Looks good so far, but there's a few questions and suggestions. First, the questions. Looking at the brand new backplate when it came in, we can see a full range of the PCI slots (pic linky - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/progress.jpg) Yet, in the next case shot, the slots have vanished, leaving just the videocard's slot intact (pic linky - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/PSUIn.jpg) Second - there's no fan on that graphics card is there? All i saw was a silver fan hole. Not to doubt your plans, but you may want to have some kind of direct airlow on ther (and what card by the way). Next, onto suggestions. Looking at how the Deep Impact sits, there's about oh - 25 or so mm between it and the case floor right? and the case sits a good inch off the ground, so i was thinking floor mounted 120mm blowhole . Finally, nice idea with the mobo mounting system dude! Good luck and great project.
Wow, but aren't you the observant one! Indeed, the PCI slots have gone the way of the dinosaur...in Sprocket's entire lifetime there has never been a card installed in there and I wanted to free up the real estate for a potential exhaust fan. The graphics card is a dead soldier...it was used just to position the cutouts on the back wall. Whatever I end up with for a video card, I hope to be able to take full advantage of the upside down configuration and place a substantial sink on it. Actually, cutting the floor and mounting the Torin under the heatsink would be ideal arrangement. That would necessitate raising the chassis by about 4" or so to achieve the required clearance. Right now I'm trying to exhaust less invasive solutions, but your suggestion ( or something very much like it) may be the final decision.
Well, those are very good explanations. As to the open space, i would use it to hold a 120 mm fan, ducked to suck air over the VPU and it's ram. Also, if the torin doesn't produce good results; maybe TT's thunderblade will. It does 80 CFM at somethin like 25 dbA. Just be sure to duct over the sink so all the air passes in.
Yippee! Pics fixed. What a PITA that was...this project log business is more work than the actual modding sometimes. Anyway, distasteful secretarial work aside, I have made some serious progress on the case setup. When last we spoke, the main issue was CPU cooling ( gee, go figure...likeno one else ever has problems with that). I finally decide that the combination of the Aerocool HS and the Torin blower just wasn't going to work due to space considerations. Actually, there was a way that may have fit, but just to try it out would have required some irreversable case hacking- a risk I was unwilling to take. So the DeepImpact joins my growing pile of high-end ( and expensive!) heatsinks...hopefully it will find a home in the future. Grubbing through my pile of parts I came upon a stock AMD HS ( one of the good ones...copper slug, not just aluminum) that looked like it might be suitable. So on it goes. Naturally there was no convenient ( or safe, for that matter) way to attach the blower, so I fabbed up a bracket that mounts the Torin to the casefloor ( and, coincidentally, provides a handy place to mount a fan to actively cool the RAM modules....funny how that worked out...). With everything installed, I fired her up and held my breath. AHA! Now this is what I was looking for! Let's run Prime overnight and see how it goes... <several hours later...> Excellent. No errors. Let's bump up the FSB, vCore and vDIMM and see what happens. Well, this is what happens... Quite acceptable really. Of course there is one teensie-weensie problem....the Torin doesn't quite fit within the confines of the sidepanel. Projects about 1/4" in fact. Well, an hour on the beltsander and a bit of filing reduced the height of the heatsink from 1 5/8" to 1 3/8" ( 35mm) and the whole assembly fits perfectly within the chassis width now. Temps were unaffected. Praise the Lord. So now I'm just running her for a bit to make sure that everything is OK before I begin final assembly of the interior components. I'd like to find an all copper HS that is only 35mm tall ( preferably one with skivved fins, if possible) and see if I can improve the performance, but if not I'm still doing fine, I think. With all the parts in place I can now hack up the PSU wiring and custom fit the harness ( as of now none of the casefans are hooked up). Then I'll make some Foam-Cor sidepanels and do a final test of the entire functional cooling configuration just to make sure before I start on the outside of the case. With any luck, the fun stuff should begin next week.
It's an Aspire 500w. Currently running off it are: 36GB Raptor 160GB WD Caviar Lite-on DVD CD-RW Lite-on CD-RW Sony floppy Torin blower. All that's really left to hook up are 4-6 case fans.
Yea!! go Bandwith exceded on the ducting!! Go i love photoBucket Looks great on the rest though and i love the upsidedown mobo
Well, where there's a will there's a way. I guess those extra e-mail accounts do come in handy, eh? Pretty much have finalized the cooling on the motherboard itself...may do something with the southbridge in the future, but for now she's good. Here are the parts involved... Looks like at least part of the Aerocool will make the final cut...the fan has an aluminum body and is nice and quiet. The 60mm fan is the stock AMD HS fan. This is the northbridge HSF installed and a shot of the naked AMD CPU sink... Now comes the Torin with the RAM fan hanging off the side... Hmmm...not a terribly good angle on that shot, is it? I'm sure I can do better, but that will do for now. Last, but hardly least, is the lonely fan on the back of the motherboard. This blows onto the rear of the CPU socket and the northbridge... This mod has been somewhat contraversial since I first tried it ( I do not claim to have originated this mod BTW, I had never seen it before I tried it last year , but I'm sure someone came up with it before me) . Many people claim that it just spoofs the board sensors and doesn't provide any real benefit. That may well be, but it certainly isn't hurting anything and maybe, just maybe, it really does work. At any rate, with all these fans happily spinning away ( definite whoosh of air is audible, but no real fan noise...) my board temp is 17C and the CPU is 22C ( idle). It is cool and rainy here tonight and keep in mind that I have no sidepanels installed ( or even built for that matter), so final running temps will undoubtably rise, but it's a good start I think. Next comes the wiring...this might take a few days. Ciao.
