Beginner's Case Build - Plex

Hi All,

This is rather tame by standards here, but we've all got to start somewhere, so thought it worth sharing a beginner's attempted case build. Although I've put many PCs together before have never tried to build the housing so thought I'd have a go.

Inspired by DIY: 200 Dollar PC thought I'd have a go at a similar polycarbonate/plexiglass sandwich design. Difference for me is that I wanted 'full size' (well, mATX at least) motherboard as smaller boards are more 'spensive and slower than the one I chose.

The objective was to make a cheap, small web server from existing stuff I already had and a couple new bits. Parts used in this build:

- Shuttle SilentX 250W PSU (free from a mate after the rest of the machine died).
- Abit A78HD motherboard (cheapest AM2+ buy on the 'net).
- AMD 4850e ('cos I want it to run cool and don't need the extra speed of an Intel chip)
- 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 DIMMS (with heat spreaders).
- 2 x Seagate 7200 SATA drives (from another server this will take over duties from).
- 80mm case fan (from junk box).
- 2 x 285x425mm polycarbonate sheets (free offcuts from mate)
- 10mm x 1m aluminium tube (from Bunnings)
- 20x20mm aluminium angle (leftover from another project)
- 1/4" threaded bar + bolts (from Bunnings)

After modelling everything carefully in Sketchup with several designs eventually went back to pretty much the first one I did. I love Sketchup - you can measure everything out nicely and check it will all fit - was happy to proceed with the build on this basis. It would have been nice to have the PSU on it's side and put the HDs in the space the PSU ended up in - once I received the board though discovered it's heatsink was too tall to allow that so went with this:



The Shuttle PSU had a very short power lead. You can see what I mean in this shot of testing the setup with an old PATA HD:



Quick stop into the local 'puter store found an old PSU from which I cut 20 pin and 4 pin power cables to extend those from the Shuttle. Here's the PSU cables before:



And the 20 way join:



Basically, there's nothing much to say about the case building method itself... chop & drill some angle for HD mounts, drill some holes in the plexiglass, cut some spacers from the 10mm tube (12 spares actually - thankfully a new hacksaw goes through aluminium very easily!), cut the threaded bars to length for the supports and assemble.

Here's some shots of that stufff...

HD mount on a dead test drive:



HD mounts:



HD mounts with 6 large spacers, nice and accurate?



Plexiglass before/after drilling. Note the two sheets are taped together at the edges and drilled as one to ensure the holes will line up:





Checking spacers are high enough (barely!):



Mobo fixed to base:



Various spacers and rods:



The finished item:











That nasty PSU join:



I'm pretty happy with this to be honest, took a few hours but it's nice to actually make something 'real' (I'm a developer so it's all software usually).

There are slightly higher res images of all this here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/raintonr/PlexBuild

Lessons Learnt

Or things I'd do differently...

• I would stagger the 20 way power join with 2 or maybe even 3 different lengths at each side to spread the 'bulge' in the cable.
• I though the Sketchup model I made was very accurate, but didn't take into account the height of SATA connectors and had to use port 5+6 on the Mobo. Only through luck do they work - I mean, many Mobos might not let you boot from these or something.
• The HD mounts should have been drilled closer to the angle as there's 2mm or so of aluminium protruding below the drive. Tiny bit ugly, tiny bit of an airflow restriction.
• Cooling might be an issue, even with this low power CPU. I might drill some airflow holes above the CPU fan. May also install a second 80mm fan by the HDs or a row of 40mm extracts above the rear I/O.

 

that's pretty well done

i would replace the nuts with the ones closed ones if you know what i mean (ones with the domes on one side)

a bit of cable management would also go along way

edit. i see you have replace a few of the nuts but not all

 

Nah, the plan was to put dome nuts on the 6 'main' spacers and have them function as feet. The standard nuts are on the HD/PSU mounts which shouldn't touch anything this is sat on.

Dome nuts are 3 bucks a dozen or something, whereas standard ones are $2.50 for 50. Didn't notice this 'til I went back for a second look after purchasing the domes. Doh!

 

as far as underneath goes your idea is great

its the side that you can see that matters

also you might want to get some thumb screws for the inner side of you hdds, i can see getting a screw drivers in there would not be fun

 

The idea is great and I'm wondering how something like this would perform upright. As mentioned before, dust etc. coming in from the sides could potentially be a problem, as it's meant to be a low-cost build I see why there isn't too much cooling- although with the amount of flow (or perhaps lack thereof) in the case, a simple fan would do a great job, I think.

 

Yeah, in the pictures there was the CPU fan and a single SilenX fan between mobo + HDs (meant to be drawing air over the HDs toward the back of case). After running it for a while today the HDs felt quiet warm so I figured this fan was too weedy. Have replaced that single 80mm with 2x80mm with much better airflow. Drives are now reported (by hddtemp) at 31-32C.

Sadly I can't get lm-sensors to work with this board but have a meter with thermocouple which is measuring base of the CPU sink at 32C & mobo sink at 35C. It's 26C ambient here now so think these numbers seem reasonable.

Hmmm... dust? Hmmm... The idea is to have airflow front -> back so perhaps I should fill the sides with some plastic. I notice quiet a lot of air from the second fan that was added is just spilling out the side and not flowing towards the back as I'd like so filling the sides would help there. Then add mesh front/rear. Erm... maybe later

 

You need to do something with the sides otherwise looks great, do thoser psu joins have insulation?

 

I'm thinking of actually attempting this but it seems like I'm just going to be copying you!

Need to think of something original, but not really having any luck over on this side. I'm going to attempt it (if i do) using the D945GCLF2 atom board, which is the dual-core 1.6Ghz which should do more than fine for what I'm going to be using it for (just file-sharing/server hub). I don't know how high I'm going to have to make it, but it shouldn't be too much. How high is yours vertically?

In terms of cooling, just had an absurd thought, LOL! What if you had a massive fan on the top of the case, sucking air up? Not to mention it would totally kill the aesthetics of the thing (reminds me of the Antec Skeleton, really)

I think with my design I'll be trying to make it less square and make it more, well, 'wide-screen'?

EDIT: how much did the plexiglass end up costing you?

EDIT: Oh, how I need to read. Please ignore.

 

No - that's a top idea. This had to be a specific size for where I'm going to stand it, but on a desktop I am thinking of building a cube with massive heat sink on the CPU, passive PSU and large fan like you suggest. This would be disk less so if that fan runs slow and silent would be ideal. pccasegear have a 250mm fan for 20 bucks for example.

Yeah, each join has clear shrink wrap on it... otherwise bye bye PSU

 

i'd increase the size of the spacers a little, remove the CPU fan altogether and mount a nice 80x80x25 fan in the plexi right above the CPU . Also, you might get more consistent cooling if you boxed in two of the sides (leaving PSU end and the opposite one open), and mounting a few fans on either end. It'll make a 'wind tunnel' effect.

 

I was actually thinking of the 250mm fan at pccasegear. Coincidence? Great minds think alike!

It'd be funny, just sort of ruins the clean look of the build, I guess. Although, if it's meant to be a 24/7 server, then it'd make good sense to keep it cool.

EDIT: Hah! What a pun; 'top' idea, putting a fan on top of the case!