wall mounted pc
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wall mounted pc
Incorporating a lot of stuff i learned here, i built this wall-mounted rig.
coincidently, i don't know if anyone noticed this but airflow might be superior when you rotate a motherboard 90 degrees. for example in the pic below:
1: obviously the main advantage is that heat producing components aren't sucking up rising heat from eachother.
2: vertical airflow is the natural path for rising heat. this could act as a pull fan (to some degree anyway) without the extra noise.
3: airflow is in a straight path and exits directly out the top for the most part.
4: wires were mounted behind the motherboard to not get in the way of airflow.
the goal of course is a quieter, cooler pc. on this pc, the phoenix bios controlls the fans on its most conservative setting and i never hear them ramp up.
onto the project. recorded temps/rpm's are at bottom.
these were all the parts, minus the vga card which had not come out yet. merry christmas to me.
BFG vnf4 ultra motherboard (really a modded chaintech board)
AMD athlon 4000+ san diego
NVidia 7900 gtx (PNY not overclocked)
Corsair CMX2048-3200C2
WD 740 raptor
Seasonic 430 s-12
Samsung cd/dvd combo drive
zalman CNPS9500 cpu heatsink
zalman NB47J chipset heatsink
nexus 120mm cpu fan
silenx 40mm chipset fan
the motherboard was chosen because it is one of the few that have the ram in line with the air flow. DFI has a similar design but i think has a clearance problem if your'e trying to passively cool the chipset with a large heatsink. the chaintech board has no problem whatsoever.
i love this video card. NVidia cards are really efficient. i tried to make efficiency the starting point when creating a quiet pc. it performed way better than i expected and there are no plans to overclock, and i game alot..a whole lot. highest temp recorded was 76 but considering the NVidia "core slowdown threshold" (throttle) occurs at 110 im not worried. it contributes its part to a 3dMark '06 score of 5040.
the seasonic psu is quiet just as people say. the fan never goes above 700rpm or so and is in-audible. modular wires would make this psu perfect. i had to stuff a lot of unused wires into the back.
the raptor is the loudest component currently. but being mounted on soft foam i dont see it getting much quieter. its barely audible. compared to the dell i had this pc is worlds apart in terms of noise.
there were a few unknowns, like how the vga heatpipes would function vertically, would the zalman nb47j cool the notoriously hot nvidia chipset, case grounding, EMI radiation ect. i never even built a pc.
the case was built for about $90 (everything from the local hardware store). i could not have done this easily without using CAD and consider it a necessity. here it is without the back plate.
the case cover was lined with a dynamat material. 2 square ft from the local car audio place was $10. it's a sticky mess to work with and i would find an alternative next time as it doesn't even stick well. the cover looks ghetto in general and needs to be redesigned. this pic is before holes were cut for the I/O ports. the open space is for intake/exaust air and runs the entire length so there is no place for hot air to get trapped.
it would be nice to have nexus make modular connectors on their fans. the molex connectors were cut off and the remaining wires re-soldered to reduce clutter. at 700 rpm the 120mm nexus is really un-audible even at 4am in the moring. the top corner of the fan is filed down in the pic. there was interference with the ram chip.
the silenx 40mm is just as quiet when spinning around 2400rpm. i really didn't want to use such a small fan but it was really quiet and brought the chipset down 8 degrees celsius at max load. it was plugged into the system fan header since the chipset fan header is not voltage-variable on this motherboard. at full blast (3300rpm) the fan is very loud and whiny..unacceptable for the project. but these two fans set at low rpm are fine. louder are the stock vga fan and the hard drive. p.s. believe it or not the fans are actually running over 1000 rpm in this pic, but i guess my camera shutter was quicker.
the front panel is from xoxide.com. the blue LED's (power & hdd) are so bright they light up a wall 20 ft away which is distracting. im going to disconnect them. a small aluminum mount was made to secure it to the case.
those are the project highlights. temp readings: are probably not much use except for general numbers since motherboards have sensors in different places, different sensors, different SMbus chips ect. i even get different readings with the same ambient temperatures.
