- On paper today's project is pretty much
the simplest thing ever.
After many hours of troubleshooting
I've identified the problem with my VR gaming PC.
The onboard USB ports are not compatible
with the Vive Trackers that I'm using to enable
full body tracking when I'm streaming VR.
Now the solution to this on the surface
is very straightforward.
You need to just install a PCI Express USB card
that uses a different chipset
and run the Trackers off that.
Unfortunately because it needs to fit
inside my tiny home theater console,
my VR gaming rig uses an ITX motherboard.
So, I went out on the prowl
for the smallest Mini ATX case that I could find.
And this is it, the Sliger Cerberus.
Now on the surface this project is super straighforward.
Take a basically working computer
and transplant it from one case into another
with a different motherboard.
But with how much has gone wrong
with all of this so far.
What the (beep) (beep) why are they drifting?
I think it's pretty safe to say that I should probably
have a camera rolling for it.
So, why don't you come along for the ride?
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(upbeat music)
Okay I misrepresented the ease
of this project a little bit.
I am also going to be adding water cooling to the rig,
and the reason is that this right here
is the RTX 2080 Ti that was used for the, ah yes,
Hydro dipping a graphics card project.
In the process of hydro dipping it
what happened was the PCB that handles fan control
was actually damaged,
or one of the connectors was loosed in some way
that makes the fan ramp up and then ramp down constantly.
It's super annoying.
That is literally the only reason
that I'm going water cooling.
To quiet down this now defective card.
This case is not really built
as a water cooling focused product,
but I've seen enough builds
from other users online that have water cooling in them
to suggest that it shouldn't be too challenging.
Front I/O is already a bit of a hassle for my setup
just because these are coming out the top
and I think this is basically exactly
the height of my media cabinet.
The cold hard truth is there's no way around it
because you can see here,
the motherboard is gonna be basically the entire
height of the case.
All they've added that might be considered extraneous
is this fifth PCI Express slot
which actually could come in handy for me big time
in the future if a motherboard arrives
that has a PCI Express 16x slot on the bottom.
Because then I could put my graphics card
right down at the bottom of the case
and that would give me three more expansion slots.
That's a bigger factor for me then you might think,
because one of the other things that I might want to add
to the system in the future is a wireless card
for wireless VR.
So, that's already two right there
just for USB and wireless.
Crap.
This is my first time hands-on with this case.
It's reasonably solid feeling
but the construction is very basic,
like pretty much every piece of it
is some kind of table cut steel.
That's about it.
Really easy to get it opened up
so you can start working in it though.
I opted for a few accessories,
there's a handle kit in here.
We've got a handle bracket,
SFX power supply adapter.
Oh no!
Did Jake screw me over already?
He didn't send me an SFX-L power supply.
I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt,
maybe I don't need it.
Anyway first order of business
is to get all the old hardware stripped out
of my VR gaming rig.
This two terabyte hard drive has gotta go for sure,
I'm gonna replace that with a high capacity
Solid State Drive.
You probably assumed I have a lot of this stuff, I don't.
I actually love bottom mounted SSD.
Kind of wish I had another matching
industrial fan for this system.
Jake sent over a FF12
so I'm just not sure of they're gonna have enough gusto.
2080 Ti and a Radeon 3900X.
This project is frustrating for a couple of reasons,
One is that it feels pretty stupid
to have to upgrade a motherboard because
the onboard has a compatibility problem.
But that's what you lock yourself into
when you buy a system with no expansion,
whether it's a compact ITX or other DTX based one like this.
Or whether it's a laptop
with all the stuff soldered onto it.
But that's the trap that you stick yourself in.
And another is the timing.
We are a month away from B550 boards being available
and here I am picking up a B450 board.
B550 is gonna be way better.
PCIe Gen 4 bifurcation support,
I mean probably better support for upcoming processors.
Just it's a bad time to buy a budget motherboard
'cause it will probably be at a kind of a similar price.
If I'm stuck with it,
the B450M Steel Legend from ASRock looks pretty good.
Couple of M.2 slots,
the two expansion slots I need
and it's reasonably priced.
I know people get triggered my reusing thermal paste
but it's well established
that it doesn't make a performance difference
at this point so.
For memory I'm reusing this 3200CL16 kit from TEAMGROUP.
It's nothing particularly special
but I'm also not going for
bleeding edge performance here necessarily.
If I miss a frame or two then it is what it is.
Normally I wouldn't go straight
for putting the motherboard in the case
but in this instance I'm gonna kinda need to put it in there
to visualize what's going on
and how everything else is gonna fit.
The Cerberus is also extremely open
so I'm not expecting that putting the motherboard in
is gonna limit my options too badly as we go forward.
And I remember how hard we all used to cringe
at the camo colored schemes on motherboards back in the day.
Who's laughing now?
Motherboard manufacturers selling motherboards to kids
that's who.
Oh that's cool.
I don't know what this is but it's cool so.
Interestingly it looks like I've got a fair number
of options for radiator mounting,
like can I even put one on the side
if I really wanted to?
