PC in desk project - 3D done - Question about cooling efficiency

[Slayer2003]

I like the sleek design of this so far, my vote for the power button location would be to hide it somehow as to not ruin the look. Maybe recess it behind one of the front fan corners using a small SMT switch like these (LINK) and you would just press slightly on the fan corner as these don't take a lot of movement to trigger but if set up right won't trigger on its own. Or depending on the material of the desk, if it's wood maybe do something similar but use a knot of the wood as the button. On the underside, or side of the desk of course, so you don't accidentally trigger it hehe. Or maybe even use a reed switch and magnet system, then you could have a magnet on an object like your keys, something with a magnet embedded into it, to turn on your system. It literally wouldn't turn on without the "magic" item. Just some ideas!

The Cooler Guys have some sweet filter fans for both intake and exhaust. The intake setup is a 10" fan with a Nema12 filter. $150 but to prevent dust buildup on expensive electronics? Totally worth it. I use cheap 4" wide homedepot anti-static filters on my pc but it's kludgy at best. You would prolong the life of not only all the fans in the system, but the rads themselves, incl. the mobo. Perfect for a custom build like yours.
https://www.coolerguys.com/products/pfannenberg-pf-22000-4-0-6-nema-12-filter-fan-11622154055
In reality any decent air filter that you could easily replace without having to modify would be ideal. $150 in filters would essentially get you further than a fan with filter. Still the pfannenberg (made in germany) is damn cool.

Am I reading this site right? I must be missing something about this item. It's $124 for basically a super-HEPA-filtered 6" fan that only generates 28CFM under ideal conditions with filter in place? And a sleeve-bearing at that? Wat. While I'm sure there's some government contractor explaining a reason for this item to exist SOMEWHERE in the world, a computer desk is not it lol. Totally worth it? Eh...high static pressure fans with ball bearing, FDB, or anything other than sleeve bearing and heck you could even splurge on DEMCifilters for everything and still be under what 1 or 2 of those would cost you. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something, but looking at that site, I'm not sure if I am...



On the subject of the filtering of what seems to be an enormous amount of vape smoke, that's going to be a challenge for anything really, as unless the enclosure is actually sealed the oil vapor will find a way in, fancy filters or not. Now I do have another question, OP you said you've lost 2 motherboards due to humidity and condensation, and vape smoke. I gotta say after basically living in a swamp earlier in my life I've never heard of that, were you running a water loop in that/those build too? Chiller? There's gotta be more to this than humidity and vape smoke

I mean honestly if your house is THAT humid, you should really look into a whole-house de-humidification system, as wouldn't other electronics potentially be in danger? This has truly piqued my curiosity!

 

[Prophet G]

I like the sleek design of this so far, my vote for the power button location would be to hide it somehow as to not ruin the look. Maybe recess it behind one of the front fan corners using a small SMT switch like these (LINK) and you would just press slightly on the fan corner as these don't take a lot of movement to trigger but if set up right won't trigger on its own. Or depending on the material of the desk, if it's wood maybe do something similar but use a knot of the wood as the button. On the underside, or side of the desk of course, so you don't accidentally trigger it hehe. Or maybe even use a reed switch and magnet system, then you could have a magnet on an object like your keys, something with a magnet embedded into it, to turn on your system. It literally wouldn't turn on without the "magic" item. Just some ideas!

My design doesn't allow me to center the front grid and it was bothering me, so I fixed it by placing the power and reset buttons on it. One stone two birds, is that what we say in english ?



I also worked on some grid designs:



https://fr.imgbb.com/

I like the first one it's probably what I'm going for.

Am I reading this site right? I must be missing something about this item. It's $124 for basically a super-HEPA-filtered 6" fan that only generates 28CFM under ideal conditions with filter in place? And a sleeve-bearing at that? Wat. While I'm sure there's some government contractor explaining a reason for this item to exist SOMEWHERE in the world, a computer desk is not it lol. Totally worth it? Eh...high static pressure fans with ball bearing, FDB, or anything other than sleeve bearing and heck you could even splurge on DEMCifilters for everything and still be under what 1 or 2 of those would cost you. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something, but looking at that site, I'm not sure if I am...

Yeah this isn't an option to me. Way too expensive, way too noisy, not enough CFM. But the filter is available alone at around $35 I believe, might be an option I don't know for now.

On the subject of the filtering of what seems to be an enormous amount of vape smoke, that's going to be a challenge for anything really, as unless the enclosure is actually sealed the oil vapor will find a way in, fancy filters or not. Now I do have another question, OP you said you've lost 2 motherboards due to humidity and condensation, and vape smoke. I gotta say after basically living in a swamp earlier in my life I've never heard of that, were you running a water loop in that/those build too? Chiller? There's gotta be more to this than humidity and vape smoke

I mean honestly if your house is THAT humid, you should really look into a whole-house de-humidification system, as wouldn't other electronics potentially be in danger? This has truly piqued my curiosity!