i keep fans under bios control since they stay sufficiently quiet that way. speedfand was used to regulate them for the tests below, unscientific as they are. the psu and vga card fans self-regulate but i don't hear them ramp up ever. the chipset temps were recorded with a temperature probe inserted between the fins of the zalman heasink since there is no sensor on the chip.
room temp: 26 - prime95 (12 min small FFTs) - cpu fan @ 750rpm
cpu idle : 33
cpu stress test : 50 max
room temp 26 - 3dMark '06 proxycon & firefly canyon run twice
NVidia chipset idle (chip fan off): 57
NVidia chipset stress test (chip fan off): 60 max
NVidia chipset idle (chip fan 2200 rpm): 51
NVidia chipset stress test (chip fan 2200rpm): 52 max
gpu idle (vga fan rpm?): 50
gpu stress test (vga fan rpm?): 76 max
hard drive (WD740 10000rpm): stays around 39-43
comments/suggestions from friends & contributors to spcr welcome.
coincidently, i don't know if anyone noticed this but airflow might be superior when you rotate a motherboard 90 degrees. for example in the pic below:
1: obviously the main advantage is that heat producing components aren't sucking up rising heat from eachother.
2: vertical airflow is the natural path for rising heat. this could act as a pull fan (to some degree anyway) without the extra noise.
3: airflow is in a straight path and exits directly out the top for the most part.
4: wires were mounted behind the motherboard to not get in the way of airflow.
the goal of course is a quieter, cooler pc. on this pc, the phoenix bios controlls the fans on its most conservative setting and i never hear them ramp up.
onto the project. recorded temps/rpm's are at bottom.
these were all the parts, minus the vga card which had not come out yet. merry christmas to me.
BFG vnf4 ultra motherboard (really a modded chaintech board)
AMD athlon 4000+ san diego
NVidia 7900 gtx (PNY not overclocked)
Corsair CMX2048-3200C2
WD 740 raptor
Seasonic 430 s-12
Samsung cd/dvd combo drive
zalman CNPS9500 cpu heatsink
zalman NB47J chipset heatsink
nexus 120mm cpu fan
silenx 40mm chipset fan
the motherboard was chosen because it is one of the few that have the ram in line with the air flow. DFI has a similar design but i think has a clearance problem if your'e trying to passively cool the chipset with a large heatsink. the chaintech board has no problem whatsoever.
i love this video card. NVidia cards are really efficient. i tried to make efficiency the starting point when creating a quiet pc. it performed way better than i expected and there are no plans to overclock, and i game alot..a whole lot. highest temp recorded was 76 but considering the NVidia "core slowdown threshold" (throttle) occurs at 110 im not worried. it contributes its part to a 3dMark '06 score of 5040.
the seasonic psu is quiet just as people say. the fan never goes above 700rpm or so and is in-audible. modular wires would make this psu perfect. i had to stuff a lot of unused wires into the back.
the raptor is the loudest component currently. but being mounted on soft foam i dont see it getting much quieter. its barely audible. compared to the dell i had this pc is worlds apart in terms of noise.
there were a few unknowns, like how the vga heatpipes would function vertically, would the zalman nb47j cool the notoriously hot nvidia chipset, case grounding, EMI radiation ect. i never even built a pc.
the case was built for about $90 (everything from the local hardware store). i could not have done this easily without using CAD and consider it a necessity. here it is without the back plate.
the case cover was lined with a dynamat material. 2 square ft from the local car audio place was $10. it's a sticky mess to work with and i would find an alternative next time as it doesn't even stick well. the cover looks ghetto in general and needs to be redesigned. this pic is before holes were cut for the I/O ports. the open space is for intake/exaust air and runs the entire length so there is no place for hot air to get trapped.
it would be nice to have nexus make modular connectors on their fans. the molex connectors were cut off and the remaining wires re-soldered to reduce clutter. at 700 rpm the 120mm nexus is really un-audible even at 4am in the moring. the top corner of the fan is filed down in the pic. there was interference with the ram chip.