So the fan placement in the back of the CPU socket really helps lower temps? Perhaps they should have included that capability in the BTX spec then....
Sheesh. Work for a few days, come back and I'm already relegated to page three? Time for an update I see. Much has happened. Sprocket's case has almost been sh*tcanned, but a fortuitous upswing in events has resurrected it and progress proceeds apace ( try saying that three times in a row...). I shan't bore you with details. Anyway... Where did I leave off? Right...the wiring. Well one of the walls that I had run into was trying to cram everthing elegantly into place, the better to facilitate a neat wiring job. I ultimately decided that a complete relocation of the PSU would not only solve several problems in one fell swoop, but was also the perfect excuse to perform one of the mods I had long wanted to try. How cool thought I, might it be if one PSU was dedicated solely to the motherboard and a separate PSU handled everything else? Pretty damn cool. And what if this new assemblage was mounted at the front of the case...why, all the wiring would be right where it needed to go ( or would be very easily stealthed). So we end up with this... The bottom unit is an Antec 380w and the upper is an Aspire 500w. The Antec feeds the board. Both units are linked and come on together. There is a standard power socket on the rear panel. Most of the front panel switchgear is done ( pics and more detailed descriptions to follow when it's ALL finished), including another of my beloved serendipitous discoveries. I kinda liked the switches that this case came with...nice understated look and a quality feel....but it was AT configuration. That meant that it had an on/off rocker switch, a reset switch and a "turbo" switch. The rocker worked great as a interrupt for the PSUs- no more reaching around to the back and fumbling in the dark to kill the power supply. The reset would be fine, except it had no separate bezel...it was molded into a switch panel. No prob...cut the area around the switch, chuck it up in the lathe, and wOOt!...instant bezel and holder. And the "turbo" switch? This is where sheer luck and good fortune comes in. Did you know that those switches are exactly the right configuration to work as a "Clear CMOS" switch"? Three wires. the center wire alternately connected to one or the other of the remaining two. The freaking connector was a perfect fit for the 3-pin CMOS header on the motherboard. Absolutely no modification required....CMOS can now be reset without lifting a finger ( almost...you do have to engage the switch, after all) or pulling the sidepanel. That sure doesn't happen every day. But now I still need a on/off switch. Hmmm.... Might be nice to have that on my desktop, mighten it? But not just some cheesy little box with a momentary switch in it...that would be declasse, what would be more ah, interesting? I know!... how about an old manual telegraph key? That's basically just a really fancy momentary contact, isn't it? Well, yes it is. Unfortunately, they are also considered to be "antiques". Read: expensive. I saw some exceptionally nice ones, lots of knurled screws and cast brass fittings etc., The one I really lusted after was $100. Just a tad (ahem) pricey for a simple power on switch. But the concept was too good to let die...let's get out of Antique Row and off to the surplus store. What an excellent idea! For $10 I got this assortment of goodies.... The electrical looking thingie in the lower right is a relay from an old swirchboard. The addition of a nice wooden base and an activating arm and I have a functional momentary switch. The thing has a million contacts, so I can really make it look complicated. Found some period correct cloth loomed wire to match also. The thermometer is 5" diameter...wanna know what case ambient temp is? Fie on you, inaccurate software sensor! Look at this instead! Should do a nice job of filling some of the heretofore barren real estate on the front bezel, eh? Last but not least is the Rotron fan. 6"x7"...115v.....240CFM! Remember that I relocated the PSU? Well, that left a rather unfortunate gaping hole in the rear panel. Rotron to the rescue! Should take care of the hole ( and more, actually). Yes, I know....it's gonna be ungodly loud, isn't it? Not when tamed by a household ceiling fan speed control ( $20 at Home Depot), it won't. So the hardware aspect of the interior build is almost finished. There will be some beauty panels to fabricate and a few minor details, but I'm actually further along than I thought. One last niggling aspect though. I'd really like to incorporate the receiver for my wireless desktop into the case. I'd need to run a remote ( or at the very least, external) LED to signal the status of my "F Lock" keys, but that I can handle...maybe even build it into the remote on/off switch assembly? It's the antenna that I need to research. It would be cool if I could use a snazzy little antenna from like a cellphone, but I know nothing about that technology...any input would be appreciated. I'll try to be more productive from now on, but I start a new job on Wednesday, so cut me some slack.....
