Wait 'til you see the Bent Motherboard... - Streacom DB1 Max

[@DustyTheDog]

2:08 Not so sure I like how much flex I see in that board. Might that be compounded when the board undergoes thermal cycling when in use, going from load to no load and whatnot?

[@LinusTechTips]

We didn't either - Streacom was quick to reply and got a board up on their own test platform and confirmed they saw the same VRM issues under stress tests. -CW

[@fstani]

Got the same feeling the moment I saw those bends

[@linux_fox]

I feel like that's going to snap at any moment

[@dralord1307]

yeah 1:45 is a very good view of it as well

[@spelledfunny]

@@LinusTechTips It would be kind of cool if you guys could hit up the workshop and fix the heat pipe issues. Solder in the pipes, redesign the block, etc.

[@TheGhungFu]

The old school serial port is likely due to this board being derived from an industrial ITX board. I've been running Asrock industrial ITX boards for years. They seem to last forever. BTW: That bent MB is spooky.

[@volvo09]

Yeah, a tiny board like this will totally have a high industrial use case. The physical serial port is a mandatory feature if you want to be included in that market.

[@Sparktan24]

I thought the same, that uncommon form factor sure it's used in industrial environments.

[@chexo3]

Wait, so I can have a real serial port on my computer (rather than Serial over USB) with an industrial ITX mobo? That’s intriguing, especially as I have this serial terminal I was going to fix up.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

There's also the fact that by having a serial port one can put this into industrial use or diy shops which kinda helps

[@supercool_saiyan5670]

that Serial port right next to the USB C one just hits different lmao

[@LastRoseStudios]

"Instructions unclear, motherboard taco" has to be a shirt

[@friedrich1277]

Real nerds wont fry their boards, even without instructions

[@Sn0wman_308]

Lmao yes I’d so buy one!

[@rolux4853]

@Will Kelly are you afraid of losing your manliness when you wear something pink?

[@lpx4560]

@@rolux4853 he might just not like the colors

[@gargonovich]

This would be nice for a Home Theatre PC where the silent operation would be a really desirable feature.

[@jackielinde7568]

I'd still add a tiny fan to help move air inside the case. I was thinking this would be better as a portable PC for LAN Bashes, but I can see the HTPC use case. Still, there are others that seem to do this better, like Intel's NUCs.

[@Love2Destroy]

I was thinking home recording studio

[@BGraves]

Agreed. But I find the only reason to have a home theater PC anymore is if I can use it for some pretty decent couch gaming. Running plex server on your gaming rig or on a separate server away from the living room makes more sense and then you just tap into Plex using the smart TV app

[@Ghi102]

It's nice, but the lack of storage would really hurt it if you have a collection of a decent size. Unless you have a NAS with the storage, but at that point, might as well just use the NAS in another room as the home theater PC

[@TheOmegaRiddler]

This and a portable projector, have a little cinema in your home

[@derekremington8807]

Put aftermarket heat sinks on the vrm, and seal the container with sealant around all the connection points and panels so it's liquid tight, and fill that case with mineral oil. Then full thermal load is radiated outward to the heat sink case

[@stinkycheese804]

It was already enough of a PITA mess, now seal it up so can't be (reasonably) opened again? All it needs, is a couple low RPM 80mm fans strapped on top and enlarge the openings to them.

[@Mp57navy]

And BAM! You just created an Iphone.

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@Mp57navy More an IBM Power1 system but close enough 😉

[@derekremington8807]

@@stinkycheese804 but what fun is that hahaha

[@Terminal-Thought-Experiment]

Look forward to your video..

[@qm3ster]

They should add fins on top, and have the heatpipes go through them first before hitting the external fins. That would provide an updraft to cool the passive components.

[@samtherat6]

Would’ve been really cool to see how much tiny passive heatsinks on the VRM would’ve helped. They have them laying around the office from when they water cool GPUs, it would’ve been worth a try.

[@EhEhEhEINSTEIN]

Definitely this! What do we even have Alex and Colin and a fucking giant shop full of badass tools for?? Figure it out dudes

[@deusexaethera]

It would have very little improvement, because there's no airflow inside the case to make the heatsinks work. With the VRMs limited to radiative cooling alone, they would actually cool _less_ efficiently with heatsinks attached, because the heatsinks' larger surface area would spread out the heat more, and radiative cooling gets exponentially less efficient as temperature drops. That's why the International Space Station requires such enormous radiators to keep the interior from overheating -- running heat-pumps that could concentrate the waste-heat into a small highly-efficient glowing-hot radiator would require more electricity than just pumping liquid coolant into a set of huge inefficient room-temperature radiators.

[@poiiihy]

@@deusexaethera there is convection airflow though

[@samtherat6]

@@deusexaethera It’s not like this is the Space station where in it’s a vacuum, the heat generated by the case still generates some airflow through convection. Otherwise his hand wouldn’t have gotten warm when he put it above the case.

[@Earth-Apple]

Or just get some of those tiny alluminium heatsinks

[@anonymousarmadillo6589]

The serial port is for CNC applications. They use such small motherboards a lot

[@StrokeMahEgo]

Makes sense

[@vgamesx1]

Also why it's fanless, a normal PC will gather tons of dust or metal shavings which of course would lead to an early grave.

[@donwicks3540]

AV automation in general..rs-232, rs-485 are still the go to. Elan, Control4, Savant, Crestron.

[@Demonslayer20111]

@@SidneyCritic not suprising considering the obd port is basically serial in a different form factor

[@hzuiel]

@@vgamesx1 That board being an industrial board has zero to do with the fanless case. Also, no, metal shavings are not a concern, and there are pc's with fans in all kinds of industrial situations that do not go into an early grave. I've seen computers in a woodshop filled with sawdust half an inch thick, masonry dust, all kinds of crap, and the better way to deal with that are these things they call filters. For reliability you need cooling, and fanless is trash at cooling.