the silenx 40mm is just as quiet when spinning around 2400rpm. i really didn't want to use such a small fan but it was really quiet and brought the chipset down 8 degrees celsius at max load. it was plugged into the system fan header since the chipset fan header is not voltage-variable on this motherboard. at full blast (3300rpm) the fan is very loud and whiny..unacceptable for the project. but these two fans set at low rpm are fine. louder are the stock vga fan and the hard drive. p.s. believe it or not the fans are actually running over 1000 rpm in this pic, but i guess my camera shutter was quicker.
the front panel is from xoxide.com. the blue LED's (power & hdd) are so bright they light up a wall 20 ft away which is distracting. im going to disconnect them. a small aluminum mount was made to secure it to the case.
those are the project highlights. temp readings: are probably not much use except for general numbers since motherboards have sensors in different places, different sensors, different SMbus chips ect. i even get different readings with the same ambient temperatures.
i keep fans under bios control since they stay sufficiently quiet that way. speedfand was used to regulate them for the tests below, unscientific as they are. the psu and vga card fans self-regulate but i don't hear them ramp up ever. the chipset temps were recorded with a temperature probe inserted between the fins of the zalman heasink since there is no sensor on the chip.
room temp: 26 - prime95 (12 min small FFTs) - cpu fan @ 750rpm
cpu idle : 33
cpu stress test : 50 max
room temp 26 - 3dMark '06 proxycon & firefly canyon run twice
NVidia chipset idle (chip fan off): 57
NVidia chipset stress test (chip fan off): 60 max
NVidia chipset idle (chip fan 2200 rpm): 51
NVidia chipset stress test (chip fan 2200rpm): 52 max
gpu idle (vga fan rpm?): 50
gpu stress test (vga fan rpm?): 76 max
hard drive (WD740 10000rpm): stays around 39-43
comments/suggestions from friends & contributors to spcr welcome.
Last edited by picture_perfect on Mon May 08, 2006 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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That is really good looking. I want to do something like that, but realistically speaking I don't have the patience for a project this size, so I just bought a standard reasonably good looking tower case...
Now only if you could do something about the cables. I suppose keyboard and mouse can be wireless, but there's no easy way around the video and power cables. One thought I had is if you have a lumber frame house, you could make the PSU exhaust inside the wall and run the power cable inside the wall as well... but that's messy.
Now only if you could do something about the cables. I suppose keyboard and mouse can be wireless, but there's no easy way around the video and power cables. One thought I had is if you have a lumber frame house, you could make the PSU exhaust inside the wall and run the power cable inside the wall as well... but that's messy.
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Really stunning DIY project! Congratulations! You can tell that you've put a lot of thought into the airflow and thermal characteristics of the case; none of the fans are fighting with each other for airflow (creating turbulence and noise); each component has its own cool air. And using 100% SPCR recommended parts too.
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there is not much air flowing in that area so i would gladly hear temperatures from someone with a non de-coupled WD740. the aluminum heatsinks below (another trick learned here) surely help as they do heat up a bit .IsaacKuo wrote:Pretty slick! One question--where is the hard drive/PSU getting air from?
btw, you really have to be careful with these things. i may have ruined one in the course of assembly. western digital replaced it quickly in any case, so i highly reccoment them (great customer service). there is also free tech support for a short time.
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that's a good idea with the hard drive...dropped the temp about 2 degrees. Western digital says max operating temp is 55 celsius so i dont think its a worry.
there is just a cut-out on the bottom (below). with more time there would be a frame to mount the i/o plate and expansion slot covers. i thought i might get away without using a filter since all the circuit boards are vertical and may not collect much dust.
there is just a cut-out on the bottom (below). with more time there would be a frame to mount the i/o plate and expansion slot covers. i thought i might get away without using a filter since all the circuit boards are vertical and may not collect much dust.
