Noob question - alternate motherboard designs?

[LightField]

Does anyone know if you can buy inexpensive unusually designed pc motherboards that have the PCI slots I believe they are called on the side of the board so you can mount everything flat on a board or on some kind of shelf rack?

The way my desk is set up it is built into a large shelf system and I have a very large wooden shelf I could build my custom PC on. I think it would make a super super clean PC design and easy to modify and work on. But I would need a flat type PC built because I don't have enough room without a major redesign.

My other concerns are heat and electrical issues or anything unforeseen.

 

[LightField]

Can you use ribbons like this on the PCI slots to mount your graphics card and other cards flat?

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=nlx%20motherboards&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42553238,d.Yms&biw=1097&bih=545&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=cJUfUam5CIzBtAb77IDgBQ#um=1&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=pci+ribbon&oq=pci+ribbon&gs_l=img.3..0i24l2.3669.3669.2.5032.1.1.0.0.0.0.237.237.2-1.1.0...0.0...1c.1.3.img.Dz5Lu82mwCA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=f3457780c2c563d&biw=1097&bih=545

Would it effect performance at all if it's possible?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Those work fine - they don't effect performance any.

 

[LightField]

Thanks Dave. If anyone has some pics of people doing anything like this I would love to see different ways they set it up.

 

[LightField]

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/computing/pc/how-to-wall-mount-your-pc-1090142

I found this little tutorial showing how they did it. I have read where some of these ribbons cause problems with the graphics card and the mother board and they won't connect but I guess it depends on the quality of the cable.. or maybe certain motherboards or cards are likely to have problems?

I am nervous about trying this because if something happened i might void the warranties or something. Could I contact my graphics card or motherboard maker to get advice on this?

 

[piasabird]

A lot depends on what you want to do. Here is an ARM motheroard like you might use with a low-end tablet: http://www.mini-box.com/pico-SAM9G45-X

They also make these Thin Minin-ITX motherboards:
http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-DQ77KB-Mini-ITX-Motherboard
http://www.mini-box.com/Jetway-NF9G-QM77

Jetway motherboards are kind of pricey. They are suppose to be able to use Daughter Boards.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for.

 

[LightField]

Hi piasabird. Thanks for the response. That is really close to what I was thinking of. What I imagined is that it would be really smart to put all the PCI slots on the edges of the board but instead of having them face up so the graphics card is at a 90 degree angle.. instead the PCI slot would be facing out so when you plugged the graphics card in normally it was flat like the main motherboard.

It would be like joining two motherboards together side by side like merging a panorama together in photoshop - one big flat board. But there's probably some reason I am not aware of that prevents them from doing that.

The tablet motherboard you posted looks similar it would just need normal PCI slots so you could use full size graphics cards.

 

[piasabird]

Did you see the new article on the front page of Anandtech? They had a PC from Falcontech and they used a 90 degree riser board. It looked interesting. They use to do that with MITX cases They made them Thinner and wider.

http://bloghtpc.blogspot.com/2012/10/thin-mini-itx-lian-li-PC-Q05.html

This shows some pictures of a Thin Mini-ITX build in the Silverstone Thin Case. Problem is they dont have a video card x16 slot. Pictures are nice. That cooler looks like it might be useful. It also looks like they position the CPU on the board in a different configuration.

They put the sodim ram flat and use a mSATA mini PCIE SLOT.

The board does have a X4 PCIE slot and an LVDS connector for a tablet sized LCD.

 

[k1114]

Pics of shelf area in question? Could help a lot with providing design suggestions/ideas.

 

[LightField]

Piasabird and k114 thanks for the responses.

I don't know if pics will show what I am doing very well.. it would probably better to do a real quick Sketchup model.

Piasabird, those are really cool examples. I really like how they have the CPU cooler designed to lay flat on the side, too. I am having trouble finding the Falcontech one though.

so I have a kind of weird setup.. I originally was making a place to sculpt.. but I needed the PC handy so I could view reference images.

But lately I have been working on a different project... I am focusing more on drawing because I am making a comic... I am doing it digitally so a built a digital graphics tablet into the shelf to make it more comfortable when drawing.