It just comes down to finding the best way
to tetris your own components in.
So, let's keep putting stuff in
and then see we what we end up with.
So, we came up with the idea of salvaging parts
from an all-in-one so that we could just get
a CPU block with a pump built into it,
and putting that on there.
But I'm actually worried that this
is going to interfere with a full ATX power supply.
Oh man if this fits it is going to be absolutely borderline.
Holy smokes.
Hold on.
Wow, that might actually fit.
Okay.
Jake took one of the fittings off this for me already
just to make sure that they were barb fittings
that we could adapt to custom water cooling equipment,
but he left the other one for me to do
and it's like really hard to remove.
Now if there was ever a time I was likely
to slice my hand open this would be it.
All right we chewed it up a little bit.
Not too bad.
So, it goes on this way,
which is gonna have these tubes come up
right away from the power supply here.
That's lucky,
and I know for a fact we didn't plan that
because I know that Jake did not open this case
before he sent it over to me so.
There we go.
Let's go ahead and throw this on the CPU.
Do you wanna go get me a power supply actually?
I bet you could be back by the time I need to install it.
- [Yvonne] You want me to go to the office
to get a power supply?
- What are the odds that you feel like doing that?
Slim, got it.
Dang it, we're gonna try and build this thing
without a power supply.
While normally I wouldn't put the graphics card
into a machine until at or close to the end.
In this case it makes sense
because I need to be able to see how we're gonna plumb up
the loop before I can decide where to mount the radiator.
It's a shame though because the front of it was actually
the more successful part of the hyrdo dip.
Now for the special sauce,
this is a really cool USB card.
It has not one but four independent controllers
so each of these five gigabit per second ports
is actually a full five gigabit per second port,
without being shared between any of the other ports.
That's why it actually requires
the PCI Express 4x interface.
There we go,
the solution to my problem,
now I got all the USB.
Oh you know what's crazy?
I didn't even think of this,
this board's got two M.2s and an extra PCI slot.
So, even if I don't put a graphics card in the very bottom
I could actually still squeeze another
PCI Express slot out of it.
Wait is this even gonna fit?
Oh, right there.
Three millimeters maybe?
Nice.
For ease of plumbing I would actually prefer
to have my barbs on the bottom,
but to make it easier to bleed the air bubbles
out of this loop,
'cause I'm gonna have kind of an underpowered pump.
I actually think I'm gonna put them on the top up here.
Now that is a color scheme and a half. (laughing)
It doesn't seem like much but I actually
really like this cutout in the back here where the SSDs go,
that is a really nice touch because it means
that you'll have access to plug or unplug it,
even if you've got a radiator installed there
just by reaching around from the back.
That is awesome.
The SATA data cables are cramped behind the radiator here,
you can easily access them like that.
And then they plug into the motherboard
right under the graphics card.
You can barely even see them.
The madman did it,
just got back from the office
with an SFX-L power supply.
Among the Silverstone's SX800-LTI
it's an extremely efficient
and really cool power supply.
It's 800 watts and it's just this teeny tiny little thing,
like I would have to be actively gaming
for that fan to even spin up which is pretty freakin' cool.
Silverstone doesn't get enough credit sometimes
and we're at the point now where if you've got an 800 watt
80 PLUS Titanium unit available in this size.
It kind of raises the question why we need a bigger ones.
Another advantage to going this route
is I now have tons of room around my CPU cooler,
so that's good.
That gives me room to run the tubing
and all that kind of stuff as well, very nice.
Tha fact that all the panels in this case pop off
makes it a lot easier to work with than I was
letting myself believe there.
Look at that, all right.
No problem.
This really is such an ingenious way to handle these.
I've talked about it already but I can't get over it.
I really like it.
I'm using a tubing standard I don't normally use for this
partly because Jake sent it over
and partly because it makes sense
for such a compact build.
But these are 10 millimeter inner diameter,
13 millimeter outer diameters.
Just helps it take up a little bit less space
which is gonna be at a bit of a premium
once all this is in there.
These are CORSAIR fittings
and if I recall correctly they partnered with
Bitspower on them which was a good move
'cause these are super nice.
Putting a little of spare tubing over the fitting
and then using that to get a better grip
while you're tightening it is a pretty good little trick.
My loop is gonna be really simple,
first I'm gonna go straight down there
then I'm gonna go out out from here,
to this guy over here.
And then out from here
over to this one back here.
It's not gonna look like anything special
but it should work pretty well.
Now the keen-eyed among you might've noticed
I cut that a little short.
That is because I have a pretty clever trick planned.
I had wanted to use a proper T fitting
but not being able to find that I'll settle for this.
This is just a nice little EK multi-fitting block here.
So, I'm gonna open up the top of this
and then I'm gonna open up the other side,
both of them up at the top of the loop.
And I'm gonna use that to allow the air to come out
while I'm filling the other side with water,
and then to allow me to top it up once the air settles
up in the top there.
It's funny some of the things I'm doing here feel wrong.
Like this a pretty ugly way to implement this
considering how nice the hardware I'm putting in it is,
but like it or not this is water cooling done practical.
