CoolGav's MDF MATX case
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:50 am
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday I found myself with a MATX board and no good case for it (apart from a POS rettly steel one with PSU mount over the CPU). So I decided I'd try and make one that is quiet and well designed for my usage.
I am currently building a new desk, and this case was going to be part of that. The design has since changed, so its standalone. While I work out what I'm going to do with it I wont be improving this case, or working on it at all.
This system just sits and folds for Silent PC Review. The specs are currently:
ECS K7SEM motherboard
AMD Duron 1.6Ghz
256MB Crucial PC133
Zalman Flower
old 6GB Fujitsu hard drive
92mm Panaflo fan
Various PSUs
At the moment it uses a hard drive to run the Gentoo distro of GNU/Linux, and just folds. I plan to try and get it booting off the network or a USB flash drive. If that's not sucessful, then I may well sell the motherboard and reuse the other components in other systems. After taking the pics last night while changing the PSU, it decided to stop working, and I suspect its the PSU, so that needs changing again (glad I have a few spare)
Pics (sorry they're not great )
Front view, no PSU. You can't really see the motherboard, but its in there!
Rear top view, no PSU. Angled duct to get PSU exhausting air from CPU.
Top view. Routed space for PSU, you can see the Zalman and the hard drive!
PSU installed - quite a snug fit!
Exhaust Fan Assembly (EFA). I was going to make it out of 6mm MDF, but had some strong cardboard, and it seems to work. The fan runs via a Zalman fanmate, and apart from the PSU is the only fan in this system. Without the duct that wouldn't be possible
EFA in place. The holes are for cabling. It just sits there without any fixings
The whole case. The hard drive is in a dedicated section at the bottom (which could be removed if it network booted!). It mounts on some wood strips and then a little foam to allow air to circulate all around the drive. It's old, but reliable, slow (5400rpm), but cool, and not too loud. I might cover up the rest of the front, depending on final usage. The lower half of the back is pretty open as well - its the duct that makes sure air is drawn over the flower heatsink.
Connections are power, LAN, USB keyboard and monitor extension. The keyboard and monitor are only used if I need to take a look - It can run completly headless, and that's what I hope I can achieve.
I am currently building a new desk, and this case was going to be part of that. The design has since changed, so its standalone. While I work out what I'm going to do with it I wont be improving this case, or working on it at all.
This system just sits and folds for Silent PC Review. The specs are currently:
ECS K7SEM motherboard
AMD Duron 1.6Ghz
256MB Crucial PC133
Zalman Flower
old 6GB Fujitsu hard drive
92mm Panaflo fan
Various PSUs
At the moment it uses a hard drive to run the Gentoo distro of GNU/Linux, and just folds. I plan to try and get it booting off the network or a USB flash drive. If that's not sucessful, then I may well sell the motherboard and reuse the other components in other systems. After taking the pics last night while changing the PSU, it decided to stop working, and I suspect its the PSU, so that needs changing again (glad I have a few spare)
Pics (sorry they're not great )
Front view, no PSU. You can't really see the motherboard, but its in there!
Rear top view, no PSU. Angled duct to get PSU exhausting air from CPU.
Top view. Routed space for PSU, you can see the Zalman and the hard drive!
PSU installed - quite a snug fit!
Exhaust Fan Assembly (EFA). I was going to make it out of 6mm MDF, but had some strong cardboard, and it seems to work. The fan runs via a Zalman fanmate, and apart from the PSU is the only fan in this system. Without the duct that wouldn't be possible
EFA in place. The holes are for cabling. It just sits there without any fixings
The whole case. The hard drive is in a dedicated section at the bottom (which could be removed if it network booted!). It mounts on some wood strips and then a little foam to allow air to circulate all around the drive. It's old, but reliable, slow (5400rpm), but cool, and not too loud. I might cover up the rest of the front, depending on final usage. The lower half of the back is pretty open as well - its the duct that makes sure air is drawn over the flower heatsink.
Connections are power, LAN, USB keyboard and monitor extension. The keyboard and monitor are only used if I need to take a look - It can run completly headless, and that's what I hope I can achieve.