Some months ago I got my Framework Desktop motherboard. When I made the order I had some time to figure out the case etc. and I decided I wanted to squeeze it in as small a case that was practical, allowed me full use of all the slots, and adequate airflow. Unfortunately I couldn’t really find any smaller cases that fit the bill, but a couple came close. I decided to try my luck with the Chieftec BT-06B, which I managed to find probably one of the last units on the planet off of some liquidation auction. Unfortunately the case was a lot like it was made in the 90s or early 2000s, a single U-shaped cover, no airflow, etc. which meant it needed a few modifications.
Here’s what I did:
- Found the Framework Desktop motherboard schematics and tried my best to guestimate positions of components relative to the case panels etc. for fitment before I had both the case and motherboard in hand
- Cut vents to the front, side, and top
- Added mesh filters for the vents
- Covered unwanted air holes to get airflow going where I wanted it and to stop dust from getting in
- Cut the U-shaped panel into 3 separate pieces - top, and sides
- Added screw holes to the case + panels to allow them to still be firmly mounted
- Glued a few plastic sheets on the outside to clean up and give some rigidity to some of the frame
- Cut chunks off the motherboard tray to allow access to the rear M.2 slots
- Drilled holes into the rear to mount WiFi antennas
- 3D printed “wood” trims to the new air vents, and a new CPU fan shroud to fit the case + fan better
- Spray painted some of the surfaces after the cuts to clean them up
- Installed an additional 120mm intake fan to the top, used a Phanteks T30-120 for the CPU cooler, an 80mm intake fan, and 2 slim 60mm fans to the rear as exhaust.
In the end it ended up running the following hardware:
- Framework Desktop motherboard (obviously)
- WD BLACK SN850X 8TB with Thermalright HR-09 cooler
- Seagate Exos X16 16TB with an USB to SATA adapter, and SATA power from the PSU
- M.2 to Oculink adapter, with an external Oculink to PCIe adapter with PSU for a secondary GPU (5060 Ti 16GB) for VM passthrough
- Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E adapter
- PCIe USB controller for additional USB
- Internal USB to rear PCIe slot adapter for even more USB
- Corsair SF850 SFX PSU
Both lists might be somewhat incomplete, but accurate enough.
Here’s pictures of the process:
Unfortunately the upload system is of incredibly poor quality and only allows 5 uploads at a time and then ends up shuffling the images so they might end up being in an order that doesn’t make sense.
3D printed fan shroud
SSD heat sink
Case as it arrived
This is where the front panel fan was supposed to “breathe”
Started marking things to adjust
First adjustments
Found mesh with higher porosity to replace what it shipped with
Making the front breathe
Drilling and tapping new screw holes for the panel
Making vents and separating the panel to 3 pieces
Blocking unwanted airflow
Adding WiFi antenna mounting holes
Adding “wood” trims though first front panel one wasn’t very good
And then side panel
Trying out fans
Top panel needed a plastic sheet to stop it from flopping while installing it and got its own trim as well
Motherboard tray needed slots to access rear M.2 ports
Major modifications to the chassis are done
Filled the unwanted holes on the side panels and cleaned up the cuts with some spray paint
Checking how wiring would be routed and that the internals in general should be ready for installation, where the machine would fit in the end, etc.
The motherboard finally arrived and got to trying it all out in practice
It took multiple attempts to get all the wires routed properly, some needed to go between the mainboard tray and the motherboard in some places, tweaking the fan speeds to get adequate airflow without making too much noise, etc. but in the end it all worked out and the machine found its final resting place, fully functional. Temps are fairly reasonable, boosting to full power for a decent amount of time.
