pics: A8-3850 + PC-Q11 build

[Soulkeeper]

I wanted to build a mini ITX system that performed about as good as my Q9450 or better, yet used less power and was small/new.

Here are some pics of the build:
Boxes (cdrom is largest box)
Motherboard
Heatsink
HSF Tight fit
Putting PSU in
Vid card in after modifying HSF
matx on left, full atx on right

Finished pics:
Inside
Back
Front

Benchmark results:
Compression
2hr+ kitchen sink


Power Usage (cpu + mem loaded):

A8-3850:
Idle 53W
Load 99W
Q9450 power usage (same psu):
Idle 97W
Load 157W

 

[illram]

None of the pics load for me.

I have a Q11 and am thinking about building another one as I love this little case. Curious how the Seasonic fanless PSU fit.

 

[Arg Clin]

Look nice!

What kind of temps are you getting?

 

[Zap]

Wow, your work area looks kind of ghetto. What's with the cover over the front mesh of that other case?

What modifications did you do to the HSF to get the video card to fit?

 

[illram]

Ah, pics are working now. Thanks!

What kind of temps are you getting in there?

 

[Soulkeeper]

Ah, pics are working now. Thanks!

What kind of temps are you getting in there?

Load temps are low 70C, idle mid to high 60's

I'm going to have to get better cooling ...

 

[Soulkeeper]

Wow, your work area looks kind of ghetto. What's with the cover over the front mesh of that other case?

What modifications did you do to the HSF to get the video card to fit?

Since only the heatpipes connect the upper heatsink to the lower heatsink, I was able to put it on the edge of the table and apply a good 25lbs of force or so causing it to move the upper heatsink a good 15mm parallel to the bottom one.

I blame asus for this, they put the socket much too close to the pcie slot

The HSF is surprisingly light feeling

 

[Soulkeeper]

Wow, your work area looks kind of ghetto. What's with the cover over the front mesh of that other case?

What modifications did you do to the HSF to get the video card to fit?

electro-static vent filters over the intake (they need replaced, been washed too many times)
just taped on because I didn't feeling like unscrewing the bracket I made for it every time I clean the filters.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I was reading the wrong number for temperatures it seems

SYSTIN: +71.0°C (high = +0.0°C, hyst = +0.0°C) ALARM sensor = thermistor
CPUTIN: +40.5°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C) sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN: +32.0°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C) sensor = thermistor

first number is just nonsense and correlates to nothing ...

so 40.5 cpu
32.0 chipset
under cpu/mem load

I modified the PC-Q11 case fan, tearing out the guts and replacing them with the guts of a 120mm thermaltake fan
result: max fan speed is now 1800-2000rpm instead of 1000rpm
I also put a fan off a retail core2 hsf onto my heatsink, cools better than the low profile shruiken

After reading the anadtech review on this motherboard I wasn't able to replicate his result of setting IDE mode to get higher FSB speeds
I max out at around 104-107MHz fsb can't get higher
I havn't tried vcore values higher than 1.3v however (I don't want high vcore)

currently running 2.2GHz @ 1.05v/1.05v(nb) 1600 9-9-9-24 @ 1.35v
The asus bios won't tell me what speed the nb is running at and i'm left kinda wondering if the GPU on this apu is really disabled from a power usage standpoint (os dependent ?)

I did verify that the higher clock mults are indeed locked, but the lower ones are open. I booted and benchmarked all the way down to 8x with 1.0v

 

[Soulkeeper]

I just experimented with various settings/voltages for a few hours ....
with and without discreet vid, ahci/ata disabling sata entirely, vrm+digi settings, even clocking the cpu/mem as low as possible at default voltages with 107MHz fsb

I'm convinced the anandtech review of the fia75-i was not indicative of what can be expected from an overclocking perspective.

I was unable to get above 107MHz fsb regardless of any settings

He was using a beta bios with asus suggested settings ....
sounds like a cherry picked setup to obtain the 140MHz
unless i'm missing something :/

Current settings:

2900MHz 1.20v
1.125v nb
1866 10-11-10-28 1.35v

 

[jaydee]

Good stuff. Similar to what I built a year ago in my sig, with lower power and a real video card of course.

It looks like you flipped the PSU? Is that because one of the fans would otherwise be butt up against the side of the case? I had that problem initially, but I drilled a pattern of about 20-30 small holes in the side panel to get air flow instead of flipping it (which would have created airflow contradictory to the CPU hs/f). Then my Corsair PSU died the very first time I started it up and my backup PSU didn't have a fan in the same place, making those holes pointless...

 

[illram]

40 under load on the CPU? That's pretty good. I am interesting in building a silent PC in this case, with no fans whatsoever and am wondering if I can get away with it with a low power processor, such as a 35W sandy bridge or a 65W AMD APU, and a fanless PSU such as a Pico unit or something from Seasonic.

Unscientifically I am assuming my temps would raise about 15 degrees from that without any fans blowing on the passive CPU heatsink I would install, such as the AXP-140.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Good stuff. Similar to what I built a year ago in my sig, with lower power and a real video card of course.

It looks like you flipped the PSU? Is that because one of the fans would otherwise be butt up against the side of the case? I had that problem initially, but I drilled a pattern of about 20-30 small holes in the side panel to get air flow instead of flipping it (which would have created airflow contradictory to the CPU hs/f). Then my Corsair PSU died the very first time I started it up and my backup PSU didn't have a fan in the same place, making those holes pointless...

the PSU is a fanless seasonic, it's oriented with the open mesh pointing down.

 

[Soulkeeper]

40 under load on the CPU? That's pretty good. I am interesting in building a silent PC in this case, with no fans whatsoever and am wondering if I can get away with it with a low power processor, such as a 35W sandy bridge or a 65W AMD APU, and a fanless PSU such as a Pico unit or something from Seasonic.

Unscientifically I am assuming my temps would raise about 15 degrees from that without any fans blowing on the passive CPU heatsink I would install, such as the AXP-140.

I don't think fanless is an easy option with a 100W/65W cpu
I wouldn't feel confortable running mine completely without a fan. Although a single 1000rpm fan on the cpu might be enough to cool the whole setup. Then if you get 4 pin PWM fans the bios usually allows ranges and % settings for speed (which I like)
That AXP-140 is a nice looking heatsink, I was looking at that too

 

[knght990]

Did the heatpipes bend or do they pivot to the new position?

Do you think it could run a risk of not working to it capacity? (I dont think your temps indicate any issue)