Another not pretty but practical thing,
using zip ties to secure tubing on barbs.
This is what peak performance looks like all right?
My brilliant theory
is that if I just pour water into this,
it will fill.
Okay we're dripping a bit.
Fortunately that is what paper towels
and GPU backplates are for.
Oh you spilled your water cooling?
Surprise Pikachu face.
I was a fool,
Our water bottle is for hydrating humans not computers,
lttstore.com.
All right.
These tubes are full of water now,
so I'm just gonna tip this back.
Ooh okay.
Here we go,
and we're gonna see the water run down the other tubes.
Hey there we go.
My theory was that filling it this way would make it
so I won't have to power on the system
in order to bleed the air bubbles.
So, let's see how well that's working out for me here.
Actually it looks like there's still some air bubbles
in the graphics card but not too bad.
Really wish I had a couple more fittings,
'cause if I could just run tubes over to the sink
and then into the faucet
and just kind of fill it and flush it.
I wonder if I do have them.
Test time.
That's pretty good.
Now I now masking tape's not ideal for this
but I need the wife not to wake up
and be like, "Hey why is there a bunch of tape residue
all over our faucet?"
Here goes.
Ooh, ooh it's splashing.
Oh wow, there were definitely lot's of bubbles in there.
Oh sweet.
Okay this is officially how I'm bleeding
every loop from now on.
I ended up having to wiggle the case around a fair bit
to get it all out but I'm pretty sure this loop
is completely bled of air bubbles now.
That is a full water cooling loop.
And the system doesn't boot.
Already tried a new power supply,
already tried different RAM.
That leads me to believe that I probably
need to swap out the CPU for an older one
and update the BIOS.
So, it's daytime now and I'm back from the office
with another CPU.
If you wanna help come on over here kiddo.
So, you wanna do a CPU swap do ya?
- Yeah, please.
- All right.
Step one, remove this power supply
'cause we need to get at the CPU socket.
Oh that's gonna take the fan off
we don't wanna do that.
- Oh.
- Good try though, back here.
Four screws.
Okay careful don't touch the pins on the bottom,
those are very fragile
and if we break that I have to drive all the way
back to the office to get another one.
This is a pretty tight build and there's not a lot of slack.
- Three cable thingy,
some radar sensors.
- Radar sensors what ware you talking about?
- I'm talking about radar sensor cables.
Okay let's go test this,
see if it works.
Think it's gonna work?
- [Boy With Black Hair] Oh it's--
- [Man] Hey it's workin' nice!
- [Girl With Brown Hair] Daddy what are these things?
- Those are packing foam for the case.
Hey you can't stand right in the front there sweetheart.
- [Girl With Brown Hair] Daddy how can--
- And this is why I wanted to stay up late last night
to get this finished.
I think there might be a ghost under my table.
- [Girl With Brown Hair] What's it gonna do?
Bad ghost things presumably.
(screaming)
Does anyone wanna put on a panel for me?
- [Girl With Brown Hair] Me please, me please!
- [Man] You gotta push so hard.
Go for it.
Okay good job.
Yeah you're gonna go last.
You don't have to punch it
you can just push on it.
You just push on it,
you gotta use your weight you gotta push.
No you don't have to punch it.
(giggles)
All right little man you wanna give it a shot?
- [Boy With Black Hair] I'm not a little man anymore.
- You sure are you're my little man.
Now that I'm closing it up,
what's more impressive than how much stuff I have in here
is how much stuff I could still fit in here.
I could put a 120 or 140 mil rad on the bottom
with some 90 degree fittings
without too much trouble.
If this isn't enough cooling
that's what I'm gonna do.
I could put another fan here blowing down
on the system memory.
That could also be a good idea,
I didn't even explore the handle kit
just because I found the clearance was so tight
in my media console that
I wasn't going to be able to add that.
But I think there's a fan mount that's part of it.
Just a really thoughtful case with a ton of options,
I actually really like it.
And simple construction but top notch.
That's it, that's a lot of power in a tiny container.
In comparing the size to the old case I realized
that height shouldn't have been my only concern.
It's actually quite a bit deeper as well.
Now for the big conclusion,
the system performs admirably.
Temps are around 75,
76 degrees on the GPU very nice.
Not great for water cooling but remember guys
this is only a 201-20 radiator in a tiny case,
and our CPU tops out at around 79, 80 degrees.
Remember though that's with both components
heating up the loop to the max at the same time,
for about an hour and a half.
So, this is an absolute worst case scenario.
That means it's finally time for us to play
some video games.
You guys wanna play Takelings?
- [Children] Yeah please!
- I'm goin' for it,
I'm goin' for it boys.
Get wrecked.
- Mine, no!
Yours nothin'.
Get wrecked my literal son. (laughing)
Well that was a lot of fun,
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If you guys enjoyed this video
maybe check out,
I don't know check out my review of the Valve Index.
I really like this headset,
my only complaint is that it's not wireless.
I guess that's sort of the review.
But I promise I get into more detail in the other one.
I'll link that down below too.
- Daddy are you right?