Worst Grills

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Devonavar

HammerSandwich
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1288
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: 15143, USA
Contact:

Worst Grills

Post by HammerSandwich » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:23 pm

I need a humor injection and just saw a terrible example, so I give you...

The (Unofficial) SPCR Worst Fan Grill Contest

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:28 pm

Great idea! How come nobody's thought of this yet?

HammerSandwich
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1288
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: 15143, USA
Contact:

Post by HammerSandwich » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:30 pm

The Pia uATX cube
Image

HammerSandwich
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1288
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: 15143, USA
Contact:

Post by HammerSandwich » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:31 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:Great idea! How come nobody's thought of this yet?
We DID go off on a tangent in Edward Ng's Gamma One thread.

Ralf Hutter
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 8636
Joined: Sat Nov 23, 2002 6:33 am
Location: Sunny SoCal

Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:34 pm

HammerSandwich wrote:The Pia uATX cube
Image
Damn, you may have the winner right of of the starting gate.

Do the cases that have no front intake at all count, or does there need to be four mounting holes in existance for it to qualify?

shathal
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:36 am
Location: Reading, UK

Post by shathal » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:35 pm

It's hard to name them by model?

I'd volunteer my 6 (!) 120 mm fans (ok, so 3 packs of 2) with which I'd intended to cover up my 120 mm fans.

NONE of them fit - at all - onto my chassis. Even withsuperglue, it'd be impossible to mount the darn things.

Not that it's a tragic loss (only 8-10 £ total, I think, at most). I just have now 6 fan-guards with which I can do nothing :). At least I've got free airflow now... enforced :D.

shathal
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:36 am
Location: Reading, UK

Post by shathal » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:38 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:
HammerSandwich wrote:The Pia uATX cube
Image
Damn, you may have the winner right of of the starting gate.

Do the cases that have no front intake at all count, or does there need to be four mounting holes in existance for it to qualify?
Mounting holes should be kinda required (or some kind of fixing mechanism). Otherwise, we'd just wait for the first "clever" guy to come up witha steel plate.

Though I'm quite impressed by HammerSandwich's example. Potentially a "killer in one". :)

Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Post by Edward Ng » Tue Jun 08, 2004 5:00 pm

Yeah, Hammer; that's.... wow. :?

NeilBlanchard
Moderator
Posts: 7681
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Maynard, MA, Eaarth
Contact:

That'll be really hard to beat...

Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:26 pm

...but I'll try! :P You know, they coulda' save a *bunch* of money if they had left put those FOUR EXTRA HOLES -- in between the rows of three just inside of each mounting screw -- but they were feeling *really* generous that day...:roll:

Two 80mm fans (Aspire):
Image
Coolmaster:Image
Enlight (no fan at all!)
Image
"Generic":Image
Linkworld:Image

ANY of these make an Evercase or a BQE look like fishnet stockings!

ecto
Posts: 106
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2003 10:22 pm
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
Contact:

Post by ecto » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:24 am

And I who thought my Lian-Li grill was bad.. what a fool I was. Well, it's being removed soon anyway!

Image

chylld
Posts: 1413
Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2003 4:45 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia
Contact:

Post by chylld » Wed Jun 09, 2004 6:04 am

this is an interesting one, proof that sometimes function follows form:

Image

look at the top left one in this pic:

Image

scary thing is, these are grills that are being sold retail atm. i find that a bit absurd, but i guess they must be someone's cup of tea :)

nutball
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1304
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:16 am
Location: en.gb.uk

Post by nutball » Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:02 am

Image

sthayashi
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 3214
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:06 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Post by sthayashi » Wed Jun 09, 2004 9:16 am

HammerSandwich, you finally found a grill that beats out my grills for worst ever.

My contribution again:
Grills
Intake on the same case

aston
Posts: 139
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2004 2:47 pm
Location: Victoria, BC

Re: That'll be really hard to beat...

Post by aston » Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:05 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote: Coolmaster:Image
Lol! That one's hilarious. It's as if they thought that the fan-shaped stamp would help airflow... that's what I like to think they thought anyway. :P

luminous
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:31 am
Location: UK

Post by luminous » Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:20 pm

Here is my entry. The machine in question is my old workhorse. The first 2 pics show the original intake and exhaust - for what there is. The last 2 show the mods that were needed to get some airflow.

The amazing thing is that in the original condition the machine worked fine for 3 yrs. Its one of the original Athlons, a whole 650Mhz

Image
Image
Image
Image

In the top of the case a 92mm hole was drilled, and an exhaust fan suspended. In the bottom a bunch of 10mm holes were made. The machine is then sat on 3 magazines to lift the front off the floor to allow airflow. Its hardly the best mod out there, but it was totally free as I had a spare fan :)
Last edited by luminous on Fri Jun 11, 2004 12:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

sthayashi
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 3214
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:06 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Post by sthayashi » Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:46 pm

Luminous
Clearly your case was built with the same mindset as mine (and IIRC, I got mine in the same era as yours). Airflow was clearly not a big concern then as it is now. All the heat could easily be dissipated by the power supply.

luminous
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:31 am
Location: UK

Post by luminous » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:25 pm

Yeah the PSU could take out some of the heat. But the big problem was that there was barely an air intake. Have a look at the base of the case where I drilled the holes. There is a slit in the front bezel for air. Bear in mind that the slit you are looking at there has been enlarged 3 fold by judicious use of a large file! No wonder my PSU fan was always flat out!!

shathal
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:36 am
Location: Reading, UK

Post by shathal » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:27 pm

I have a 386 that's still functional. I'd be tempted to bet that the critter only needs a fan to cool the PSU. The rest just ... doesn't run that hot :).

luminous
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:31 am
Location: UK

Post by luminous » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:36 pm

*sigh* I knew someone would come along with something worse than mine :lol: :D

Mind you, I think I still have my Amiga A500 in the loft. Now that thing ran at a full 7.12Mhz (afaik). If you looked closely, you could even see the clock cycles tick round :P

shathal
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:36 am
Location: Reading, UK

Post by shathal » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:39 pm

Ah - I've got 1x A500 and 2x Atari ST's flying around somewhere.

They should work too :).

Darn that nostalgia... :)

luminous
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:31 am
Location: UK

Post by luminous » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:51 pm

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Atari ST's - the mortal enemy of my childhood makes a return; and there are TWO of them :)

Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Post by Edward Ng » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:04 pm

My first computer was a Wen brand 386SX/25 with 8MB of RAM and an 80MB Western Digital. It had SVGA graphics, MS-DOS 5.0, Microsoft Windows 3.0 and a GUI for DOS, called, "Direct Access 5.1." It also had a high-density 5.25" floppy drive (the full 1.2MB, formatted) and a 3.5" high-density floppy (a massive 1.44MB/disk, formatted). At the time, I was only nine years old.

I remember FUBARing my hard drive with MS-DOS 6.2 beta and DoubleDisk...

I remember writing a BATch file with full color and extended ASCII menus that could make custom boot floppies supporting different types of CD-ROM drives for the computer & A/V tech in my elementary school (man I almost cried the day my Double-Speed finally died; dad bought me a nice, 6X drive to make it all better!). Little did she know that I was making boot floppies with Star Control on them, giving it out, and we were all playing Star Control on the school computers during recess (yes, whole games PLUS the operating system could fit on single floppies back then!!!). :lol:...

Thinking about it makes me feel old. :cry:

However, hearing about your 7.12MHz machine makes me feel young. :lol:

It's good to be average! :lol: :lol: :lol:

-Ed

PS Does anybody remember just how friggin' sweet it was to install Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and enable 32-bit File Access?!?

shathal
Posts: 1083
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:36 am
Location: Reading, UK

Post by shathal » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:06 pm

Tsk - is that the best you can do?

My (own) first puter was a Commodore 64. Lasted for years, that critter. Loved it to bits :).

My cousins started with a ZX Spectrum and later got a 286 (I believe the 16 MHz variant, though may have been less), and long were the nights of the original ELITE ... in CGA, at that. :)

nutball
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1304
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2003 7:16 am
Location: en.gb.uk

Post by nutball » Thu Jun 10, 2004 12:32 am

I'm a ZX-81 man myself, then BBC Micro 'B'. Man that thing was built like a tank (the BBC, not the ZX-81 :D).

luminous
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 717
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2003 6:31 am
Location: UK

Post by luminous » Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:25 am

Yeah, a BBC was my first computer. My Dad did a Viglen conversion on it to separate the keyboard from the base. Made it look like a PC.

The days where you could just plug in a ROM that would boot your machine are long gone...... :(

dasman
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 485
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:59 am
Location: Erie, PA USA

Post by dasman » Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:50 pm

Since the option of posting a picture of a piece of sheet steel has been removed and we have an alternate "first computer" topic -- I'll pick topic number 2.

My first notebook -- the epson HX-20, 614kHz of folding power, complete with a full size keyboard, 4x20 character LCD screen, integral micro-cassette drive and integral 24-col dot-matrix printer (think calculator printer). Had a full-size epson printer hooked up to it via serial as well as an external audio cassette drive for it. The printer (Printer? What was I thinking when I wrote that? Change to read Notebook) itself is 8.5x11.1.5" and about 3lbs -- about a weeks worth of run time on a full charge (ni-cd).

Still have it, but needs a new battery. Programmed my first engineering program (structural -- beam design) on it using it's version of basic. Amazingly, Epson still has a support sitefor it with manuals, troubleshooting tips and brochure :lol:


Dave


EDIT for stupid attack
Last edited by dasman on Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Post by Edward Ng » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:03 pm

Wow that printer sure sounds nicer than my first, a Panasonic KX-P1124i 24-pin dot matrix. I remember the day I decided to print the entire PKWARE manual out on it; my downstairs neighbors were pissed!

Definitely not a printer befitting SPCR standards! :lol:

-Ed

pangit
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 445
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by pangit » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:55 pm

I remember talking to a guy when 486s first came out (1989?) who said there's no way he would be buying a CPU that chucked out that much heat - it can't be good for the system, surely it would fail after not very long.

I guess he's still running a 386 then!! :wink: :wink:

(Am I right in thinking that before the 486 CPUs didn't even need heatsinks at all?)


"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be"

Edward Ng
SPCR Reviewer
Posts: 2696
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:53 pm
Location: Scarsdale, NY
Contact:

Post by Edward Ng » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:58 pm

pangit, the link in your sig is down. :?

pangit
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 445
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by pangit » Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:46 am

Yeah, thanks, I know. I've changed ISPs and been too lazy to upload it to the new one. Should be fixed by tomorrow though. :P

It's nothing special though, not nearly as good as yours, Ed :roll:

Post Reply