Concept for a wooden case (56K warning)

[miahallen]

So, I've been dreming up a wooden case design for a while. So I decided to put my thoughts on paper (so to speak), using Rhino 3D I've modelled the basics here. It would be a workhorse for 3D modeling, photo editing, video encoding, gaming, and just about anything else What do you think?

Basic specs are:
CPU - Q6600 OC'd
mobo - GIGABYTE GA-N680SLI-DQ6
RAM - 8GB DDR2-800 (not rendered)
GPUs - 2x 8800 Ultra in SLI
PSU - SILVERSTONE DECATHLON DA850
HDD - 2x 500GB Samsung Spinpoint
Optical drive - whatever
Specialty cooling:
CPU - Thermalright IFX-14
GPUs - Thermalright HR-03 Plus
HDDs - x2 Scythe Silent Drives (suspended)

The three intake fans at the bottom would obviously be something quiet (Yate Loons) and soft mounted. Below them I would use an airfilter much like "bluefront" is always talking about (I did not rended it because I wanted to show the bottom better).

The the intake air would all be coming in at the base, and the exhaust would flow both out the holes at the top, and via the PSU fan and out the back.



The intake fans would prodive fresh air directly to the CPU heat sink. The GPUs would only recieve secondary airflow with this design, do you think it would be enough with the excellent HR-03 Plus?



If you look close, you'll see there is a motherboard tray in there to aid neat cable management.



Sorry about the poor quality rendering, I'm using a 10 year old version of Rhino 3D (V1.0), I bought the academic version when I was in school for industrial design (and, as you can probably tell....I didn't get my degree ) The newer version is probably much better.

[thejamppa]

Looks awesome. 3x 120mm Intakes = great positive pressure. No need to worry that much of the dust then. I like how you've arrange the cooling, making it run pseudo-passive for HSF. Looks good.

Is 8800-ultra sli needed, when you get nearly same results with 8800 GTX-sli and save some pennies ?

Oh, yeah, you could think to makesome sort of duct from 3rd bottom fan to your VGA cards... 8800 do run HOT. Especially Ultra. If you don't use fan for them, then its better somehow to duct 120mm fan blowing onto them. I am not sure if HR-03 plus is able to cool 8800-ultra in satisfactory level passive.

[Bluefront]

Beautiful design......but the devil is in the details. How much airflow is going to be blocked when the HD assys are installed? Don't know about the GPUs either....they may require a dedicated internal fan [s]. Looks like the bottom fan clearance to the filter will be close. I like to have about 38mm clearance between the fan and the filter. Then you'll need another 38mm or so between the filter and the floor. (Those numbers have proven to give the best/quietest airflow for me).

The big thing I'd worry about.....speaker/amplifier effect of the wood case, with all the hard surfaces. I suggest lining the interior with acoustic foam.....at least 25mm thick. You could enlarge the case dimensions to compensate. Without the foam, there will be fan noise amplification.

Nice looking project....good luck.

[miahallen]

Is 8800-ultra sli needed, when you get nearly same results with 8800 GTX-sli and save some pennies ?

Not at all, it was more for "proof of concept. If I actually try to build it, I'd be using the GTX I already have, and possibly get a second later.

Oh, yeah, you could think to makesome sort of duct from 3rd bottom fan to your VGA cards... 8800 do run HOT. Especially Ultra. If you don't use fan for them, then its better somehow to duct 120mm fan blowing onto them. I am not sure if HR-03 plus is able to cool 8800-ultra in satisfactory level passive.

You read my mind, I almost put one in by default, but I don't think I could integrate it into the design, and still make it easy to work on, so if I did use a duct, it would have to be added on afterward.

How much airflow is going to be blocked when the HD assys are installed?

