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Project: LAN Box MAXX

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Automiketic

Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2008
Well I have been toting my computer around more and more lately and my current rig weighs about 45lbs. Take into accountant that I only weigh 126lbs and you can see my back was starting to break....hence this project. I wanted a portable computer that was just as/almost as powerful as the rig i have now. All the specs for this rig are listed in my sig. So without further a due heres what we got(let me just say the timestamp in all photos is wrong forgot to change the date on my camera):
The toys:
1004791i.jpg


The victim:
1004755.jpg

you can see i already managed to scratch the case but no matter i will repaint it soon enough
1004756.jpg

1004757.jpg


Heres a size comparison from my old case to the new(the 341 will fit inside the 690 if it werent for drive cages):
1004780u.jpg


First things first I want this to be easily portable so I went to home depot and picked up some things to fab a handle for this project. A simple $5 steel handle some flashing, self taping screws, and some nuts and bolts and we were ready to go. Heres some photos of the prep work. I really wanted to make it look professional and give it a bit of an industrial look:
1004759.jpg

1004760.jpg


And heres what we ended up with(Im satisfied with the results):
1004767.jpg

1004777.jpg
 
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The next part of the project was to get rid of all those noisy stock fan grills some prep work here:
1004763l.jpg


Action shot(my buddy who works in our body shop...gotta love the barter system):
0616091359.jpg


And.....results:
1004778.jpg

I may put some u channel around the holes i cut in this side panel to clean it up a bit what do u think?
1004782d.jpg

UPDATE: Put some U-channel around the fan hole final shot of door:
1004864.jpg

1004764.jpg

1004766.jpg

UPDATE: Final shot of the backside:
1004804.jpg


Heres how I got the grill to stay on the side panel(just hacked up a fan a bit):
1004781t.jpg
 
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I decided to 7v the fan on the side panel to even out the air pressure in the case as you can see here:
1004819u.jpg

Next I moved on making the front of the case breath better. I will be mounting 4 hdds in this thing so i need to keep them cool:
Before...as you can see there was a honeycomb plastic behind the grill:
1004770v.jpg


After...got rid of the honeycomb, cooler master logo, and replaced the drive covers with mesh(gonna redo the 3.5" bays using u channel and some epoxy its just electrical tape for now to get an idea):
1004792.jpg

UPDATE: had to rework the front to accommodate all the hard drives and keep them cool *** you can see they stick out a bit:
1004809yga.jpg

Here is the final result added a 50mm fan to cool the hdds(still have to find a way to better cool the top hdd you see sticking out the front):
1004857g.jpg


Next I moved to the inside of the case. I may have hit my first snag here but wont get a chance to find out until the mobo comes in
as you can see there is only a lilttle over an inch clearance between the psu and the cdrom:
1004774.jpg


There is absolutely no chance at wire management with case stock:
1004772.jpg

Back side (no space between mobo tray and side panel to hide wires:
1004786v.jpg

I had tried to fab a place to hide wires but even that got in the way in this cramped case you will see why soon.

Hit yet another snag when I was checking the clearance for the video card and hdd:
1004807.jpg

You can see there is no clearance between the video card and hdd and the last thing I want is to have my card suffocated so I moved the hdd to the second 5.25" bay as you can see in the above photos.
 
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well thats all I have for now. motherboard should be here thursday so ill finish up the project by the end of the week. more to come and be gentle this is my first log :beer:
UPDATE: the mother board and raptors are here! heres a shot of the board:
1004828.jpg


Obviously being a m-atx board things are real tight. the hsf only clears the nb by mm's:
1004830.jpg


and the video card is pretty tight with the first sata connector but is manageable:
1004822h.jpg


Well with everything in lets get this project finished! heres a start to my attempt at wire management in this case, as I mentioned before wire management with this case and psu is just about impossible:
1004814.jpg


But I did find another good use for the handle:
1004812.jpg


And the motherboard is in(which could not be done with any hdds installed):
1004833.jpg


Now this next part was bery frustrating so i didnt really get any more photos. I think if I had tried I would have smashed the camera. Everytime I went to plug one drive in another came unplugged. Honestly it took me close to two hours to get all hdds in and wired. Wire management didnt take too long as there was close to nothing I could do.
Heres how it turned out:
1004859.jpg

1004858.jpg

1004838.jpg


I know its not beautiful but the best I could achieve. I welcome any suggestions anyone might have......
 
