Special Report: Project Z-Wave. (Yes, It's another Mod...)

Hello team,

It is time again for another mod by yours truly :D

This one is special as the basis for Project Z-Wave has been sponsored by Zombie69! A big THANK YOU to Z for this opportunity.

As it has not been decided if my Uncle wants the Z-Wave (Truth: It's up to Mrs. Uncle) when the mods are complete, it may be given to another team member. Maybe a simple contest of some sort, Like "Tell us why Z-Wave interests you" or some such thing...

Anyhoot, what did Zombie send my way you ask?

The hardware:
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 Mini-ITX (Link)
PSU: Seasonic X-Series SS-650KM Fully Modular 650W (Link)
CPU Cooler #1: Corsair Hydro Series H60 v2 (Link)
CPU Cooler #2: Cooler Master GeminII M4 (Link)
CPU Cooler #3: Deep Cool HTPC-11 (Link)

First off, it is obvious from the list that there are two CPU coolers too many. The mod will use the H60 so the other coolers will find their way to others on the team for crunching use.

Second and as obvious, the list does not include CPU, MB, HDD/SSD or RAM. So if Z-Wave does go to another team member it is with the understanding that she/he will add such items to complete this mini cruncher.

Okay, with all that out of the way it is time for some pics. Yeeeeha!!! And sorry for the poor quality of some of the pics.

Boxes & Parts
http://imageshack.us/a/img651/6282/zombiehardware.jpg


Elite Pieces
http://imageshack.us/a/img267/6978/caseparts.jpg


Bare Chassis Side
http://imageshack.us/a/img39/8341/chassisside.jpg


Bare Chassis Front Detail
http://imageshack.us/a/img12/6027/chassisfront1.jpg


Bare Chassis Front & Bottom
http://imageshack.us/a/img856/2711/chassisfront2.jpg


On the assumption that Z-Wave stays and will serve double duty as an HTPC, I made up a list of hardware to complete it.

MB: ASRock FM2A75M-ITX (Link)
CPU: AMD A8-5600K Trinity (Link)
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (Link)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-64G (Link)
HDD: HGST Travelstar Z7K500 HTS725050A7E630 500GB (Link)
Blu-Ray Drive: Something off eBay (Link)

Tomorrow I will start removing bits and pieces from the chassis so that's it for now.

Oh, one more thing. I'd like to plug my last blog (Here)

Until next post, Peace,
F$

Update:

This turned out to be much easier then I expected.

To remove the HDD cage only required drilling out 7 aluminum rivets and then grinding down the four threaded fan mount points, which were just punch-outs of the sheet metal, where the front fan attaches. The only other adjustment needed to install the H60 was the addition of some rubber pads between the fan mount and the H60's radiator. The fan mount was a touch wider then the distance between the rad's end caps. The rubber pads allow the rad to sit far enough away from the fan bracket for all the mounting holes to properly line up. (See rad photo below)

After getting the H60 mounted I needed to test it's cold plate (The part that you stick on the CPU) alignment on a MB. But I don't have an mITX board yet! What to do...?

Answer: Use an old dead regular ATX MB. Of course one needs to adjust it's size to match an mITX motherboard. Dremel to the rescue! Yep, I hacked up an old MB I had in my scrap pile. I think this one came from AL or Mike but not sure. So like which one of you guys sent that Abit IS-7 board my way?

Anyhoot, got the mockup MB cut to size. Then I had to fix the issue with CPU heatsink mounting holes. Mockup board has Intel Socket 478 (1st Gen P4 socket) which uses a smaller hole pattern then sockets 775/1366/1156/1155. So I used the H60's hold down bracket to help me locate where the two missing holes should be and marked them with my trusty Sharpie. Then I drilled the appropriate sized holes, cleaned everything off, installed the H60's backplate, mounted the mock board in the case, slapped in a P4 I had laying around and finally fixed the H60's cold plate to the P4. Easy peazy.....

Time for the pics. Note that they run in reverse of the description above. I took the pics at the end, during disassembly. Just faster this way.


