"Failed" woodcase project

qstoffe · Post by **qstoffe** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:23 pm

This post is long overdue since I actually built this woodcase during christmas 2006 but better late than never... right

First of, sorry for the bad picture quality (taken by my mobil phone in poor lighting).

I had very, very high expectations for this case and in the end I failed to reach them. My "demands" where:

Excellent airflow.
This I actually got. Temps where over 20 (!) degrees lower than with the same hardware in my Chieftech dragon case. I've never tried a case with better airflow

Super noise dampening/absorbing
Biiiig disappointment here. The foam combined with the MDF wood did very little to cancel out noise. I had hoped I would be able to increase my fan speeds without noticeably added noise. Not so . In fact noise levels where about the same as in the Chieftech case, maybe a little better but not by much. I suspect this is because the rather large intake hole in the bottom of the case. If I were to build another case I would definitely make the intake smaller (and thus sacrificing som airflow).

Clean interieor (goes with airflow)
This I achieved partly. No unnecessary blocking of case structure, pretty much one big open space. Although cable management was quite awful. If I would have decided to use this case I would have fixed this... somehow.

Super good looking (Style it baby)
Failed this one horribly. From the start I had planned to buy the nicest posters I could find and paste them on the outside of the case. Then I would put some transparent "protection film" over the posters to protect them from damage. Never got to this as I abandoned the project before it was complete. I got a little sloppy when I put in the Power/reset switch and the leds, so they didn't get completely straight and some of the glue showed on the outside too .

Possible to carry without killing your back
Fail here too, well I wouldn't kill my back by carrying it but it sure is heavy. When fully loaded it weighed over 40kg. Ok I don't move my computer that often but it's a litte to big and heavy for my liking.

All in all temps/airflow is excellent, noise OK... but it just wasn't good enough for me so I abandoned it and bought a P182 instead. So much work for nothing

Well if I ever were to build a wood case again I know how I would make it ALOT better........ maybe some day...

For now I'm where happy with my modded P182 though. Right now I'm changing fan controller. I will posts pictures of it when it's done

Intake holes changed to only 1 bigger later on.

Here I've started to foam the case. The "holders" are for the alleycat hdd-enclosures.

Anti-vibration DVD-holder

Painted and "complete".

Cable mess .

Exhaust fan on foam.

2 Nexus fans at the bottom for airintake.

Motherboard seated.

Installed! Helluva cable mess though... .

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:28 pm

Well....you don't say what temps you got..what fan RPMs..undervolting..etc.

You got a 20C temp drop? Uh....to what? Unless you had been cooking stuff--temps over 50C....the 20C temp drop IS your noise reduction-unrealized because you have too many fans going too fast...you GOT a big efficiency increase somewhere but needed to reduce the moving parts (fans mostly) You seemed to have 2 intakes and a PSU fan right at that big open slot on the side. Run each at 1200 and that adds up to plenty of noise the case does not block at all.. Had that bottom chamber only been open at the rear...or only had the PSU fan....ZERO intake fans-passive inlet -- yu'd get much less noise.

Trekmeister · Post by **Trekmeister** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:38 pm

What was the largest source of noise, if you don't mind me asking

.

Looking at the pictures the two bottom nexus fans seem to be a bit restricted on the outlet side. That might cause some of the noise.

How fast did you run the fans? Nexus @1000rpm is quite noticeable even in my (way too) noisy computer room.

qstoffe · Post by **qstoffe** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:14 pm

ronrem wrote:Well....you don't say what temps you got..what fan RPMs..undervolting..etc.

I had the same number of fans in my chieftech case as I had in the woodcase. They were also running at the same speed.

-CPU: E6600 @ Stock with a ninja cooler
-GFX: 8800GTX @ Stock with stock cooler
-2xSeagate.10 drives inside alleycat enclosures.
-PSU: Corsair 520W
-3xNexus 120mm @ 5V
-1xScythe 120mm @ 5V (Ninja fan)

Temps in the chieftech (taken with coretemp and Rivatuner):

CPU: 58 @ idle and 79 @ load
GFX: 70 @ idle and 90 @ load

In the woodcase the temps were almost exactly 20 degrees lower. My roomtemp is around 26 degrees.

Trekmeister wrote:What was the largest source of noise, if you don't mind me asking .

Looking at the pictures the two bottom nexus fans seem to be a bit restricted on the outlet side. That might cause some of the noise.

At the time when I was using this woodcase my loudest component was the 8800GTX card. I was running it with the stockcooler but in my wood case the fan speed never changed from idle to load so it was fairly quite. In my P182 I have modded the card with the HR-03 PLUS and now my Corsair PSU is the louest component.

The clearance under the Nexus fans is about 4cm so I think it's ok. I can't take any picture of it though since I've alreade moved over all my stuff to the P182 case.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:37 am

Geez, that looks like a lot of work and a real labor of love. Too bad it didn't really work out for you.

EndoSteel · Post by **EndoSteel** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:09 am

qstoffe
I guess you've bumped into the common pushpin-mounting problem with the Ninja, try reinstalling it with a Scythe URK. One can expect 79C on a 65W CPU in a zero-fan mode but not with a 120mm fan sitting right next to the heatsink.