Micro-ATX mobo's compatible with Zalman TNN-300?

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

Hi,

I have just received a Zalman TNN-300 case I had ordered and I am now
looking for a compatible micro-ATX mobo. The list provided by Zalman
is outdated (they discontinued TNN-300 some time ago) and I cannot
convince local PC hardware vendors to allow me to check cards for
compatibility.

I would much appreciate suggestions for modern mobos of good quality,
suitable for for current processors like Core i7 or AMD phenom etc. I
would like to build the best PC I can subject to the limitations of
the TNN-300 so I may not have to upgrade for a few years at least
(failures not withstanding ;-)

My thanks in advance.

 

[peter]

here is a website that describes that case
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article302-page1.html


the important line in that article is
"The smaller TNN-300 only takes a micro-ATX motherboard"

So you need to look for a micro atx board...
and here is an example of one...note the dimensions
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products...rboard&ProductID=3166&ProductName=GA-P55M-UD4

peter

 

[Paul]

"CPU Cooling
Utilizes massive copper blocks and six 6mm diameter copper heatpipes to
transfer up to 150W of heat. Sockets K8, 775 and 478 are supported. Recommended
for use with P4-478 up to 2.8C (Northwood), all Pentium M (479) models, A64-939
up to 3500+ (Winchester/Venice), and Sempron 754 up to 3300+ (Palermo)."

It looks like you're shit out of luck.

s

Then maybe a Core2 Quad, like a Q9650 with the LGA775 socket, would be
the closest next thing to use.

You would need to compare the mechanical details of the LGA775 mounting,
versus the others. The four mounting holes could have a
different spacing, which may prevent the Zalman cooler block
from fitting properly. There are no dimensions in the Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA1366
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1156
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_775

OK, found some center to center dimensions here.

http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?page=4&skrivelse=559

Socket: Dimensions:
LGA775 72x72mm
LGA1156 75x75mm
LGA1366 80x80mm

Page 11 here shows the TNN300 uses a replacement retention frame.
Four screws hold the retention frame. Two "finger bolts" hold
the cooling block, using a retention bracket. The mechanical
details would be different, if you wanted to use LGA1156 or LGA1366.

http://www.frozencpu.com/images/products/pdf/cst-342.pdf

The X-Y datum for the video card socket, is probably common from
one microATX to another. I think they're expecting a PCI Express
motherboard. The mounting hole pattern around the GPU would
have to match one of the two patterns shown in the manual.

The page here, recommends a processor up to 67W, based on
Zalman's recommendations. And the video card is probably
closer to 60W or so.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article302-page4.html

The best match for that, would be the Q9550S processor for LGA775.
It is a 65W processor. You pay more, for a lower power processor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115210

The video card has to be able to be disassembled, and the new
cooling parts fitted like this.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/tnn300/vga4.jpg

This is the back side of a 9600GT. It draws 60W.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-125-273-S04?$S640W$

This is the back side of a 9800GT. I don't know the power for
this one right off hand. You can see the position of the GPU
is shifted a bit. But maybe the center to center hole spacing
is similar to a 6600.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-130-440-S04?$S640W$

And this is the back of a 6600GT. You'll have to flip this
180 degrees, to compare it to the others. It is pretty hard
to do this visually, but it looks like the center to center
spacing on this one, is smaller than the other cards.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-127-147-S03?$S640W$

This is doubly hard to do, when the page Zalman quoted in the manual,
is no longer available. And web.archive.org doesn't have a copy.
Contact the people at Zalman and ask them to provide the details
promised.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/TNN300.html

Good luck,
Paul

 

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

The CPU heat sink mounting scheme used by the TNN-300 case
<http://www.silentpcreview.com/article302-page5.html> is no longer
used by Intel and AMD CPU motherboards.

My thanks for all the replies on this. Looks like I jumped the gun on
this one .... ;-)
Still, I was tempted by the idea of a purly electronic computer, no
mechanical parts and no noise at all.

