[Build Log] Mini-ITX PC - Middle School

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I can believe the lack of improvement in gaming, but gaming is not EVERYTHING! (Only nearly everything :)) Many machines are used for other things and a 10% improvement there may be worth it. I'll get my students to run some comparative tests.
 
you dont see those too often!
I hope it works out!
maybe it aws just a bad connection afterall that you overlooked, it happens, I once forgot to power my CPU and spent half an hour looking for the problem!
 


This may sound stupid, but screwing a board down in an odd way, even if it SEEMS perfect, could sometimes cause shorts or even odd issues with booting simply because of the added stress that is applied to the mobo. It could even have shorted of the chassis itself due to a misaligned standoff.

If the board is booting up fine outside the chassis but not inside it originally, that would be the only explanation.
It happens, especially with inexperienced builders that tend to 'make' everything fit, instead of letting everything fit into place as it should.

:)

Screwing back in should not create problems.
 
No, it doesn't sound stupid. The kids screwed the board in place, but I made sure of the order in which the screws were done. One of them may have been over-enthusiastic, and one of the crews was a fan screw, so that may have done something. I know I gave them a motherboard screw, but they may have dropped it and picked up another/wrong one.

As I said, we shall see this afternoon.
 
No there were no loose screws (except for mine). I counted them in and out (like a surgical nurse). The stand-offs are part of the case, so maybe the combination of a large-headed screw, the motherboard and the stand-off resulted in a short.

I'm not out of the woods yet. I have to see if it will POST. All I have is fans and lights at the moment.

My other power supply also worked, so I have that tested too now.

I have put forward a proposal to do a Minecraft Machine course, using a mATX board, like the first suggestion.

Students will have to buy the bits from me/school (at cost or a little less) or bring their own bits from a specified list. (i3, i5, i5, mATX motherboard H97, HDD, 2 x 4Gb memory, case, GOOD PSU) There will be a material fee of about $400 - $450 (whatever the standard parts cost). And students will need their own monitor, keyboard/mouse and OS. (Or they can buy them, or I will obtain them on their behalf.)

The PSU will not handle overclocking of either CPU or GPU, but will go up to GTX980. Radeon GPUs will need to be more limited due to their higher TDP. mATX is inexpensive and will allow SLI (I think).

Any ideas or suggestions accepted.
 
No chance would I use that thermaltake with ANY GPU that needs more than one PCIe connector. No way. It is simply not up to it.

If you are talking about the Antec VP-450, that is better, but I would still not use it with any GPU that needs more than a single PCIe connector.

Matx only allows SLI on SOME boards and they must be the Z97 chipset, and are actually pretty expensive.
 
No I was not thinking of the Thermaltake at all. I may be prepared to use it but it's a dodgy tier 3 at best. The VP-450 should be OK, right.

When I mentioned SLI, I was merely talking about the physical aspect. The PSU will need to be replaced, but the RAM, motherboard and maybe CPU will do.

When fully expanded on the core, the system could handle a SSD as well as a HDD, any Maxwell GPU and a DVD drive. If the student wants to replace the CPU or SLI, that will require bigger changes. Fourteen year olds change fast and I expect them to outgrow this in a couple of years, but it will get them off in the right direction.
 
No, you NEED a z97 board with x8/x8 PCI lanes for SLI. Simply having two GPU slots means nothing. I do not know of any H97 boards that fully support SLI with x8/x8 lanes.

The VP-450 still has only a single GPU connector and I DO NOT recommend using sketchy molex adapters. If you want to use a GPU with 2 PCIe connectors, get a PROPER PSU to power it with.
 
Nvidia cards must have 8X lanes to run SLI, no H97 boards currently support this.

Its a shame, but H97 boards arent aimed at those running a hugely powerful graphics array. If you are doing that, chance are you will be overclocking and need a Z motherboard. I realise this changed with the Anniversary pentium, but the mentality is still there, why get just the Pentium to OC and then 2 graphics cards that will be bottlenecked.

I hope the kids appreciate the work you have put in to troubleshoot this 😉 Its always the way that it works as soon as you take the entire rig apart!
 
EVGA's Molex-6-pin connector seems legit. I would trust a VP-450 to power a GTX 970, but not heavily overclocked.
Also, if you want to save money, H97 board support CFX as Crossfire doesn't need the x8-x8 lanes split.
 
Thanks. 970 is only 140W, right?

A day of frustration. Got system semi-going out of case. Great. Made a mistake and put it back in case. No go!. Took it back out. Go! Made some little teflon washers to go under motherboard on top of stand-offs. No go!

Now it's out and I'm going to connect to the monitor and keyboard and USB external DVD drive and try to start it up for real.

Haven't done this for 20 years. Most recent build was still a long time ago, but was a Unix system.

All my previous builds have booted from OS in a floppy drive.

Is there anything I need to worry about, need to do, need not to do 🙁 (apart from put the thing back into the case.)

 
Yes, around 140-150 watts. With the system (without the GPU) consuming only about 200-250 watts, you should be good to go.

You should probably ground yourself by touching a metal part, perhaps an unpainted part of the case. Many people say that it's unnecessary, but why not take a second or two or make sure you won't ESD damage your parts? I would also put the motherboard on the box it came in without the anti-static bag. That would be all the advice I could offer.
 


What? yes CF still needs the same amount of lanes to function properly. A second lane running at x4 will cripple an AMD card just like an Nvidia one. That is just the fact. Tons of boards say "crossfire support" but really they do not support multi GPUs of any kind, due to running the second lane at x4.
 
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