[SG33G5] I just had to try and fit a Scythe Mugen 2 in there...

[Phunc]

And it fit ! OK not by default because the S478 brackets are designed to mount it the wrong way. But after making two new brackets, the Mugen 2 just fit ! Here are some pics:


That's the supplied 120mm fan for comparison. Yes it is big.


That's about 6 to 8 times more surface than the standard ICE heatsink.


Check that base, it's almost to pretty to dirty up with thermal paste !


Top view, this is the case without videocard, power supply, HDD and DVDRW drive. The last two won't fit anymore after this.


Side view, As you can see there are two Arctic Cooling 9 PWM fans in push-pull setup.


Tight fit 1


Tight fit 2 (rear fan)


Tight fit 3 (RAM)


That's a Geforce 9600GSO with 768MB, cooled by a Zalman VNF100. It *was* actively cooled but I couldn't anymore because:


...there was no room anymore. But actually that's no problem anymore: the airflow inside is enough to keep the GPU cool at 60°C on load !


This is the 3,5" bay opened, so air can get in more easily, obviously.


The system is completely shut, although my harddrive and DVD drive need be external now. That's no problem as I made cabling available for that.

This project isn't done because I need to address two more things. Firstly, the brackets I made but the sink against the PSU, tilting it very very slightly. The result is a difference of 10-20°C in core temperature. As soon as that is settled, I'll report extensive temperatures and overclock results.
Secondly, I want to make my Raptor drive more silent too. Those 5,25" drive silencer thingies Scythe also has seem a good alternative. But I also need something for the DVD drive. I'm not sure what yet but I'll figure something out.

[Maturin]

I'm imagining a slimline dvdrw and a custom mesh front panel.... mmm

[Phunc]

A slimline drive would be possible but I use it too often and 8x speed is annoying for that. A custom mesh front is something I was thinking about though...

[Phunc]

Today I modified the custom brackets, a component was keeping the heatsink from making full contact with the CPU. I used Prime95 with 4 threads to stresstest the core with the "most voltage/temp"-test and it went steady to 84-80-77-76°C for all four cores, ambient was about 25°C. It is not overclocked BTW. It was powered by two Arctic Cooling 9 PWM fans, the inlet fan doing 2200rpm and the outlet fan doing about 800 or so. I've put them both on 2200rpm and idle temps are 40-39-34-36°C for all four cores.

[Phunc]

I placed my reply on the question below, here. I don't want to hijack the other thread any more than I already did

Whoaaaa, you should create a Shuttle overkill section for that monster...!  What you have there is a Scythe with a Shuttle stuck to it!

Were your temps so disgraceful that you had to move the contents of your PC outside to make way for that thing?  I only have a dual core, though 65nm, and am hoping the Mini-Kaze blowing at the Intel fan will be all i need with the VNF100.

I did it for four reasons:
1. I hated the noise of the entire system, the ICE fan kept spinning because the ICE sink got hot quickly and the videocard fan was annoying sometimes
2. the harddrive (WD Raptor) makes a lot of noise and to silence it, I have use a silence box or something which I can't do internally anyway, without sacrificing the DVDRW
3. I got bored (<-- MAIN REASON)
4. The ICE heatsink had trouble keeping the CPU below 60°C in idle, now it's 30-37°C

I don't mind the HDD and DVDRW are external, but I'm hopelessly looking for a dual 5,25" external housing for them.

[MrGerbick]

Good call moving our chatter here - you did what i should have done... oops!

I'm about to stick my Mini-Kaze and VNF100 in now - will report back with temps etc when done (using the stock Intel fan)!

[Shadowtester]

I placed my reply on the question below, here. I don't want to hijack the other thread any more than I already did

Whoaaaa, you should create a Shuttle overkill section for that monster...!  What you have there is a Scythe with a Shuttle stuck to it!

Were your temps so disgraceful that you had to move the contents of your PC outside to make way for that thing?  I only have a dual core, though 65nm, and am hoping the Mini-Kaze blowing at the Intel fan will be all i need with the VNF100.

I did it for four reasons:
1. I hated the noise of the entire system, the ICE fan kept spinning because the ICE sink got hot quickly and the videocard fan was annoying sometimes
2. the harddrive (WD Raptor) makes a lot of noise and to silence it, I have use a silence box or something which I can't do internally anyway, without sacrificing the DVDRW
3. I got bored (<-- MAIN REASON)
4. The ICE heatsink had trouble keeping the CPU below 60°C in idle, now it's 30-37°C

I don't mind the HDD and DVDRW are external, but I'm hopelessly looking for a dual 5,25" external housing for them.