[@langhistruk]

Little note: You cannot use the wifi slot for small nvme drives. The M.2 slots are physically different (m.2 Key-M and m.2 Key-E)

[@AGuy-vq9qp]

I'm pretty sure I've seen e key ssds

[@leovang3425]

@@AGuy-vq9qp the majority of SSDs are M key and I believe only M key supports PCIe 4x.

[@Megasteel32]

@@AGuy-vq9qp I doubt they exist in popularity due to two things, one Key E only supports PCIe x2, USB 2.0, SDIO (SD cards), UART, I2C, and PCM. so SATA is out. and BIOSs almost always (id say always but i wouldnt be surprised if someone tried to implement support for it) restrict those Key-E slots to whatever chipsets deal with USB or IO since they're meant for wifi/bluetooth or cellular cards. so long story short, maybe one is out there but ive only seen Key M and B SSDs. not to mention the only lengths shared across Key A/E and M/B are 2280 and 2230.

[@Geerice]

@@AGuy-vq9qp Im fairly certain E key m2 drives don't support nvme

[@waderyun.war00034]

Just use an adapter I use one in a hp usff that has no room or Sata connectors for an additional ssd but has 2 mini pcie slots. So I'm running m.2 pcie ssd in a 3rd gen intel hp mobo with a 3770k and all it does is run a plex server it does have an old mxm amd gpu. The poor computer has been running 24/7 for years and years. It's no good for gaming and doesn't have enough ram or storage to run freenas at the speeds I need it to (10gbps)

[@UselessDuckCompany]

It would be cool to see a fresh take on how to make a mini plex server and NAS

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

Is starting from scratch with Plex the best idea in 2022? The lack of AV1 support is getting to be a drag, and the platform seems to be gradually falling behind in general. I realize it's still the consolidated, mass-market choice, but I have a feeling by 2027 you'll wish you picked something like Emby, Jellyfin, or Kodi instead. I don't know what "the" answer is, though.

[@carter9449]

You're going to want sata bays for drives and a GPU for transcoding for that, if you don't need either just use a raspberry pi with a usb hard drive

[@ajsvideodump]

@@dycedargselderbrother5353 the only real advantage of Plex specifically as far as I'm aware is how a good amount of smart TVs have support for it while they might not necessarily have apps for Kodi or Jellyfin or anything of that sort.

[@olpporsetty]

@@dycedargselderbrother5353 I mean jellyfin is open source so you can just switch to it at any time. It's not like it's a major commitment to go from plex to that on a moment's notice

[@yayanarchy8394]

Nah... 4u dual Xeon e5-26xx v4 with perfectly good liquidated SAS drives is where it's at.

[@teamfilger7190]

Great video, we are fanless enthusiasts as well. It’s very interesting to work with this tech!

[@aDifferentJT]

Considering all the custom machining that must have gone into this, and that the production runs surely can’t be enormous, it’s astonishing how cheap it is.

[@zadinal]

Is it machined? It could be poured and touched up

[@joefish6091]

@@zadinal extruded then machined.

[@kazzTrismus]

go look at car amplifiers......a "case" much like this with all the guts for a car amp already installed for as cheap as $150.....in consideration of that, its not really a good deal unassembled and empty

[@FixedFunction]

Good to see Streacom getting some attention. They've been one of the best fanless case offerings for actual consumers for the last five years. Still use their DB4 in our recording studio.

[@dylanherron3963]

lol (installs KZbin spam script Linus was promoting)

[@amicloud_yt]

@@nicekeyboardalan6972 nobody writes any of it.

[@Tommy-T448]

The price is actually affordable. Similar cases were 200$ minimum. Those prices deterred a lot of people who just want something to mess around with.

[@____5837]

Didn't take long for them to stop bothering using the script to remove bots

[@PlayingItWrong]

Them and akasa have been holding the line long after everyone else gave up on it.

[@MrRecorder1]

Lol... 6:00 - that video bit actually was super-helpful! I always struggle like Anthony to insert those stupid sticks, but actually, seeing how his got stuck, blew my mind. The connectors are not quite flush, so getting the right height from the board seems super important! That will be super handy in the future. Love these details!

[@davejack8973]

ANDY has come SOOOOO fucking far from the first days i ever saw him on LTT ... im super stoked for more andy content! ALWAYS AM ! keep kicking all the ass in the world buddy!

[@charedet]

i just love and i mean LOVE the interaction between Anthony and Colin or any other host and camera guy! include your cameraman more often!

[@DrunCoPsyKen]

Hmmm, interesting concept to review passively cooled cases. But these things are a standard in industrial and automation solutions. While gaming might be a fun benchmark for most stuff you review, I feel like it's a slight miss here. COM ports are still widely used in industrial settings. I think it might be worth a lot more to review these kind of things in the scene of home automation or private labs. It might be ideal to test them under computational loads. Like the systems made by Darktrace tend to be passively cooled and are mounted inside racks and electrical substation cabinets. So maybe a good idea for your labs to benchmark passive systems and cases for extensive home or small office automation.

[@pockypimp]

I work in a manufacturing company and we have passively cooled units similar to these because we don't want fans getting clogged up with stuff. The systems are light duty, they're just running the manufacturing software that monitors the PLCs and connect to a server.

[@dposcuro]

The problem is....then what is the point of the 65w "rating" for heat dissipation? How many industrial programs would cause a modern CPU to saturate 45w of thermal dissipation? Let alone 65w? That is the point of the test; to see if the case CAN dissipate a 65w thermal load. Which it seems to have failed to do. How the thermal load is achieved, doesn't matter: 65w of thermal load is 65w of thermal load, so they tested it in a way that they knew would pull a 65w load. If the motherboard they send with it tries to nuke its own VRMs? Then that is a combination problem of a board with a problem, as case that offers absolutely no cooling potential to board mounted components. And it would do that under synthetic gaming load, or any industrial load that is drawing 65w.

