**Xiao Biao Note: Happy New Year! I wanted to send you a Taiwan iPhone X for the New Year celebration! #NewCommoditiesWarfare #CallForPapers is currently in full swing. Share your experience in buying new products, your New Year shopping list, and your New Year product reviews. Participate and win the iPhone X as a prize, along with multiple gifts like Kindle, Jingdong gift cards, and more! Check out the event announcement and learn more.**
**In my explanation, the machine was sold just before this article was written because it wasn’t used at the moment, but it still got some "gray" treatment and overheated. I upgraded it to an X230, changed the FHD display, and installed a black Apple. It’s now running smoothly, and I’m continuing on this journey.**
**Please forgive my poor photography skills. I didn’t plan to post this at first.**
**Last year, I contacted an elite super-mini motherboard with N2808, 64GB EMMC, and 4GB RAM. The price was around 300 yuan, and I immediately bought one, as shown below:**
**[Image 1]**
**[Image 2]**
**Official specifications:**
**[Image 3]**
**Besides the 64GB EMMC included, it also has an mSATA and mini PCIe slot. The factory came with Windows 8, and I did a non-destructive upgrade to Windows 10. It uses a small aluminum foil without any cooling, and performance isn’t bad. It can handle web browsing and video decoding well. I bought two pieces of acrylic to make a case, and after playing with it for a while, I decided to use this motherboard for a super-mini NAS. I installed Black Hui, connected an mSATA to SATA and a mini PCIe to another hard drive, totaling two drives. The peak power consumption is under 15W, and it has been running stably for six months. This board is a perfect match for the Black Hui system, running smoothly without any issues. I fell in love with this ultra-mini motherboard.**
**Last year, I saw an elite I7-7500U motherboard on Taobao. It had a PCB size of 115x111mm, a palm-sized board, with a low-voltage 7-slot CPU, dual DDR4 memory slots, an M.2 SSD slot, an M.2 Wi-Fi card, Type-A, USB3.0 Type-C, a combined audio jack, dual gigabit LAN, Mini DP, HDMI, and onboard USB2.0 pins. The performance, size, and I/O ports were all very good. I immediately purchased it, and this configuration wasn't even the top one on the official site. There was only one available at that time, and I guess it's out of production now.**
**Official specifications:**
**[Image 4]**
**[Image 5]**
**[Image 6]**
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**Official website link**
**This performance is still quite decent!**
**First edition: When purchasing only the bare board, the seller doesn’t provide technical support or thermal shells. You have to do everything yourself. The first thing to do is test the board. I bought the memory and hard drive from Jingdong, placed a cooling aluminum plate above the CPU, fixed it with a rubber band, and used a USB fan to blow air from the front. The board came with a pre-installed Windows 10 system.**
**[Image 8]**
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**The first time I turned it on, there was no accident. The CPU was an ES version, and I guessed it was a test unit from the factory because there were no traces of the four mounting holes on the motherboard, and it looked brand new. Although it was an ES CPU, the main frequency, turbo frequency, and stepping were the same as the official version. System information and Master Lu couldn’t detect the ES status, only CPU-Z could. The baking test showed that the Turbo frequency could stay at 3.5GHz.**
**Jingdong Memory**
**Jingdong Hard Drive**
**Digression: The memory I originally bought for less than 220 yuan is now priced at 489. I sold it two days ago. After half a year, I didn’t lose money. The hard drive dropped by tens of yuan, but I kept it.**
**After turning it on, the next step was to install the heat sink and case. This motherboard had no information online. It was a mini-host motherboard released by elites at CES in 2016, but it wasn’t sold domestically or internationally. No disassembly or review existed. Later, I found an article abroad. The original fan was fixed on the shell with three screws securing the heatsink to the motherboard. My plan was to use the same approach, fix two acrylic plates, customize the cooling system with copper, U-tube, and heatsink, then order custom cooling fans, tinker twice, and finally complete the first version.**
**[Image 11]**
**Copper plate size for CPU cooling, central raised for better contact.**
**[Image 12]**
**Acrylic shell size.**
**[Image 13]**
**[Image 14]**
**Copper pieces being handmade.**
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**Solder paste applied, clamped with a clip, and baked on a gas stove in minutes.**
**[Image 17]**
**But when placing it on the motherboard, I found an issue—the original custom U-tube was 30mm wide, but the seller made it about 40mm, causing the heatsink to protrude about 7mm beyond the edge of the motherboard. I didn’t want to re-install it, so I widened the acrylic shell a bit earlier.**
**[Image 18]**
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**After fixing it on the motherboard, as shown above, the screw is M2, and the heatsink is fixed with a self-made spring and washer.**
**[Image 20]**
**Bought a new fan online.**
**[Image 21]**
**Initial installation and testing.**
**[Image 22]**
**The first time the grease was applied, the single-core FPU test temperature was below 80°C.**
**[Image 23]**
**Later, I disassembled the 4G memory, which I sold for 250 yuan two days ago. Two pieces of memory were sold for over 400, and I bought them for over 300. It was amazing to make a profit in six months.**
**[Image 24]**
**Fixed fan and shell. There was a pit here, which people often overlook and may cause problems. The motherboard fan socket definition is different from usual, so I was lucky to plug it in before the next step; otherwise, it would have burned either the motherboard or the fan.**
**[Image 25]**
**[Image 26]**
**The first version is basically done. I spent about two months customizing the radiator, making mistakes the first time, and improving the second.**
**Second Edition: After using it for a short time, I accidentally found a custom shell on Taobao, as shown in the picture below, so I contacted the seller and customized one. The following image is from Taobao:**
**[Image 27]**
**[Image 28]**
**I contacted the seller to customize a different one. The first time I widened it due to the heatsink, and the next time I increased it because it was active cooling. I also asked the seller to make a USB2.0 module with built-in USB leads. While waiting for the custom shell, I replaced the rear fan again, removing the ThinkPad x61 fan and replacing it with the original one.**
**[Image 29] Redesigned shell sketches.**
**[Image 30] Custom USB2.0 module. There’s a pit here too—USB2.0 pin spacing is 2.0, not the standard 2.54, which taught me a lesson after returning once.**
**[Image 31] Probably like this.**
**[Image 32]**
**Replaced the x61 fan with Shin-Etsu 7783 grease and tested the temperature first.**
**[Image 33]**
**[Image 34]**
**The daily usage temperature is stable below 40°C, and the single-bake FPU temperature is around 60°C. Normal use won’t fully load, and the cooling is ideal. I chose the x61 fan because its core is Panasonic, which is very quiet after adding oil. It’s also very small, suitable for this tiny machine, and usually runs at low speed. I remade two antennas myself, shortened them, and stuck them on both sides of the machine. It looks great.**
**[Image 35]**
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**Finally, the finished product map shows a total size of 161 x 124 x 41mm, about 0.8185L. With this performance and volume, it should be okay. The machine was sold a few days ago. In addition to giving you some advice, DIY comes with risks, so be careful when entering the pit.**
**Please give me a crazy reward! Thank you so much!**
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