures for now unfortunately- having problems using my wi-fi hotspot at home. I've installed the motherboard onto the tray, and the GPU fits in perfect with room to spare for a C6 3-pin connector.

Also, I have swapped most of the wires of the HD-PLEX 24-pin cable, removing most of the rainbow colored wires for a more neutral look, black and silver. They're still bulky and stiff (too bad I don't have a direct plug unit) but they look real great with the the rest of the build.

The case is starting to come together again, and I feel closer to finishing it. There's also an update I'm going to make to the external case design. Think of something like the Arctic MC101, but obviously it's going to be bigger.

 

[CC Ricers]

Here are pics with the layout in place and PC running. I've also replaced most of the color wires (mostly red, orange and yellow) of the HD-PLEX power supply with silver ones to better complement the look of the parts.

A stack of 2.5" hard drives fits right beside mini ITX cards that are exactly 5.8" in length. This includes several of the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti cards.


Yes, those wires do stand above the case, but when it's fully covered the wires will bend into place to fit inside.

 

[CC Ricers]

Man, it's been a while. I still want to go at it with my Steam Machine console build but now I have different parts and another approach for handling power.

First.. I've had a GTX 1060 for at least a month now. It runs great on a 19V HD-PLEX 160W, however, I have gotten curious about the HP Elite PSUs that @guryhwa was using for his G-Unique bundles and found a variety that is also 160W (much cheaper compared to 200W) so I decided to snag one.

It cost me $19.95 and supports 12V right out the box, so my guess was no need for internal modding. And I was correct. I cannot combine it with HD-PLEX units because those are for 16-24V but I decided to experiment by plugging it directly to my GPU.

Here is what I have come up with.


The +12V and ground wires have been de-pinned and arranged in a PEG 6-pin connector, and the skinny green wire left unplugged (I assume this is a "sense" wire). The PC powers on as normal, and good news, the GPU works too! I'm now having it feed from two sources of power: A 19V power brick that goes into the HD-PLEX to power motherboard, CPU and RAM, and the HP PSU to the graphics card. My goal, as originally stated, is to completely get rid of the power brick.

The HP PSU makes a coil whine on startup and when it's idle. The coil whine stops when I launch some image viewing app, or some more GPU intensive program. So it must have a decent amount of power going through it to stop the coil whine. Perhaps, but I'm not sure, it will completely go away once I have the entire computer powered by it.

Mini-update:

Testing the GPU running for power consumption, here are the wattage figures I got from my Kill-A-Watt unit, measuring GPU power at the wall:

Overwatch 1080p Ultra settings . . . . . . . . 10-15W
Cryptocurrency mining (80% load) . . . . . . 25-30W
Valley benchmark, extremeHD preset . . . 60-65W

These wattages were measured after 10 minutes of activity. Overwatch is very power efficient with this GPU, probably due to not being very graphics intensive. Valley as expected used up the most power, but it's still far below the rated 120W TDP. This seems to go in line with the findings at Tom's Hardware- the GPU works less hard at lower resolutions but at 1440p to 4K it considerably gets closer to 120W.

For 1080p this looks to be a very power efficient system while also allowing the GTX 1060 to run games at their best performance.

 

[aquelito]

Very interesting to have some accurate feedbacks on this little PSU.

I have purchased myself a 180W Platinum AIO PSU made by Acbel. Seems larger than your HP though : 170 x 90 x 20 mm.
Looking forward to test it with my little load switch

 

[CC Ricers]

Very interesting to have some accurate feedbacks on this little PSU.

I have purchased myself a 180W Platinum AIO PSU made by Acbel. Seems larger than your HP though : 170 x 90 x 20 mm.
Looking forward to test it with my little load switch

Oh, that's a small PSU I haven't known about before today! The dimensions are actually quite similar, but it is 5 mm thinner which could be a nice tradeoff for being a bit wider and longer. Plus it's 20W more and platinum rated, still 12VDC output- sounds like a great deal to me! The AC input of that looks interesting- instead of a standard IEC C13 socket it has a skinny cable coming out with a 2-pin mini-fit (I guess?) connector.

I'd like to see what your results are with it. Especially if you can use two of them together. There seem to be several possibilities with these AIO computer PSUs that could be tried.

To get DC power on the whole system I'm going for a Pico PSU or a G-Unique and leaning more towards the Pico because it's more modular and shipping is faster. But we'll see

Edit: @aquelito influenced me to get one of those AcBel PSUs as well. Gonna be a bit more tinkering for the best power solution.

