What does everyone think of my wood computer?

[Turbo Ben]

Hi guys. I mentioned in another thread that I had made my PC out of wood and someone requested I post up some photos, so here we are

First time uploading photos and I'm not sure it's worked as intended, but we'll see.

 

I've built the computer into a support for a large desk. At the bottom is a 6 1/2" sub, just above that is a compartment housing the power supply (and a rats nest of wires), then the motherboard and water cooling radiator, then at the top is a compartment housing a blu ray drive, memory card reader, hard drive and the audio amp. The wires hanging out at the top right are the power switch, usb connectors and volume controls, which will all be mounted to a black acrylic panel. There's also a small relay in here that is activated by the power supply. When I shut down the computer it switches off the mains power to 3 monitors and audio amplifier.

 

 

Close up of the motherboard. This section will be covered with a perspex front when I get round to having it cut.

 

 

RGB goodness I also have an RGB strip to fit.

 

 

Back of the computer. I've had it in bits fitting an RTX 2070. Thankfully it swapped straight in with the GTX 1050 that was there before. The back panel was the most difficult to do, getting all the cut-outs for the motherboard, GPU and radiator was a nightmare!

 

 

Sunrise over the KSC with my Jool transport ship ready to launch The monitors are suspended from the wall and all the wires are hidden. Also note the 2 speakers above the monitors, finished with a shelf running full width accross the top.

 

Some specs:

Water cooled i7-7700k overclocked to 5GHz. Delidded and lapped with thermal grizly metal paste. Top temp I saw when overclocking was about 70C!

Asus ROG Strix Z270E Gaming motherboard

16GB DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z

500GB Samsung evo m.2 SSD. Boots to Windows 10 desktop in about 13 seconds.

Gigabyte RTX 2070 windforce. Haven't tried an overclock yet, only just fitted it.

1TB standard HD.

EVGA 650W modular power supply.

 

I'd be interested to see if anyone else has done anything like this. Also happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Turbo Ben

[TheKurgan]

Awesome!! I love DIY stuff like this. 

[Starwaster]

I love wood.

[Gargamel]

Very cool.

Next time though, look into getting a pocket hole jig.   You'll be able to hide those screws so nobody can see them :D. 

[FleshJeb]

That's a great build, but I'd be concerned about the giant magnet sitting under all the unshielded components.

[scottadges]

What Cooler AIO did you use for this (it looks like a Corsair)? I'm looking at upgrading my i5-6600 (not overclocked) for an i7-7700K and have been looking at several options.

I'll also need to upgrade my motherboard and was checking out the ASUS Z270 as well. Did you get the MBO for this new build, or did you have it before?

And great job on the "case"  Looks like a ton of work!

Edited February 14, 2019 by scottadges

[IncongruousGoat]

Oh, that's very pretty. I like it. I like it a lot.

...

I think that I'm going to make me a custom case whenever I next re-build my desktop.

[Turbo Ben]

4 hours ago, scottadges said:

What Cooler AIO did you use for this (it looks like a Corsair)? I'm looking at upgrading my i5-6600 (not overclocked) for an i7-7700K and have been looking at several options.

I'll also need to upgrade my motherboard and was checking out the ASUS Z270 as well. Did you get the MBO for this new build, or did you have it before?

And great job on the "case"  Looks like a ton of work!

Thanks.

Yes, it's a corsair H100i V2.

I built it about 2 years ago and everything was new at the time. It was probably less work than it looks, I got my local wood shop to cut most of the pieces to size The only really difficult bit was the back panel and radiator mount.

[liya]

I liked it very much

[YNM]

Make sure you finished the woods and the screwholes properly though ! Don't want to get any crumbles on that !

[Nuke]

cool, but i think id give the inside a bit of foil tape and ground it for emi shielding. i tried putting a bare board raspberry pi in my networking cabinet and it caused a lot of connectivity issues with the wifi. but if it aint broke no need to fix it.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Nuke

[p1t1o]

The innards of my machine is seperated from a subwoofer only by a plane of glass (1 side metal, 1 side glass, 4 sides air). I only just considered the magnetic field thing on reading this thread, never been an issue.

I think. I mean, I DO suffer from some apparently random, unexplained crashes, but they only happen once in a while? I just figure it as a "quirk", a figment of my particular cocktail of drivers and whatnot.