All the major pieces fitted
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/5886/h...talledside.jpg

Top View: PSU removed
http://imageshack.us/a/img717/1151/h...ledtopview.jpg

Side View
http://imageshack.us/a/img213/2596/h...edsideview.jpg

Front View
http://imageshack.us/a/img23/8471/h6...dfrontview.jpg

Rear View
http://imageshack.us/a/img855/8482/h...edrearview.jpg

H60 Rad w/Rubber Spacers
http://imageshack.us/a/img18/5290/radspacers.jpg

Inside View: Front Fan Mount Bracket
http://imageshack.us/a/img705/5628/h...tsinternal.jpg

Outside View: Front Fan Mount Bracket
http://imageshack.us/a/img138/1553/h...tsexternal.jpg

HDD Cage and Mockup MB
http://imageshack.us/a/img441/8157/hddcagemockupmb.jpg

Update:

First thing, I failed to mention that last Friday my Uncle overruled his other half and transferred some funds to begin buying parts. So one AMD A8-5600k was ordered since Newegg had a code for 10% off. UPS says it should arrive today.

As for the other components, he is putting off buying the SSD and wants to go with a 250GB HDD instead of a 500GB unit. I also discovered I had 2 sticks of DDR3-12800 which I think I got from Emsti. And the MB I listed in the OP has already been discontinued. Seems the Vregs were blowing up and/or catching on fire! ASRock has started shipping its replacement, the FM2A85X-ITX so that will be the one for this build.

This brings me to the topic of the extra CPU coolers Zombie sent to me.

Cooler Master GeminII M4 (Link)
Deep Cool HTPC-11 (Link)

If you are interested in one or both just send me a PM. Shipping is on me.

Now to the fun part. Sometime early last Saturday morning I finished the rough out of the drive caddy. The caddy will hold the slim Blu-Ray drive and 2 2.5" HDD/SSD drives. I cannot finish Filling holes, sanding, clean up and painting until my Uncle can order the Blu-Ray unit, just in case I need to change something.

Anyhoot time for the pics.

Caddy Test Fit
http://imageshack.us/a/img651/269/ca...stallsmall.jpg

Caddy in the rough
http://imageshack.us/a/img811/5056/c...inishsmall.jpg

Caddy Top & Bottom
http://imageshack.us/a/img824/7099/caddyopensmall.jpg

Caddy - Mounts & Acrylic HDD Tray
http://imageshack.us/a/img163/3645/c...lodedsmall.jpg

The slim DVD drive in the pics is an old IDE unit form a Toshiba lappy I cannibalized for parts. The HDD is the Seagate unit that died on my Uncle and the SSD is the one I got from DrPop. It died three weeks ago.

Well it is getting there but it will take slightly longer then originally thought. The big microwave oven in the kitchen decided last night to give up the ghost. C'est la vie....

Seems its been a bad couple of months for electronics in my house :(

Till next post, Peace.
F$

Well, still waiting on additional funds but I have been working out other aspects of this build.

I was able to resurrect the Corsair Nova2 60GB SSD that flaked out on my several weeks ago, the one in the pics. Turns out the Nova2 needs to be zapped with its internal secure erase feature. And the easiest way to do that is using Parted Magic (link). This definitely helps reduce the cost of this build so it was worth the effort of Scouring the Net for this info. With that covered, its on to the OS.

My original selection for the OS was Win7 with Windows Media Center GUI autolaunching. That changed when Mike called me yesterday and the topic of this build came up. That conversation rekindled my curiosity about XMBC and their pre-compiled Linux distro XMBCbuntu. A visit to http://xbmc.org/ and I was pleasantly surprised to discover their latest release, version 12.0 aka Frodo. Great nickname btw (And yes, I read the books looooong before the movies came out).

The XMBC download page (Link) offers two distros of the Linux ISO. One for ATI/AMD: xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso, and one for nVidia: xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-NVIDIA.iso. After DL'ing both versions, I fired up my fav thumb drive ISO installer, YUMI (Link) and added the AMD distro to my trusty Toshiba 16GB drive. Next I disconnected all the HDDs in my desktop and connected the Nova2. Plugged in my thumb drive and fired up Nexus. Then.... fizzle :( After trying a reboot or two with no success, I was getting erked! Maybe a bad ISO image? YUMI did not report any errors so maybe not. Hmmmm I thought to myself, what is it that the XMBC doesn't like about my system? Then I recalled hearing something about Linux not liking rigs with mixed brands of GPUs. Since the distro I was using was for ATI hardware, duh! 5 minutes & one CUDA card excised later... EUREKA!!! (Great TV series btw, too bad SyFy canned it :()