I found a few external dual 5.25" enclosures however they do not look very nice in general and are also pretty pricey around $120.00 usd. They are for external 5.25" scsi drives. If you do not mind a little mod work I also found a single 5.25" external enclosure which looks like it could be modified to stack more units together you might want to check it out.
Here is a link
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3825488&CatId=2784

Here are links to the other multiple 5.25" external enclosures I also found to check out
http://cgi.ebay.com/MICRONET-SB-4545-DUAL-5.25-EXTERNAL-DRIVE-ENCLOSURE_W0QQitemZ360120675670QQcmdZViewItem
http://cfusion.com/cgi-bin/getPart_1.cgi?strSearchFragment=FZF0-001
http://www.meritline.com/serial-ata-enclosure-dual-5-25-aluminum-2---p-22616.aspx

[Phunc]

Hmm the first one you mentioned reminds me of a brand distributed in Europe, called IcyBox. Theirs looks like this:



Yes pretty much the same I'll see if I can get a hold of these in this region. Thanks for the tip !

[Shadowtester]

Yea that looks like it would not be very hard to modify to stack a couple together only bad part would be each enclosure would have its own separate power supply since I doubt one would be strong enough to run both devices.

[Phunc]

The cables are not the problem, I'd could always install longer and let them come out of the back like I have now but the problem is the housing is designed for the control board to be used. Hmm, still not ideal and hard to find anything that will suit me. I guess I'll have to make a case...

[Spare-Flair]

I would also replace the entire front panel with a custom mesh (with a cutout for the power/reset button bar).  

It would be cool if you could still squeeze an SSD harddrive custom mounted in there so it is a complete system without having to plug in any externals.

Have you modded your PSU fans? Mine are pretty loud. Bad luck I guess. I hear some PC50s are quiet and some are noisy.

[Phunc]

I have never had to complain about the PSU so I guess I'm lucky on that. An SSD is also what I want but 300€ for a decent 64GB is too expensive for me. I'll go that way when the prices drop some more. A custom mesh is still an (extreme) option. But I hate to hack up the frame for that. Or the bezel... So I'm not sure about it yet...

[Phunc]

OK scratch that. I just hooked up my fans properly, linked them to eachother so they can be PWM'ed together. They are now running 900rpm and are whisper quiet. Now I can hear my PSU fans clearly. So these will be replaced too, someday. The most annoying thing now is the harddrive. An OCZ Vertex drive 64GB is available for less than 200€ here, so I'm considering that in the future.

[Spare-Flair]

OK scratch that. I just hooked up my fans properly, linked them to eachother so they can be PWM'ed together. They are now running 900rpm and are whisper quiet. Now I can hear my PSU fans clearly. So these will be replaced too, someday. The most annoying thing now is the harddrive. An OCZ Vertex drive 64GB is available for less than 200€ here, so I'm considering that in the future.

Oh I didn't realize that you could PWM two fans together and the pulses would still work properly. How did you do this? Did you just cross the wires and plug them into a single connector?

Shuttle PSUs have been bugging me for years from the PC35 to the PC40 to PC50, I've tried them all and they are all noisy and the noisiest things in the entire system. I don't even need to do your passive videocard mod because even my 8800GT is pretty silent on idle compared to the PSU's annoying whiny buzz.

I will wait until this summer when the 1 year warranty expires and then consider replacing the fans with mini-kazes. My harddrive is pretty silent and I even turned off AAM (automatic acoustic managment) on it to improve performance but then again, you have a Raptor. I used to have a 36GB raptor but it was too small and loud and hot to bother with for inside the Shuttle. As for the mesh, I would consider picking up a dead or junk G2 or G5 off ebay and using the front fascia there to make a custom front or mesh for yours. I know if I was in your position that knowing that the 5 1/4" and 3.5" bays were empty and useless despite there being flipping panels and an eject button there for them would drive me nuts! I'd end up just cutting these bits out completely.

[Phunc]

Oh I didn't realize that you could PWM two fans together and the pulses would still work properly. How did you do this? Did you just cross the wires and plug them into a single connector?

From XSreviews.co.uk:

The main feature that makes these fans stand out from the competition is the cabling. Yes folks the fan's cables are what are interesting here; this is what you shelled out for. These fans don't use your typical 3pin connectors but the 4pin PWM headers. They also have a 4pin female connector (For daisy chaining) and a 3pin fan speed monitoring header. This PWM controller allows your fans (maximum of 5) to be individually controlled by your bios keeping your system cool while keeping the noise level low.