[@arthurmoore9488]

​@@dposcuro Two reasons. First, because sometimes these things end up stuffed into a poorly cooled electrical box sitting outside in Arizona during summer. So, even if you're only using 20W, the environment is easily 60 degrees C. Second, sometimes you want to do processing on site instead of sending the raw data over a crappy cellular link. I've personally examined solutions that do this with License Plate Recognition (LPR) software. This case is great for many industrial applications where you need more power than an intel Atom.

[@dposcuro]

@@arthurmoore9488 Again, what is the difference between a 65w load placed on it by synthetic "gaming" tests, and some "industrial application" that puts it under a 65w load? If you are looking at environmental factors? I honestly think you're looking at the wrong channel. That's getting into a rather specific use case, which doesn't make sense for a mass market, consumer electronics review/news channel to really delve into. Maybe when they get the LAB up and running, they might do something with these passive cases, that would likely go on a subsidiary channel, because they know it won't pull in as many views. If you are in the industry that requires passive cases? And there isn't any worthwhile reviews/guides? Maybe it would be worthwhile contacting someone who can do it, to show them there IS a market to do reviews on it. Offer suggestions on how to test the cases based on real world examples you have come across. Help them find software/applications etc, that would be used in field, to use for testing (Cause I highly doubt LMG just has...access to LPR software, or a situation in which to use it).

[@Neoxon619]

I guess the series of videos featuring fanless cases & small cases have finally converged. That already got my curiosity, but Anthony got my attention.

[@brandonalexander727]

When you see Anthony you know it's gonna be a banger

[@mariuscheek]

This reminds me of something I saw years ago on the TV, where (I think it was in Holland) a company would provide you with domestic radiators that were actually a stack of graphics cards that they used for offsite bulk GPU compute (with a little motherboard in there obviously). The idea was that instead of spending loads of energy cooling these down, they could heat people's homes. They also provided a free hi-speed connection so it could get its daily tasks and upload results, and residents could just turn a dial to tell it how much heat they wanted out of it. Plus the company paid that part of the electric bill.. I've just tried to find it on Google to no avail - did anyone else hear of this?

[@guesswho2778]

no, but that seems like a pretty cool idea. ive been doing something simmilar with my pc this winter, running furmark, prim95 and letting it idle with my monitors off. it feels very wrong, but its not using much more power than a dedicated heater.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

That seems likely to be a hoax story. The hassle, risk & costs for the company don't seem at all worth it in comparison to saving on cooling. The cost of high speed internet alone would pay for a lot of cooling.

[@orngjce223]

@@guesswho2778 Run folding@home, it does science with your spare cycles

[@notnoodle2196]

I absolutely love Anthony's videos! Please keep making them.

[@LPMOKOLP]

WE LOVE ANTHONY!!!

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

This would probably be excellent in a workshop or any place where dust is a big issue

[@rivox1009]

Or any industrial automation environment. I've probably seen hundreds of these by now, they're not new

[@qhoeger]

I've build 3 of these systems for clients with just that use case. Works amazing in those situations!

[@serdiefgotreb]

The magic of RipJaws turning into Crucial Ballistics between shots is why I'm here

[@BenchmarksIT]

I think a great solution could be to have a proper heatpipe cooler mount for AMD already soldered to the chassis, in a way that you can simply place compound on the CPU and then screw it in from the outside of the case (very much like a GPU) , also having some small adhesive VRM coolers included can help a lot.

[@NarcoSarco]

Was about to say, just stick some little heatspreaders on those vrms

[@Ferro_Giconi]

I suspect it was done the way it was done because you never really know exactly where the CPU will be. If it's offset by half an inch from where they put the block on a particular board, then you can't fix it when it's soldered.

[@BenchmarksIT]

@@Ferro_Giconi exact, maybe they have to confirm a couple or more compatible motherboards, but i guess they can always engineer a solution similar without soldering much

[@hzuiel]

A great solution is to throw it in the trash and get an actual case with some fans.

[@Dangle61]

Anthony’s on camera personality has grown so much over the last two years and he does such a good job of explaining things! I genuinely feel like I learn something every time he is presenting and don’t feel dumb while it’s happing.

[@JustinMyers]

I cringed when his lazy ass started complaining about the case/build. We need a real host and not someone that cries when they get thermal paste on their fingers.

[@tora201jp]

@@JustinMyers What, and you wouldn't complain if that happened to you? 🧐

[@JustinMyers]

@@tora201jp it's thermal paste..wipe that shit off and keep working...or ya know, wear gloves.

[@tora201jp]

@@JustinMyers it was the way you said it bro.

[@robclayton2934]

Anthony is the best. Definitely one of my favorites on the show

[@TechGorilla1987]

Anthony, you're doing a TREMENDOUS job in your roll. Keep up the great work. You oratory skills are among the best.

[@JA-tr9ze]

This guy would be great on the radio.

[@secret5.]

I almost exclusively come to this channel for his videos now. They have a much more mature and informative approach I greatly enjoy.

[@volvo09]

@@secret5. He's my favorite guy, much more mature and my type of person. I like the stuff the channel shows, but you can tell the target audience is on the young side, it keeps me from watching quite often.

[@adxo]

i completely agree but at the same time he could have been a bit more steady with his hands when he was building it

[@Derlaft]

2:07 - wow the motherboard is also U-bent in this case

[@MultiZymethSK]

@Diana Nengla I wonder if the script Linus runs is gonna remove this bot comment.

[@firefly2472]

@@MultiZymethSK oh it wil. Give it 10 more minuts or so :)

[@firefly2472]

@@MultiZymethSK oh. And its gone :)

[@robertk1701]

@Isva Zonie guessing the script worked but then another bot came through

[@jesusbarrera6916]

@@robertk1701 it's like a HYDRA

[@burlyheads]

Looks very similar to a car's ECU case. Those have used passive cooling techniques like this case for decades.

