Totally unoriginal Evercase 4252

[Chris Chan]

Yeah. It's just another ECE4252 build, but with some interesting component choices. I'll get the boring text out of the way first:

Celeron 1.7GHz Willamette
Zalman 7000AlCu
Asus P4B533-VM board
256MB Elixir DDR2100
Western Digital WD800JB
Samsung SW-252S
Teac CD-56E
No floppy drive (my first floppydriveless box 8D)
Dell/Lite-On 250W P/S
Arctic Cooling 80mm intake fan
Evercase 4252 I got for $25 on clearance


Inside


Piebald front

[qviri]

Nice... at least it's different from all those Solo / Conroe / Seasonic builds out there

I'm guessing you have the side closed, and keep a positive pressure? Any particular reason for that? I'd think that the same fan placed in the back exhaust would be farther from your ears and therefore quieter....

Nice job with the duct, but do something to those cables, man. Cable ties are your friend.

[Chris Chan]

Yes, I do keep the side closed. Why would I run it with it open? And I do keep a positive pressure in the main compartment. I find it to be beneficial to the reduction of dust. My Dell used to be a negative pressure case and it got incredibly dusty. And I have a 2mm piece of plastic between me and the fan. I also thought I did a good job with the PSU cables. If you think that's bad, you should have seen how it looked with the Hipro 400w in it.

And yeah, it's loads different from the Solo/C2D/Seasonic builds. Silence on a budget ftw! The cpu/board/PSU were free, CPU HSF $32, HDD $50, case $25.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello Chris,

I've built a number of systems with the 4252, as well. It is an inexpensive, compact, and very "competent" case, and is a favorite because of the front air intake. The one downside that I have found is it is harder to "hide" cables, due to the solid inside-right panel -- the right side panel comes off, but there are no holes to run the cables through.

I notice that you are not using any exhaust fan. I wonder if you are right about positive pressure avoiding dust -- because the fan blows air into the case, and that air has just as much dust in it as air the would get sucked into the case if it was under negative pressure?

I wonder if the fact that a positive pressure case gets less dust, simply because less air is moved through the case? Because pushing air is much harder than pulling it? Here's a thought experiment; which way would cool a house better: put the fan in an attic window exhausting out, and open windows in the basement -- or put the same fan in the basement blowing into the house and opening the attic windows?

And if you know what a "whole-house fan" is, then you'll know the correct answer. I know from personal experience that you can feel air coming in through the basement windows, when the fan is in the attic -- but I very much doubt that you could feel air moving out of the attic windows in the latter.

Static pressure is higher in the latter situation, and because a fluid (like air) "abhors a vacuum", so it is much easier to move air over a long distance with negative pressure.

[qviri]

Originally I didn't see the intake fan, so I assumed you must have left the side open for the Zalman to get fresh air. Personally I never had a major problem with dust, but if it's an issue in your house/room, then by all means, positive does the trick.

As for cable management, it may be better than it looks in that picture... the thing is unsleeved and untwisted cables can look worse than they actually are. Still, you could move the cable hole in the duct a bit forward, so that the main ATX bundle exits right above the plug on the motherboard. The molex cables can then get taped up somewhere inside the drive cages, so that they're flush against the walls and only poke out where necessary. Tape is your friend, and don't let the fact that the previous version was worse stop you from making this one better

[Chris Chan]

Neil,
Yes, I know what a whole-house fan is, although we don't have one in this house. I initially left the fan in the front to avoid a 3-way airflow fight between the zalman, the exhaust, and the PSU when I was using a 120mm fan PSU. Now that I have an 80mm fan PSU, I'll probably pick up a nice low flow 120mm fan (Evercool Ever Green) my next Newegg order. And positive pressure cuts down on dust because in it, passive vents act as exhausts, as opposed to their acting as intakes.

[TheAtomicKid]

Positive pressure designs tend to collect less dust due to the fact that the air comes into the case through a single location... key here is to filter that intake. If you don't, you'll get approximately the same amount of dust in the case. The nice thing is, if you do filter it, the positive pressure inside, keeps dust out of things like your floppy (if you still have one), cdrom, cardreaders, etc... negative pressure designs suck air into the case through all these devices, leaving them invariably dusty...

I've heard it said that negative pressure designs do tend to cool slightly better, although I'm sure that's as much a facet of airflow as anything else. Perhaps simply due to the fact that you have cooler outside air coming into the case from multiple points, or perhaps it's because the exhaust for negative pressure designs tends to sit right behind the cpu socket... could be many reasons.

In any case, the few discussions I've seen on it, we're talking perhaps 2-3 degrees difference, vs a dust free case. Definitely a worthy tradeoff, since the dust can quickly make up the 2-3 degree cooling difference as it starts coating things.

Positive pressure for the dust-free win, unless you absolutely NEED every last ounce of cooling performance.

Atomic

(edit for spelling, etc)

[Chris Chan]

Thanks for posting that Atomic. I was going to form a similarly well-thought-out post, though I didn't have time.