Ok so this is going to be a slightly different build log or story or whatever you want to call it. I am a sucker for SFF so have the itch to try and get them as small as possible. I have been buying and collecting components over a period of time so I was happy to see when all the pieces line up perfectly over a weekend. Here are the key players for this build -
The board
This is key and while Mini ITX is the standard, you also have something called as thin Mini ITX which is pretty rare. So imagine my surprise when I chanced upon this. Now Alketron is similar to PowerX, Ant etc. in that they import cheap from China, rebrand and sell. Nevertheless, a LGA 1700 thin mini itx board below 6k ?! I did not think that was possible. They are based out of Bengaluru so I called them. They confirmed that they have them in stock but they were replacement boards meant for their Mini PC. I asked them if they sell it separately and they said they did. I placed the order and a few days later this box arrived -
It was reassuring to see that the thin seal was intact. On opening it, I found these -
And that was it. There was no manual or even a piece of paper telling me about the board pins / layout. The thin IO guard is a bummer as then you cannot use it in a mini itx case but I was prepared for this, as we see later. It was kind of them to include a sealed Bios battery. There is the old red SATA data and a separate SATA power cable. Interesting that the board has a HDMI port outside of the standard IO panel on the top just beside the SATA port. It appears to have inherited some industrial functionality eg. the LVDS connection. It even has provision for a SPI TPM module. Good to see the provision for Wifi. I contacted their support on WhatsApp for more information, primarily the Front Panel layout and the power specification. I was hoping for 19V but it was a bummer again at 12V with a max of 19A. They also shared an updated BIOS file.
The CPU
As mentioned earlier that I tend to collect stuff over a period of time, so I had snagged the perfect CPU earlier from Gameloot - an i5 12500 TE. The E is important here as it stands for Embedded, which implies a locked TDP of 35W and no Turbo like the T. Interestingly, all of its 6 cores are P-cores.
The Case
I love SFF ITX cases and have owned / still own several of them. However, where do you get a Thin Mini ITX case ? The answer is unexpected - Flopkart. These were sold at one point (there was a bigger Mini ITX one as well) and I had snagged one then. The seller is one SK Computer, a Delhi based company, who primarily deal in POS systems. They still sell this case and the CPU cooler apparently. I have their contact information if anyone wants.
The CPU Cooler
The next challenge was a CPU cooler which needs to fit in a thin ITX case. Luckily the folks who sold the case were also selling this -
Those yellow adapters need to be pulled in or out to match the socket spacing from 1700 all the way till 1366. Impressive ! Unfortunately the contact base is small, aligned more for 115X, but I suppose it will do for a 35W CPU.
One issue I did encounter was that one side of the fins would be blocked by the line of capacitors, so it would not seat on the CPU fully. I had to file those edges on one side.
The rest of the cast
I had all the components ready and they lined up perfectly. So couple of SODIMMs, a Mediatek wifi card, a cheap NVME and a SATA drive later, the build is complete -
The 2.5 drive screws nicely into that adapter rod.
While at it, I thought of utilizing the fan header and ended up doing so using zip ties-
That completed the build. The moment of truth arrived and it did boot into the BIOS after a reset. All systems were a go and we had lift-off. CPU temps stayed around 30-35 degrees with stock settings. The fan is a little loud though. Overall I am pretty satisfied with my first Thin ITX build where all components were sourced locally.
That concludes the first part of this adventure. I do want to install Windows, look at the power utilization and carry out some benchmarks to see how far it will go, but that will take some time.
If you have any questions or need more information, post below or PM me.