Did you see the Silent Drive enclosures in the front, they are "installed" in the renderings. And I did tuck them in the front with my mind on cooling, I'm more concerned with the optical drive blocking exhaust flow. But with the case being 8" wide, I fugure there'd be enough room to get around the drive and up to the vents

Looks like the bottom fan clearance to the filter will be close. I like to have about 38mm clearance between the fan and the filter. Then you'll need another 38mm or so between the filter and the floor.

In my design, I allowed for 1.5" between the bottom of the fans, and the bottom of the filter, so if the filter was very thin, it would be fine, if not, I might have to give it a little more space. Between the bottom of the filter and the floor, there is only 5/8". But I consider this enough given that I have such a large opening (the intake vent is a total of about 17sq/in), on the other hand, it would be very easy to make it a little larger in this dimension.

Maybe you can see it better here:

The big thing I'd worry about.....speaker/amplifier effect of the wood case, with all the hard surfaces. I suggest lining the interior with acoustic foam.....at least 25mm thick. You could enlarge the case dimensions to compensate. Without the foam, there will be fan noise amplification.

I made the case with extra room for this particular reason

BTW - Bluefront's many posts here were the primary inspiration for this design....except of course that I place I larger emphasis on gaming

[derekchinese]

Hey its miahallen!!!!!

I have thought about building a wood case myself and I believe that turning your mobo clockwise (so that the mobo I/O is at the bottom) is optimal. In this configuration you will have your video cards in a vertical position and if you decide to use a fan, they will be as close as possible to the bottom of the case--and therefore as close as possible to fresh filtered air. Furthermore, the heat from the video card can rise up naturally--and no exhaust fan would be necessary!!!! Same goes for the CPU: fresh air from the bottom can be quickly pulled through the filters, and the exhaust can naturally just rise without any exhaust fans. Moreover, the exhaust from the CPU does not rise into the video cards. And if that is not enough, all of the cables that need to be plugged into your PC can be neatly routed through the bottom.

Just my thoughts though.

[derekchinese]

Also, you sure you want exhaust heat rising up into the PSU?

[miahallen]

In my design, I allowed for 1.5" between the bottom of the fans, and the bottom of the filter, so if the filter was very thin, it would be fine, if not, I might have to give it a little more space. Between the bottom of the filter and the floor, there is only 5/8". But I consider this enough given that I have such a large opening (the intake vent is a total of about 17sq/in), on the other hand, it would be very easy to make it a little larger in this dimension.

Wait a sec, I forgot the bottom rear was also ope for intake duties....that would make the total intake area closer to about 21sq/in

[Bluefront]

There's not too much you can do with a std optical drive, with respect to blocking airflow. You could do something like using a slot-opening laptop optical.....mount it facing upward. That gets the thing out of the airflow.

The other option is mounting the PSU partially outside the case (say half-way). My last three projects are like this.....all are fanless power supplies. This gives a much better airflow path to the top of the case....and out of the case.

[miahallen]

Hey its miahallen!!!!!

I have thought about building a wood case myself and I believe that turning your mobo clockwise (so that the mobo I/O is at the bottom) is optimal. In this configuration you will have your video cards in a vertical position and if you decide to use a fan, they will be as close as possible to the bottom of the case--and therefore as close as possible to fresh filtered air. Furthermore, the heat from the video card can rise up naturally--and no exhaust fan would be necessary!!!! Same goes for the CPU: fresh air from the bottom can be quickly pulled through the filters, and the exhaust can naturally just rise without any exhaust fans. Moreover, the exhaust from the CPU does not rise into the video cards. And if that is not enough, all of the cables that need to be plugged into your PC can be neatly routed through the bottom.

Just my thoughts though.

I did consider this option, but I mess around with my stuff too much, I would need a design that was more user friendly/accessible.

[MikeC]

Nice rendering. imo.

I have my doubts about the overall airflow orientation. You have the CPU and VGA heat all in a line, which means the heat is additive. By the time the air passes over the 2nd VGA card (looking at it along the intake/flow path), it will have been heated up by both the CPU and the first VGA. And with the heat being kind of trapped between the two cards, that top vidcard will certainly run hotter.

