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Scratch Build – In Progress PC built into a desk

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by rhiridflaidd, 17 May 2011.

  1. rhiridflaidd

    rhiridflaidd What's a Dremel?

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    Here's something I prepared earlier - with the help of a patient carpenter, who I know well.


    [​IMG]

    And with a little bit of work with a saw and a chisel


    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]

    Is my desktop. I indulged myself with a new keyboard and mouse.

    [​IMG]

    The on off switch, keeping the purely minimal style. This is the only decent photograph in this series.

    [​IMG]

    Opens up like this.

    [​IMG]

    As you can see, cable management is not my strong point.


    The pump on elastic is one of my better ideas. It makes the pump more or less utterly silent. If you have a big case that won't move much, try it. I am a fan of mounting things on elastic. Works to make hard drives quiet too.

    THe waterblock was not made for this socket size, so I had to make my own clamp to hold it stuck......As much as I can say is that it works.

    THe PC is an old core 2 quad, so this is a re-boxing really.

    On seeing the article about the desk built PC that was featured I thought I'd show this effort.

    I think I'll put the radiator under the floor. Heat is an issue at the moment - the airflow isn't good enough, I think I'll build a new door with holes in it.

    My only worry about underfloor is mice. Some way of knowing if there is insufficient water flow would be really useful just in case they have a nibble at the pipes - or perhaps I'll buy some chicken wire!

    Any advice about any tricks to tidy it all up would be welcome!!!
     
    Last edited: 17 May 2011
  2. PureSilver

    PureSilver E-tailer Tailor

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    If you can work with wood, the first thing I'd suggest to tidy it up is a motherboard backplate that goes behind your existing backplate, and has cable routing slots cut into it only where cables come through to the motherboard. That will mean that only cables you have to see will be seen; the rest will be hidden behind the plate and can be boxed in elsewhere, too. Cable-tying things into bunches also works.

    Regarding the radiator, where is it at the moment? If you're worried about mice, copper piping is usually impervious to small nibbling things, so you can just transition to copper inside the computer's space. Some other desk builds on here have placed radiators outside, in the house cold water tank, and even in the crawlspace under the building to help displace heat. Noisy pumps can join them to help distance yourself further from the noise. Some watercooling kit can sense flow rate and pull emergency shutdowns below a certain level - the primary safety though is definitely your motherboard's own temperature shutdown (see if you can adjust that to a lower temperature).
     
  3. cchr

    cchr Minimodder

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    i'm a bit considered with airflow on this one, i dont see any ventilation
     
  4. rhiridflaidd

    rhiridflaidd What's a Dremel?

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    The ventilation goes through an un-pictured grille that sits behind the door at the moment. It's not enough - but if I move the radiator from there and put it under the floor, the airflow could improve. At the moment I open the door when gaming :p -

    In the crawlspace under the floor is the idea.

    Transitioning to copper - sounds ideal - can you tell me how to do this?

    A problem of using a backplate is that the cables form the power supply will struggle to reach.

    One thing that puzzles me is the conventional reservoir setup.

    Is there a way of putting a nice reservoir on the desk, using it to keep the head of pressure, without having the water having to travel the full extra path with 2 Y splitters

    Something like this??

    [​IMG]
     
  5. rhiridflaidd

    rhiridflaidd What's a Dremel?

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