I must say that I really, really, like the XMBC user interface. Blows the doors off of Windows Media Center. The install had no issue detecting my HD 5830 or any of the hardware in Nexus. Sweet! And the XMBC experience is highly customizable, enough so that I will need to do some serious reading to get up to speed. <3 learning new things :D

User Interface sample
Attachment 1264

Overview of XMBC's use of "10-foot UI" (Link)

Now for one little tidbit about hardware for Z-Wave. As the TV in the front room is an older standard definition rear-projection model, this build will require some means of converting VGA/DVI to the 480i format of std. def TV. At least until my Uncle receives this years tax returns :P. So after digging around on Newegg I think I've found something suitable and that won't cost an arm and or leg. The BYTECC HM105 (Link) got good user reviews & costs only $29.99 before Newegg's 30% off with Promo Code EMCXVWS79, which expires today.

--Till next post, Peace,
F$

I can't wait to see this fully up and running so I can build my own. After you work out all the bugs of course. :p Good fun F$. Keep it coming.

:( You know how sometimes in life there always seems to be some a$$hole that comes along and bursts your bubble and you just want to stab this person in the face?

Well... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/320106/

Supports the Swiftech h220 (and all other inferior 240mm CPU coolers :p ) As well as 120mm coolers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by John P. Myers

:( You know how sometimes in life there always seems to be some a$$hole that comes along and bursts your bubble and you just want to stab this person in the face?

Well... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/320106/

Supports the Swiftech h220 (and all other inferior 240mm CPU coolers :p ) As well as 120mm coolers.

---

Dual 3.5 inch HD tray? Seems silly for an ITX case. Especially with 2.5 inch Laptop drives easily hitting 1TB and more. But that does look sweet.

That's a sweet looking case! :-bd

The critic in me sees a problem shared with most mini-ITX cases, airflow. It as plenty of active intake air but almost no active exhaust. Even the PSU cannot contribute to exhausting case air when configured in ATX setup. In the SSF setup one can flip the PSU fan over to push air out through the right side of the case.

My idea with Z-Wave will be to mount one or two quiet 120mm fans on the right side. Although I may have to dremel out many of the slots (make them longer) to reduce noise caused by air turbulence with the OEM side venting.

Update.

Got impatient/bored so I went ahead and painted the caddy anyway..... Finished the wiring today. so now the caddy is setup with x1 Slim SATA Data/Power connector & x2 Standard SATA Data/Power connectors. Now just need optical & storage drives.

http://imageshack.us/a/img199/8338/c...eraltsmall.jpg

Hooo Hmmmm...

Well, a few days ago I switched gears and took a slightly different tack. Used the blank drive-bay plate to finish off the caddy. Still needs a touch more work to clean up the edges of the cutout. I may end up spray painting the whole plate with GunMetal Gray.

Almost there.....
http://imageshack.us/a/img109/2109/c...alledsmall.jpg

Looking good, my man, looking good! Has your Uncle seen it yet? Or is it a surprise? :cool:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrPop

Looking good, my man, looking good! Has your Uncle seen it yet? Or is it a surprise? :cool:

---

Nope, no surprise as he is the one funding the hardware to complete it. :P

And it looks like funds for the MB should be available tomorrow or Wednesday. Yipeeeeeeeee...!!!

They're here........
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/7015/receivedsmall.jpg

Time to get cracking! :-B :bz

Wahoo!!! That actually looks like a fun project. Never thought I'd say that about anything but a FULL size tower rig, but your little Mini Me is shaping up pretty cool! :-bd

The real question though, is can it crunch without overheating? :D X_X

Update:

Last post = 03.15.2013
Today = 03.22.2013

So what happened?

Answer = A few things.....


But First,

Have a look see. Tiny thing isn't it...?
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/2105/mitxsmall.jpg

So after I get over eying the board like a giddy 9 year old on Christmas morning, I take a moment to read the board layout section of the user manual. (No comments from the Peanut Gallery)*

Oh and earlier that morning my Uncle decided he had some extra cash so he asked me about more storage. Our discussion led us to settle on a WD WD5000BPKT as Newegg had a Promo Code for $15 off.

