pc build question

Top Dog mids

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Hi All,

Has any body recently built a small form factor PC, as in Mini ITX or Micro ITX?

I ask as I'd like some thing light weight to replace a modern I5 laptop that died under waranty. The maker is Fujitsu as it happens. They have a repugnant attitude quite honestly, they where told via email what happened. Before I went to bed, the battery was at 50%, so before going to bed I left the laptop to charge. I wake up, return to my laptop, dead.
They demand that I call them on a non-geographic number that I can't connect to. They can't ask me the questions by email. I have a self built Z97 tower. Even when a neighbour kindly allowed me their phone, all Fujitsu did was burgar about, clutching at straws and where forced to back down.

To my mind it is easier to make some thing my self then I don't have to tolerate their repugnant attitude. My Z97 tower just works, no agro.

Keyboards with a touch pad are common.

Yes I have seen such things as a Gigabyte Brix BXBT-1900 Ultra Compact PC Kit. They are not what I want
 
Sure it's possible, no different from building a regular PC. There is bit of a size difference between micro-ITX and mini-ITX. Micro-ITX are more akin to cut down full blown PC's so have the same interfaces like PCI-e, RAM, CPU sockets etc.

Mini-ITX on the other hand are closer to the NUC or Brix concepts, quite small in size but more limited in function. For example the CPU may be built into the motherboard and non-removable, laptop RAM is used for space saving etc. Though some do manage to make CPU upgradable boards like this for example.

Most common PC places will sell the gear like scan.co.uk or amazon.co.uk.

More specialist outfits like QuietPC sell nice micro & mini-ITX cases along with motherboards and associated hardware.

This place linitx sells mini-ITX equipment, it's mainly meant for industrial use but you can buy for personal use too.
 
next010 many thanks to you. Gigabyte are a good brand. Indeed I have a Gigabyte z97 tower here. My dead Fujitsu laptop of 8 months is due for collection today. Fujitsu thought they could do some magic trick to bring it back to life. Then they acuse me of spilling a drink on the laptop, then they acuse me of dropping it. What I shall do is check out the builds people have done with the board you name, incase they try it on any more. I have a section 75 claim ready with the card issuer
 
Dose any one have good/ bad experience of a small case, I see that mini itx that the Gigabyte GA-H270N-WIFI LGA1151 Mini-ITX Motherboard is 21.5 x 24.4 cm or 8.6 X 9.8 Inches
 
Dose any one have good/ bad experience of a small case, I see that mini itx that the Gigabyte GA-H270N-WIFI LGA1151 Mini-ITX Motherboard is 21.5 x 24.4 cm or 8.6 X 9.8 Inches

There's no such thing as Micro ITX, it's Micro ATX.

The biggest difference between the three standards (Mini ITX, Micro ATX and ATX) are the number of expansion slots and the width of the motherboard.

Mini ITX has 1 expansion slot and is 17cm wide, ATX has 7 expansion slots and is 24.4cm wide. Micro ATX can have 2-4 slots and be 17-24.4cm wide.

The dimensions you've quoted are incorrect, they may have been mixed up by a retailer or refer to the size of the box it comes in. Like every Mini-ITX motherboard it's 17x17cm.

I've recently build a system in a Sentry case with Gigabyte B250N Phoenix board and I'm happy enough with that. The sound quality is slightly disappointing but I was coming from an X-fi Titanium so it being a downgrade isn't surprising.

'Small form factor' is a term that covers a massive size range, from the traditional Mini PCs that grew out of VIA's invention of the standard (e.g. the stuff available at Mini-ITX store to huge Gamerz systems that are twice the size of a normal home desktop from Dell or Lenovo.

My recent system is about mid-range through it, small for a gaming system but large in comparison to a normal Mini-ITX PC.

Unfortunately there currently aren't any component standards to compete with the smallest off the shelf systems, so if you want tiny and powerful you'll need to buy pre-built. The higher end products in the same market the brix targets, such as Lenovo's Tiny models, Dell's Optiplex Micros and HP's Elitedesk Mini.
 

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