PCDesignLab Qmicra v2 SFF System (Made In USA)

Show off your quiet rig.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
Bill Owen
-- Vendor --
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 6:16 pm
Location: Mpls, MN
Contact:

PCDesignLab Qmicra v2 SFF System (Made In USA)

Post by Bill Owen » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:15 am

Hey gang, heres the HotRod mod I performed for PCDesignLab. The case is their new Qmicra v2 SFF case (made in the usa). It has a bracket for optional dual 120mm radiator or 2x 120mm fans.

PCDesignLab's owner Dave Lalopa explains the ins/outs of the case while performing the system install in my shop

YouTube Video
Image


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image
Last edited by Bill Owen on Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:26 am, edited 2 times in total.

Shukuteki
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:36 pm

Post by Shukuteki » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:46 am

That is seriously clean. Nice selection of components too.

LBadvance
Posts: 177
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:35 pm

Post by LBadvance » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:59 pm

Bill owen your work is amazing. Watched a few of your youtube vids the other day.

As for the case itself. I watched the video and i thought to myself that this case wont SPCR quiet unfortunately. The case is made of Al, which is known for resonance since its so thin and light. The HDD is hardbolted to the main suppport structure. All the vibrations from the HDD is directly transfered to whole case.

I would suggest to suspend the the HDD (use a 2.5" instead if there isnt a space in the case) and apply dampening foam to the cover (if you havent already)

tomy
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:48 pm

*chuckle*

Post by tomy » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:41 pm

hehe, i think its kinda cute, looks like a fat little pig

Bluefront
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 5316
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2003 2:19 pm
Location: St Louis (county) Missouri USA

Post by Bluefront » Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:37 am

It's not easy to design a case that is perfect for everybody. From the looks department.....very nice looking, from every angle, with a unique look to it that obviously lends itself to many custom designs.

After that.....the assembly looks to be a bear. I guess the extra PSU wires are stuffed into an unused 5.25" bay. (can't watch videos). This is a big case...1.5X as wide as normal and as tall and deep as a mid-sized tower. On the desk-top it would be massive, on the floor....too short.

If you actually tried to use four hard drives, the noise and temperatures of the drives would be excessive. Laptop drives might solve that problem, but who wants four 2.5" drives? The extra spaces would go un-used. I think two 3.5" bays with better suspension would be much more useful.

Airflow.....most from the lower front of the case, leaving a wide-open path for noise to escape. Then there is a big open space below the bottom 5.25" bay, nice for airflow, but making the case un-necessarily large. The upper vent hole will probably act as an intake, but the airflow will short-circuit all the hot components, making it's presence an appearance item only. If you add two exhaust fans to the right side (the picture shows only one), the drives on the right side will benefit from the airflow, but little else.

Making a case that holds an MATX board horizontal, and that leaves sufficient room for a tall CPU heat-sink, with space for a standard PSU above everything, will be a big device....no getting around it.

My opinion.....nice looking, but hard to find a place for as a quiet computer. The actual build/custom modification is first-class, as usual.

Bill Owen
-- Vendor --
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu May 15, 2003 6:16 pm
Location: Mpls, MN
Contact:

Post by Bill Owen » Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:22 am

Thanks for the comments everybody!

I'll point Dave to this thread. He knows the case design much better than I do.

pcdlab
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:56 pm
Contact:

Post by pcdlab » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:17 pm

Bluefront wrote:It's not easy to design a case that is perfect for everybody. From the looks department.....very nice looking, from every angle, with a unique look to it that obviously lends itself to many custom designs.

After that.....the assembly looks to be a bear. I guess the extra PSU wires are stuffed into an unused 5.25" bay. (can't watch videos). This is a big case...1.5X as wide as normal and as tall and deep as a mid-sized tower. On the desk-top it would be massive, on the floor....too short.

If you actually tried to use four hard drives, the noise and temperatures of the drives would be excessive. Laptop drives might solve that problem, but who wants four 2.5" drives? The extra spaces would go un-used. I think two 3.5" bays with better suspension would be much more useful.

