Critique my case design

[I4AT]

Most cases have an intake fan at the front so that the cool air needs to travel all the way to the back of the case, and up to the CPU cooler. And in a lot of cases that air gets restricted even further because it's blocked by a hard drive cage. Some cases include side intake fans but generally these just cycle already hot air around in the case.

I think the case should have 3 sealed off compartments, one in the lower left for the PSU, one in the bottom right for the hard drives, and one for the motherboard/optical drives. This way the hard drives will have their own separate airflow that will be exhausted without reaching any other area of the case, so will the PSU, and the CPU/VGA cards.

Each compartment would have steel walls to seal in the air with foam strips sandwiched between the side panel to keep air from leaking into other sections. There would only need to be two intake fans, one 120mm fan for the HD bay, and an 80mm fan over the PCI slot area for the VGA cards. And one to two exhaust fans, a rear 120mm exhaust fan, and an optional 80mm top mounted exhaust fan.

The CPU should have a flex duct that runs from the HSF to a ventilated slot in the side panel so only cool air can be drawn in from outside of the case. Tower coolers are popular, but a traditional HSF with downward airflow would be best, I like these better anyways since they help cool the mosfets/NB.

There would also be ample room between the right side panel and the motherboard tray/backplane so cables could be routed from the PSU bay throughout the case and kept out of sight and out of the way.

I drew a really crude template in MS Paint that's not to scale here, just a rough idea of the design. What do you guys think? Are there already cases similar to this?

 

[Nathelion]

There are cases that incorporate some of these ideas already, for example a number of Lian Li offerings.

 

[DaQuteness]

Originally posted by: I4AT
Most cases have an intake fan at the front so that the cool air needs to travel all the way to the back of the case, and up to the CPU cooler. And in a lot of cases that air gets restricted even further because it's blocked by a hard drive cage. Some cases include side intake fans but generally these just cycle already hot air around in the case.

I think the case should have 3 sealed off compartments, one in the lower left for the PSU, one in the bottom right for the hard drives, and one for the motherboard/optical drives. This way the hard drives will have their own separate airflow that will be exhausted without reaching any other area of the case, so will the PSU, and the CPU/VGA cards.

Each compartment would have steel walls to seal in the air with foam strips sandwiched between the side panel to keep air from leaking into other sections. There would only need to be two intake fans, one 120mm fan for the HD bay, and an 80mm fan over the PCI slot area for the VGA cards. And one to two exhaust fans, a rear 120mm exhaust fan, and an optional 80mm top mounted exhaust fan.

The CPU should have a flex duct that runs from the HSF to a ventilated slot in the side panel so only cool air can be drawn in from outside of the case. Tower coolers are popular, but a traditional HSF with downward airflow would be best, I like these better anyways since they help cool the mosfets/NB.

Downwards coolers DON'T really cool the mosfets because the blown air will be warm, besides, they disrupt the natural airflow created by the fans in the case. Personally, i don't like them at all. If you want to keep everything cool, keep the airflow going, it's the only way. Cool case = cool components.

There would also be ample room between the right side panel and the motherboard tray/backplane so cables could be routed from the PSU bay throughout the case and kept out of sight and out of the way.

I drew a really crude template in MS Paint that's not to scale here, just a rough idea of the design. What do you guys think? Are there already cases similar to this?

Check out the Antec P182 and P190, they have 3-layer panels, compartmented interior, it doesn't get blocked by hdd cages, it is sealed between compartments.

The top 80mm fan you mentioned is way under specs here, 120mm top fan is a must be if you want to have one.

 

[Tim]

To the OP, my advice would be to find a case similar to this concept (Try looking into certain Lian-Li cases, most notably the newest ones out), and if you want to take it a step further, cut up some sheet-metal and add compartments. This would work well with a full tower setup. And please, stick to 120mm fans, if not bigger

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Your ideas are interesting, but IMHO, they add unnecessary complexity to case design for the additional effectiveness they may provide. To explain this critique, consider the myth about aluminum versus steel cases. With efficient airflow and directed, ducted cooling, the heat that might "leak" to the case frame and panels is so insignificant, that a choice of more thermally conductive case-metal for that purpose alone is a waste of money.

I prefer to compromise air-temperature slightly by mixing intake past the hard-disks with direct intake of additional but unaltered cool air, and push this through narrow apertures around the VGA, chipset and processor heatsink -- ducted for immediate exhaust to the rear. Consider that hard drive temperatures are already spread over a wider surface area in contact with intake air, and if the intake is not too restricted, compromise air-temperature very little in comparison to air-flow.

The idea that you are balancing the number of fans, intake and exhaust CFM and power considerations with available case-space and other factors -- adds some additional parameters. I can elaborate further, but prefer to see more comments from others.