What I did was to take a shelf system like this

http://www.fredsuniquefurniture.com/Household/Household/i-TJvpXwW/0/L/DSC01888-L.jpg

and made a kind of table out of it... rather than stationary shelves I put heavy duty sliding hardware on them and used solid wood board for the shelves rather than particle board. So I was thinking one of these shelves would be a great place to build my PC onto... It seems much easier to build and neater for wiring... rather than trying to stuff everything into a box. And if something needs to be fixed or dies it's easy to remove or modify things.

 

[LightField]

I think I found the Falcontech here...

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/system/FalconNW/TikiTitan/DSC_9570.jpg

This is really cool. Haven't seen the price yet tho.. haha

Does anyone have any ideas what would be the easiest way to find out where Falcon got that riser card to hook the graphics card up with?

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/system/FalconNW/TikiTitan/DSC_9570.jpg

 

[mfenn]

Here's a whole bunch of them.

 

[LightField]

Hi mfenn. I was hoping to see what they used in a professional build because in my research I have read that many of these risers and ribbons are not reliable. I just worry that I could damage my components which would be bad but even worse for me having no experience building pcs.

 

[bononos]

Hi mfenn. I was hoping to see what they used in a professional build because in my research I have read that many of these risers and ribbons are not reliable. I just worry that I could damage my components which would be bad but even worse for me having no experience building pcs.

I would think the risers are way reliable than ribbon wires. They don't go far and introduce latency problems, and ribbon wires can be pinched/stretched accidently to break a wire.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seen this yet? Someone else is attempting something similar.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2302112

 

[LightField]

I would think the risers are way reliable than ribbon wires. They don't go far and introduce latency problems, and ribbon wires can be pinched/stretched accidently to break a wire.

I got that impression too bononos, but I also read that some people had problems with the risers making contact or latency or bandwidth issues I am guessing because the graphics cards weren't recognized by the PC.

 

[LightField]

Seen this yet? Someone else is attempting something similar.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2302112

Thanks VirtualLarry... that is an amazing thread! But he got his riser from some random reseller on Amazon from what I just read but searching for mITX might really help me find some good info.

 

[LightField]

I have a multimeter... I have never learned to use it though.. but could I use that to test the riser before I installed the graphics card? Could this prevent the rest of the PC from being damaged?

But this wouldn't work to see if the graphics card, the riser and the PCI slot fit together properly, though would it?

I wonder if you contact the graphics card manufacturer if they would recommend a certain supplier of risers or ribbons? Or maybe the motherboard manufacturer.

 

[Mushkins]

I dont think you have to really worry about electrical damage with these risers/ribbons. Components are extremely reliable these days unless you're doing some serious damage to them. With something like a riser or an adapter cable, the problems you're going to run into are more along the lines of the signals being too weak between the components and the board, not so much any sort of overload that would cause damage.

Worst case here is the performance sucks or it flat out doesnt work with some components and you wasted your money.

 

[LightField]

I am not sure of the details but one of the people I saw try this with a riser had something start smoking when they tried it out. You are right though many just had them not be recognized on start up.

 

[sm625]

Speaking from experience I would not trust any of these cables or 90 degree adapters. They're fine if you're just testing something out, but you are violating the bus spec. It is only a matter of time before something gets garbled and windows responds with a blue screen.

 

[LightField]

SM625, look at this one though..

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/system/FalconNW/TikiTitan/DSC_9570.jpg\\

It's a commercial product using one of these. 2 actually. I wonder if it is a custom part made just for this or is it is off the shelf.

 

[mfenn]

Speaking from experience I would not trust any of these cables or 90 degree adapters. They're fine if you're just testing something out, but you are violating the bus spec. It is only a matter of time before something gets garbled and windows responds with a blue screen.

Pretty much every single 1U and 2U rackmount server uses risers and they don't have trouble.

 

[mfenn]

Hi mfenn. I was hoping to see what they used in a professional build because in my research I have read that many of these risers and ribbons are not reliable. I just worry that I could damage my components which would be bad but even worse for me having no experience building pcs.

If you check the site a little more thoroughly, you'll see that Orbit Micro is a custom integrator of commercial and industrial PCs. These are the same risers that they use in their own products.

 

[LightField]

If you check the site a little more thoroughly, you'll see that Orbit Micro is a custom integrator of commercial and industrial PCs. These are the same risers that they use in their own products.

Awesome. Do you know if they use them with graphics cards though? I think that is where the problems come in for some reason. Sorry if this is obvious I'm not familiar with all this stuff.