Thin Mini-Itx I/O Shield; Figure 5-6. Minimum Blower Gap - Intel Thin Mini-ITX System Design Manual

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The free mass of a CPU thermal solution that does not attach directly to the

motherboard must be supported by the chassis. As an example, the typical AIO CPU

thermal solution consists of a CPU cold plate, heat exchanger and blower. The heat

exchanger and blower are typically located outside the boundary of the motherboard

footprint. Therefore, the blower and heat exchanger mechanical attach must be

plate of the CPU thermal solution must be designed to attach directly to the

motherboard via fasteners that ship with the thermal solution.

The Low Profile reference thermal solution described in Section 6 is an example of the

type of thermal solution targeted for this type of form factor. It consists of a cold

plate, heat pipes, and stacked fin array. By design, the stacked fin array will sit onto

the chassis bottom pan. The fin stack is suspended beyond the edge of the

motherboard by three heat pipes. This type of thermal solution design must be

physically constrained in the positive Z direction in the region of the stacked fins of

the heatsink so that the heat pipes do not bend during a mechanical shock load in the

positive Z direction, i.e. perpendicular to the motherboard plane. Likewise, the

heatsink stacked fin section must be physically constrained from movement in the

plane of the motherboard during a mechanical shock loading event which occurs in the

same plane as the motherboard.

5.5

Thin Mini-ITX I/O Shield

As the specific side I/O ports can vary from motherboard to motherboard, it is

recommended that a chassis keep the chassis I/O as an open aperture that is filled by

the motherboard's I/O shield. A chassis could develop plastic molding in this area that

is contoured to the industrial design and the specific connector pattern of a

motherboard; however, this removes the chassis' ability to use motherboards with

different I/O patterns.

The below figure is an example of a Thin Mini-ITX I/O shield that would ship with a

Thin Mini-ITX motherboard.

Thin Mini-ITX Based PC System Design Guide

Mechanical

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