[amarschke]

Now I know we all love pulse-eight and wouldn't want to harm a nice Open Source Citizen like them without thorough knowledge beforehand.

I've been looking and marvelling at one of their cases for a while now wondering wether or not to buy it:
http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/product...ilver.aspx

I discussed this with one of my colleagues who promptly told me that heat and airflow in these cases would be a major problem and not possibly solvable without prior planning of months and calculations of exact heat dispersion and so on.

I found that a rather ludicrious opinion and totally outlandish though it appeared to have points along the way.

Does anyone know about these cases? Did anyone try them at all? Are there reports about them?

Thanks in Advance,

Andreas.

[Malard]

* Malard with my Pulse-Eight hat on

He is correct without the right sort of motherboard it will get hot.

It's a fan-less case, which by necessity will require a fan on the board, our suggestion for this case is something like the Intel DH61AG with a low profile heat sink and cooler.

There is plenty of airflow from either side and so long as the air can reach into the top of the fan it should be fine.

Just don't think you can put a fanless motherboard in this case and end up with a fanless PC, it just won't work.

[voochi]

These are Realan cases, sold under many names. There is a US seller of these cases called Habey, so if you google that you will find plenty of reviews and photos.

I have run a passive Atom/Ion board in a similar fanless case with no temp issues. However I was using OpenElec so CPU load was very low. And it's not like I leave my HTPC on 24/7, I just watch a movie and then put it on standby when im finished.

Note that Realan have some new cases for 2012, with more options for cooling etc. I would expect to see them offered by Pulse Eight, Habey etc in a few months.

[amarschke]

voochi: Thanks for this awesome tip. I didn't know who was the real creator of those.

Malard: Thanks for the greatful honesty.

I was looking forward to do this with the original case sold by PE with an ssd and the described board. Pluck a Dynatron G199 on the top and you have a winner I suppose.

Thanks for the hint towards the different/newer 2012 models but I happen to dislike the plucky feeling you get when you have a slide out drawer like this one here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as..._-11321015

Besides that BDs are just a subsequent matter. If I could get a case like the ones they sell at wesena with only a small slit and a Sony OptiArc behind it I would happily buy it off PE.
Then still the question would remain: Where to put the 2.5" SSD? The space it would fit perfectly in would be occupied by the BD. If I did it the other way round the slit would be useless which I don't want either.
If one of you folks has a tip for me where to put it I will happily try it out. But first I will peruse and keep on searching.

My ideal setup would be a INTEL HTPC Mini-ITX board with graphics on board (preferebly either intel working full 1080p on linux without glitches) with the dynatron G199 ontop of a well powered i5/i7 and the Gigabit lan Port occupied by a HP Switch with 8 ports supporting 1000BaseT and an HP N36L on the other end for storage. Therefore I can condense the SSD to about 80 GB or less depending on how much XBMC stuff I happen to need to compile them straight out of vcs. This setup will be based on Debian and definitely (if possible and ready) feature the XBMC logo as the loading picture with plymouth on the Intel. And QBM as my init system for an absolulely lightning fast boot

I'm fairly sure this is achievable if any questions/opinios arise please come forth.

[voochi]

Thanks for the hint towards the different/newer 2012 models but I happen to dislike the plucky feeling you get when you have a slide out drawer like this one here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as..._-11321015

Maybe look at Viako. They do some cases with the slot and good cooling options too. More upmarket looking than Realan also. eg ML-80 Neo2

Personally for ITX case I prefer the Lian Li PCQ-09 type configuration, with optical drive and HDD below the mobo instead of above. As a engineer this is how I would design a HTPC case. Nothing above the heatsink so very good airflow to the vent directly above.

Unfortunately this does not have the slot config you like.

[amarschke]

I've looked into the Viako range of products and found the ML-55 Small Letter to be an excellent choice for me. I would run it with the small 1,81"/2.5" SSD set next to the big grid opening for the ventilation. Plus the possibillity to blow air out the sides/ blow air in from the sides.

Unfortunately you can't get it in europe. Best Buy USA appears to sell them as I've seen on their forums somebody got his from Best Buy.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?...1&p=277011
http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=37288

If anybody can get their hands on the ML-55 and would be ready to send me the piece overseas to europe please PM me.

[eskro]

cant u get them via eBAY?