# Got Bored..made another custom case



## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

This time, i didnt get as expensive or technical as I did for hybrid...(yes, that monster is still in a running condition, finally took it offline when i got my PowerEdge).

OSX doesn't recognize my HVR-1850, so I decided, why not build a computer specifically to operate the TV tuner? So I did.

The base: Dad's old Dell 4700 that liked to sound like an F16
The material: My bin of leftover Knex that didn't get used when I built the 5.5 ft long dump truck last year (wasn't much left, I must say)

I'm getting a PSU and 2600PRO for it next week, then I'll fire it up, throw XP on it, and see if it works.

The black fan is to keep the BIOS alarm happy. The blue/green LED fan.....Lets just say it moves a hellish amount of air....

The stupid part of the 4700 board, is that unlike my 4600, they used an arbitrary cooler design, which was off pattern, AND bolted to the case. So I also have to go to Ace and get whatever size bolts that computer screws are (I used to know, but have since forgotten?) and re-mount the cooler to the board using nuts on the back (It has a plastic isolator under the CPU socket, don't worry...and I'll use washers).

Sorry for miserable phone pics. You get the idea. PSU goes underneath, next to the hard drive.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

I happened to have bolts left over from hybrid...re-pasted the heatsink, and it gets in BIOS! yay!


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

the HDD and Cd drive that I have appear to be dead (that, or the IDE channel on the board is dead..just says "No Data" for either IDE channel in BIOS.

The heatsink is mild-warm. I can rest my hand on it for a time duration and not get uncomfortable. The logisys seems quieter than I remember it (hooked to +12), but then again, I do have a 2U server behind me with the lid off, so my hearing could be weak, too. 

I did some panel adjusting since some air was getting out, but a majority is still hitting the heatsink....moreso than is coming out of the stock fan at all (some from big fan = more than all from little fan)

I'm still leary though, once I have WinTV running, I'm sure CPU temps will shoot up... THIS is the dell upgrade cooler, i may order it....gotta be better than what it has now....but I'd have to do some musical fans to make it work seems alot taller...5.5" total to be exact.

Ignore the hodgepodge of wiring...safe to say, i need some extensions from frys.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Been sitting in bios for 30 minutes now, heatsink is still mild-warm....I think it's good to go (for now)

Keep in mind, I kept a passively cooled 4600 alive in my antec 900 for 3 weeks until I got the proper 468 cooler. There is a designed potential, for sure.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Hah , thats cool. Makes me want to break out my knex and make a case too!


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Hah , thats cool. Makes me want to break out my knex and make a case too!


I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that there was an EXACT dimension for both dimensions of the board. It fits exactly snug. I think you can figure out the lengths based on the pics 

I used an mATX board from the dell...a full ATX board might be another story.

I'm going to "skin" it to help keep the air inside where it leaks out. It's either that, or I might flip both fans over, and make a shroud around the CPU heatsink, that way it's pulling a vacuum, then skin it. Haven't decided yet.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

shroud came out nice:

Heatsink doesn't feel much cooler, BUT the air coming from the fan does have a noticeable temp to it, so it must be doing something.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Got the heat gun from the race shop...at first boot, the heatsink (copper die plate, aluminum base, copper fins) is 100F. After 1 minute, it's 105F. Northbridge aluminum heatsink is 98, south bridge (no heatsink) is 110. Two minutes, 108. Sabilized at 106 on CPU after 5 minutes


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## DT Roberts (Jun 22, 2009)

Wow, that's awesome. I agree with *emosun* - it would be nice to actually try making something instead of the gibberish I used to throw together in my early years.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

I got a tub (a big tub) of knex too , I just may try someday.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

DT Roberts said:


> Wow, that's awesome. I agree with *emosun* - it would be nice to actually try making something instead of the gibberish I used to throw together in my early years.





emosun said:


> I got a tub (a big tub) of knex too , I just may try someday.


I tried to use up all my parts by building a 5.5, almost 6 foot long, 8 axle dump truck, that actually can hold ALOT of weight without flexing too much.

This used up about 1/2 of what was left.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

So, 110F is 43.33C, allow for some fudging of heat transfer, say the CPU is 50C. Not exactly a good range for idle in BIOS....granted it IS a 2.8ghz pentium 4. And since it's a dell, i cant just install CPUz when i get windows installed.

oh, and those temps are with a 94 degree (34C) ambient.