[@kaneki1056]

probably because they don't want dust and stuff going into a case which will probably never be opened and cleaned. this case is also probably for industrial use and the mb also has a serial port

[@danielbiggerstaff5199]

I work in automotive and we use these on hot shop floors for MES systems and engineering systems for HMIs, etc. there are smaller ones than this.

[@aarongerlach1580]

I love the mini pcs, gives me hope that we can get some more sff builds(maybe using a pico psu or even a DIY SFF PC Case)

[@cheetahkid]

Love the case, I was thinking and looking at the size of it, should be 35-45W, to do at 65W, you need a fan built in. I got one here but much larger heatsink and it still throttles at 65W (I thought it was VRM was overheating).

[@handlemonium]

Believe it or not, this was what almost every laptop was like on the inside up until 2012 *including* budget models like the Dell Inspiron N5110. It came with stacked RAM slots (2 x 8GB), a 2.5-inch drive slot, and a socketed CPU that could be upgraded to a Core i7-2670QM. Funny to think that only desktops and $3000 "desktop replacement" laptops have such modularity today. I'd love to see a comeback of socketed CPUs in mid-range gaming laptops. Maybe Framework can make that a reality in the near future.

[@pietrocavicchioli6128]

@@handlemonium socketed laptop cpus are on intel and AMD, not on laptop manufacturers like framework, but yeah, it was still a dope feature.

[@sentr.e]

@@pietrocavicchioli6128 modules based around making cpus socketable are possible

[@pietrocavicchioli6128]

@@sentr.e what I meat is that we are unlikely to see them in the future because of company greed, not because they are impossible to manufacture.

[@sentr.e]

@@pietrocavicchioli6128 if companies are able to solder laptop chips into their own custom motherboards, what's stopping another from soldering the chips to socketed platforms to then be used for easy cpu upgrading/changing

[@bre08005]

This is the best presentation by Anthony yet in my opinion. Great influctuation and change of rhythm throughout. Excited to see how far hes come and still getting better every day. Keep up the great work Anthony.

[@Ballanux]

PRO-TIP: put a small bit of electrical tape on the aluminum heatsink to get accurate readings on the thermal camera

[@artificialbtr]

Looks like the anti spam program hasn’t been run yet

[@aweeds]

ThioJoe's script isnt working the best eh?

[@TheShitSmith]

It doesn't matter if the thing you're measuring is hot. The tape is to avoid reflections of the infrared light, but a hot object is putting out enough infrared to drown out any reflections from the room.

[@Skylancer727]

@@artificialbtr At least we still have a report button. XD

[@distantanomaly9649]

7:15 Laughed so hard at the way Colin says "Yes" as Anthony dreads putting thermal compound in the heatsink.

[@shinaikouka]

I've owned a Streacom FC8-EVO for a while, and just to make sure... did you use compound between the heat pipe and the case? I know the video noted including it with the heatsink and the heatpipes, but it is required on both sides. I also know all the fun you had with the mess.. the FC8-EVO is quite messy too! It's also why I wish AMD would just finally give us a nice APU with RDNA2.

[@briangrant9942]

they did it's the 6000 apu and I think they just came out with it.

[@shinaikouka]

@@briangrant9942 Yeah, I probably should've written that part differently as I know about the 6000-series; it has been on their roadmap for a few years now. It has just been frustrating to see the APUs saddled with the older Vega GPU architecture, and sometimes even older CPU architectures. For example, I've got the Ryzen 3200G in my FC8-EVO right now, and it's actually a Zen+ (Picasso) even though the 3000-series CPUs (not APUs) are Zen 2 (Matisse).

[@sirmrmcjack2167]

Videos like these with interesting diy-ish cpu coolers make me want to build my own cpu cooler

[@deusexaethera]

Linus made his own CPU cooler a few years ago. It was a disaster, even with a machine shop at his disposal. Leave it to the professionals, or become a professional yourself.

[@sirmrmcjack2167]

@@deusexaethera you can't stop my chaos!

[@LakotaNativedoll]

I love seeing Anthony asking for help for once instead of being the wizard of the office as always. Also this seems like it’d be a better case for a SBC.

[@qhoeger]

So I built in this case two weeks ago for a client and we used a mini ITX mobo (GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX) with passive VRM coolers built in and got temps across the board under 70 degrees C while running stress tests. This is a great option, I just don't know why you guys went with that board when you could have done a standard mini ITX mobo. I blame streacom for this weird mashup. If anyone has questions on the case send me a msg, I have build 3 of these thus far for clients.

[@lilsammywasapunkrock]

My guess is because they specified a thing mini itx case and mentioned the smaller height I/o standard... Did you have to modify anything to fit a full sized I/o sheild? Because if not, I'm not sure why they didn't order one either. Maybe they were worried about the heat pipes hitting full sized ram?

[@annihilatorg]

If you use a standard mitx board you'll need a power supply like the pico-PSU or another DC-DC board with the extra cabling. Frequently other boards would also have a vrm cooler at the edge of the board that would block the heatpipes that wrap around the board to the opposite side.

[@qhoeger]

@@annihilatorg I had used the streacom PSU (160W varient) that works with the standard power connectors that full fat mini ITX boards use. I had no problem fitting the heatpipes since there was nothing in the way on the top side of the board where the cooler went. The only gripe is spending a bit more for the PSU, but for a stable system, I'll spend the extra money. Check out the board, it works perfectly.

[@qhoeger]

@@lilsammywasapunkrock No modification necessary, it was honestly super easy and straightforward. The only reason I can think of that they used that board is so they did not have to buy a special PSU.

[@Bobbika]

In that case, pun intended, you used the regular DB1 case for your clients. The video is about the DB1 max, which only supports thin ITX.

[@mircoholzenbein7423]

6:30 "I mean, I was kind of hoping we didn't have to do that, but that's what the video about.. so..." :D best moment in the whole video :D

[@ketheridgeshow]

Important note- afaik, the “voltage jumper” being referred to for changing input voltage from 12v/19v is incorrect. This jumper changes the voltage being sent out to an onboard display (via LVDS). The board itself only accepts 19v input (either at back panel barrel jack or 4 pin atx internally) as per ASRock. If I’m wrong, please let me know as my x300tm should be arriving this week and I’d love to run it off a 12v brick!!