 

[CC Ricers]

The other AIO PSU just arrived. And yes, it is even slimmer

 

[Soul_Est]

Looks good. Where would these be located in the enclosure if I may ask?

 

[aquelito]

@CC Ricers you purchased the last one at $15 ?

I don't know what kind of connector the AC input wires have been crimped with.
I think I'll just remove it and solder / heat shrink new wires.
The white one is for Line and the black one for neutral ?

 

[CC Ricers]

Looks good. Where would these be located in the enclosure if I may ask?

The PSU will be located right beside the GPU with a bit of space in between. Then it will be held by brackets on two sides. It's easier to hold it in place that way.


An alternative design is also possible, with a more square-ish case and layout like the Hutzy XS or CustomMod Mini. The PSU would be facing flat against the front in this layout.

@CC Ricers you purchased the last one at $15 ?

I don't know what kind of connector the AC input wires have been crimped with.
I think I'll just remove it and solder / heat shrink new wires.
The white one is for Line and the black one for neutral ?

Yep, it was $15 and there are probably others being sold too but not at the same price.

The connector looks like a 2x1 Molex micro-fit. They're like the common connections used for powering PC parts, but smaller. I cannot find the white AC wire for my PSU- in mine both wires are black. But one of those wires has a white stripe so this should be the live wire and the one without a stripe is neutral.

 

[CC Ricers]

Got a PicoPSU. I haven't been able to run my computer completely off it yet, due to haven't yet modified the connectors to work with the GPU. First impressions are, it runs well, but also it's real difficult to pull from the motherboard when you want to remove it! Appreciate the build quality, though. Also @aquelito this might interest you, I managed to buy the short extension from the AC cord that comes from the HP AIO computer, which connects to the power supply and also a ground to the case. So I have a way to readily connect the power to the wall without fiddling around with the AC cables.

 

[Soul_Est]

My, my, that PSU placement is most interesting. You sure there won't be heat issues with it's location?

 

[aquelito]

Also @aquelito this might interest you, I managed to buy the short extension from the AC cord that comes from the HP AIO computer, which connects to the power supply and also a ground to the case. So I have a way to readily connect the power to the wall without fiddling around with the AC cables.

I purchased one as well but it also has a male connector... Did not pay enough attention to the pictures and now I have to recrimp it
Would you mind sharing the link to the reference you purchased ?

 

[CC Ricers]

My, my, that PSU placement is most interesting. You sure there won't be heat issues with it's location?

Hopefully there won't be. Most of the ventilation holes of the PSU are on its sides. The case would vent most of them passively with its own openings. Only one of the longer sides has smaller vent holes in one of the ends. I will make the PSU mount so that there is a opening on this side to allow those holes to vent through.

I purchased one as well but it also has a male connector... Did not pay enough attention to the pictures and now I have to recrimp it
Would you mind sharing the link to the reference you purchased ?

Yep, here is the part that I bought. It has a 2-pin female connector that fits the power supply exactly. The ground pin would connect to the metal chassis, but not needed for now when I'm testing in an open air setup. The fabric wrapping covers most of the connections at the socket but it's not perfect. It's still uncovered a bit at the sides which expose one of the solder points.

 

[CC Ricers]

For a quick update: I haven't had much success with getting the 180W PSU to work, even just to power the GPU. The system turns on (through the other power supply) but the screen tells me to properly plug in the PCIe power connector. I double-checked the wiring on the connections. Looks like it needs the green wire to actually power on this PSU. So for now I'm sticking with the 160W version.

Also, this leads to a big change in the case design and layout. I still want to keep a slim profile (less than 2.5 inches) but with the thicker 160W power supply it probably wouldn't be possible.

The alternative plan is to use a layout like the Steam Machine or Sentry, but just short enough so it takes reference cards (but no oversized GPUs) and maximum cooler size is 37mm, tall enough for Noctua NH-L9i.

 

[aquelito]

For a quick update: I haven't had much success with getting the 180W PSU to work, even just to power the GPU. The system turns on (through the other power supply) but the screen tells me to properly plug in the PCIe power connector. I double-checked the wiring on the connections. Looks like it needs the green wire to actually power on this PSU.

Too bad... I anticipated this issue when I opened up the PSU : the green wire bears the mention ON/OFF.

Could you try to short the green wire with a GND, a bit like the Dell DA-2 brick ??

 

[CC Ricers]

Good find. Maybe it's as simple as jumping the green wire on the 8-pin connector, similar to jumping a ATX power supply.