That said, I have a cooler master V8 on my Q8200, the heatsink is 98 on same heat gun, CPU usually registers around 55C.

I've got a "85 CFM" (although It's probably a 200% inflated value) fan 1.5 inches above a semi-ducted passive cooler, not sure what else I can do to cool it down. It always sounded like an F16, even after a new thermal paste application (AS5), so it may just be warm natured?

From Intel® Pentium® 4 Processors - Thermal management for Intel® Pentium® 4 Processors 

GHz... | Package............ | Case(C) | Intake(oC) | TDP (W)
2.80.. | 478-pin FC-PGA2 | 75........| 40............. | 68.4
2.80A | 478-pin FC-PGA2 | 69.1.....| 38............. | 89
2.80C | 478-pin FC-PGA2 | 75........| 40............. | 69.7
2.80E | 478-pin FC-PGA2 | 69.1..... | 38............ | 89

This says that I'm pretty much borderline, with a 34C fan inlet temperature (this is based using a std intel P4 cooler). Not much I can do about that until we turn the AC on.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Might help if the fan was smaller , so the airflow was more concentrated , and it it was attached to the heatsink and not so far away.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Might help if the fan was smaller , so the airflow was more concentrated , and it it was attached to the heatsink and not so far away.


I thought about it, but it would make things alot harder to make work- at least here, I was able to duct in the air, to *attempt* to make the vacuum somewhat more concentrated. If the fan was lower, I couldn't do that, if it was smaller, I wouldn't have enough CFM to overcome the design. Once I skin it, the temp might get a little happier, hard to say.

I have the fan positioned off-center, so that the heatsink has more blade coverage, and doesn't have the "dead hole" from the motor. May or may not be worth anything. The heatsink is 90mm x 50mm, under a 120mm fan.

With the big fan turned off, the heatsink started out at 97, and crept up at about one degree F every 5 seconds. When it hit 112, I turned the big fan on, and the heatsink was down to 105 after 10 seconds. So no question, it's working. I think the high ambient just isn't helping any. My desktop registers 95F, the knex panels are 94F, the drywall is 92F.

Logged into RAC for kicks and grins, on the poweredge (2x Xeon 2.8 hyperthreading) both CPU Heatsinks are 103F (39C)

ESM Riser Temp	43 °C
ESM CPU 1 Temp	38 °C
ESM CPU 2 Temp	37 °C
BP Top Temp	39 °C


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Well every basic 478 cooler I've seen is usually a small fan mounted to a heat sink. Haven't really seen any with a 120mm fan mounted far away from a fanless heatsink sooo... just saying.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Maybe a good analogy would be a hair dryer vs a furnace. Hair dryer would be better because it's smaller and more concentrated then the bigger more powerful furnace?


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Well every basic 478 cooler I've seen is usually a small fan mounted to a heat sink. Haven't really seen any with a 120mm fan mounted far away from a fanless heatsink sooo... just saying.


yea, i know.

Doesn't hurt to be different 

Granted, the poweredge CPU's are fanless ones that I just (literally) set a 80mm fan on top of each, and they have solid aluminum heatsinks. So maybe there's a point to be had? (not sure the TDP of a Xeon vs a P4?)

edit: wiki claims that TDP for Xeon was between 74 and 103 Watts..almost apple-to-apple, but not quite (but it is based on a P4)

Edit 2: I just took a reading from the very base of the heat sink. 122F. 50C. Uh...i don't like that.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Well I'd say there's no reason not to try a conventional setup , would probably help those temps.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

I just moved the stock dell fan directly over the heatsink for now...the base went from 122 with the 120mm, to 140 with no fan (and it had just ramped up the fan speed), and it only got back down to 133 with the dell fan. I went to switch back, and it hit 145 before i could get the 120 back in place. now it's back at 133.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Well I'd say there's no reason not to try a conventional setup , would probably help those temps.


I'd switch heatsinks, but the only other one that fits this board is a $15 passive version of the ACP7 that's 5.5" tall (LINK). But at least I could make the 120 work on something like that (maybe even use a 120 to 90 converter tunnel, to increase the air velocity).

As I type this, the base is back down to 120 with the big fan back on it...a 20 degree drop in a matter of a minute or so.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Looking at it, I could put the tower cooler in, and make a holder to put the 120mm fan upright...and probably get it pretty close to the cooler. Th tower would come exactly to the top of the tower ceiling, and the opening is 120mm wide, while the cooler is only 50mm wide, so I have 70mm to fudge with fitting a 25mm thick fan into. I think it could work.