[@jerseyjay14]

Can you confirm? i just got mine today and need to know if the DC exteranl 19V brick will just work or if i need to change a jumper or do something component wise internally on the board?

[@samiraperi467]

The case might be able to pull off that 65W claim if it was elevated off the table so the insides would work as a chimney.

[@andyguest6543]

I'd be interested to see how much you can improve it by making some minor alterations like soldering the heat pipes etc

[@dominus6695]

they need a plasma solder thing there asap

[@TheBilaras97]

putting a small fan in there would do wonders,even if its running at low speeds.

[@MrGregsRnR]

@@TheBilaras97 but that defeats the purpose of the case in the first place

[@deusexaethera]

@@TheBilaras97 : Yes, convective cooling would help tremendously, which is why computers that rely entirely on radiative cooling are restricted to low-power applications or niche hobbyist applications like this.

[@deusexaethera]

Solder doesn't like to stick to aluminum, because of the oxide layer that develops on the surface of aluminum the instant it's exposed to oxygen. You'd need a LOT of flux and a LOT of heat to make the solder stick, potentially damaging the heatpipes in the process. Heatpipes have a metal mesh lining the inner surface that acts as a wick to carry condensed water back down from the cool side to the hot side, and if that mesh gets too hot it could permanently deform inside the pipe with no way to repair it. You could use thermal epoxy, but you'd need to assemble the cooler to get everything lined up, then tack the pipes in place with superglue, then take everything apart and inject epoxy.

[@T3KNIX03]

I’m just laughing at Anthony’s anguish for having to put the cooler on the case 🤣

[@jackielinde7568]

To be fair, my big worry is making sure the aluminum heat blocks have good thermal connection to the sides of the case.

[@BlaziNTrades]

"Instructions unclear, motherboard taco." 🤣😂

[@YannickSemail]

The plasma coolant flows out of the warp core through the power transfer conduits to the starboard nacelle.

[@tzevux]

For matx boards I really appreciate they still make a serial port because there are still alot use use for them, specially for small mobos

[@maxsteel8031]

*This is GREAT. i love innovation and the wrap around heat pipes is a great configuration. (I'd even like to see some components BUILT INTO the BACK of the board, not sure how the traces would work). That Anthony suffered some "learning curve issues" can be chalked down to the instructions. Otherwise, I find the idea of case designed cooling to be a great idea, ESPECIALLY, if they start incorporating material science and convection/wicking practices. (No water cooling it may be efficient but I'm not a plumber and a busted O-ring means WATER IN MY RIG/"that's bad") Keep going down this road and don't be afraid to hit some speed bumps along the way, this could lead to a new standard.*

[@stinkycheese804]

Great? Meh no, they could have just took the heat pipes to one side, made that side thicker fins and some of the extra space taken up, is reduced on the other side by not having fins. There's bound to already be components on the back of most dense ITX boards, is just a matter of the # of layers and vias to get there.

[@jesseschultz6512]

Finally, a drop proof PC for linus

[@gytux0258]

This is probably the first time that such a niche product has a reasonable price. 125 dollars for a case and cooler is really nice.

[@DennosManCave]

I've used a Streacom fanless case since about 2015 for my HTPC. Running a Intel I3 4130 originally with a 60Gb SSD and 2*2TB HDDs... Now with an M2 and 2*4TB HDDs. Not used asa gaming machine, so only transcoding video...but it's perfect for sitting under the TV.

[@PCIeTeam]

I love how Colin says *yes* at 7:18

[@TravisFabel]

The thing throttling reminds me of when you water cool everything with external radiators... It all seems like a great idea because you can blow the heat away with the radiator... right up until you realize that the VRMs and all the little small chips on the board really do need airflow. Even though my motherboard is meant for water cooling (formula) And the VRMs have a water cooling loop in them that I'm using, I still end up needing a fan for the chipset (It's built into the board) and a small fan on my ram (old school mini fan cooler now)

[@GamerKiwi]

Genuinely surprised that it is as cheap as it is. I'd use this for a media center PC and retro box that runs fairly low impact emulators.

[@zlac]

I use Raspberry Pi 4 2GB for dlna server, 6TB NAS and retropie all inside the arcade cabinet. It runs even PS1 and Dreamcast games and I don't consider everything newer "retro". This could probably run even WiiU games possibly even Switch!

[@alexatkin]

@@zlac Indeed, there's already a selection of pre-build passive or quiet PCs that cover that usage scenario. The only reason to go to the hassle of this case is for the beefier hardware.

[@legerdemain]

I'd love to see a revisit if the problems get worked out. I like SFF, and silent SFF is even better.

[@airpeguiV2]

9:15 "Instructions unclear, motherboard taco" HAHAHAHA I CAN'T

[@as-qh1qq]

Small form factor cases always excite me. Fanlesss too? That's even more wonderfull

[@saccaed]

I wonder about draft cooling. Would increase the case size, but I wonder if a significant change for the better would happen with a couple feet of exhaust stack creating a draft.

[@samtherat6]

Considering how finnicky heat pipe attachment is (last time LTT used them, they effectively permanently glued them in with the compound they used), I’m surprised that they don’t have an option to assemble it ahead of time, and simply have the user stick it to both sides of the case themselves.

[@deusexaethera]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it was intended to be assembled. Remember Anthony complained the instructions were very poor. Also, the way he spaced the heatpipes is the reason why there's a hotter hotspot on one side of the case, because one side of the case is connected to 2 heatpipes that are directly above the center of the CPU die, while the other side of the case is connected to 2 heatpipes that are off to the sides of the CPU die. Obviously the heatpipes directly above the center of the CPU die are going to absorb more heat.