 

[DaQuteness]

Honestly, even though i own one, steel cases are pretty crappy! They're heavy as hell and they aren't even big. Mine (Antec Sonata III) is as heavy as a LianLi PC-A70B but almost 2x smaller.

Thermal transfer through casing is bullocs.

The only theoretically possible way to use the case to cool the CPU IMO is to develop a custom cooler for that case that actually STICKS to the side or top panel, maybe using lots of screws, some adapters for the heatpipe endings... There are some ideas i have because i took some time to think about it as an actual possibility. This however could get nasty in terms of pricing, therefore discarded the idea for commercial use.

The only proven fact of what a case does is noise reduction. Thick Aluminum panels like Lian-Li, 3-layer panels like the Antec P180/182/190, these are useful things you need to find in your everyday case.

This is a little nutjob dream i have: to see a case made by Antec, NZXT and Lian-Li in collaboration! :laugh:

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: DaQuteness
Honestly, even though i own one, steel cases are pretty crappy! They're heavy as hell and they aren't even big. Mine (Antec Sonata III) is as heavy as a LianLi PC-A70B but almost 2x smaller.

Thermal transfer through casing is bullocs.

The only theoretically possible way to use the case to cool the CPU IMO is to develop a custom cooler for that case that actually STICKS to the side or top panel, maybe using lots of screws, some adapters for the heatpipe endings... There are some ideas i have because i took some time to think about it as an actual possibility. This however could get nasty in terms of pricing, therefore discarded the idea for commercial use.

The only proven fact of what a case does is noise reduction. Thick Aluminum panels like Lian-Li, 3-layer panels like the Antec P180/182/190, these are useful things you need to find in your everyday case.

This is a little nutjob dream i have: to see a case made by Antec, NZXT and Lian-Li in collaboration! :laugh:

That's the OTHER reason for using aluminum, which actually makes sense. Zalman produced a $1000 case a few years back that had a heatpipe system that attached to the inner surfaces of the aluminum case. supposedly, this made air-circulation almost unnecessary, therefore fans unnecessary and systems ultra-quiet.

As for the weight problem, I can only say that I'm glad I put 3-inch double-caster wheels on my Proliant Server ('94) case-mod project. There are four HDs in RAID5, extra metal (AL) to reinforce the bottom and support the wheels. It's truly a bitch to get it into the back of my SUV, and only reminds me that I'm getting old.

 

[Sheninat0r]

See the Antec P180, 182, 190, and the Lian-Li V series, and a few of their other cases - they all have compartments, but not separate PSU/hard drive compartments. I don't think that would help much either way, seeing as hard drives don't produce much heat and most PSUs can cool themselves pretty well, even when the rest of the computer is dumping heat into it [e.g. top-mounted PSU with bottom 120mm fan].

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Sheninat0r
See the Antec P180, 182, 190, and the Lian-Li V series, and a few of their other cases - they all have compartments, but not separate PSU/hard drive compartments. I don't think that would help much either way, seeing as hard drives don't produce much heat and most PSUs can cool themselves pretty well, even when the rest of the computer is dumping heat into it [e.g. top-mounted PSU with bottom 120mm fan].

I'll second that motion. Especially, the newer PSUs follow an "80-plus" spec-standard. Last year's Seasonic PSUs were between an 85 and 88% efficiency level. On my system, the case fans are directed mostly to cooling motherboard components, drawing air in and forcing it past those components and out the case-rear. Only a small part of that interior case-pressure comes out the PSU exhaust, and the PSU fan is spinning pretty slow. And even at full-load, the PSU exhaust is hardly noticeable as higher than room-ambient.

For larger numbers of hard-disks, assuming that the clearance between them is between 0.25" and 0.5", it is important to draw air across the drives, but separating the airflow-intake from the airflow past other, hotter components doesn't seem like a promising complication to the design.

 

[SolMiester]

Hi, I have the TJ06 and it has 3 chambers as it were.....
Wind tunnel isolates air for CPU\RAM mosfits etc
Middle chamber for VGA\PCI has no exhaust however VGA with own exhaust out rear will do the trick with 92mm intake at front.
Top chamber for HDD cage and optical, has front mini fan intakes and 80mm fan behind HDD. PSU is above HDD cage and also help extract warm air from around HDD's

Current Setup

Intended Project

though not sure if I will remove floppy cage and replace with 120mm fan or the need for Mid Chamber exhaust fan if VGA has own fan exhaust.

At present, there is a 5-10mm gap between wind tunnel and motherboard, I will use window seal tape. There is a a square gap between Mid and top chamber of which I havent decided how to separate just yet and of course a grid type mesh under the HDD cage which drags air from mid chamber out behind HDD's as