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Chenbro ES34169 Mini-ITX case meets Zotac H55ITX-A-E board
August 9, 2010 by kataleen
Hello, great review!
I was hoping you could answer some questions for me. Do you have any numbers on how much power the machine is using on idle and at load? I’m not sure if the 120W PSU is enough with an i3 in there and 4 HDDs.
Also, did you have to buy a case fan separately (if so, link please) or did it come with the Chenbro?
Finally, what OS did you settle with (any special raid config)? How’s the read/write performance?
Sorry but right now I don’t have any way of telling how much power this rig is consuming. Power consumption was not one of my main concerns, as I have plenty of heavy consumers around the house that will dwarf the htpc. I know, I’ll burn in hell. At least the guys at Green Peace say that 😉
In my current config I have 3 hard drives with no optical drive. The PSU seems to be handling it quite well.
The two HDD cage fans that you can see on the back of the case came with the package. Unfortunately there was no case fan for the upper deck where the motherboard is located. I had to pick up a 60 mm fan from a friend and add it to the case.
As for the OS I am using Windows 7 x64 with no RAID config. I keep my backups on separate drives that most of the times are not powered.
RW performance, with the 2 TB drives from western digital is between 80 and 100 Mb/s (copying from one drive to another)
Has this case an internal psu or external? I mean, do you need a laptop adapter?
ES34169 has an internal PSU behind the hot swap drive bays. The ES34069 does not have that but instead it has an external brick PSU that comes in 120W and 180W flavors.
http://www.chenbro.eu/corporatesite/products_cat.php?pos=2
Other difference between the two seems to be the lack of the PCI slot on the back of the ES34069
I am not sure how they used the free space in the ES34069 as the overall case dimensions look the same.
Hi Stefan, I’m really curious about this Zotac board and its support with OpenSolaris (I’m planning on using ZFS). Could you do me a huge favor and check if all the parts are supported?
You’ll have to boot into an opensolaris livecd (http://www.genunix.org/dist/indiana/osol-dev-134-x86.iso). The livecd should boot you into gnome, and then you’ll have to go into Applications > System Tools > Device Driver Utility and it’ll show you if anything is missing.
I’ll try to find some time this week for that. I’ll let you know.
I’m also curious regarding OpenSolaris. 🙂
I did some tests, but they were not conclusive. It always hanged during boot up. I don’t think it was the motherboard but something related to the AHCI configuration. Unfortunately I don’t have an optical drive in that pc so it’s quite difficult for me to try fiddling with Open Solaris again.
Hi, Stefan!
I am planning to make HTPC/torrent server with this case and some atom+ion m/b. My main concern is the noise and HDD temp. Could you please share your experience with it?
I will measure the sound level next to the case, tonight. I will do it with the iPhone, so it might not be extremely accurate. With regards to temperatures, I don’t have a temp sensor next to the drives, but you should bear in mind that the HDD compartment is completely separate from the MB+CPU compartment and it has it’s own two fans on the back of the case. These two fans blow air directly onto the PSU and then on the sides in the HDD compartment.
Temperatures can be easy monitored by some utility that shows HDDs S.M.A.R.T. data. I prefer SpeedFan, but there are some more.
Noise level in a completely silent room otherwise, is around 40dB. Measured a few inches away from the case with “Decibels” app on the iPhone.
Temperatures for the drive bay are quite low as, usually, there’s only one drive ON, the others being in stand by. SMART tab in speed fan does not give any info, in fact it doesn’t even show hard drives. Didn’t have time to look into it.
Hi Stefan, Thank you for this detailed review. I’m looking
into building a very similar machine (chenbro case, zotac board,
core i3). I just have one quick question: How long were the SATA
data cables you used? I’ve been trying to judge the length I’ll
need from pictures and measurements, and it seems like 12 inch /
30cm cables should reach, but I wasn’t sure if they were too long.
Andrew
The sata cables are the usual length. It’s more than enough. Unfortunately I can’t measure them without dismantling the pc, but suffice it it say that I was left with some unwanted slack after connecting the drives.
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for this detailed build guide. Do you know if the Thermaltake cpu cooler you are using blows air down onto the heatsink and cpu or if it draws air away from it upwards. Thanks.
Cheers,
Tobi
I am pretty sure it blows air onto the cooler. It doesn’t make too much sense to draw the air up since the air close to the pcb is much warmer than the air on top of the CPU cooler. I think this us how most if the CPU cooler fans work. On many cases there are air vents exactly on top of the cooler do the cool air can get in. But again, I might be wrong.
Hi!
The PSU has active or passive cooling? I really intrested in absolutely silent system.
And one more thing. Is there really no front panel cardreader in the default shipping?
The psu itself is not self contained. It’s an open component inside the case. However the two fans on the back of the case blow air directly onto it and past it towards the drive cages. The fans are pretty silent.
That’s correct about the card reader. It’s not included with the case.
Hi Stefan,
thak you for this great article. Could you tell me something about the noiselevel of the 70mm fans at the back? Would it technically be possible to replace them? What are the specifications (70*70*15, or 70*70*25)?
Thanks in advance,
kind regards
As stated in a previous comment, the noise level is around 40db measured with an iPhone right next to the case. They are definitely replaceable, however I can’t give you exact measurements right now. As soon as I open the case I will get back to you.
I just built a home storage server using this case. The rear fans that came with mine are 70 x 70 x 25. Hope that helps.
hi, thanks for your replies.
@ Andrew, are you sure? I found a review here
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1126862
which says, they are 70*15.
Could someone tell me the name of the fans, or confirm the specs so I can be sure? (green letters)
Second question. The sata cable are a little bit too long for my taste. Would it technically possible to replace them with shorter ones?
Ok that was my last question,
thank you very much guys
Not only technically but it’s also physically possible to replace them. Absolutely.
Hi.
I’ve the chenbro case paired with an atom motherboard. I’m going to replace it with Zotac H67-ITX-C-E and an i3-2100t.
For your information the stock HSF is about 30mm height.
Markus, I’ve connected the rear 2 fans to 5V line and there’s no noise from them, obviously they’re running at low speed.
[…] A review appeared to confirm that the ES34169 would work nicely with the Zotac motherboard and an i3. When all the parts finally arrived and I built the system, unfortunately it would not boot. Some swapping of PSUs eventually confirmed that the Chenbro PSU was fine (it would boot a lower wattage system) as was the Zotac board, CPU and RAM (it would boot on another PSU), so the only conclusion was that 120W was not enough for the system. […]
Maybe the Chenbro PSU was defective. Some PSUs are known to fry partially and only able to power up at low loads. I can say that in my setup, the Chenbro PSU works just fine with the Zotac MB and the i3.
Hi.
In my configuration I’ve 4 3.5″ SATA disks (RAID5), 1 2.5″ SATA (boot) and one ODD, there’s no power issue booting this configuration with the 120W Power suply.
Try to delay the HDD spinup in BIOS configuration, there’s an option to do this.
Regards.
hey
I am currently building a system on h67.
I wonder if Scythe Kozuti is a good enough choice for the cpu cooler? (it is 40mm thick, should not be a problem right?)
There shouldn’t be any problem on clearance. Also, I have all but praise for Scythe. They do an awesome job in coolers, especially with this type of fan sandwiched between the plate and the cooler.
hey again :),
Where did you connect the LAN led’s and error led. I wonder if it is possible somehow
I didn’t. You need the corresponding connectors on the motherboard for that.