[@nocturn9x]

125 dollars? Damn, that's amazing! I was too expecting it to be in the 300~350 dollar range

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

Yeah! When Colin said that I thought, "Dang! I might actually get it for that price."

[@nocturn9x]

@@benjaminoechsli1941 same!

[@edwardpaulsen1074]

I add these type of things to industrial equipment on a regular basis. They *CAN* be very effective when done right, and a nightmare when done wrong... I appreciate coming into this as a "N00B" on the assembly, and although we never really saw the instructions, I can tell they were a bit sub-par for something requiring a bit more attention to detail. We won't mention the destruction that "taco-ing" a motherboard can do! I must also admit I was laughing a bit too much at the thermal paste spreading like glitter to *Everything*... Those packets would completely suck and we used the syringe type paste. That being said and from what I could see on the video, preassembly went fine up until the cooling section. We would normally dry test fit everything first, then set the lower pipes around the motherboard next, likely using a thermal epoxy rather than a paste and spread it into the bottom of the channel on the CPU block first, then inserted the heat pipe and then dragging the overflow that got pushed out the end, down into and around the sides making contact... there is little to no reason to have any on the top. Next I would mount that assembly to the CPU/GPU Very carefully observing a slow criss crossing tightening pattern. I think some kind of plastic stiffener under the motherboard with the nut over that would alleviate the tendency to flex, but it can be done. Finally I would repeat the CPU block and heat pipe assembly process using just the paste this time and only then would I apply the thermal paste to the outer tubes to attach the dissipation blocks. A brief power up to test that it boots and then assemble the case around it. We normally put heat sinks on all chips that might need them whether they are required or not because it is a pain to disassemble and fix if you don't, also aligning the fins in a vertical orientation to the final operational position. Another thing to note is that these things are usually mounted in "open air" and NOT placed on a flat surface which can impede airflow. Many times they are also mounted inside of an enclosure that may have a separate overall air flow. They are really very nice to have and use for a variety of reasons, but there is still a trade off that CANNOT be denied, you are paying for that compact and convenient equipment with advanced knowledge and skill. This is NOT something for the average amateur who has never built a PC before. The other part of this equation is that low price tag is also paid for with a certain level of skill for building a "DIY" kit. Of course, we can always call on the Verge to REALLY mess it up! (j/k) Overall reaction: great video with a few amusing moments... final score Taco Mini-ITXs are bad news for N00Bz!

[@cerietke]

I've had a Streacom FC5 since '12 as an HTPC and more recently bought an FC10 that I moved the old HTPC setup into to make a home server / NAS out of it after I upgraded the HTPC. Having taken it apart a few times now, what I do on the FC5 is actually take the side off, put the whole cooling setup in place and then push the side back on. This leaves the smallest cooling paste mess, considerably smaller than the approach they recommend. In normal usage the FC5 tends to stay below 70C, I can make it touch 90-95C with prime 95 though, but that's way beyond how far it would normally be pushed. I liked very much that they had an upgrade kit available so that I could use my old case with the newer CPU. Once I at some point upgrade again I would expect that I reuse this case as well (that 5700g is very tempting!). The FC10 cools much better. With the FC5 it gets uncomfortable to touch it in some places, the FC10 seems to spread the warmth around more evenly. I've had no issues stressing it, but was unable to get a good temperature reading under Ubuntu (it was difficult under Windows as well for this particular setup). I could not remove the side panel as easily on this one, but as you have more room getting the cooling attached without making a mess is a bit easier. The hard drive rack could easily fit an extra 2.5" drive on top, my only comments on this case are that they should've made that possible (I still placed one extra anyway, 2 screws should hold, right?) and that you need to be careful selecting the sata cables as you want angled connectors to make it all fit. On the whole I would recommend the FC10 over the FC5 if you have the room. Contact with Streacom about the builds has always been pretty decent. I would recommend them for fanless cases.

[@ollien3359]

Anthony is just going from strength to strength. So much more comfortable on screen, AND he knows his stuff. Great job!

[@farts6499]

This is weird as fuck dude

[@ollien3359]

I am genuinely sorry that you find compliments for good work and growth "weird as fuck". Especially in a world where it's so easy to call out and criticize. But maybe you can use this as an incentive to be better at life and earn some compliments. And hey, here's a free one for you - good on you, @@farts6499 for sticking with toilet humor - it's very funny still! Ha, farts.

[@farts6499]

​@@ollien3359 It's much better than it used to be when there were be dozens of comments fawning over this guy, still weird

[@thanorodd5663]

Not sure how I feel about how bowed the motherboard is at 2:07.

[@thanorodd5663]

Oh. Well, there we go.

[@8bvg300]

Funny. Amazing how the VRM is the bottleneck. I feel like power management never used to be an issue back in the day.

[@deusexaethera]

It happened to me on my old AMD FX desktop. The VRMs had a heatsink attached, and these little cube-shaped components next to the VRMs didn't have anything. When I ran Prime95 on that computer, it would shut off after a couple minutes. After some good old finger-testing, I burned my finger on the little cube-shaped components next to the VRMs, so I bought some copper-pin heatsinks and glued them on with thermal epoxy so they could benefit from the residual airflow from the CPU fan. It worked like a charm. Years later I replaced that motherboard with the only AMD FX motherboard that was ever made with a NVMe slot, and that one came with a heatpipe on the chipset and VRMs.

[@clickbaitpro]

Asrock boards are famous for VRM heating

[@Mark_Williams.]

I'd suggest one side of the case was hotter than the other because during the heatpipe cooler assembly I noticed you configured the pipes in a way that the 2 outer ones went one side and the two inner ones went the other side. If you staggered them so they alternated sides you'd have a more even spread of the thermal load. Likely the two inner heat pipes you configured go to one side and as they're likely more closely sitting over the CPU die and thus soak up the most heat.

[@walkerdnb6286]

I'd love to see a video of you guys improving this, perhaps soldering the heat pipes and adding cooling to the vrms in some way.