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RESULTS:

FINAL RESULTS:
I wanted to stress the computer a bit and monitor temps make sure things were getting to crispy and in their new very cramped quarters. Everything is not too bad. I dont think much of any overclock could be achieved with temps Im at which is fine since this board doesnt offer any overclocking features except for ram. Well have a look.

**If you can read any of the below pictures click on them for a full size view

CPU loaded for 15mins large ffts(about 38C idle):


GTX 260 loaded with furmark 8x AA(about 45C idle):


The hdds idle around 32C-35C and loaded the hottest one hits about 40C(which is the one that is not actively cooled in the 5.25" bay) anyone have any suggestions on how i can cool the one in the 5.25" bay?

Finally I decided to run some benchmarks just to show you folks what this little monster is capable of:

wPrime:


Vantage w/PhysX enabled:


Vantage w/o PhysX enabled:


HDD tune on the Raptor 150gb RAID 0:



CONCLUSION:
All in all this was a fun project! I came across a few obstacles but was able to overcome so I am satisfied. Final weight of the machine is about 30lbs. The last case was about 45lbs, much bulkier and had fewer hdds. I may remove the front facia and replace it with all modders mesh to clean it up a bit and still have to find a way to cool that top hdd. I may also repaint this case if I get around to it or possibly just move to a slightly larger case. who knows. Thanks for looking and I welcome your comments!
 
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Noice! Very noice! I bet it was a pain to wire it up, but it looks better than I imagined. Grats on a job well done my broski :thup:
 
honestly i think you should have kept the front plastic honeycomb. you gained almost nothing by cutting it out since the holes are/were quite large to begin with.

and the mesh on the side i would put on the inside to give a cleaner look.
 
@Neb: thanks ol' buddy! :beer:

@gsrxsi: i cut the honey comb out because of the added wind turbulence and noise it creates. this computer makes enough noise withe the raptors, so i tried to do as much possible to keep it quiet. as far as the grill on the side may move that to the inside i tried it both ways and tbh dont remember why ended with it on the outside. thank you for the suggestion. keep em comming!
 
Idea. What if you completely removed all the hardware holding the hard drives in now, and make your own mounting system to hold the drives in vertically, with them all 'facing' a side panel. It would make it easy to get airflow through them (a single 120 could cool all 4), and all the plugs will be easily accessible from the bottom of the drives.
 
hmmmm i like the idea gonna have to do some measuring though i suspect that space wont permit it......*fingers crossed* thanks! :thup:
 
as i suspected there just isnt the room......no matter which way i try to put the rack in it wont fit :(
 
as i suspected there just isnt the room......no matter which way i try to put the rack in it wont fit :(
you cuold take out the cages and suspend the HDD with some strong wire.
this will for sure eliminate some noise, and you may be able to position the HDD however you want...but you might have to mess around a bit :)
 
mounting 4 hdds by wire might be out of my skill level haha. i think may just go down to 3 drives anyways. that should help a ton. thank you for the suggestion though :beer:
 
mounting 4 hdds by wire might be out of my skill level haha. i think may just go down to 3 drives anyways. that should help a ton. thank you for the suggestion though :beer:
:santa:

might help as well if you are carrying it in your car and you go over a huge bump or something...itl'l help the harddrives' internals from moving as much.
 
very true though i usually try not to be bouncing around too much ever. haha. gonna have to see what i can rig up here though i dread ripping it apart again and starting over...
 
as i suspected there just isnt the room......no matter which way i try to put the rack in it wont fit :(

Which way are you limited in space? Vertically, front-back, or depth?

Also, do you plan on using your PCI slot? What if you mounted a couple of hard drives to the floor of your case?
 
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