Neoklis

 

[Paul]

My thanks for all the replies on this. Looks like I jumped the gun on
this one .... ;-)
Still, I was tempted by the idea of a purly electronic computer, no
mechanical parts and no noise at all.

Neoklis

OK, I found the product page. Click the "specification" section,
then scroll down to the video card section.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=186

*******
Compatible motherboard list for TNN300 (list is too old to be of use).

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooling/tnn300_motherboard01_eng.html

Motherboards that don't work well.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooling/tnn300_motherboard02_eng.html

*******
Compatible video cards.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooling/tnn300_vga01_eng.html

Video cards that don't work. Date of last update, March 2006.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooling/tnn300_vga02_eng.html

*******

The heat conducting cylinders which mount behind the motherboard,
can only be used once, due to the adhesive. So if you use the
TNN300, be prepared to do it once only. The conducting cylinders
are intended to help with hot spots on the back of the motherboard.

Paul

 

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

It can be done if you lower your requirements. Paul had some good suggestions.
What were you going to use the pc for?

I can lower my requirements as there is no gaming involved, for
example. My main activity is writing ham radio software for linux, so
if the compiler takes a little longer, no problem. I also study
antenna designs using a graphical version of the NEC2 program that I
have produced. This can also be a heavy CPU resource user but again
its only a matter of waiting a little longer ;-) You can see my
activities on my website: http://www.qsl.net/5b4az/index.html

The only application that relies on adequate CPU speed is my Firewire
camera interface and target tracking program: http://www.qsl.net/5b4az/pages/video.html
This loads my present machine (AMD Athlon 64x2 @ 2.4 GHz, ASUS/nvidia
mobo) to about 30-40% using only one processor. But since my PC is of
the same era as the Zalman-recommended mobos/processors, I could
always resort to a standard recommended mobo if I can't use a more
modern one. It would also offset the cost of the case itself .....

Neoklis

 

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

The heat conducting cylinders which mount behind the motherboard,
can only be used once, due to the adhesive. So if you use the
TNN300, be prepared to do it once only. The conducting cylinders
are intended to help with hot spots on the back of the motherboard.

    Paul

Thanks very much Paul. So no room for failure :-(

Neoklis

 

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

So a motherboard with built in graphics chip would suffice?

It would, but previous experience showed that because it shared memory
with the processor, it slowed down the system and effected the
operation of some of my programs. But that was on an old Pentium-3
machine. Things improved a lot when I installed a video card.

So this is interesting, is the main RAM access time-shared between the
processor and built-in graphics chip? Or is a slice permanently
assigned to the graphics? Don't even know if this is possible. Anyhow,
right now I have a fanless video card based on Radeon X300 and its OK.

Say a GIGABYTE GA-EG45M-UD2H LGA 775 Intel G45 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboar?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128390

Processor- Intel Core2 Q9550S Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65WQuad-
Core Processor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115210

Harddrive- OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX250G 2.5" 250GB SATA II MLC Internal
Solid state disk (SSD)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227396

So far noiseless/no moving parts.

Yes, it sounds good if I can shoe-horn it into the TNN-300!

By the way, I did send an email to Zalman and Provatage asking for
info on mobos, waiting for an answer. I guess Zalman will not answer
and Provantage will refer me to Zalman...

Neoklis

 

[Neoklis Kyriazis]

No doubt.

Provantage replied, telling me they regret to inform me the the
TNN-300 is discontinued and there is no support for it (but they did
sell one to me....). They told me to look at Zalman's mobo
specifications to find a suitable one..... So I did the right thing
asking for help here. I was hoping someone actually did install a more
modern card and could tell us the details.

Anyhow, I am very greateful for all the help I received here. I am
studying the various suggestions carefully but I will have to wait
till I move to my new little home before I can try to build the new
machine. I optimistically packed most of my belongings but the
builders have gone somewhere else.... I will put the results of this
effort on my website, succeed or not.

Neoklis