Scratch Build – In Progress The Ultimate Computer Desk - 2 Integrated Desktops (September 1)

A New Face Plate

Thanks Ream, kitten pics have been on hold yet again, sorry!

They're coming!

Dontcha worry, I've got a stack of photos to go through!

Thank you sir!

I guess it's been a while eh!

Well, you'll be glad to know, that I'm actually almost done. There've been a few changes to the original plan, etc, etc, but I've still been goign full steam ahead, just not a lot of time to post updates lately.

Here you go, some photo bombardment!

First off, my awful cutting job. Notice how the masking tape ripped off some of the polyurethane? Looks pretty great eh.. (NOT!)



Fitting my original faceplate design



I thought it didn't look too bad, but the USB ports were difficult to secure, and there were no audio jacks, so I went about and redesigned a new face plate



Did some work with the band saw, scroll saw, and some sanding, and voila!





Looks not terrible eh? That's a nice unit from Silverstone that I picked up from my local computer store. Everything fits real nice and tight



Holes for the power switch and LEDs look good



And a quick test fit



Wonderful! I cut the hole for the card reader / usb with a jigsaw, but neglected to take photos...

Anyways - after a couple coats of black spray paint, I think it looks pretty cool.

 

Older Core i5

With the faceplate out of the way, and hopefully, the last of the drilling / sawing / making sawdust portion over, for the right-hand cabinet, it meant I had the all clear to install more hardware.

Here are the two hard-drive trays with the actual HDD trays removed.



Gave them a nice coat of black spray paint and they mounted them inside the cabinet. I think they look pretty groovy.



Even groovier loaded up with hard drives.. (Two missing in this pic, 7TB total, however!)




Now, before we get to the next pic... another boon happened recently - traded some of those Core 2 Duo systems + some cash and picked up a really cool previous generation Core i5!

Here's the power supply - a Corsair 650TX, a very quality unit. All that could be better is some modular action. Ah well!



And another beautiful Gigabyte motherboard - a GA-P55-USB3 with 4 GB of G.Skill RAM





Here's the sweet mother. A quad core 2.8Ghz. Wow, talk about moving on up the CPU chain!



I picked up an older version of the Coolermaster Hyper 212 (Not the Plus version) and mounted a pair of Scythe fans to it



Oooh, it's getting so close to boot time!

 

Thanks for the update

 

Anytime! Lots more to come!

Wow, with all those SATA cables there, it sure messes things up, no?





I went ahead and threw in my current video card (Radeon HD5770, which kicks some pretty decent butt still). I'm sure I'll see an improvement from my P4 3.2!!!



And here's the magical moment. It looks like it's already been tweaked around a bit. Running at 3.2Ghz instead of 2.8Ghz, RAM speed up to 1600Mhz... Hey - nice temps! That's only a few degrees over ambient! (It's chilly in the basement)



Only one major problem with this setup... Can you see what it might be? (Well, ok, there's more than one thing not "ideal")



That might cause an issue. I also don't like the way the heatsink exhausts all of its hot air directly onto the back of the video card, so off to the local computer shop!

This should do the trick:



Much better. Fits almost like it was meant to be.



Looks real good there actually. I think the wide fin spacing will be an advantage as well, since there is going to be a lot of general air flow throughout the cabinet.

 

HDD pron


What/how many drive do you have there?

 

Hey The_Beast - off the top of my head (I'm not at the system right now)

1 TB Western Digital Black (Main OS Drive)

1 TB Western Digital Black
1 TB Western Digital Black
1 TB Hitachi Deskstar
1 TB Hitachi Deskstar
2 TB Seagate Momentus

It's... a lot of storage space!!

So, now that the hardware has been installed, I can proceed to managing those cables a little. I first cut a quick piece out of 1/4" hardboard with a few strategic holes



Already much more to my liking. Time to place the new fans with their new mounting system



Ok - with both "plates" in place, I can cut the appropriate holes in the door and go ahead and install!





Woohoo, that blue furnace filter sure looks out of place eh? Everything fits, it's nice, snug, and square, so I went ahead and added a bunch of closed cell foam



Another view of the almost finished right-hand cabinet old i5 system





*Testing*

I've been using this cabinet setup for a little while now, and I'm happy to report that the temperatures are really quite nice. Because I've "sealed" the air intake portion, all of the intake air is coming through the blue furnace filter. You can literally feel suction if you place your hand in front of the filter. There is a massive amount of air coming out of the CPU hole, as well as the open PCI slots, power supply exhaust, and the half inch of space between the door and the "non-intake-area". (You can see in the previous photos, I did not put foam around the entire door perimeter).

So far it has been idling at ambient (23-25) and at maximum, just under 50 degrees Celcius.

I can hear the fans running - they are louder than all of the hard drives spinning up. I am going to get a small fan controller and get them down to the minimum speed while maintaining these current temperatures (There is a very large amount of air running through the case).

*To Do*

I have clearly got to find something to either replace the blue furnace filter, or cover it up with something a little more visually appealing.

Also, I need something to cover the CPU exhaust area. It will need to match whatever I do for the furnace filter area.

'Til next time!

 

You could always put some modders mesh on the outside, painted black to match the other fixtures
http://www.mnpctech.com/moddersmesh.html

and then use an odor ban filter (only because they come black, might be able to find other colored filters) behind the mesh to hide it all
http://www.thefilterstore.com/odorban.htm

I am sure you can find other creative ways to change the color of the filter, but this was what came to mind.

Nano

 

Made me laugh! Lovely build and kittens

Just wait untill you find one hiding out in your newly finished desk

 

I have to say the desk is beautiful and outstanding job on the whole build. I have one comment and not trying to be petty but That face plate needs to be reworked to the same standards as you built the desk. It almost looks like an after thought, Please pull it off and give it the attention that it needs. Everything is spit and polish but not the face plate you can see the raw grain in the wood (it could be just the picture) but pull it off sand it finish it put a clean coat of paint on it and put poly over it to make is smooth and shiny like the rest of the build.

Mechh69

 

Thanks for the links - pretty much what I'm looking for. Will have to look around a little I think

lol, wouldn't that be funny - oh no! Kitten in the intake!

Thanks Mechh69 - no worries - I agree with you actually. The faceplate isn't quite up to spec and I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it yet.

On the other end of the desk, things have been progressing along nicely as well - had this beauty cut for me



Placing it in the hole, it sits just a little bit too large. The original square I cut out was about a millimetre smaller on one end than the other



So I took out the trusty chisel and did a bit of shaving!





There we go!





Mm, starting to look so awesome!





The foam fan-holder will have to say bye-bye on this side, just like the one in the right-hand cabinet. Doesn't quite look right.

 

Thank you for taking that in to consideration and not getting offended.

 

Very nice progress

 

this is so awesome!