Isnt it a regulation that almost any electrical component must be able to handle this-and-that external interference? Without necessitating a metal box? Eg: A hard disk looks pretty well shielded just on its own, thats about the most vulnerable thing I can think of, to magnetic fields. But Im no expert.

Edited February 14, 2019 by p1t1o

[Shpaget]

Nah don't worry, HDDs are not susceptible to any sort of sane magnetic fields, and quite resistant to some insane levels.

The magnetic heads of HDDs  actually have extremely powerful fields, but on tiny scales, so unless your woofer has a magnet like in this vid, you're safe.

 

Edited February 14, 2019 by Shpaget

[Nuke]

17 hours ago, p1t1o said:

The innards of my machine is seperated from a subwoofer only by a plane of glass (1 side metal, 1 side glass, 4 sides air). I only just considered the magnetic field thing on reading this thread, never been an issue.

I think. I mean, I DO suffer from some apparently random, unexplained crashes, but they only happen once in a while? I just figure it as a "quirk", a figment of my particular cocktail of drivers and whatnot.

Isnt it a regulation that almost any electrical component must be able to handle this-and-that external interference? Without necessitating a metal box? Eg: A hard disk looks pretty well shielded just on its own, thats about the most vulnerable thing I can think of, to magnetic fields. But Im no expert.

its not really that big of a deal. it might not pass fcc compliance testing, but its not like they will bust down your door over it. but if you have issues with it or any other electronics, a bit of foil is a cheap fix solution.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Nuke

[p1t1o]

3 hours ago, Nuke said:

its not really that big of a deal. it might not pass fcc compliance testing, but its not like they will bust down your door over it. but if you have issues with it or any other electronics, a bit of foil is a cheap fix solution.

How would I know a magnetic interference problem from any other kind of problem? What form would it take?

[Nuke]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

How would I know a magnetic interference problem from any other kind of problem? What form would it take?

hard to say with digital systems, especially something as complex as a pc. you can try using a radio tuned to am and see if you get any interference around the computer. though ive never met a computer that didnt play havok with am radio.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Nuke

[p1t1o]

19 hours ago, Nuke said:

hard to say with digital systems, especially something as complex as a pc. you can try using a radio tuned to am and see if you get any interference around the computer. though ive never met a computer that didnt play havok with am radio.

Kinda feel like if an outside field was messing with the electronics, it would go haywire.

[StrandedonEarth]

It's a nice looking setup. As for interference from the sub, I'd have to give it a definite maybe. Probably best to shield it anyways, and see if the random crashes go away.

As far as I can remember from my basic electromagnetics ejumacashun, it takes either motion or a changing field to induce a current. So it's possible that vibrations (heavy bass?) could be enough to flip some bits.

When trying to determine the root cause of a problem, eliminate as many variables/possibilities as possible.

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Kinda feel like if an outside field was messing with the electronics, it would go haywire.

theres a lot of lvdc differential signaling going on, mainly on the pcie bus and the dmi bus (the internal connection between the cpu and the south bridge on intel boards, idk what the amd version is called), which i do believe is highly resistant to outside interference. memory bus i think uses parity on its address and data lines so it can detect errors and try again (all handled on the fly so you dont notice). any other high speed serial busses like sata or usb are pretty well shielded and differential as well. mobo designers likely hide the high speed busses between a couple of ground planes for added signal clarity. so all of the high speed busses i think are protected some way.

its the low speed stuff you have to worry about. like if your mobo has rgb theres a good chance its on a low speed i2c or spi bus. there is the i2s bus in the sound subsystem to communicate between the controllers and the dac. you might hear some extra static in there, bit it would take a good ear to notice. anywhere where you have analog signals (some video connections). though most of this stuff is non-critical to the function of the computer.

[Kernel Kraken]

Can you help me properly clean my metal computer?

[YNM]

1 hour ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Can you help me properly clean my metal computer?

What, Brasso ?

[Kernel Kraken]

3 hours ago, YNM said:

What, Brasso ?

I tried to make a YouTube reference and you threw one back and I don't understand it help.

[YNM]

2 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

I tried to make a YouTube reference and you threw one back and I don't understand it help.

[Nuke]

On 2/17/2019 at 7:31 AM, Kernel Kraken said:

Can you help me properly clean my metal computer?

just kill the dust bunnies from time to time.