Beautiful while functional

How a efficient, functional pc case design should have been.

Beauty in its final form.

Welcome,

Let start off by just saying I am not a professional or anything, or even a designer, yet(I want to be one though) but I have developed to love clean and efficient machines, nice, too, if feasible.

Let talk about it today

I need a pc for my study and gaming(hello LAN party!), working on my Photoshop, editing my RAW photos; should be capable, future-proof and most importantly small since I don’t know when will I move or else.

As a consequence, a reasonable priced, nicely built and tiny pc will be my weapon of choice, choose from some of these smallest mini-ITX cases on the market:

CM Elite 110 from Cooler Master - 26cm(w)x 28cm(d)x 21cm(h)

FT 03-MINI from SilverStone - 19cm(w)x 23m(d)x 39cm(h)

Maybe the Silver Stone MT07? 38cm (w) x 35cm(d)x 10cm (h)

Hmm, I don’t know, protruding PSU? Other two from SilverStone too expensive. Maybe the first one is too cuby, the second is nice albeit still expensive, and the third one, well, seems small but its surface area is huge. I was disappointed, then I found out about the Raijintek Metis from Raijintek. It’s 19cm(w) x 28cm(d) x 25cm (h). Man, that’s tiny, roughly same size as the Elite110 but more vertical and better layout (or not?). After all, I get the off-brand DIYPC htpc case that basically the Metis without the logo for $36.00.

Parts choice

Since I already know my cameras and my programs won’t change for the next 5 years so maybe longer, and I don’t need better camera(Sony A7), nor better 2D, 3D programs (CAD, Adobe CS6 stuff and Rhino now) — I haven’t even push my programs and skills that far anyway, moreover, games at ultra settings are pointless to me, anything 60fps on my 23-inch LCD will do, I won’t need killer GPU.

• CPU — 4690k @ stock 3.5GHz— overclock @ 4.4GHz
• CPU water cooling — CM Seidon 120v single 120mm radiator
• GPU — Sapphire R9 270, best bang for the bucks (my budget)
• PSU — semi-modular CX500M
• RAM — 2x4GB Crucial Sport.

Install everything in this case is torturing, it’s tiny, I suggest planning before putting stuff in a case like this; especially whether you plan to push the case as far as me: non-recommended GPU length with ATX PSU and water cooling at the same time.

The pc started though — really well, if you ask me — until I realized something was wrong, the top panel of the case was crazy hot. Checked temperature, my GPU was 54C idling and 82C full load. Of couse, no way near 90C, but I was not happy.

I decide to to something about it

Front view before and after cut-out hole DIAGRAM

My theory is the GPU has trouble breathing. Here is my diagram of air circulation in the case.

1. GPU with old cable management 2. New cable management 3. Spacious GPU compartment 4. No temperature changed as expected 5. case-less test

As you can see in the diagram, no matter how good my cable management was, the GPU was not able to breath at all, recirculate the hot air itself. I did a small test of taking off both side panels and wait for the air to push out under the GPU(4th image), none, as expected.

Solution

My plan to improve the air flow inside the case

I decided to make use of the 120mm fan comes with the case as a tester — to bring efficient airflow through the “new” top air hole and back, push hot air through the PSU (active) and small grill on the side of the case (passive).

Test it

1. Test clearance and airflow with fan, no problem 2. Prototype top panel made of cardboard with fan taped on 3. fan in place 4. Well…

God forgive me that two pieces of eraser were used to perform the clearance test…

Update — April 21st, I use the Dremel to cut 140mm fan hole on the original top panel (ordered a 140mm slim fan but it’s not here yet).

TEST (updated)

Original case, Revision 1, 1.5, 2 and Naked tests were done same morning, as 15 minutes idling followed by 15 minutes stress test; each was separated by half hour cooling down (I did have consistent CPU and GPU start-up temperature about 20–21C).

Top panel already cut fan installed. Look nice to me. Photo was taken while writing this LOL

• Tested with Furmark v1.51.1, Furmark CPU burner v0.1.0
• Temperature was collected by Open Hardware Monitor v0.7.1 beta
• Ambient Temperature was 15C (60F) through out some good hours
• System was turned on, idle temperatures were taken after 15 minutes, 15-minute stress test temperatures were also collected after 15 minutes run.

I‘m now on Revision 2.5 and happy

As you can see, the improved airflow system work really well as providing consistent and close to case-less temperature. Results look good to me!

Last cable management I did, now the PSU and drives are visible. Radiator fan is Cougar 120mm Vortex. Top panel fan (behind) is the Prolimatech 140mm slim fan. a fine dust filter was installed under, later.

Updated — April 29th I swap in a Cougar 120mm silent fan in place for the radiator and turn it into exhaust fan. Despite breathing hot air from the GPU, the CPU under load runs way cooler than it did before.

Extra

Numbers were not made into the chart, the GPU fans on full load were running 18–35% with top case fan(all 4 tests); 40–82% with the original case.

just look at that beautiful spinning blade.

Conclusion

Hmmm, why?

• Well, as a DIY-er, I won’t have any trouble doing this, beside, it looks dope as hell lol…
• I love the case, really solid, tiny, mobile and the heat issue is now fixed
• What about improve something that can be? Or, design something better at the first place? I think that’s what we should have been doing. Trashes are results of design error, let change it. Start from something. To me, it is to improve things for now.

What’s about you?

If you have gone this far just to read this. I’m so grateful. Maybe share it with some of your friends want to build a new pc as inspiration? or just remind yourself that even the smallest thing (pun indeed) can be improved to make it better.