(base is still at 122 right now)

Just ordered the tower heatsink, shipping from NM, should get here tues or wednesday.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

well, so, I went to attach a hard drive and CD drive just to mak sure things worked...the #4 LED was on, "Other Hardware Failure".

neither CD or HDD were recognized in BIOS- "unknown device"

I plugged in a PCI card, and now it only shows the VGA driver version, wont go to bios or post or anything, even after removing the card, bios battery, and power source.

I think the board is dead....

This could prove slightly more expensive than I intended....ebay replacement is $90, assuming CPU is good (doubtful). So I'm looking at VERY cheap solutions via newegg & craisglist to see if I can piece somethign together. Guess I shouldn't have bought that tower heatsink, after all.

Here' what I'm looking at as a backup:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA78LMT-S2 AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $60
Newegg.com - AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 45W Single-Core Processor SDX140HBGQBOX $40
(or?) Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX245OCK23GM - Processors - Desktops $60

or,

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard $53
Newegg.com - Intel Celeron E3400 Wolfdale 2.6GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E3400 $50



I already have a 2600pro ATI card NIB coming from a coworker ($40)

$150-160 system would still be cheap by today's standards for a 2.6-2.9ghz machine...

Just not sure if I want to keep feeding the intel cash cow...but man, it looks good on paper.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

The goal is so that I can set this behind my main monitor, and just turn it on to watch TV or do whatever i need to do with a windows computer...right now, only my laptop has windows on it... (The poweredge doesnt count, it has server 2003R2 enterprise)

I have a space of 18" L x 10" W x 5" H to work with...plus or minus some (except height)


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

I'm not really one to follow our quality motherboard standards myself. I'd almost say get a cheap board if it's just going to be a media pc and considering the case is made out of knex.

Definitely go with an amd setup , intel offers junk at those low prices like celerons or pentiums.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> I'm not really one to follow our quality motherboard standards myself. I'd almost say get a cheap board if it's just going to be a media pc and considering the case is made out of knex.
> 
> Definitely go with an amd setup , intel offers junk at those low prices like celerons or pentiums.


This is true.

For now, the dell board is trying to work. I lowered the fan (cut 1.5" from the entire case height so it could fit under my screen) and base didn't warm up at all. I turned it on, and the base say at 102. I unhooked the fan, let it warm up to 116, hooked fan back up. 10 mins later, down to 106 stable. 14 degree gain by lowering the fan 1.5". Guess you were right.

Why can't they make steel cases like this? The potential is there, just a matter of making it. The PCI slots don't even have to be low profile- they only stick up a half inch, just put a tab there for them to screw into. Fits a mATX, a STANDARD ATX (not a proprietary slim) power supply, could expand the hdd bay to fit more than 1, and who uses CD's anymore? Thanks to synergy, technically I don't even need a keyboard or mouse...but I have to leave a keyboard in for it to boot (i think).

Excuse the mess..lol


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> I'm not really one to follow our quality motherboard standards myself. I'd almost say get a cheap board if it's just going to be a media pc and considering the case is made out of knex.
> 
> Definitely go with an amd setup , intel offers junk at those low prices like celerons or pentiums.


How would this be, you think?

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!

$95 for CPU and mobo...only issue is, no cpu cooler.

Suppose i can go hit up frys and see what they have. Need to go get my paycheck from work anyways  (and a hard drive for this thing that will actually work)

With the computer under my screen, the base temp is 111.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Got this motherboard ($59 at frys): Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-78LMT-S2P AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

This CPU (they were out of the cheap ones, and did a price match): Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX255OCGMBOX

Total bill for both was $132.98. I forgot to get a hard drive, though. Then I have a graphics card from my coworker for $40, puts total at $173. Hoping the RAM I have will fit the new board.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

as I figured, the RAM didn't fit. So tomorrow's trip to frys is a hard drive and 2G of RAM.

The GA board is actually smaller than the dell board in one dimension, so i had to block it in to fit my template. Everything else looks good.

