So after a lot of fumbling around with several components, I managed to finish my build in late February last year. (been busy since then, so no post yet ahah) It started with what used to house my old athlon xp, a red chenming 601. Then it slowly evolved with 80mm Panaflo fans, then came the 5v switches, the HDD on foam and the addition of a Zalman 7000 al-cu heatsink and and vf700 to cool the GeForce 6600…and then it was noisy again…. You know the story…

The next dilema was, should I buy a new case, a P180 for instance or sould I get the tools out and mod the Chenming? Of course the later option was chosen and then the built began… but then components problems came in

First list of hardware ordered at the end of August 2005:

Goal : Overclocked and silent mid range gaming pc

DFI nf4 UT motherboard
Athlon XP 3200+
ATI X800XL
OCZ 2GB platiniun
WD 200GB hdd
Seasonic S12 500 ps….

And then…. Incompatibility issues with the mobo and the PSU, wasn’t able to post at all. After a quick search on the web, I was not alone and people were switching to Enermax PSU and keeping their DFI… no thanks…

In the meanwhile, ASUS came up with the A8N sli deluxe with passive cooling board…, I tought good choice! Got it, plugged everything in there, and poof, the harddrive litterally came up in smoke!!!! (Actually my old one and the new one…so down the drain all the data…great..)

And to cut the story short, I took the following list of RMA
- 3 Mobo (1 DFI, 2 ASUS but maybe those were good…)
- 1 PSU (the 5v line of my first S12-500 was faulty , you see where I’am going…)
- 1 HDD
- 1 keyboard and mouse…. (USB runs on 5V right? …ahaha this one was funny)
- dvd player
- and the CPU which we forgot to test between a few RMA, the earlier test suggesting the 3200 was still alive….but it was not, so that’s why I believe the second Asus was good, the first was DOA, verified with another system…)

So the final specs are:
- Asus sli premium
- Athlon 3800 + (thanks AMD)
- Seasonic S12-500
- 2 WD 200gb in raid-0
- Ati X800XL with AC silencer
- Logitech MX 700
- Zalman fan controller
- 3 CM 120mm fans…

Wait are we talking about 120mm fans in an early Chenming 601 case??… oh yes !
Ok I’ll just show you pictures of the build… you’ll see a SilenX fan in the pictures, don’t worry folks, he’s now deep in a box away from the computer…wanted to try something, wish I bought a Nexus…but then 30$ can for a fan, never again, same thing for the vantec sleeving and ditto for cathodes (too much heat IMO).

Pretty straight forward modifications, cut, mesure, cut again (but this time circles..lol), rivet the plates and put some egg shell foam to isolate all this…. I know there’s a window and foam will be kinda useless…well if it’s only from an esthetic point of view, I’t nice.

Pictures:














The HDD cage took longer than the case to build. It was my first time building something out of metal, aluminium was used here, and I wanted to have all corners perfect. Well they were not, but the srews holding the alu bars helped into levelling all that.

Here’s the material listing used for the cage :

36 x ½ in aluminium bar
48 x 1in. L shape alu bar
4 x S shape hooks
12 x 1 ¼ rubber o-rings
12 x plastic wire clamps
Box of stainless steel srews… 3/8 in length if I do remember…

The sketch was in my mind and inspiration came from Stefan’s and EndoSteel’s own cages.

Pictures :



So 14 months later, what do I think?

- the AC silencer’s fan didn’t like my multi % fan speed setup and died… with ati tools, it was much quieter than the zalman 700 for the 6600 and now the stock vga cooler is back @ 15% and idles a 45oC. It will raise to 55oC if I’m gaming, but then I raise the intake fans. Gaming noise > computer noise. Future : AC will come back in after rma (6 years waranty..)

- the rubber rings are starting to wear out. I’ll replace those with something that has better resistance to heat and wind (lol moving air…)

- the cpu hs, 7000 al cu, was still too noisy when on the lowest setting on the fan controller…. Well I plugged a fanmate in between the fc and the hs… very silent but temps are a bit higher.

