Skoups ooba PC Build, please help

Hey Denis, looking good mate.

I see that you've gone with a standard full tower shape for your design. Have you considered building a desktop shaped box? Building a desktop case (one that the Monitor rests on top of) has a number of advantages, not least of which being the fact that orienting your hardware that way will put far less stress on the motherboard (GPUs and CPU fans hanging of it etc).

Also, you could design something longer and flatter, that allows for more space between your components, as well as greater airflow. Just a thought...

I assume that the PC will never really leave the house? I can't imagine how heavy a solid mahogany case will be, but I'm sure that you wouldn't want to risk damage to the case by lugging it around.

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Originally Posted by Skouperd

Saying all that, point taken, thanks for raising it. Any suggestions on how / where I can enhance the current design to incorporate other coolers perhaps?

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The smaller custom kits come with 240 rads (two 120mm fans). The 360's are preferable though for most people (due to marginal increase in cost over a 240). Most people prefer to mount their h2o kit inside their case nowadays since many cases come designed with space to do so. So if you tried to fit a 360 at the top of your case, it would extend into the top two 5.25 drive bays, just for the rad and fans. You would need another two 5.25 bays for a res and pump combination unit.

And if you plan to water cool your gfx card(s)... you will want a second rad somewhere, even if its only a 120 to add to the 240 or 360 already in the loop.

Suggestions... extend the case upwards some more. So you have another two 5.25 bays and space above the motherboard for mounting a long rad.

good points all of you.

1. Desktop versus tower. I did consider a desktop, the problem I have with a desktop is two things. The first is that it will be very difficult to design it without having some fans being visible from either the side or from the front of the case. The second problem I had was if you build a desktop design, then one's monitor effectively need to stand on top of it, meaning, the monitor is another 15cm higher.

2. Using the outlet fan as the second H70 cooler. You are absolutely correct Fly, that has been my original idea yes. Which is why I've went with the standard dimension sizes for my fans.

3. El cheapo materials... Lee, you are talking to the converted yes. I will be testing out pretty much everything on a mock supa-wood case (supawood is very quick to work with) to ensure everything is working as it should. The wood that I've got still need a lot of prep, sanding, planing etc and since I can only work till 20:00 (noise) on those things, the rest of the time will be use on the el-cheapo stuff.

4. H100 cooler Mega, those dimensions should fit in nicely in the bottom two fans, or I could even remove the two top outlet fans and just remove the piece of wood between the top two fans to ensure that it fits in there. I will ensure making those dimensions on the top, and the bottom so that I could mount two H100 if need be. (I can move the fans by changing the dimension of the wood between the two holes.

5. Using old parts of a case. Fly, there are two parts that I have been extremely tempted to just pull out from an old case, that is the PCI slots at the back, that for me will be the biggest challenge, and potentially hard drive brackets. The way that those brackets are designed now, is actually very easy to make. You can make a very long piece, and then just cut the 12 individual ones, glue a stopper at the back of 6 of them, and Bob's your uncle. Those brackets took me a long time to design... I was in two minds to actually rip old parts from a case, but that felt way too much like cheating...

6. That Fractal case looks nice Mega, just check though, I don't think it will be able to accommodate a HPTX size board. The insides looks a bit small. But agreed, very nice case. It is amazing, that after carefully analysing each and every component, and placement, one ends up with a design that is pretty much replicating exactly what other cases do. Obviously, those guys have gave case designs some thought as well.

7. Longer and flatter case... looking at the flatter part, yes that was definately something that I was looking at. My key restriction with making the case flatter was the side mounted DVD drives and the thickness of the side panels (the side panels and the motherboard tray will take up 75mm already). With regard to making it longer, I am restricted in terms of the space that I have. (My desks are one of those that have a board coming down. However, just to put this case outside dimensions in perspective: they are: 300w x 650h, x 520d. Other popular cases dimensions are for instance: Corsair 800D: 229w x 609h x 609d. HAF932: 230w x 545h x 575d, and the Lian-Li PC-X2000 which I've used as my "starting point" measuring 230w x 430d x 680h. The case is actually 90mm longer than the Lian-Li PC-X2000. The Corsair and the HAF are both longer (89mm & 55mm) but that is because those HDD's are mounted flat. I am making up some space by mounting them vertical. I will however have a look, see if I can make the case slightly longer still, as I don't think it will make that big a difference if it protrude from underneath my desk. Good point, I'll have a relook at it, thanks Jarrod.

8. Taking this case to RAGE, NOOOOOOO fraking way! It will be build, carried up to the games room (most likely by two people), the kit installed, and that is where it will STAY for a very very long time.

Thanks for the input guys they are all good comments. I definately have some homework to do still.

what about making the case wider - especially if it isnt going anywhere -
AND it could even be PART of the desk - IE - to balance out you have drawers on the other side of the desk - matching the "case" which is now actually the legs of the desk. - in other words - the case is actually part of a BIGGER project.

Are you going to pilfer the pci slot covers from another case or make something yourself?

No Geth, I will be routing the slots from a solid piece of wood as well. The way that I will be doing that is to use a template / guide and just trace the lines. This in my mind is the most dificult aspect of this whole built, just ensuring the PCI back plate is perfectly aligned, straight, right dimensions and that my router doesn't slip.

If it failes, then yeah, my backup is to use another case backplate.

The wooden solution will look awesome. I'm really keen to see how this turns out.

ok, I've played with sketchup again, and I remeasured the dimensions for my table as well.

1. The height of the machine is clearing my desk as it stands with less than 5mm
2. I can fit two 120mm fans next to each other on the top (i.e. one more to the left of the H70 currently) but that doesn't leave me enough space (on the top nor the bottom) to mount the PSU.
3. There is no ways that I can move the PSU to the bottom without giving up the extractor fan. I'd rather keep the extractor fan and have a side-mounted PSU
4. I can not turn the psu horizontally, at least not without making the case wider than present. It is already 300mm wide.
5. By removing the board that is hiding the cables (between the PSU and the 5.25" bay drives) I am able to install at least 2 more 5.25" bay devices, and a potential 3 (depending on the cables coming from the PSU)
6. I can have six 120mm fans on the bottom. That should provide me with sufficient clearing for if I ever wanted to install a custom H20 kit.

So guys, thanks for the comments, feedback and tips thusfar. Given those comments, I've made some adjustments already, moving the bottom fans so that I could expand them in future, so do you have any other suggestions?

I would agree the wooden case would look epic with a very clean finish or wood stain (not other stains). While we on the subject of wood. How would you mount the board? with specific mounting pins? I am just wondering if these would be substantial enough to bear the weight of all the components on the board?

Otherwise it look freeking brilliant Skoup I am extremely interested on how this turn out.

Hi Stu, I'll be using what is called "inside/outside threaded nuts", I've sourced some of them about 6 weeks ago. These nuts basically screw into the wood (it is about 5mm in diametre, with the threads being about 1.5mm so quite "bulky") and made to go into wood. These nuts once screwed into the wood are flushed with the wood itself. The middle of this nut, is threaded for machine screws (i.e. metal screws). The nuts that I found had the exact same thread as used on pc's screws so I can now screw a normal spacer as found in any case into these inside/outside threaded nut. So the motherboard will be sitting on a normal spacer as found in any case, but the spacer in turn will be screwed into an inside/outside threaded nut.

These little beauties are rare to find, but I did find 10 of them, and waiting for my supplier to get more stock in as I'll be using it throughout the case.