IMO, you're best off with a design that allows airflow to go between the 2 vidcards and out through open slot covers between them. This is essentially what derekchinese mentioned.

Ditto Bluefront's question about the heat belng blown up into the PSU, whose fan will be sucking in a lot of the heat being blown up.

You can discard any "standard" notions about PSU placement and put it where it makes most sense. I'd have it on the bottom sucking in air from the bottom outside of the case in your design, and blowing it out the back -- assuming a 120mm fan PSU as shown in your images. Then all the fans would be at the bottom, too. Bluefront's suggestion of putting it half out of the case would work, too, even with a fanned PSU & in the current position.

The optical drive -- you could just mount it sideways if necessary.

If the fans are spinning slow enough (say 800Hz) I don't think internal resonance/reflections are going to be as serious as Bluefront suggests. Some damping to reduce reflections might help, but more important is to make sure there's little noise to begin with.

[miahallen]

Nice rendering. imo.

I have my doubts about the overall airflow orientation. You have the CPU and VGA heat all in a line, which means the heat is additive. By the time the air passes over the 2nd VGA card (looking at it along the intake/flow path), it will have been heated up by both the CPU and the first VGA. And with the heat being kind of trapped between the two cards, that top vidcard will certainly run hotter.

IMO, you're best off with a design that allows airflow to go between the 2 vidcards and out through open slot covers between them. This is essentially what derekchinese mentioned.

Ditto Bluefront's question about the heat belng blown up into the PSU, whose fan will be sucking in a lot of the heat being blown up.

You can discard any "standard" notions about PSU placement and put it where it makes most sense. I'd have it on the bottom sucking in air from the bottom outside of the case in your design, and blowing it out the back -- assuming a 120mm fan PSU as shown in your images. Then all the fans would be at the bottom, too. Bluefront's suggestion of putting it half out of the case would work, too, even with a fanned PSU & in the current position.

The optical drive -- you could just mount it sideways if necessary.

If the fans are spinning slow enough (say 800Hz) I don't think internal resonance/reflections are going to be as serious as Bluefront suggests. Some damping to reduce reflections might help, but more important is to make sure there's little noise to begin with.

Thanks for the comments. It's funny you should mention PSU placement. My first design did have it at the bottom, I decided against this placement because I wanted fresh air blowing directly at the CPU HS. Imagine my images above with the mobo pushed up, and the PSU below it. The CPU HS would be sitting just above the PSU, and the intake air would be blowing right by it.

About the heat "addition" you mention, I also considered having an internal fan blowing over the GPUs with the expansion slot covers removed. This still seems like the best option for video card cooling IMO.

What really makes me curious is to see the HR-03 Plus in a passive setup with decent airflow. I know the G80 is safe to about 95-100C and that HR-03 Plus is very good at cooling it! I bet it would be fine if I had as much airflow as I envision. I'm thinking of the 3 intakes running closer to 1000-1200RPM. I know that sounds like a lot to you "ulta-picky" guys, but I run 7 YL 120mm fans at full speed (1350RPM) in my P180, and I cannot tell a difference when I turn four of them from 12V down to 7V. Sound the same to me. But, I don't know for sure, the more you dig, the worse it gets...right?

[WR304]

GPUs - 2x 8800 Ultra in SLI

With that layout the Thermalright HR-03 Plus coolers will stop you fitting the SLI bridge.

Some pics:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=38 ... pert&pid=4

You'd need to reverse the top Thermalright HR-03 Plus so it's above the card.

The main problem overall is that you're being too optimistic with the cooling those three fans will provide to the top of the case. The CPU cooler would probably be ok but the length of that first 8800 Ultra card is going to block any airflow onto the second card and its cooler.

Those coolers really need airflow directed straight onto them to handle a hot graphics card.

The Thermalright HR-03 Plus can't cool a 8800GTS passively in a low airflow case so there's very little chance of it working passively with dual 8800 Ultra cards.