- cooler master led fans are suprisingly silent…for the price 9$ each cnd . Well if we make a chart of silence / $, they will be high, but maybe the Yate loons will top them (next project..)
They do make a bit of noise when it’s utter silence in the flat, but then the silence madness has to stop somewhere…




- Approx temps goes like that :

CPU stock : idle /load = 31 / 40 (2400 mhz, 200fsb)
mild OC = 35/45 (2640mhz, 220 fsb)
current OC = 35/52 (2520mhz, 240 fsb)
max OC = 37/55 (2700mhz, 256 fsb) (Vcore limited…grrrr)

Chipset : in between 32 and 37 depending on the overclock. But I suspect it’s wrong, I came down from max OC, cus I wasn’t able to keep my finger on the chipset heatskink (the one on top of the die) and the HS after the heatpipe was barely warm and the pipe itself was cool. I didn’t had my temp gun so I’m not able to put some real numbers to the equation.

HDD : no more than 35oC under full load (temp taken with temp gun under the hdd)

Most annoying noise : speakers on with no music…buzzzing (altec lansing 601)

Future plans :

- will finally get a Scythe Ninja to go passive.
- plans of ducting the ninja and fan it for OC and off for browsing
- ducting the lower part of the case. Video card is flush with the hdd rack, we’ll see.

Future project :

- same system in a muffled (like very very muffled) P180(or successor) with a new gen graphic card (waiting on cooling solutions / and evolutions to decide)

So long post I know, but hey I just love silent computing and I just would’nt be there if it wasn’t for SPCR and all of you guys who brings nice silencing solutions!!

Commentaires et suggestions bienvenus!!
Merci a tous!!

François

Nice mods IMO. You're modding skills are good.

I wanted to mod a case which had 6 80mm fans but didn't have the skills so just swapped it for another case.

Nice job modding. But clean up the damn dust!

I absolutely love the job you did with the front and rear 120mm fans. That modding you did looks very professional like.

I don't mind the sound dampening material in cases with no windows, but it seems like a bad combination with your case with such a big window. I have a similar case an Antec PlusView 1000AMG (with a window) and it has tons of airflow. I doubt your willing to give up the dampening but it must be effecting your airflow b/c so much is in the case. If you removed some of that padding I'm sure you could get away with just a rear 120mm fan. The window+dampening just hurts the overall stylish look I think.

Thanks!

I know sound dampening and window is like winter tires on a RWD car... you can improve but limits are already set..

The only way to counter that would have been using a very thick plexiglass window, but given the cost, i just dropped the idea.

Airflow is impressive, the upper part of the case 5 1/4 bays and psu are all ducted with foam so air is channeled over the cpu hs to get out.

About the rear fan, it's nearly useless. Low or high speed, temps wont change and i can't tell any differences even at full load. But the two intake fans, the lower one as an immediate effect on the MB chipset and the upper one is cooling the cpu quite nicely... i can shave off nearly 5oC even with the heatsink fan at his lowest rpm. On my previous setup, rear was set as an intake and temps dropped by 2 to 4oC... so maybe



Oh and one more thing about the rear fan, it creates resonnance in the case(maybe the window amplifies all that) so i always keep it a the lowest voltage possible

The cage might look big, but the way i've done it, airflow is not that impeded (?) that much.

About the dust, it's gonne be taken care of soon, Ninja is on the way.

Foam is a 2 layer construction, 1 is a mat , about 3/8 thick, for wood flooring and the other is eggshell foam used in casing.

Nice work--I'm always jealous of folks with the tools, materials, and training (and sympathetic/non-existent SO's) to do stuff I just wouldn't be able to do at the moment.

Should soft mount your case fans though...though I dunno if you made the holes a little too big for that?

Really nice job you did on chieftec. Since I have same case, I got some useful pointers of how to modify it. Keep up doing the good work

I have one question though. Seeing the pictures I noticed you removed factory spray. I was intending of painting my case, but before that I should remove original colour. What did you do to get rid of it?

how about archiving your (maybe just most important) data? cds and dvds are dime a dozen these days, c'mon

when i *almost* lost my entire My Documents folder once i decided to backup my key files at least twice a month and so far had a few situations where my uhhh gluteus maximus was saved by the backup discs

but i guess we all learn it the hard way...

anyway, some nice modding with good effect!