My system inside an ISK 300-65

deruberhanyok · Post by **deruberhanyok** » Mon May 10, 2010 6:41 am

Hello all. Wasn't sure where to put this, but most of my observations are in relation to the case so I figured this was as good a spot as any.

About two weeks ago I put together a mini ITX system inside an Antec ISK 300-65 with the following specs:

Intel DH57JG
4GB (2x2GB) G.Skill "Eco" 1.35v DDR3-1333
Core i3-530 w/ stock Intel HSF
OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD
Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640GB 2.5" HDD
Pioneer DVR-TS08 slimline DVD burner

USB wifi-n adapter (Edimax EW-7717Un)
USB card reader (Sandisk Imagemate all-in-one)

It's working great so far and I just wanted to share some random info with anyone that may be considering a similar build.

- The case is very small, though for some reason it seemed bigger than I expected. But it's so tiny! I guess it was just from looking at pictures online; I mean, I really don't see how they could make it any smaller. There's barely enough room as it is.

- Getting the DVD burner lined up properly was pretty easy. I've seen some user reviews of this DVD drive that say discs won't work in it and others that say "you have to use really tiny screws". It turns out there are screws of just the right size included with the case; in fact two are already in the drive frame and can be used to secure the drive (more are provided in the baggy that came with the case).

- The PSU does include the smaller power connector for slimline SATA optical drives. I remember seeing this information on SPCR before but I can't find it now; rest assured it is there.

- I went with the Intel board over the Zotac H55-ITX because of a note I saw mentioning that Zotac doesn't have a way to flash the BIOS outside of DOS/windows. I'm only running Ubuntu Linux on this system, hence my decision to go with the DH57JG.

- The DH57JG's front panel (power switch, reset switch, HDD LED, power LED) connectors are near the back of the board. I couldn't get the power LED connector to reach the back of the board; the rest were fine (not a problem for me as I didn't want the power LED connected anyhow).

- I have no idea how anyone could expect to fit an expansion card in the PCI Express slot with how little room there is in this case after running all the cables.

- getting the ATX backplate on the system was a terrible pain in the neck. I don't know if the plate included with the DH57JG is just a little bigger than normal or if the cutout on the back of the ISK 300 is smaller than normal, but it took a LOT of effort to get it completely snapped in to place (I remember the backplate on my DG45ID having a similar problem fitting in to my Silverstone TJ08, but not to this difficulty). It actually bows out a little bit but thankfully does not affect any peripheral connectivity.

- It's really hard to neaten up the cables in this case. Thankfully most cable slack can be stored in the front of the case, between the DC/DC power supply PCB and the bottom of the drive frame.

- SATA connection to the hard drives was a tight fight due to how close they come to the drive frame.

I currently have the included 80mm tri-cool fan on the low setting and it's very quiet. I may yet replace it with an 80mm Noctua I have just to see how that sounds at full speed, but haven't decided if it's worth it to open the system up again right now.

I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 on the system and I've been using it for day-to-day tasks (writing, web surfing, and ripping / listening to music) without any problems.

I don't have a power meter and so I can't provide power consumption numbers, but the bundled PSU seems completely up to the task of running the above specs. Haven't checked temps either, though I'll try to remember to look at them tonight and post here.

faugusztin · Post by **faugusztin** » Mon May 10, 2010 6:43 am

deruberhanyok wrote:I currently have the included 80mm tri-cool fan on the low setting and it's very quiet. I may yet replace it with an 80mm Noctua I have just to see how that sounds at full speed, but haven't decided if it's worth it to open the system up again right now.

2x8cm Noctua = inaudible.

adikt · Post by **adikt** » Mon May 10, 2010 7:00 am

Thanks for posting this, I wasn't sure if the 65W PSU could handle an i3 and all the other parts, pretty impressive that it can!

Namheul · Post by **Namheul** » Mon May 10, 2010 4:25 pm

Have you done any load testing?

Under full load, it should use more than 65W.
Also, i have the same CPU-motherboard combination, and i had trouble with the motherboard backplate too. Seemed like it was too big.

deruberhanyok · Post by **deruberhanyok** » Tue May 11, 2010 8:33 am

I haven't done any load testing, no. As I said, I don't have a power meter. I might pick one up the next time I order parts, perhaps a kill-a-watt or something.

The most strenuous of activities to which the system will ever be subjected is likely watching a DVD movie (or perhaps an HTML5 video. I'm trying to avoid installing Flash), so a "full load" test holds no practical use for me.

That said, since SPCR's test setup of the i5-661, using onboard graphics, didn't even hit 45W while watching a blu-ray movie, I figure that with the lower voltage DDR3, slower processor and iGPU than the i5-661 and SSD in place of the Raptor used in their test system that my everyday usage would be lower than what is shown here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1013-page4.html

Their "full system" numbers (on the following page of the above article) showed a configuration with the i5-661, "motherboard, two sticks of memory, a notebook hard drive, idle Blu-ray drive, keyboard and mouse" showed 69W at full CPU/GPU load. Comparing that to, at least, the lower power CPU/GPU and DDR3 I'd be surprised to see it pulling more than 65W at full load.

Duelund · Post by **Duelund** » Wed Jun 02, 2010 12:05 am

I find this thread really interessting.
I consider much like the same configuration, Intel DH57JG, Core i3-530, 2Â½" HDD and slimline DVD, for living room multimedia playback (from external USB HDD).

I thought I had to go for the Antec ISK 310-150 case but worried about the PSU noise. Great news if the ISK 300-65 is enough.

How is noise level ?
Are you still happy with the setup ?
Did you measure the power consumption ?

Namheul · Post by **Namheul** » Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:54 pm

I have the same motherboard and CPU, but with a regular ODD and 3.5" HDD, and it hits 90W at full load while encoding some videos.

I would get the 65W version, and replace the PSU with a 150W picoPSU.

My system inside an ISK 300-65

My system inside an ISK 300-65

Re: My system inside an ISK 300-65