I’ve noticed some posts about success using eATX boards in the HL15. I have a WRX80 Creator laying around along with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX 32-Core 3.5GHz.
Any idea if I could pull these off with the HL15?
I’ve noticed some posts about success using eATX boards in the HL15. I have a WRX80 Creator laying around along with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3975WX 32-Core 3.5GHz.
Any idea if I could pull these off with the HL15?
Officially, no. The motherboard chamber in the HL15 is sized for ATX max.
10.7 inches deep for the board you linked to is right at the available depth from the back wall to where the 25mm thick case fans start mid chassis, and those fans are recessed some under the top of the metal bracket that holds them in place. So if you were to attempt this, one of your build challenges physically would be around always having to remove the mid chassis fan wall for the initial build and any maintenance and not having access to any of the right angle connectors on the front of the board without doing so. Any cables or usb dongles or such going straight up from the front of the board like the 24-pin would be right up near and block some airflow from the fan wall. Depending on your build–say you only have 8 HDDs or are running SSDs–you could possibly leave out the mid-case fan wall and see if the three fans on the front provide sufficient airflow. Removing the fan wall isn’t hard, but just an impediment if you like to tinker.
Another thing to consider is heat sink height, that is limited to 160mm, which allows some, but not all 4U CPU coolers and nothing taller.
You say you have the board lying around, so I assume this isn’t a project you want to invest a lot of money on, but 45Drives, the enterprise side, does offer a stretch version of at least the Q30, so I assume they would quote you a price on a version of an AV15 that would hold an EATX board comfortably if you have the budget for a serious build.
I was also bummed when I was looking at the same board, but its ok for me as I will just use a different case and make it strictly computer with SSD storage, then copy over to the HL-15 nightly.