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if you're serious i could. my dream would be to design this stuff all day you know. but working part time can't go on forever.
standard atx parts yep. there are a few other ideas though. one is to reduce the width by using some laptop components. a motherboard re-design could also help but that's way beyond my capabilities. a freind of mine even said make it modular - lots of ideas huh. anyway, my email is [email protected]
standard atx parts yep. there are a few other ideas though. one is to reduce the width by using some laptop components. a motherboard re-design could also help but that's way beyond my capabilities. a freind of mine even said make it modular - lots of ideas huh. anyway, my email is [email protected]
Re: wall mounted pc
Beautiful work - you have really raised the bar for diy cases - well planned & certainly well executed. I've been thinking of building my own case for a while, and your project is very inspiring.
Jay
What kind of tools did the metalwork require? Your cuts & bends look very precise - not something I think I could duplicate with the hand tools I have laying around.picture_perfect wrote:the case was built for about $90 (everything from the local hardware store)
Jay
Heck, I thought the width was a "feature", not a bug. My personal love of compact things would prevent me from going with a design like yours.picture_perfect wrote:one is to reduce the width by using some laptop components.
As a coincidence, my current build also has a vertically oriented motherboard but it's upside-down compared to yours. I need my ports on the top, since I'm just putting the machine on the ground. For compactness, the PSU is directly below the CPU heatsink, with fan flipped to blow upward at it. This works for me since I don't use high power systems--I can afford to "recycle" air from the PSU to cool the CPU.
This is one of the few custom cases I've seen that is a total departure from typical layouts without sacrificing ATX compatibility. I really appreciate your focus on locating and orienting parts for maximum "passive assist".
I would love to see a version for laptop optical drives and HDDs, brick/DC-DC PSU combinations, and mATX mobos w/ integrated video. Should shrink the size by ~6" of width and several inches of depth - possibly making a back-of desk configuration like Copper's setup (New System Build, with i-Ram, images here) possible.
Great work!
I would love to see a version for laptop optical drives and HDDs, brick/DC-DC PSU combinations, and mATX mobos w/ integrated video. Should shrink the size by ~6" of width and several inches of depth - possibly making a back-of desk configuration like Copper's setup (New System Build, with i-Ram, images here) possible.
Great work!
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i got by with a jigsaw and drill basically. its not like i know much about metalwork. in fact if you look it's mainly just aluminum angles. bending the cover was hard. a press brake is probably needed to do it properly. i would highly recommend finding a local metal supplier. i found out too late, its cheaper than the hardware store.Jay_S wrote: What kind of tools did the metalwork require? Your cuts & bends look very precise - not something I think I could duplicate with the hand tools I have laying around.
Jay
it sounds like that pc is not much bigger than the motherboard. so did you buy a case or make one?.. compactness was a goal of mine of course, but using standard atx parts options were limited.IsaacKuo wrote:For compactness, the PSU is directly below the CPU heatsink, with fan flipped to blow upward at it
It's just an open air prototype, right now, with the parts laid out on some cardboard and mobo pads the way I want to fit it. It's not as compact as you're thinking, probably--I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I'm mounting the fan to minimize cavity resonance/turbulent noise within the PSU. This is adding space between the PSU and the fan itself.picture_perfect wrote:it sounds like that pc is not much bigger than the motherboard. so did you buy a case or make one?.. compactness was a goal of mine of course, but using standard atx parts options were limited.IsaacKuo wrote:For compactness, the PSU is directly below the CPU heatsink, with fan flipped to blow upward at it
I'm making the case; I'm having difficulty figuring out exactly how to fabricate it since I want to make it out of clear plastic. Anyway, it could be a few weeks before I'm done with the project. Building the case is actually one of the least significant steps for this project. I'm struggling with the OS installation first--instead of a standard hard drive, I'm trying to do a RAID0 onto four USB thumbdrives. This is turning out to be an exercise in extreme frustration. I'm getting partial success and feel like I'm so close to getting it to work...but it just isn't happening...
See, if it turns out I have to give up on the USB thumbdrive OS, then that could radically alter the internal contents of the machine. So I really have to iron this stuff out before I can commit to the case design.
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This is a very nice setup with a pleasing overall shape. I do have a couple of criticisms/concerns.
1. Why not move the CD/PSU cables to the back of the case (would require relocating HDD/psu etc). The "front" of your case looks unsightly.