[miahallen]

The Thermalright HR-03 Plus can't cool a 8800GTS passively in a low airflow case so there's very little chance of it working passively with dual 8800 Ultra cards.

Any reference, I'm very curious about the passive performance with this cooler, but I haven't seen anything published on the topic.

[WR304]

See nutball's posts in this thread regarding using a HR-03 Plus passively with an 8800GTS card at stock speeds:

viewtopic.php?t=40686&start=60

The only review that's mentioned successfully using a HR-03 Plus passively is this Madshrimps one

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=557

They appeared to have a gale running through the case though.

[thejamppa]

I was just thinking... Would it be any smart to actually place PSU in its own chamber with its own air take. If you let PSU do the main exhaust in that big chamber, doesn't the fan will ramp up fast? I mean you will have a lot hot passive cooled things in there...

You could mount the PSU up in side ways, so it would take fresh air from the side...

With positive pressure, the removing air is simple as making few holes and let the positive air pressure do the trick.

[Bluefront]

I've never built a tower case with this bottom/top airflow setup. Some of the setups I've shown have a bottom intake but the fan is angled to blow at the video card......like this.



You could construct a duct for the front fan, raising it slightly and angling it toward the GPUs. The intake would still be at the bottom, along side the other two fans. With that setup in the photo, I'm using a long rectangular auto-air filter on the bottom of the case. That angled fan is the only intake fan.....there is no exhaust fan. The PSU on the top is fanless.......proving this setup can work quite well, and quietly.

[andaca]

hotness... i like it

[miahallen]

Ditto Bluefront's question about the heat belng blown up into the PSU, whose fan will be sucking in a lot of the heat being blown up.

You can discard any "standard" notions about PSU placement and put it where it makes most sense. I'd have it on the bottom sucking in air from the bottom outside of the case in your design, and blowing it out the back -- assuming a 120mm fan PSU as shown in your images. Then all the fans would be at the bottom, too. Bluefront's suggestion of putting it half out of the case would work, too, even with a fanned PSU & in the current position.

Alright, so this is just a "quick and dirty" showing the PSU repositioned at the bottom. I added an exhaust fan above the I/O panel to increase airflow over the CPU area. I also switched the orientation of the HS on the top GTX/Ultra.



The problem here is now I have even less air pressure reaching the video cards, so I do not think they would stay cool enough.

[Bluefront]

That second design won't work nearly as well as the first. The PSU runs cooler....but everything else runs much hotter. One big problem you face is the cooling of the video cards, using those heatsinks that are partially insulated from the airflow.....by their location. I'd consider finding or making heatsinks that have a better chance of being cooled by your first case design.

I made a heatsink for my X800 that is not blocked by the card itself, and takes advantage of airflow from the bottom....maybe you can find something similar to this....



Also I would not hesitate to try a fanless Fortron 400w PSU, sitting in the original top position.....but moved slightly outside the case. like this....



With three fans blowing in from the bottom, and a good airflow path through the computer, you'll have enough airflow to cool everything. How well those HD coolers work, and the GPU cooling are the unknowns here for me.

[thejamppa]

Bluefront has good idea. Moving PSU out of the case would be pretty good. You could bild some sort of small holder for PSU top of the case. Wether its passive or active cooler, external solution would be very good for silent operation. How ever you need to probably get cable extension set or invest PSU like NesQ external 0d/BA fanless, which is mean to be outside of the case.

Here is how some guy turned his internal PSU into External one during case mod. Pictures and english text. That could help you think how you do with your PSU if you decide go external one.
http://www.metku.net/index.html?path=mo ... index_eng8

[VanWaGuy]

For years, I have wondered why Video cards were built with the heat producing components on the bottom side of the card, trapping the heat against the card.

Interestingly, you rotated the motherboad which could have resolved this, then use heatpipes and huge sinks under the card, still trapping the heat.

It seems you have two solutions to video cooling that may in part cancel each other out.

The pictures are awesome, no need to apologize for the great pictures, but I think the two big heatsinks blocked on the top by video cards should be reconsidered.

Sorry, I had most of this typed before I saw Bluefront's latest response, but getting a fairly open sink out in front (towards the drive enclosures), like the one in his picture would get it out in that nice column of air that you are going to have from the bottom front to the optical drive.

[MikeC]

I think you should take a close look at McBanjo's wood case. He's turned the motherboard 90 degrees (relative to your setup) and put the PSU in the top front. I'm sure the components are running cool. I'd swap the PSU & optical drive positions so the latter is at a more convenient height... and cover the top with a metal mesh. My changes would make it almost identical to regal196's wooden PC system.

[RAFH]

In my design, I allowed for 1.5" between the bottom of the fans, and the bottom of the filter, so if the filter was very thin, it would be fine, if not, I might have to give it a little more space. Between the bottom of the filter and the floor, there is only 5/8". But I consider this enough given that I have such a large opening (the intake vent is a total of about 17sq/in), on the other hand, it would be very easy to make it a little larger in this dimension.

Wait a sec, I forgot the bottom rear was also ope for intake duties....that would make the total intake area closer to about 21sq/in

You should note each of your 120 mm fans has a free area of about 14 square inches, with three of them you have 42 square inches. That means the air moving through the intake slot around the bottom will have twice the velocity of that going through the fans themselves. With that constriction and the filters, you are going to be straining your fans. That will make more noise and heat in itself, plus the noise of the air moving through the bottom slot. I'd suggest you give some thought to tripling the width of the bottom intake slots. Perhaps quadrupling them.

You also want to look at your exhaust vents and make sure they have adequate area, I'd suggest equal to the intake, at the very least. Perhaps as much as 1.5X as much. It would also be worthwhile to somehow baffle the exhaust vents so whatever noise is inside doesn't come right out the vents. And combination of 2 to 3 right angle turns should do the job.

For materials, I would recommend a high density particle board. Something that weighs a lot. Ordinary wood will resonate a lot. You can always apply a nice veneer to the exterior. For sound absorption delaminated cardboard (one face stripped off) is pretty effective. Make sure you mix up the orientations. Acoustical foam is better but also more $$.

You might also want to make it easier to reach the filters for cleaning and replacement. Being on the bottom, if you set the rig on the floor you are going to get a large load of dust and dirt, debris, etc. I'd want to be able to replace the filters without tipping the box over.

Overall, you got some good ideas going.

[WR304]

I think you should take a close look at McBanjo's wood case. He's turned the motherboard 90 degrees (relative to your setup) and put the PSU in the top front.

If you're looking at a self built case rotating the motherboard 90 degrees is going to help but the coolers are still a long way from the fans.

Breaking the whole problem down into seperate compartments to concentrate airflow could be an idea.

Some good examples are cmthomson's ducted P180 case

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article672-page1.html

Another one that demonstrates the idea quite well is this review of the "wind tunnel" used in the Silverstone TJ-06 case.


Silverstone TJ-06 "Wind Tunnel"

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-295-4.htm

Having three of those "wind tunnels" running from top to bottom of your case (one for the CPU and one for each graphics card) could potentially work well with hot components.

[Chris Chan]

Wind tunnels as in TJ06 would probably work quite nicely. I'm thinking of building my own wood case, but it wouldn'thave to keep as much wattage cool (P4 Northwood and FX5200) so I haven't thought of cooling ideas for dual 8800s.

[ronrem]

The rearmost fan blows into an open area-so much of it's flow just heads for the exits without much advantage. Have it feed inti a good size duct that goes up a ways then aims forward toward the Vid cards and that should help,

Up top is space where a PSU can be semi- chambered-especially if you use a passive

A thing to keep in mind is that you have the mobo forward-so all the I/O jacks usually hanging out the back-won't be. The layout of the illustration would seem to put all that stuff in the front. Putting the mobo/door on opposite sides of the case does fix that-though all the connects are then internal-so you'd want your door pretty accessable.