The only thing keeping my PC alive is that it's running 24/7 so hot air always travel and humidity evaporates faster. I have a 2nd PC in the room which is dead, I opened it recently it was very very wet because of just sitting in a corner and not being powered on, it was crazy, water everywhere. My main PC is surviving in this environment but I can see water drops on the outside of fans sometimes. I vape in my room only so the humidity isn't a global problem, it is just for my room and yes I'm having trouble fixing this. Even if the window is almost always opened, it's not enough. And no I've never had any watercooling system at the moment. Pretty clear that the problem comes from vaping because I've never experienced something similar when I was smoking cigarettes. I traded a bit of my health for a bit of my PC's health

 

[Prophet G]

Hey guys

I'm gonna reduce the depth of the chamber by a lot just to have a better view on all the component while i'm sitting at the desk, and for that I'm gonna move my fans from the walls to the floor. I'm gonna fit a 360mm rad, i'm wondering what the theoretical ideal placement is, front or back, intake or exhaust.



What do you think about the efficiency of this setup ? Is the fact that I have no direct airflow on VRMs a problem ?

I'm looking at popular and reliable watercooling brands at the moment to be able to work on an accurate 3D model. For now I know about:
- EK
- Barrow
- XSPC
- AlphaCool
- HardwareLab

Are they reliable ? Are there any other brand I should consider ?

Thanks guys have a good day/night

 

[bmwbaxter]

How much airflow the VRM needs depends on how much of an OC you plan on running.

 

[Zerileous]

It also depends on what CPU you want to run and the board. Most combos will be fine with the setup pictured but if you end up placing a 12 or 16 core CPU in a weaker board, then yeah some airflow will be required.

 

[godevskii]

I'm looking at popular and reliable watercooling brands at the moment to be able to work on an accurate 3D model. For now I know about:
- EK
- Barrow
- XSPC
- AlphaCool
- HardwareLab

Are they reliable ? Are there any other brand I should consider ?

You should definitely consider bitspower for any rotary fittings that you might need.

Other reputable brands are watercool and koolance.

 

[bmwbaxter]

Bitspower is what I used to use and liked them.

 

[Prophet G]

How much airflow the VRM needs depends on how much of an OC you plan on running.

I've never OC'ed, and never will, even with my future components.

It also depends on what CPU you want to run and the board. Most combos will be fine with the setup pictured but if you end up placing a 12 or 16 core CPU in a weaker board, then yeah some airflow will be required.

For now I'm ok I just have a 2600x, but my next one will be at least a 3700x. I try not to buy cheap motherboards, not high end either but at least not cheap. At the moment I have a STRIX B450.

You should definitely consider bitspower for any rotary fittings that you might need.

Other reputable brands are Bitspower, watercool and koolance.

Thanks I will look at Watercool and Koolance too

 

[bmwbaxter]

3700X and no oc won't be an issue for a midrange mobo with a VRM heatsink even with no direct airflow as long as the desk has good general airflow.

 

[Prophet G]

Do I have to make the "fittings side" of the radiator face down ? I've heard in guides that it's safer because the water level will lower over time and if the fittings are facing up air bubbles can get in the loop and damage the pump. Making the fittings face down is supposed to fix this issue.

Plus, what kind of pump and reservoir would you guys recommend to put in that spot to occupy space:



I'm still not sure if I want to place a reservoir here or if I hide it in the hidden chamber juste under the main chamber because I have a "double bottom" for PSU, cable management, and stuff like that, so making the tubes go through the bottom is an option too.

Another option would be to buy 2 SSDs just to occupy the space but I don't really like it since my usual setup is one M2 for my system and 2 HDD in RAID to feel like my stuff are safe.

I can't make up my mind on pump and reservoir placement right now. Some additional pictures, just in case you guys feel creative

 

[Zerileous]

I'm not sure what the deal is with that board. I was tempted to buy it but the VRM is pretty weak. I wouldn't plan on using it for more than an 8c CPU. (for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/edit#gid=611478281). It's frustrating because they put a fine VRM in the ITX version of that board.

 

[Prophet G]

I'm not sure what the deal is with that board. I was tempted to buy it but the VRM is pretty weak. I wouldn't plan on using it for more than an 8c CPU. (for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...TJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/edit#gid=611478281). It's frustrating because they put a fine VRM in the ITX version of that board.

Such a good work on that page thanks for sharing. I will look at it for my next purchase !

For now I'm fine with the 2600x and B450-F STRIX.



EDIT:

I can't find any passthrough fitting that would allow me to go through this 2cm thick wall:



Do you guys know some ? I'm looking for an alternative solution but nothing solid for now

 

[Prophet G]

Will this setup work ? The loop order make sense to me but I'm not sure.





And since I didn't find any pass-through fitting allowing me to go through a 2cm thick wall, I'm just gonna pass through a hole 1mm larger than the tube. I don't know how much the wood can contract I'm afraid it will squeeze one of the 3 acrylic tubes and break them (I'm gonna use 3 acrylic tubes on top [CPU IN / CPU OUT / RES] and flexible tubes for all the other connections). But I think I'm just getting paranoid about the wood contracting lol.

 

[Zerileous]

generally for loop order it is advised to keep the reservoir before / above the pump to prevent air ingestion into the pump.

 

[Prophet G]

I forgot about that thanks. I guess this makes more sense:



EDIT:

Closed loop: