Scratch Build – Complete Wood Case - Onda inspired

Hi folks,

I am new to this forum, this is my first thread, so forgive me, if it is not 100% perfect.

This is a scratch build and I completly borrowed (if not to say stole) the idea from SaaintJimmy's Project Onda...https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?threads/project-onda.372917/
He won the Mod of the month for a reason - absolutely outstanding creativity

I hope it is ok to post this anyway, since I made a few changes for it to better suit my purpose.
If not let my know and I will delete this thread.

First to the specs:

Hardware:
Ryzen R9 5950X
Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Impact
32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3866 CL18
PNY RTX 6000
2x Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 SSD 2 TB
be quiet Dark Power Pro 11 750W

Watercooling:
EK-Quantum Magnitude D-RGB AM4
Alphacool Eisblock ES Acetal RTX 2080/2080Ti M02
Alphacool Eisball Digital RGB with VPP755
Aquacomputer D5 next + aqualis 450 ml pump top
Alphacool NexXxoS XT30 Full Copper 420mm Radiator V.2
Alphacool NexXxoS XT30 Full Copper 560mm Radiator V.2
7x be quiet! Silent Wings 3 - 140mm PWM
Bitspower fittings and tubes 12mm

Case:
Californian Redwood
AlCuMg1 / EN AW-2017
Frontpanel ZDIY-FAB 5.25 Inch USB 3.1 Gen2
LINKUP - Ultra PCIe 4.0 X16 Riser Kabel
Impactics switch 19mm IP67 silver/red

I am not a gamer, but do 3D CAD modeling and rendering.
My builds need to fulfill 3 criteria:
1. be fast
2. be quiet
3. look good

Well, I believe this one does...

OK, enough of this, let's get into it.

 

I started off by by planing and cutting the boards. I did not want to waste too much wood, so I glued a piece at the top and bottom to make a C-shape

 

Next I went to the CNC and milled all the necessary cut-outs for the PSU, cables and the connecting bars



The sacrificial board has two strips glued to it for reapitability from rib to rib



Since I do not have a router, I marked the cutting lines with a circle and then I went to the bandsaw...

 

A first test fit

 

I turned small pieces of aluminum with a thread inside for mounting all the other stuff



Then I glued them in place with Cyano




The cut-outs are for the DisplayPort cables, USB and RJ45 jack

 

With that the "case" is done




Now in case you wonder, the wood I originally used was Meranti, good density, good for milling, but rather fair in colour.
So I stained it in walnut...and I just hated the result

Consequently I repeated the whole process with Redwood. It is somewhat lighter, needs a bit more attention while milling, but then you just oil it and it shines in its natural color...as you will see later
I was so upset - I refrained from making pictures again...

 

Then I moved on to the fun part, milling the aluminum. I used 4mm and 6mm thick AW2017, which is milling grade and rather kind to my end mills.



A mobo tray, a riser cable bracket, SSD bracket, two mounting brackets and a holder for the Eisball. The PSU holder is already on a test fit



My machines are basically toys and sizewise I reached often a limit. Some creative clamping is required for drilling properly aligned holes and threads in the mounting brackets

 

A few first test fit trials




When it comes to mobos, I am an ASUS fanboy. So the Impact was my only AMD option. But the slightly lager D-ITX board suits the 420mm rad better anyway




This PC will host as well all my music files, so I wanted to add a 2,5" SSD somewhere out of sight. There is a 35 mm space between the tray and the radiator.
All the cable management goes there, as well as the SSD bracket, which acts also as a clamp for the Sata and USB Gen 3.1 cables

 

The 420mm rad is long, so there is enough room for an I/O tower. It made of a 80x60x3 mm aluminum square pipe.
This is unfortunately only available as extruded material, which is much softer and not really suited for milling.
It takes many shallow passes and patience.


Don't know why the pic is rotated back from portrait to landscape



I also made a bracket for fixing the GPU


The riser cable passes trough this tower, which is simply bolted to the mobo tray




And finally a top cover. The holes are purely for show...