Airflow.....most from the lower front of the case, leaving a wide-open path for noise to escape. Then there is a big open space below the bottom 5.25" bay, nice for airflow, but making the case un-necessarily large. The upper vent hole will probably act as an intake, but the airflow will short-circuit all the hot components, making it's presence an appearance item only. If you add two exhaust fans to the right side (the picture shows only one), the drives on the right side will benefit from the airflow, but little else.

Making a case that holds an MATX board horizontal, and that leaves sufficient room for a tall CPU heat-sink, with space for a standard PSU above everything, will be a big device....no getting around it.

My opinion.....nice looking, but hard to find a place for as a quiet computer. The actual build/custom modification is first-class, as usual.
Thanks for the feedback everyone! :D Here's some additional info Bluefront...

The case is 1 cu. ft. (mid-towers are about 1.5 CF+) which is in the same size class as the the other SFF box cases such as the Qpack. Many owners can testify that it is certainly small enough to live on a desktop and fit in a duffel bag for LAN'ing.

It holds 3x120mm fans in a front to back airflow configuration (with the fans in the back to help with noise) and using fans generally accepted as being "quiet" running at 40-50CFM per fan will replace the air in the case in less than a second. No other case moves air this efficiently and quietly and you can find several work-logs from our customers who demonstrate this. You also may have missed that Qv2 is designed to hold a 2x120mm radiator for a totally internal liquid cooling solution which accounts for some of the added space you see. (No other SFF case does this.) Also, did you know that the current SFF over-clocking record is held with a system in this case? This alone testifies to the power and cooling ability of Qv2.

In regard to the HDD's, I'm not sure what type you're using or what your definition of "excessive" is but the hard drives are the first to be hit with fresh air rather than being stuffed in a cage as an after-thought like with most cases. The perforated sheet for the front and side screen were chosen for the ideal compromise of letting air though, keeping noise in and filtering particles out. This certainly isn't the first case to have a mesh front (helloooo... Lian Li....) so you should know that there are several ways that even a silent-pc purist can deal with the noise while benefiting from the added airflow.

For cable management, there are several ways to route the cables to take advantage of all the bays. (It would help to actually wire one to know this, yes?) It is also extremely easy to work with... more so than other SFF cases because all the components are tool free and removable. This gives you complete access to the hardware since you're not hampered by an integrated cage and have to deal with motherboard trays for example. Take a moment to watch the system assembly video and you'll understand it better.

Finally, in regard to the design, the case and cooling solution were built around the hardware that our customers want who favor high performance machines. If you want to use an 8800 card then it has to be a certain length. If you want to power all the high-end hardware you can put in this case then it has to have room for an ATX PSU. Etc. Now while quiet operation was a design consideration, this feature did not drive the design at the expense of performance. However, the machine is in fact extremely quiet if you use any number of products designed for this purpose.

I hope this helped to address some of your concerns... although there's already a ton of info on the net about Qv2 if you do a little homework. I say this not to convince you that it's the case for you, but because many can testify that it performs much differently than your first impressions of the Hot Rod shots.

Bluefront
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 5316
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2003 2:19 pm
Location: St Louis (county) Missouri USA

Post by Bluefront » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:04 pm

Of course I realize everyone's idea of "too big" is going to differ, as does everyones idea of "quiet enough". But I am looking at the case from a viewpoint that values silence over performance/over-clocking. And I have owned an Antec Aria which is shorter than this computer, and still looks too big on the desktop.

Open mesh on the front of the computer with the hard drives immediately behind the mesh.......an open path for noise to escape, right at your face since the computer is on the desk.

For certain if you turn up the fan speed to the max, the drive temperatures would be below 40C (maybe).....but at that point I'd have a head-ache from the noise.

When I read reviews from other web-sites, it is always with a grain of salt....because few reviews are written with silence in mind, and apparently few reviewers have ever heard a quiet fan, much less a quiet computer.

