SPCR

I recently rebuilt my SO's desktop system with new motherboard, cooler and fans. The resulting system is compact, pretty and quiet gaming rig.

This series of blog posts walks through the build in pictures and words: http://zds.iki.fi/zds/projectlog/?p=223

Much of the time when you see quiet systems built, they either contain huge tower cases or lack game-capable graphics. She wanted neither restriction, so I had to built something reasonably quiet into small, compact and pretty chassis, and make it not die thermal death. I consider the resulting system very much a success.

zds wrote:I recently rebuilt my SO's desktop system with new motherboard, cooler and fans. The resulting system is compact, pretty and quiet gaming rig.

Nice computer. You should give more details on how you made/found the acrylic "S" and where to find the foam rubber that will not degrade when it gets hot. I'm sure people here are interested in ducting and materials.

Dr. Jim Pomatter wrote: Nice computer. You should give more details on how you made/found the acrylic "S" and where to find the foam rubber that will not degrade when it gets hot. I'm sure people here are interested in ducting and materials.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll add more images and explanation about those within few days.

The rubber foam I used is actually pipe insulation material, I just picked variety that's meant for large pipes and cut it open to get semi-flat pieces. 3i Isopipe is the brand and model, described as "closed elastomeric rubber insulation" by the manufacturer.

As a HVAC material it's designed to stand varying temperatures and while I have no manufacturer data on what's the upper limit for temperatures, I've been using that stuff in my builds for couple of years now and not yet seen any degradation.

Why I like the rubber foam over plastic is that it has more continuous compression curve when subjected to pressure than closed cell plastic foam. With plastic foams it often happens that if you apply very little pressure they are quite stiff, and if you apply too much pressure they break. The rubber foam starts to give in on very low pressure, and still it has no practical upper limit (on computer applications, at least) where it would be "all flat" and not giving in at all anymore under high pressure.

In other words, it provides vibration insulation on much wider range of amplitudes and loads than plastic. The downside is price and mass, which are easily 5-10 times and 2-5 times to plastic.