 

It is starting to look promising



I need this one to sit left of my work space, but this orientation has also the benefit of all the I/O ports and cables facing downwards, so when everything is hooked up, all these cables are basically out of sight.
They all go with extension cables to the back of the case.





For the front I/O I stripped a 5.25" bay no name panel from Amazon and made a bracket for the PCB and bolted it in the tower. There was some tweaking with shims required to align it perfectly.
Quite fiddly work, so no pictures of this available. The panel though is quite nice, it comes with two type A charging ports, three type A Gen 3.2 and a type C port

 

Finally everthing came back from the local powder coater.




In the middle are a four small brackets for holding riser and extension cables in place

 

This thing is the least revision friendly PC I ever build
Assy requires a certain sequence and it is a nightmare to fit and hide the cables.
Once it is done and something needs to be added or changed...better throw everything in the bin and build a new one

So I decided to test it before assy.



What a bloody mess...

 

But here we go



By far not as lofty and elegant as the original, but ok for my purpose.

 

I'm both happy to see someone taking inspiration from my work and bummed that my design looks this good when used by someone else

Nice version man, I like it!

 

Nice work. It's interesting to see how different a vibe it is, where SaaintJimmy's for me had a mix of suspended museum artefact and retro-futurist device, this is a much heftier piece by comparison.

 

The only thing is...the GPU is whining and screaming

The 420mm rad handles the 16 cores quite well. CPU barely hits 60 °C under full load. I am fine with that.
The GPU, however... coil whining when rotating models. This is annoying, but I will have to live with it.
But the fan. The bloody fan. Even at idle it spinns at an audible 1200 rpm. Since it is a quadro card, no tweaking with MSI afterburner possible.
Under modest load it revs up to 2000 rpm, which creates a not acceptable noise when working.
The storm it unleashes at benchmark tests (+3000 rpm) is rather an artificial problem to me, since I do not have such constantly high loads when working.

Granted. This is a performant work station GPU and work stations are normally closed cases under the table (if not even in dedicated server rooms)
So this is my problem, certainly no design flaw on Nvidia's side.

Now what to do?

Water cooling a quadro, of course

Igor from Igors's Lab https://www.igorslab.de/ posted a youtube video right in time for me...


https://www.igorslab.de/en/nvidia-q...odification-even-without-manual-overclocking/

This solution promised even an increase in performance.
So I opted to change the RTX5000 with an RTX6000 (not required for the cooling though - both PCBs are identical) and the Alphacool block he used in the video.



I modified the block, however, and made a new acetal top, so it covers the PCB in full and not just 2/3rd like out of the box



This is easily done. Acetal is a very forgiving material when it comes to milling and thankfully all the water channels are in the copper block and the top is mearely a flat cover with the inlet ports.



I also made a small back plate, spray painted, no time for powder coating (the powder is a heat barrier anyway)
Unfortunately it covers only the coils and power stages. There is simply not enough space between the PCB and the riser bracket for a full cover back plate...



Since I can't integrate this one in the cooling loop without destroying the look, I oped for a remote cooling solution (under the table...)




And a proper cable management...

 

And this is what is hidden under the table.
It is a compromise I have to live with. Can't move the PC around anymore.
At least it is all detachable with Koolance couplings...



A 560mm rad and an Aquacomputer D5 next plus pump top, which I happen to have lying around (for outside testing, like you saw earlier)
The pump is suspended twice in the wooden enclosure and this one sits on some foam. All deadly silent.

All the fans spin at 450 - 500 rpm, driven by an Aquacomputer quadro (CPU rad) and the D5 next (GPU rad)

The thing is half a meter behind me and absolutely inaudible - even under full prime95 or TimeSpy load.
CPU never goes beyond 62°C, GPU never beyond 41°C

 

And finally, some more pics

 

Thanks SaaintJimmy, I really hope you don't mind.
Your work is a great inspiration

 

Thanks mate.
You are absolutely right. I was kinda shocked too about the size once I did the first test fit.
It is always a difference from CAD to reality...