dam that is good work, but

Submitted by jayman00444 on Tue, 06/24/2008 - 17:31.

dam that is good work, but the proseser looked like it doesn’t matchup, but then again i don’t have any mattereal to do this stuff of how to. my guy would loose agenst any of you guys. can we be friend on modshop

this is a very nice build.

Submitted by DorkKnight27 on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 13:42.

this is a very nice build. i need to consider something like this for my parent’s house. my mom likes how i have a pc hooked up to my LCD and asked if i could build her one. the only problem is that she doesn’t want an ugly tower just sitting in her living room.
very inspiring. nice work!

That was a hard fought

Submitted by tech-daddy on Sat, 03/22/2008 - 05:18.

That was a hard fought battle! Good job!
pant pant

GreenSabbath – I think

Submitted by Bruce on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 03:06.

GreenSabbath – I think your work is awesome – superbly crafted, beautifully executed and along with Datamancer inspired me to first put dremmel to wood.

I wasn’t sure about wood after reading some of the drivel on threads like:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/01/151209

but further investigation found heaps of mods based on huge amounts of foam, perspex and other combustables.

I am actually a chemical engineer by training (perhaps odder than being a PC modding geek but thats another debate) so I just had to try it out… set fire to stuff and find out!!

However you are 100% right… if you can generate the same sustained flame as a bic / zippo / ronson lighter inside your PC then really “Houston you have a problem”...your house is actually burning down.

I guess inside the Treasure Chest (may more people vote for it or at least bid on ebay) I was more worried about Lacquers, Varnish and Glues of unknown origin being exposed to an Invidia GPU at full tilt. Probably won’t go on fire even without the fire retardant material but it may start to smell a little funky when you get to the train in ‘Gears of War’ for example. I was just as interested in glues which tolerate high heat as I was in the GPU / CPU components.

Bottom line though is – if you keep the PSU safe / isolated / insulated, then you really need to screw up to get smoke and fire from the rest. Sadly I did just that by plugging 24v into 12v and generated quite a bit of smoke, several voided warrenties and a lot of personal expense but no fire.

I want to line the inside of my next mod with denim, or plaid / tartan wool (think Braveheart) , or something like that. Think these will be benign or at least less combustable than foam.

Regards

Bruce

As far as selling cases go,

Submitted by GreenSabbath on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 17:39.

As far as selling cases go, I think its perfectly legit and i think the builder should definitely keep the winnings, it only makes sense. Also as far as voting on cases which may or may not exist as they were when the pictures were taken, if you think about it, we’re really only voting on pictures of the case anyway since we can’t actually see the real thing. Sangaku has changed many times (new interior cases, new hardware) but hey, they are mods and they’re meant to change (the photos are of the original version).

As an aside, who was it exactly that warned you of wood cases and fire? Unless they were under 10, they should be taken behind the chemical shed because if your wood case is catching on fire, you have bigger problems on your hands… like your house is burning down.

Bruce

Treasure Chest

Status

Ready for Battle

Deets

Quiet High End Media PC hidden in a wood and leather Treasure Chest

A home media pc for a living / lounge area connected to a 42 inch flat screen tv / cable / wii set-up. “Very quiet” and unobtrusive, while also high performance for occasional gaming. Wanted to avoid another metal / plastic box stacked up on the shelf. 3DMark06 score of 9311 with no overclocking.

Modified a store bought wooden ‘pirates’ chest and converted this into a safe, quiet and hidden home media pc. Did a bit of research ‘quiet’ pc options and built these into the design.

Silent PC review was very helpful:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Design parameters

Aesthetics
Don’t touch the front or top of the box.

Performance
Second or close to ‘best’ and then turn down the heat.
Bought an MTron 16GB solid state SATA drive from DV Nation – used as a fast and silent c: drive, backed this up with a 1TB second drive.
Not sure who is going to win the format battles for DVDs so bought an LG player which can show Blu Ray and HD. Challenge is to make it quiet.

Cooling
Aimed to only use 3×120 mm Scythe quiet fans on as low a speed as possible. Interesting challenge was the ‘no front or top’ rule. Installed BIG heat sinks on the CPU and GPU.

Safety
There are a number of websites on wooden cases and modding with wood and many have a comment ‘wood burns dummy’ or some such somewhere. Tackled this with fire retardant material – ‘Nomex’ lined.

Software
Initially Vista wanted more than 16GB space to install, had to get around this and still have space for a couple of games on the c: drive.

Quiet
Ended up with a very quiet PC, but had to design this in and make some changes along the way.

Worklog
Details in worklog at http://www.geocities.com/bruce_d_webb/.

Specs

ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

BFG GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Video Card

CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W Power Supply

Intel E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

Patriot 4GB (2×2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory

Western Digital Caviar WD10EACS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM, ±R, Burner SATA Model GGC-H20L

Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm Case Fan $14.99 × 3

Scythe Ninja SCNJ-1100P 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler

VGA COOL THERMALRIGHT HR-03 PLUS

MTron MSD-6000 16GB Solid State Drive

Pirate’s Chest. Wood / Leather. Hobby Lobby

Antec Solo case – for parts, base, drive holders etc.

Information about the fire retardant material:

http://www2.dupont.com/Nomex/en_US/
For When the Heat’s On
Helping engines and generators keep their cool in hot, aggressive environments, so expensive downtime and maintenance costs are avoided. Protecting firefighters as they rush into burning buildings to save the lives of those who may be trapped inside. Nomex® brand fiber helps users perform to their fullest potential in the most extreme conditions imaginable.

2 sinks

Two gpu heat sinks

tidy two sinks

Air in from the left, through the fins and out of the back. Additional cooling from the huge heat sink on the CPU side of the case.

This is the finished PC. As per plan nothing visible from the top or front.

finished

The right side shows only the optical drive and fan cover.

Right

The left side also has a fan cover and then power, reset, mic and ear jacks, USB and firewire – cut directly from the front of the Solo case.:

Left

The back looks more like a traditional PC, but that is okay since this shouldn’t be seen too much:

Back

Here it is a test set-up. The PC is the box in the bottom right shelf and that is Windows Vista running up on the TV screen.

Running

It is connected to the internet through wireless. It plays HD and Blu-Ray. It has 1 tb of hard disk space and 16 gb of solid state drive which is FAST and silent.

Installed

Inside

Final

3DMark06 score – 9311

Flag this Rig

vs :	WIN	[55]-[9]
vs The Coffee Table!!!:	LOSS	[42]-[65]
vs Famine:	WIN	[31]-[11]
vs R2-SRV:	WIN	[36]-[23]
vs Nakamura:	WIN	[66]-[31]
vs DSF:	LOSS	[72]-[80]
vs AquaLight:	LOSS	[37]-[39]
vs Fire PC:	WIN	[44]-[41]
vs Nakamura:	LOSS	[49]-[98]
vs The Mirage:	WIN	[39]-[12]
vs Tikki Aquarium:	WIN	[27]-[22]
vs Nakamura:	LOSS	[30]-[80]
vs Project Nighthawk:	LOSS	[24]-[27]

Total Battles Won: 7

antique chest furniture Gaming Rig PC in a ? quiet silent wood Wooden

Past worklogs for Treasure Chest

02/01/08

Treasure Chest website

Full details at http://www.geocities.com/bruce_d_webb/

02/01/08

Treasure Chest worklog

This is my first serious mod. Up until now the most adventurous I’ve been is to install a Zalman CPU cooler instead of the OEM unit which came with a new chip!

01/20/08

Treasure Chest

Treasure Chest

Have updated the write up to include a bit more on the enhanced noise performance, thanks to some feedback from SilentPCReview.

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