Next Morning 03.16.2013, I begin installing.

Running out of room fast...... (Left PSU out so the pics will show something)
http://imageshack.us/a/img541/5161/g...owdedsmall.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img707/7845/g...wded2small.jpg

I double check all the hardware, need to keep the Magic Smoke inside them parts. Now for the moment of truth, I press the power button and.............. nothing.

Hmmmm, maybe I pressed the reset button? Let's try that again, and...... arrrg! Okay one more time, and..... God must be testing me!

After 10~15 minutes of troubleshooting I discover the problem is a broken connection between the case's power button and it's wire. Time for the ol' soldering iron.

Some time later: Okay, here we go........ and success! ---> Installed Windows, then MB drivers, ran WinUpdate, starting install essential utils, and...... noticed the Corsair SSD beginning to slow down then suddenly desktop locks up. Shut down and restart. Another freeze, so another cold boot. Next...??? BSOD of course. Damn! It must be the SSD flaking out. Guess my fix of it wasn't so great after all :(( I realize God hasn't stopped the testing......... Out of frustration I decide to use a 2.5 HDD from one of my crunchers. Winner is Dark-Matter. Time to backup it's drive.

Even more some time later: Got the backup done and drive pulled. I mount it into the caddy and begin again. When I get to the same point of adding utils, system begins crashing like before. (I can now hear the call of the "Dark Side" of my brain)

So I try removing software one program at a time. Doesn't help. Okay Windows you win. Reformat ---> Reinstall Windows ---> Run WinUpdates ---> and...... More lockups & BSODs. Okay, time for some mechanical mayhem ala World of Tanks...

Next day, 03.17.2013

It is decided that Z-Wave really needs an SSD to reduce boot times and to hopefully help in keeping XBMC GUI snappy. I go through Newegg emails and viola! discount codes for refurb OCZ SSDs. Cool. After looking through the list and Goggling prospects for price comparison, the OCZ Agility 3

60GB gets the nod. Now back to figuring out why the system is having crashing fits.

Have you ever been in a situation that grows increasingly frustrating, and the whole time a little voice in the back of your thoughts keeps repeating something it says is the answer but the "loud" part of your thoughts says "That's nonsense"? And in the end, when you finally try that nonsensical thing, it works!???

Yep, your right. That was my experience with the fits. And the solution? Why a BIOS update of course. Duh......

Ahhhhh, much better :)

Next I finish the WinUpdates & drivers along with my list of utilities. Install XBMC and begin teaching myself how it works. Btw, its a really neat piece of software. Lots to learn :P

Next day, 03.18.2013

During my morning coffee ---> Ah-choo! Huh? What was that? Hmmmm, then Ah-choo, again. Oh heck no........ but then another ah-choo! By early afternoon I was completely miserable. The testing has shifted into overdrive....... By midnight I knew there would be no shut-eye. Later, the after the midday sun kind of later, the ah-choos begin to lose their efficacy. Late evening I'm back to tinkering with XBMC. And just before midnight Z-Wave is crunching with the GTX 460 I commandeered from another box. Somewhere around 3am I can finally go to bed.......

Next day, 03.20.2013

I can breathe again. Ahhhhh, much much better :) As early afternoon arrives, so does the Ugly Brown Truck. Yipeeeeee, two boxes with Newegg logos. Now I feel much better. :D

So I pull the caddy ---> Swap in new storage units ---> reassemble Z-Wave ---> Init drives, partition them & install Windows ----> Install chipset drivers ---> Run WinUpdate ---> Install other drivers & utilities ---> Install BOINC & import all files from previous install ---> Install XBMC ---> and..................................... it all works! Well, Hot Damn!!!!! I tinker with XBMC until evening. Now time for a movie. I go for something fun & something I hadn't watched in a long time, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

Don't they make a cute couple? I <3 mixed relationships.
http://imageshack.us/a/img689/1010/storagesmall.jpg

Next day, 03.21.2013

Just a day of mundane RL stuff. Not sure if the testing is over or its now just more insidious.......