Sorry....can't watch videos with this dial-up connection. Maybe you could bring out a case design that valued silence first, above everything else. Too little demand , I suspect.
:(

pcdlab
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:56 pm
Contact:

Post by pcdlab » Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:30 pm

Well this is the SPCR forums so your desire for an uber-quiet PC is obviously understandable. :D

I will say that 3x120mm fans is really overkill with Qv2 due to the airflow design and most high-end systems will cool extremely well with just one or two fans... which helps with the noise. But ultimately, a case is only going to be as quiet as the stuff you put in it. Hardware mfg's have done a good job at addressing this need and anything beyond that takes something very special and niche'. Qv2 was designed to be a compact package that appeals to a broad range of applications for power-users. As such, compromises always have to be made when high performance enters the equation and we did try to find a good balance for users at both ends of the scale. If you look at the specs, Qv2 is actually conducive in trying to achieve a dead silent PC as you can fit passively cooled CPU/GPU/PSU heat-sinks with plenty of grill space for the heat to escape. :wink:

Fayd
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 2:19 pm
Location: San Diego

Post by Fayd » Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:57 am

It's an interesting case, but if i had to use it, i'd probably drop the HDD mounting tabs, and try to do HDD suspension in the 5.25" drive bays.

Also, i'd go with a ninja as opposed to the U-120 extreme. then i could do fanless, and get rid of the second 120mm fan (on the radiator bracket)

unfortunately, since the case is set up for negative pressure, i'd have to figure out some way to actively cool the HDD's, cause they probably wouldnt get enough airflow over them with all those other inlets for air.

LBadvance
Posts: 177
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:35 pm

Post by LBadvance » Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:58 am

You should also release a steel version with no mesh front. And pre-applied dampening foam to the cover. Bungee cords to attach hard drives onto. That would perform better in terms of silencing. But then again the market for silence enthusiast is much much smaller than performance enthusaists.

Jipa
Posts: 167
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 4:06 am
Location: Tampere, Finland
Contact:

Post by Jipa » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:05 am

The case seems pretty nice (though I'm not a great fan of beding the side panel/roof to get it in place.

Does one have to remove the entire "console" if one wants to change the PSU?

bendit
Posts: 223
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2003 3:43 pm
Location: san francisco ca

Post by bendit » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:11 am

I would say that only two 120mm hard drive bays are plenty for a case this small. the major problem for silencers though, is that it's built from aluminum and that 3.5" disk drive mounts are "hard". the case could be improved if silicon grommets were implemented in a mounting mechanism something like the Antec nsk2480.

chahahc
Posts: 75
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:52 pm
Location: The Most Mexican Place in the U.S.A

Post by chahahc » Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:46 am

Fayd wrote: Also, i'd go with a ninja as opposed to the U-120 extreme.
Erm.... I think it's an ultima 90, judging from the height and heat pipe configuration

Fayd
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 2:19 pm
Location: San Diego

Post by Fayd » Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:50 am

my bad >.<

still, i'd go with the ninja, or minja, if space doesn't permit, over the u-90 or u-120.

reason being, the wider area allows the fan to move more air across the fins.

pcdlab
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:56 pm
Contact:

Post by pcdlab » Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:29 am

We did have a spring-saddle rubber spacer mounted HDD bracket on the first model but that was actually reviewed as being "too flimsy" here. (We felt that this assessment was totally incorrect.) The saddle was split up and hard mounted in Qv2 to account for the radiator bracket but then I increased the rubber foot thickness to help reduce any added vibration being translated from the PC to the desk. But you could soft mount the HDD's in a few connect points if you wanted to as well. WD Raptors are our best seller so our customers don't mind if the HDD's growl a little.

The aluminum is all powder coated and the finish is a little rough so it doesn't resonate like a hollow smooth bare aluminum box. (The angled corner shaped cover helps as well.) Anyway, we also offer acoustic absorption matting (installed) that lines the cover which does a very decent job of eating up noise trying to get through the case walls.

In regard to the Ninja, the one we tried was a very mediocre performer. It worked fine up to a certain point but then the heat-pipe equilibrium crashed if you tried to even mildly over-clock it with a mid-level CPU. (I think we tested it with an E6750.) We were surprised at the result because of the number of heat pipes and fin area so it's possible that they cut some corners inside the pipes to reduce cost. Anyway, check the reviews because the Ultima-90 is generally accepted as being a far better performer.

Post Reply