Only thing i don't like, is that I now have the big fan as a pusher, so I had to make the small fan a pusher as well. (Didn't need the small fan, since it was to keep the dell bios happy, but I am gonna need something cycling air around the video card), so I'm wondering if I'm going to have any warm pockets. I'd run it with only the small fan (which would be a TON quieter), but not sure the CPU fan could hold it's own? It's the stock AMD cooler, and the base is already 93F sitting pre-post (due to lack of ram) with the big fan running. The ambient is 91.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Are you using a laser temperature sensor or something?


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

102 at the base after about an hour of running pre-POST, with the big fan pushing. 

HD: FRYS.com | WESTERN DIGITAL $40

I actually thought about getting a SD to SATA adapter (Digital SD to SATA HDD Adapter Converter - DinoDirect.com or $19.01 - SDHC/SD Card to SATA Solid State Hard Drive - Hardware Parts ) but that plus the cost of an extreme III card, standard drive is just cheaper...even though it takes up that much more space.

Just realized the board I bought is DDR3 memory..no wonder my DDR2 didn't fit. 

FRYS.com | Patriot $25


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Are you using a laser temperature sensor or something?


yes. Amazon.com: Raytek MT6 Non-contact MiniTemp Infrared Thermometer: Automotive


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Found a solution to the noise vs temperature issue. 

put the loud, high-flow fan on the mobo header

put the quiet, low-flow fan on the constant 12V pin

problem solved. base temp is now 97F and falling.

total cost so far: 

Mobo: $59
CPU: $63
GPU: $40
RAM: $25
HDD: $35
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$222

Not bad for a cheap system with the kind of specs, really.

3.1 Ghz Dual Core
2GB RAM
ATI 2600
160GB HDD


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

So it turns out, my co-worker's card is AGP.....

So i'm debating between a 5450 and just using the 760G onboard. My main display is only 1680x1050, not like I'm driving an HD screen, although it's close. Alot of the 5450 reviews say that it runs hot and is worse than most onboards.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Here's ow it finally ended. I decided a better spot for it would be behind my right monitor, rather than under my main.


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

magnethead said:


> yes. Amazon.com: Raytek MT6 Non-contact MiniTemp Infrared Thermometer: Automotive


Have you been taking any readings that are from the bios and not with the infrared thermometer? Those infrared thermometers are really not that great which is why we're not allowed to use them at work.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Have you been taking any readings that are from the bios and not with the infrared thermometer? Those infrared thermometers are really not that great which is why we're not allowed to use them at work.


no RAM = no BIOS yet. 

I've checked it against my wired fluke, and they're spot on to eachother.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Installing Windows 7 home premium x64 now. $99 at compusa, not bad I think. The AMD based board sure has a learning curve to the bios compared to a intel, but i'm not gonna dare do any overclocking. 

4GB of 1333 RAM for $44 ($22 per stick)
500GB hard drive for $55
OS for $99
3.1GHz Dual Core CPU for $63
Mobo for $59

Made the case, had the PSU....

Grand total of $320 with OS.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

OS is installed, everything is set up.

From BIOS:

vCore: 1.472
DDR3 1.5V: 1.488
+3.3V: 3.312
+12V: 12.165
System: 40C
CPU: 40C


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Just in time to dodge tornadoes.

TV feed, Facebook feed, and NWS email alerts on right

With ATSC tuner running full screen, 16% CPU usage on both cores, 919MB of RAM out of 4G.

Coretemp reporting 38C


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Pretty neat glad it works for you


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

emosun said:


> Pretty neat glad it works for you


Indeed. And I just found out, I was only working with 1.75 of system ram and 256 of GPU ram- the second RAM hadn't seated right the first time (is it me, the case, or is DDR3 WAYYYY harder to seat than DDR2?)

And I watched a 43 minute documentary, "Tornado Rampage 2011" end to end with no hiccups at 1650x1050 res on my center display.

Just re-seated the memory, now it's 3.5 system, 512 GPU.

Thinking about it, I could have saved $50 or 75 here and there, but i have alot more satisfaction in knowing that I have a working HTPC that I could throw darn near anything at, and have no problem. And even with the slightly aged board, it's still 85% futureproof for a couple years...unlike my main tower.

Specs from PC Pit Stop:

CPU: 26,868 MIPS (top 28%)
RAM: 18,475 MB/sec (top 15%)
Video: 190 MP/sec (top 46%)
3D Video: 515 FPS (top 42%)
Disk: 71 MB/Sec (top 24%)

Take the percentages with a grain of salt, but it puzzles me how an onboard vga chip can score like that with the variety of external gfx cards.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)




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