2. Figure out a way to neatly route cables. If you've gone this far, I would suggest a false box that is used to collect all of your cables which are then passed through a conduit. The multiple cables on the wall are distracting.
having said all that, this is way nicer than anything I could make so dont take it the wrong way.
1. Why not move the CD/PSU cables to the back of the case (would require relocating HDD/psu etc). The "front" of your case looks unsightly.
2. Figure out a way to neatly route cables. If you've gone this far, I would suggest a false box that is used to collect all of your cables which are then passed through a conduit. The multiple cables on the wall are distracting.
having said all that, this is way nicer than anything I could make so dont take it the wrong way.
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quite alright. and btw, i appreciate the great comments that has come from everyone and suggestions as well.
if i get you right, you mean move the psu/hdd/cd to the opposite (left side). i see no problem with that. additionally, a 90 degree psu cord might help...
a false box (open back side) to cover the bottom cables would clean it up quite nice i think.
thanks
if i get you right, you mean move the psu/hdd/cd to the opposite (left side). i see no problem with that. additionally, a 90 degree psu cord might help...
a false box (open back side) to cover the bottom cables would clean it up quite nice i think.
thanks
I dont know exactly what kind of theme you're going for, but I think your enclosure looks tough as hell. Everyone's talking about hiding the cables - but what if you did the opposite? Make the cables a design point. I envision a single big, fat techflex-sleeved umbilical containing all your cables coming right out of the center of the chassis, with mating 100-pin (or however many it takes) mil-spec connector. Like you see with some medical grade power supplies. Like these from amphenol:
Would take a good bit of diy-ing. You could probably also achive this look with a large compression fitting for circuit breaker panels & home wiring for a lot less money.
Just run all your cables through it and into your box, and connect normally - no trying to splice them all onto a mil-std connector.
Would take a good bit of diy-ing. You could probably also achive this look with a large compression fitting for circuit breaker panels & home wiring for a lot less money.
Just run all your cables through it and into your box, and connect normally - no trying to splice them all onto a mil-std connector.
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http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 885#262885jozi wrote:I dont suppose i could get them 3D fans etc of you as blocks for cad?
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well i though i would try to conclude this with a comparison of the same system in a P150. the theories that went into the wall case are put to the test 1) dedicated airflow and 2) as linus said "passive assist". its not always a fair compaison for reasons explained below but anyway..
wall case idle----------------- p150 idle
cpu--------33------------------------33
system----42------------------------35
gpu--------50------------------------44
hdd--------41------------------------36
wall case stressed------------P150 stressed
cpu--------43-------------------------45
system----47-------------------------39
gpu--------77-------------------------71
hdd--------41-------------------------36
cpu temps - were equal even though the P150 had an extra case fan. i would call it a sucess given equal airflow.
system temps - were great in the new P150 but i can't comment on why exactly since i dont know where the sensor is. the case fan helped.
gpu temps - a no brainer. the heatpipes are now mounted correctly, but it was fun to see how much better the P150 would do.
hdd - this is the one situation where it would be hard to beat an ATX case...every fan in the computer draws air past the drive. thats probably 4x more flow. the drive's heat didn't seem to bother other parts.
it was a fun project. thanks for the input. im sticking with the P150 for now. to be continued?
wall case idle----------------- p150 idle
cpu--------33------------------------33
system----42------------------------35
gpu--------50------------------------44
hdd--------41------------------------36
wall case stressed------------P150 stressed
cpu--------43-------------------------45
system----47-------------------------39
gpu--------77-------------------------71
hdd--------41-------------------------36
cpu temps - were equal even though the P150 had an extra case fan. i would call it a sucess given equal airflow.
system temps - were great in the new P150 but i can't comment on why exactly since i dont know where the sensor is. the case fan helped.
gpu temps - a no brainer. the heatpipes are now mounted correctly, but it was fun to see how much better the P150 would do.
hdd - this is the one situation where it would be hard to beat an ATX case...every fan in the computer draws air past the drive. thats probably 4x more flow. the drive's heat didn't seem to bother other parts.
it was a fun project. thanks for the input. im sticking with the P150 for now. to be continued?