FINALLY I've put my case into use. Some of you might remember, I designed and started work on this case about a year ago.

I designed the case in QCad. You can look at the drawing here if you are interested. It's a positive-pressure case with the intakes at the back and the outlet at the top. I made it this way so that no direct source of noise goes to the front, and that convection works with the airflow.

It's made entirely out of plywood. All the woodwork was done in my dad's garage in the USA where he has some big machines and the l33t skillz required . I then flew the parts back home in a suitcase, glued, grain-filled and painted it. Then I had to put in the metal mobo-tray, cd-bay and some other stuff.



Notice the two Yateloon D12SL's are mounted on silicone cushions and held in place by elastics. The harddrive is suspended. The power cable for the PSU goes to the back panel where I put a socket there that I ripped out another PSU so that I can unplug the PSU without opening the case. You can also see the threaded inserts in the corners for mounting the side panel - I didn't want to use wood screws because I open and close the case quite often.



Notice the expensive "vandal-proof" stainless steel button . The two holes beside are power and hdd LED's (blue and red respectively), luckily I recessed them a bit, they are very bright! There are also the holes for frontal USB and sound ports, I have the module but need to sort the cabling out when I have some time.

Unfortunately the cooling wasn't as effective as I had hoped. With the big dust filter on the back and the loonies at 5v the system (motherboard temp, not cpu) would eventually overheat and crash. Same at 7v. Without the filter at 7v it works perfectly. I am looking for a less restrictive filter, maybe I'll use some mesh like some antec cases have.

Some extra notes: the PSU's fan has been removed, it gets enough airflow from the 12cm fan in it's "tunnel". I have added a fanmate on the cpu fan, and it's turned down to minimum (~1200rpm).

The stock CPU fan is the noisiest component in my system, possibly because it is not soft-mounted and so it is amplified a lot. At the same speed it seems louder than in my previous case, but the rest of the case is quieter, so it's probably just an impression. When I'm feeling generous towards myself I'll buy a ninja.

I can't hear the case fans, and I don't think I can hear the Arctic-Cooling Silencer, but that'll be the next problem once I get a ninja.

I don't hear the idle noise of my WD5000KS, I can still just hear the seek noise that doesn't really bother me.

All in all it is a success: I have a quieter computer than before, but I can still hear it when the ambient noise gets low at night, so there's still room for modding

It looks nice! That CPU fan has got to go, of course.

I still think you should have just gone with a normal flat top and left the PCI slot area open to allow air to exhaust out the rear. Not that it matters now, of course!

A fan on the PSU/MB wall pointing towards the MB might help your overheat situation. Just a thought

While I agree with Isaac on the top I think your present solution is cooler
It's a bit much empty space in it for my liking but it's neat anyway

The stock cooler really, really has to go

...I think that perhaps if you reversed the airflow it would cool better (e.g. intake is at the motherboard, the PSU is reversed so the fan points down, the bottom fan is an exhaust). Of course, then you'd have issues with sucking in hot air blown out by the bottom fan... d'oh!

Otherwise, neat design and execution!

-D

Both fans are intakes and the PSU lacks any fan