[@albapor1]

What s weird is that the older A300 desk mini had passive cooling on the vrms , why would they downgrade it like that

[@higihups]

Whats not there will not cost you much to manufacture.

[@deusexaethera]

When you say "passive cooling" you actually mean "radiative cooling", and in this case the biggest reason is because radiative cooling gets exponentially more efficient as temperature increases, and exponentially _less_ efficient as temperature decreases. Heatsinks (also passive cooling, but designed for convection instead of radiation) would actually make the VRMs _less_ efficient at dissipating heat without airflow, because the heatsinks' larger surface area would spread-out the heat more. What the first motherboard really needs are VRMs rated for 200C instead of 100C, and a BIOS adjustment to have the thermal-throttling kick in at a higher temperature.

[@piranha1337]

They where semi passive. The CPU fan gave them a nice air flow, as the CPU fan is a top blower.

[@lucasdiniz5642]

I really like the idea of ​​mobos powered by laptop chargers, but the heatsink solution could have been better implemented anyway

[@bmxscape]

that's not a laptop charger its an external power supply

[@lucasdiniz5642]

@@bmxscape 19V is standard for laptop chargers, 12V is for external power supplies, so it lets you select between the two.

[@Finnspin_unicycles]

​@@bmxscape They are essentially the same thing. You put in higher voltage AC, out comes lower voltage DC, doesn't matter if it happens to be sold as a laptop charger or "external power supply".

[@bmxscape]

@@Finnspin_unicycles most battery chargers charge at low amps compared to what the battery itself can output. dont know about laptops

[@Finnspin_unicycles]

@@bmxscape laptop chargers provide enough amperage to keep the battery full when it's running at full load. The charger for my ThinkPad can provide 70 watts.

[@Its_Soph_ie]

Would love to see a Mk 2 of this case that either allows for regular itx or includes a heatsink for vrms. Id love to have a little passive pc on my desk as I'm sensitive to pc noise when I'm concentrating on work but the thermals and limit on form factor is a killer

[@grrkaa8450]

cooling the VRM is the motherboard manufacturer's job

[@Its_Soph_ie]

@@grrkaa8450 yeah but the mobo makers obviously won't. They could include come aluminum bits and thermal pads like a lot of raz Pi cases

[@leovang3425]

Pretty sure some heatsinks off alibaba will work if short enough. Motherboard manufacturers expect you to have to have some air flow around the motherboard so they don't expect you'll need it.

[@Nextempus]

Good job editor on the dead board bend angle line!

[@keeperofthegood]

OMG Anthony, although the intro was very short for a brief moment I thought I was watching a Chris Ramsay video!! Well done for sure!!

[@SergeiTheAnarch]

I think this design could be neat if they allowed mounting for 2x120mm fans to the sides, giving the VRM some air to breathe.

[@leovang3425]

Kinda defeats the purpose of the case, might as well just give it a regular cooler.

[@deusexaethera]

There are plenty of slim cases with fan mounts. The whole point of this case is to be completely fanless, but that unavoidably imposes some restrictions on the components you can choose. For starters, you absolutely must use a mobile CPU to keep the peak wattage as low as possible.

[@skullduggerry]

@@deusexaethera or a low power CPU like the 12900T, which is only 35W iirc

[@koristrange9655]

If you put a fan inside the unit (or 2) that were air flow fans (not SP) and set to such a low RPM they were below ambient room noise, I do wonder how this well this would function.

[@thunderarch5951]

The reason you would buy such a thing would be because it's completely fa less but still manages to get you a powerful cpu like a 5700g If you were to put fans in it, given you found the space to do so, it would miss the point of this case There a re plenty of other options that aren't this small and are semi fanless, go for them, they'll probably cost less

[@penedrador]

Or just have a regular room fan blowing on it

[@joemarais7683]

@@thunderarch5951 also to piggy back, a 92mm fan up in there spinning slow enough to be silent will barely do anything. The proposed idea above would need a 180mm+ fan (I use a 200mm CM fan) to be effective and silent, and ruin the whole point of the sff.

[@EbonyPope]

And put some heatsinks on the VRMs...

[@getyerspn]

I've built a lot of thin itx systems over the years and vrm cooling is always a problem...thermal epoxy is you're friend and some extra heatsinks.

[@chadharpicenjoyer8591]

Does it really get too hot though ?

[@volvo09]

@@chadharpicenjoyer8591 they showed the vrm @ 136c i'd say that's well past "too hot".

[@hedonistic_mushroom]

This build does give me an idea for transplanting an old set of hardware that used to be a laptop into a tiny sffpc. I hope you guys do more reviews of these unconventional mini PC builds one can DIY with reasonable difficulty.

[@Castedeye]

16:05 I love the surf moves, tier 2 maps are in sight!

[@roz9318]

5:43 Should you be putting the motherboard on the outside of anti static bags? I thought they moved static from the inside to the outside so you could risk damaging it by putting components on the outside of the bag?

[@AVX512]

I'm thinking the VRM overheating could have been solved with a few of those small heat sinks one might use on a raspberry pi, but instead this becomes an Intel ad until the very end where intel's IGP is mentioned I'm really surprised they didn't have a solution for defusing VRM heat by default

[@littlejackalo5326]

LOL those VRMs were getting WAY too hot to be solved by those little tiny heat sinks, especially with zero airflow inside the case.

[@MrCommunistGen]

@@littlejackalo5326 Agree that it wouldn't be enough, but I'd have loved for them to have brought up the idea in the video. Bonus points for testing it and confirming that either it does nothing at all or doesn't do nearly enough to help.

[@jackielinde7568]

QUESTION: Could third party aluminum heat sinks for the VRM help the Asrock board's thermal issues? Also, I agree with Anthony's assessment. It's a neat idea, but there are much better implementations of small formfactor cases, like Intel's NUC's.

[@kognak6640]

They certainly would help a lot. However with their workshop I'd make a aluminium block(or two small ones) for mosfets and use heatpipe to transfer heat to side panel. There was 3 empty heatpipe slots in side panel block.