I'm not a gamer-am on a budget...so to me an Intel Quad and a pair of high $ vid cards seems like overkill. Move down one notch on the CPU,go with one vid card.....you lose a whole lot of watts-heat-noise and save enough money to feed a third world village. Much of the time you'd hardly notice the difference. To me Audio quality is real major----I'd skip the SLI thing to go with a nice M Audio soundcard instead of onboard

I actually do like the illustration...I'm not too clear on the method of posting an illustration/pic/jpeg here. Have a couple of rather intersting and radical layouts it would be fun to illustrate and post. Hat's off for NOT just going with the pre-fab cases. This plan is a good START...needs a few more tweaks. Do yourself a simple diagram to show probable airflow from in to out and see how ducts-baffles can help make that air do more for you.

One thing thats easy....add about an inch to the clearance below,those fans will pull easier. Then plan to set this on carpet,so the fan noise reflects less. Consider perhaps 2 140 mm fans or even the Antec 180 mm (200 with bezel) instead of 3 120's. One fan might be hooked up as if its a CPU fan-so it can be auto controlled based on CPU temp

[ronrem]

In my design, I allowed for 1.5" between the bottom of the fans, and the bottom of the filter, so if the filter was very thin, it would be fine, if not, I might have to give it a little more space. Between the bottom of the filter and the floor, there is only 5/8". But I consider this enough given that I have such a large opening (the intake vent is a total of about 17sq/in), on the other hand, it would be very easy to make it a little larger in this dimension.

Wait a sec, I forgot the bottom rear was also ope for intake duties....that would make the total intake area closer to about 21sq/in

You should note each of your 120 mm fans has a free area of about 14 square inches, with three of them you have 42 square inches. That means the air moving through the intake slot around the bottom will have twice the velocity of that going through the fans themselves. With that constriction and the filters, you are going to be straining your fans. That will make more noise and heat in itself, plus the noise of the air moving through the bottom slot. I'd suggest you give some thought to tripling the width of the bottom intake slots. Perhaps quadrupling them.

You also want to look at your exhaust vents and make sure they have adequate area, I'd suggest equal to the intake, at the very least. Perhaps as much as 1.5X as much. It would also be worthwhile to somehow baffle the exhaust vents so whatever noise is inside doesn't come right out the vents. And combination of 2 to 3 right angle turns should do the job.

For materials, I would recommend a high density particle board. Something that weighs a lot. Ordinary wood will resonate a lot. You can always apply a nice veneer to the exterior. For sound absorption delaminated cardboard (one face stripped off) is pretty effective. Make sure you mix up the orientations. Acoustical foam is better but also more $$.

You might also want to make it easier to reach the filters for cleaning and replacement. Being on the bottom, if you set the rig on the floor you are going to get a large load of dust and dirt, debris, etc. I'd want to be able to replace the filters without tipping the box over.

Overall, you got some good ideas going.

just want to say-there's some real good points here. Likewise with Bluefront's post. He "gets" that a fanless PSU is a PLUS if and ONLY if it's heat is not adding to internal case heat.. He also has done a lot of research on filters....a main point being you want to be able to remove and clean a filter and you get less restriction if its large.


Great idea with the cardboard. I had a temp job a few years ago bilding a special "recording studio" to record the language of Saels and Sea Lions. It was lined with these triangular things of perfed stainless steel stuffed with fibreglass. Any sound would bounce at an angle and be partly absorbed by the fibreglass.. The walls themselves were a Stainless Steel sandwich filled with foam. The whole structure especially was echo-proof and pretty near soundproof. The cardboard ridges are a good low cost way to get a similar effect. Some backpacker foam pads are ridged and would likely give a similar effect. Either material can be spray painted.