I will wait until this summer when the 1 year warranty expires and then consider replacing the fans with mini-kazes. My harddrive is pretty silent and I even turned off AAM (automatic acoustic managment) on it to improve performance but then again, you have a Raptor. I used to have a 36GB raptor but it was too small and loud and hot to bother with for inside the Shuttle. As for the mesh, I would consider picking up a dead or junk G2 or G5 off ebay and using the front fascia there to make a custom front or mesh for yours. I know if I was in your position that knowing that the 5 1/4" and 3.5" bays were empty and useless despite there being flipping panels and an eject button there for them would drive me nuts! I'd end up just cutting these bits out completely.

Yeah it annoys me too as I don't need all that plastic anymore I'll check if I can find a front fascia somewhere to cut up, as I don't like hacking up my case when I have other options...

[MrGerbick]

I have no no decent camera at present or i'd post a few piccies up, but here is what i've ended up with.


*  I have the VNF100 on the 9600GT with no fan

*  I replaced the stock Intel fan with a Noctua 92mm, and put the fan housing back in the case to create more of an exhaust.  Noctua runs at a constant 1300RPM, and is very quiet indeed.

*  I bought a small sheet of perforated aluminium (3mm holes) , and made a piece that slides infront of the hard drive at the front and covers the 3.5" drive bay.  It sits flush and very solidly, and i am chuffed to bits with my new vent!


Idle temps are about 45C CPU, 55-60C GPU.  CPU tops out at about 65-70 under heavy load.  Current problem is the GPU can get up to about 83 if left under heavy load, so i need to take a look at that.  If i hadn't just used the 3.5" bay id try and control a GPU fan manually when gaming.

Anyway, loving my new mods.

[hugh]

erm, that gpu temperature looks a LOT healthier than the cpu temperatures

[MrGerbick]

That is after REALLY ragging the nuts off the CPU/GPU for half an hour.

I also have a Scythe Mini-Kaze attached to my Northbridge, blowing air UP and away from the heatsink.  I don't have it connected at the moment because im not gaming, but it has the effect of drawing more air in through the sides, being above the case holes, and this air is then easily removed by the Noctua.

Id love to create an external switch that will activate the fan for when im emulating PS2, because it only seems to be PCSX2 that can create such high temps!  =)

[Phunc]

I reseated my cooler and used other screws for mounting, my temperatures dropped a lot. It's idling at 20-25°C for the moment, after being inactive for 2 hours. Load is about 50°C.

[MrGerbick]

OK - i'm getting somewhere @ 1300RPM.  The full 1600 on the Noctua is actually audible, and im glad i can avoid it even if it is still minor!

So now i have a piece of 3mm hole aluminium sheet covering the 3.5" bay, and a potential channel of air between the HD/DVD drives.  For now i only have my 40mm mini-kaze fan for extra welly at the end, under the back of the DVD drive and next to the HD connectors, blowing toward the ICE heatsink.

Im going to stick with this idea, but replace the 40mm with a 50/60mm.  Whatever will fit.  Hopefully two fans with resistors across that space to fill it up for maximum pull.

I also bought some high grade silver thermal compound and re-did my GPU and CPU.  My GPU will still get up to about 82C under absolute maximum load and stay there, but my CPU now idles at around 35-38C and with some serious pegging will top out at about 60-63C.

So i'm getting there!  The important thing is for about 50 quid i have totally silenced this thing.  It doesn't make a sound.  I'll create a post for it with those all important pictures as soon as i can sort a new camera!


EDIT:  I have just ordered a couple of the new 50mm Scythe Mini-Kaze fans, and have had a great idea.  I will move the HD up into the floppy bay, and BACK toward the rear of the case more (the drive cage does not provide the correct holes for the HD where i need it, but i'll work something out).  Then i'll connect the two 50mm fans at 5v and have them sitting right on the inside of the 3mm-holed aluminium sheet that now covers the 3.5" bay (the drive cage space they will fit into is pretty much smack bang 100x50!!).  So the air will be coming in through the 3.5 cover, and pushed along the space where the hard drive should be (and is now) and into the case, where it can then be removed by the Noctua running at a sweet 1300RPM.  I really hope this helps my temps some more!

[MrGerbick]

Here's what i did to help the ICE along in the end:

http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/105916/

I feel my rig is now done!