[@angzarrpsyco]

HOLY SHIT LINUS TECH TIPS!??! I'm sorry I've never watched the channel I've only ever seen the memes and I wasn't expecting this channel to pop up in my recommended!!

[@arminbreuer7968]

A clssic application for these is Digital Signage, and displays are more reliably (compared to HDMI-CEC) controlled via RS232.

[@semosesam]

Really frustrating that you only ran synthetic loads on the AMD motherboard. I would have liked to see what Rocket League was like, for example. I don't care about a synthetic load thermal throttling the system if I never run loads that demanding...

[@dataterminal]

When you guys do reviews like this, particular when you're using the onboard graphics, can you do test some streaming services as well. We know the boards are going to be sub par performance playing native games, it's a given. However, I recently had to use my i7 8700k's UHD 630 for graphics when my 1050ti died. As unusable as the UHD630 was for gaming, I was able to play Xbox Cloud streaming with higher quality looking graphics than my 1050ti was providing, and got me by for several months until I could find a new card - Thankfully rocking a 3080ti now as a bit of an overkill. So, don't just dismiss these onboard graphic options if you have access to Xbox's cloud streaming service, it might not be every game you want, but it probably can play games better than you'd expect otherwise.

[@SkipEo01]

Given you can run cloud gaming off almost any device with internet as their entire selling point, the only thing to review is the Ethernet port's speed lol.

[@dataterminal]

@@SkipEo01 Exactly and this is why it needs to be reviewed more. When you're building low end graphics machines like these, is it really better to play the game locally or stream it? There must be a turning point where it just doesn't make sense to pay extra for hardware that is lesser than that you can get cheaper, and just stream instead. There is latency issues with streaming, but is that more acceptable than playing a game that doesn't look very good or play very smoothly etc. And what's the limit of how cheap of a onboard graphics can we go before it becomes too cheap to play even streaming content. Is it worth paying the $500 on a GPU just to play the same games you want to play on xbox cloud streaming, if the hardware becomes 'throw away' at cost? I'd a huge topic that's becoming a popular as it actually is quite a good service, but what are the limits of it and where is the value price point.

[@SkipEo01]

@@dataterminal all of this is an incredibly moot point for this device when it's not at all meant for gaming lol. It's meant for workshops where you can't have fans due to particulates. Also game streaming is still useless to 99% of the world due to internet speeds lol. Almost the entirety of Australia just straight up does not have good enough speeds. If you wanna play streamed games, grab any prebuilt micro pc, and Chuck that there.

[@dataterminal]

@@SkipEo01 I don't know what to tell you. I honestly don't know if you're trolling now or are commenting on the wrong video. They literally played games on the systems they built with this case, and their closing remarks literally said, "The downside to running the CPU like this is that it's an Intel CPU with an Intel IGPU, and the gaming performance is frankly crap compared to the Ryzen 7 5700G." and goes on to give more details about the performance, numbers and settings used to play the games.. He even said that Ryzen makes for a better gaming experience, and a BIOS fix for the asrock board would be perfect. "It does game well in a normal use case". I see where you're getting confused with regardless to fanless systems, but this is not what the case is being used for in the Linus Tech Tips video, they've made this video with gaming in mind. It's not a moot point by any means.

[@SkipEo01]

@@dataterminal just because they gamed on it really doesn't mean that's at all the point lmao. They've gamed on 10k+ servers before. The entire point of these cases is for where fanless operation is ideal, or even required. Buying this for streaming or playing games is not really a good idea at all? Too expensive for what's needed for streaming, not good enough for modern games. And they literally disproved the 65w thermal soak, so you're not even going to be able to run a powerful chip lol

[@louden6968]

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[@bendickson9414]

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[@bendickson9414]

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[@bendickson9414]

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[@bendickson9414]

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[@bendickson9414]

and I can even say he's the most sincere broker I have known.

[@Oscar4u69]

that "smol" at the intro made the video ❤️

[@yensteel]

Really appreciate the video, imo the case has a lot of potential and use cases. It's a shame the interior heated up like that. Fully sealed cases should allow more durability than cases with active cooling and avoid dust/water damage. Easier to clean and maintain too, apart from the initial installation.

[@Courageous91]

The sight of those Motherboards makes me wanna cry!

[@zapranoth]

I really do like the case though. I think a few more generations of work from the creators will yield some neat stuff.

[@dorianlindberg1662]

Always love your input Anthony. You are the computer genius of LTT ;)

[@nofmxc]

OMG he's surfing in Counter Strike at 16:06 !! I love to see that. Surf maps were so underrated.

[@Z020852]

It's not just saving assembly labor cost. The assembly at home right down to thermal paste on the heat pipes allows for some wiggle room for variables in motherboards' CPU socket location.

[@aradhyajain6682]

I am sure not how the ram sticks kept on switching between G.Skill Ripjaws and Crucial Ballistix Ram Modules. 😂

[@yourfather7399]

I love the energy this guy brings

[@cantis]

This was a really good piece, really well presented and an interesting product. Thanks!

[@frustratedgg]

wow those RAM can change itself from Ripjaws to Ballistics once slotted in the board

[@dig1035]

Nice 4k, thumbs up and subscribed!

[@KristophM]

You are a legend, Anthony

[@crawlmanjrable]

Anthony has grown so much since his first video. So fun to watch

[@hexusmexus6971]

The k5 thermal compound saved my laptop thanks to the Linus team I would had never know kudos to you guys 🙂

[@nickwort123]

I threw a 5700G in my main system after grabbing one on sale a few months back. It's a fantastic little chip!

[@preciousroihomeshoppingnet7908]

I'd like to see a similar concept and form factor, or possibly ITX with the same power options, or just ITX and either a single (or dual) low RPM 200mm fans. Even before I knew about the VRM heat issues I was thinking that a single huge quiet fan might be the way to go. Of course, going with an ITX mobo would give you access to MUCH better VRMs.