Next day = today. So here we are. Z-Wave will do CPU crunching (Link) until I'm ready to connect it to TV and Home Theater. And that won't happen until the TOSLink & S-Video cables

we ordered today, arrive. Maybe Tuesday?

Have a great & healthy weekend.

Till next post, Peace.


*Note: I'll attach for a full 72 hours, either my HD-6970 or GTX-570, to the person's account who is 1st to correctly post the origin of that Gallery reference.

That post read like a thriller novel . . . for geeks and nerds!!! :D ;)

That is amazing how small it is though. I had no idea until seeing that shot of the mono next to a CD. Wow! So just how powerful a CPU can you put into such a small space before it over heats?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrPop

That post read like a thriller novel . . . for geeks and nerds!!! :D ;)

That is amazing how small it is though. I had no idea until seeing that shot of the mono next to a CD. Wow! So just how powerful a CPU can you put into such a small space before it over heats?

---

While the box is small, about the size of a boot shoe-box, it does NOT deal well with CPU heat due to the layout of the Mini-ITX layout and the lack of airflow for a short air heat-sink. But with the mods F$ did, to allow a water-cooled solution, it works. Very nice, and very creative!

But let me throw this out. Same desktop (not mobile) i7 CPU, with just slightly less power. No discrete GPU of course, but it does include the HD 4000. Soon we will have projects that support it too.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55884901/IMG_0308.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55884901/IMG_0309.jpg

@DP: Thx. Obviously I had too much time on my hands when I typed that out... :P

@Z: Very true, and it equally applies to most all Small Form Factor cases. And yeah, I remember your thread on the NUC & DS61.

But the potential heat issues with this Cooler Master case is the reason I was psyched to do this project. And though I believe I've made good headway, I know there is more I can, and will, do.

Plans for future mods
*Work on replacing PSU fan with high air flow unit. Also adding rpm control via external connector attached to PSU enclosure
*Mod left (discrete GPU) side of case cover to allow clearance for 3rd GPU coolers like the Accelero Twin Turbo II
*Mod right side of case cover for a quiet 140mm fan solution.

Oh and Z, if you look at the Free-DC stats, Z-Wave is crunching Collatz on the APU (Link), although not as fast as its closest discrete cousin.

Collatz supports embedded GPU now? I have been waiting to hear some news about it in the forum there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zombie67

Collatz supports embedded GPU now? I have been waiting to hear some news about it in the forum there.

---

Yep, it sure does. I just gave it a shot yesterday and its running....

click to enlarge
Attachment 1286

Ah. It works because it is AMD, which is already a choice. I was thinking about intel HD, which is not yet supported.

Anyone asked Slicker how hard it would be to support the new on-die GPU in the Intel CPUs? Could he reuse the same OpenCL code ( is it standardized like that?) Or would this require a lot of programming work to generate an Intel specific series of WUs?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrPop

Anyone asked Slicker how hard it would be to support the new on-die GPU in the Intel CPUs? Could he reuse the same OpenCL code ( is it standardized like that?) Or would this require a lot of programming work to generate an Intel specific series of WUs?

---

Yeah, there is already a thread on the project forum. He's working on it. The hard part is the server code.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zombie67

Yeah, there is already a thread on the project forum. He's working on it. The hard part is the server code.

---

OK, I understand. So it has to be redone, that's what I didn't know about. A bummer that they can't just make an open standard (i.e. OpenCL you would think...) where you could created one set of code and it would talk to any chip that could run that code. I thought that's what they were trying to do, but then I guess it's probably pretty complicated stuff! :p Way over my head anyway. :)

Update.

Well, so far so good. Z-Wave has been crunching away on the GTX-460 without any problems. Though at some point in the near future I'll have to address the heat issue as the GPU is running a tad warmer in this tight case.

On the HTPC side of things, I'm slowly working on customizing the GUI. I've settled on XMBC's Aeon Nox GUI theme since it has a lot of forum interest and support. And keeping to my MO, below are a couple of screenshots.

Aeon Nox GUI
http://imageshack.us/a/img200/1927/aeonnoxmod1small.jpg


And Z-Wave's desktop
http://imageshack.us/a/img823/6358/desktopsmall.jpg