In-Win BP655 System Integration Tips

We happen to have an In-Win BP655 series Mini-ITX case here in the shop to see if it would work with some of our system designs. The main benefit of this particular case is the 200 Watt power supply that would give us a little more juice for higher end setups.

It is important to note that the hard drive needs to be mounted in the cage shown above. This is done with the cage out of the case.

The cage then needs to be mounted back in the case _without_ the optical drive installed.

The desktop board is then mounted in the case and cabled up.

The final step is to slide the optical drive into its resting place from the front of the case.

Change the order of any of the above steps and things just don’t work!

Once the system is complete it is actually a good looking little case with the built-in fan along with the CPU fan being relatively muffled.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

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Order an Intel BOXDQ45EK Mini-ITX = Free AOpen S145A Mini-ITX Chassis 91.90G20.A010

Intel currently has a promotion on called Now’s the Time (Intel’s Promo Site). If we purchase an Intel vPro enabled BOXDQ45EK Mini-ITX motherboard then a freebie chassis will be thrown in at no cost to us.

Here are some of the promos available to us in Canada:

Here in Canada, no one has stock on any of the promo codes except Ingram Micro Canada.

• Ingram Micro SKU 11914L includes:
• Intel DQ45EK Mini-ITX vPro Enabled Motherboard
• AOpen S145A Mini-ITX Chassis

Finding an image of the S145A via search was not very easy to do.

The other distributors have In-Win or Winsis Mini-ITX chassis but no ETA on stock for either. Ingram happens to have a lot of the AOpen S145As so we took a risk.

Here is a side-by-side with an In-Win BM639 series Mini-ITX chassis we have been using to date on the left and the AOpen on the right:

The AOpen is slimmer but longer than the In-Win. Thus, we need to keep that in mind when it comes to the workstation’s desktop footprint.

Folks like the height of the In-Win because an LCD monitor sitting on top of it is actually at a pretty comfortable level for a broad spectrum of users.

The promotion is a good deal, but, for the cost conscious among us it is important to note that the AOpen chassis only accepts slimline optical drives. The AOpen, however, does include a slimline SATA to standard SATA adapter cable which is a nice touch.

The typical slimline DVDRW drive is about $60CA or so from our local sources. A quick check with the larger distributors may yield a much better price.

Another plus on the AOpen’s side is the larger power supply. At 160 Watts we can look at a 150GB or 300GB VelociRaptor (2.5” standalone version linked) for a more robust disk subsystem and not worry about taxing the PSU.

The Ingram promo SKU needed to be ordered via phone as the online card had the SKU listed under the motherboard’s SKU, but would not allow us to place it in the cart.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

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Intel Mini-ITX DQ45EK System Integration

The new Intel DQ45EK vPro series Mini-ITX motherboard allows us to put together some pretty slick systems with really small footprints.

We do not, as a rule, build our own workstations. We have a phenomenal system builder local to us that we have been dealing with for 10 years now (through previous employers as well).

But, one of the things we like to do with new technologies is test out the system configuration we plan on selling to our clients.

This configuration will be set up as follows:

• Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E8400 - SLB9J
• Intel® Desktop Board DQ45EK – Overview
• 4GB Kingston Non-ECC RAM (2x KVR800D2N9/2G)
• ST9320421AS Momentus 7200.3 SATA 3Gb/s 320-GB Hard Drive | Seagate
• In-Win BM639 Series Mini-ITX Chassis with 120Watt PSU

A Lite-On DVD-RW drive and Microsoft OEM keyboard/mouse combination kit rounds out the configuration.

Given the cramped conditions inside of the chassis, it is important to make sure all of the power and data cables are routed in such a way as to stay clear of the CPU cooling fan:

Intel DQ45EK Fan Power Cable Routing

As shown in the above image, we made sure to tuck the CPU fan’s power cable around the CPU cooling fan mounting posts and then remove any slack from the cable so that it stays under the posts.

This is especially important for systems that may be transported or shipped somewhere as the jostling about can cause cables to move within the chassis. We do not want to get a phone call with the user on the other end complaining about a fairly loud buzzing noise emanating from within the chassis.

Another small caveat has to do with the installation of a 2.5” or laptop sized SATA hard drive:

2.5” Seagate Momentus installed on the HDD Carrier

The drive needs to be installed on the backside of the drive cage when using 2.5” drives. The drive cage has a good sized breather hole that resides right under the middle of the drive. The edges of the hole are wrapped around towards to inside of the cage. Thus, they present a good sized raised obstacle for mounting a laptop drive there.

There are also four raised mounts that face towards the inside of the chassis, that is on the outside of the drive cage. If the drive was mounted on the inside of the drive cage instead of the way it is in the above image, the drive’s electronics would be grounded out on the breather hole lip and we would lose a hard drive very quickly.

And finally, since the system comes with only 1 SATA power connector from the power supply, a Molex to SATA power connector converter will be required to give the SATA optical drive power.

When it comes to putting systems together, a flash of the BIOS is necessary to bring things up to date once the motherboard is installed in the system. After the update, a check of the BIOS settings to make sure they are correct is the last step before installing an OS.

Once the system was put together, we were very impressed by how quite it was. Not only that, it installed Windows 7 in very short order and is quite snappy in its responses. Our client will be very happy with this configuration.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer