Building a Custom PC Case: Experimentation and Design

For this project, I decided to build a custom PC case that would allow me to experiment with different design ideas. The main goal was to create a case that could efficiently cool both the processor and power supply using a single fan. This approach works well because the air can flow smoothly over the power supply without any obstruction, whereas in a typical configuration, the air has to go 90 degrees to reach the power supply, which means the fan has to turn quite a bit faster to move the same amount of air.

This design decision allowed me to create a case that is cooler and quieter than a traditional case. By using a single fan to cool both components, I was able to reduce the overall noise level and increase the efficiency of the cooling system. The airflow path was also optimized to minimize turbulence and maximize cooling effectiveness.

One of the key benefits of this design is that it eliminates the need for additional fans or heat sinks, which reduces the overall complexity and cost of the build. The case can be easily expanded with additional components, such as USB ports or storage drives, without compromising the cooling system.

The fabric used in the case was chosen for its thermal insulation properties and ability to maintain a consistent temperature. By wrapping the fabric around the case, I was able to create a smooth airflow path that promotes efficient heat transfer. The carbon fiber wrap on the front of the case adds a touch of elegance and sophistication to the design.

The power supply is located at the bottom of the case, which provides easy access for maintenance and upgrades. The 12v and 5v rails are connected to the DC sockets, allowing users to plug in additional devices such as printers or external hard drives.

To ensure safety, I took precautions to isolate high-voltage electronics from the fabric used in the case. This includes using an enclosure around the power plug and keeping all high-voltage components well away from the fabric. This design decision eliminates any risk of electrical shock or fire hazards.

The build process was a fun and creative experience that allowed me to experiment with different design ideas. The cost of building this case was relatively low, making it an economical option for those looking to create their own custom PC cases.

Inside the case, I installed a laptop-style optical drive, two USB 2 ports, one USB 3 port, and a card reader. The vertical loading optical drive provides easy access to the optical drive, while the USB ports and card reader offer convenient connectivity options for users.

One of the features that sets this case apart is its built-in backup system. When the button on the top is pressed, the front power light turns red, and the additional hard drive gets connected to the power supply. This automatically starts the backup process, transferring data from the laptop drive to the external hard drive. This feature ensures that users are more likely to keep regular backups of their important files.

I'll be covering a detailed build log in the next video, where I'll take you through the step-by-step process of building this custom PC case. After the build log, I'll be conducting performance tests to demonstrate just how quiet and efficient this case is.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHello my name's Matt and welcome tothis videoabout my homemade computer casemark 2!This is actually a sequel to acomputer case I made a while agoout of wood, and the ideas I thought of there, well, some of them anyway,have been transferred to this but done a bit better.The main goal was again to make analmost inaudible computer. So no matterwhatthe computer was doing, whether it wasplaying games, video editing, or evenword processing... you know, that's reallydemanding task lolWell bascally the goal was for it to becompletely inaudibleno matter how quiet the room is.To do this I've actually reconfigured astandard layoutand so it's quite a bit different than thestandard case,and because that sort of like the mainfeature here, I think we'll have a lookinside first.So if we just turn it around and takethe side panel off,which is usually held in by three screws,you can see thatit is indeed quite a bit different thanstandard case.Now this is more like function over formbecause thisreally isn't supposed to be seen, unlessyou need to upgrade it or something like that.There are a lot of cases out there that areway betterin terms of internal looks, but as Isaid this ismore function over form.So, the first thing you'll noticeis that the motherboard is mountedvertically and thisis to allow the case to have a verticaland flow design.So basically the air gets taken in at thebottom here through these dust filtersand goes through the heatsinksverticallyand then out to the top. This goesalong with convection because obviouslyheat risesso what it means is that fans don't haveto turn as fastto move the same amount of air. Now usuallythere a plastic barriers which directair through the heatsinksbut they were removed for most the shotsin this video as to not be in the way.Also you may notice that this quite alarge gap between fans andheatsinks. This was done so that the fanscould remove not only the heat from theheat sinksbut also the surrounding components aswell. Now because the motherboard ismounted vertically,all the sports can be accessed through ahatchon the top the case, and all the cablescan go through a holeat the back. This this is actually morepractical than having the portson the back because it means you don'thave to pull the computer outif you want to plug something in.Another thing you may have noticed is that thegraphics card has a colossal CPU cooleron it,rather than standard graphics card cooler.The reason why it's thereis to allow the graphics card to bequietereven if its maxed out playing anintensive game. There are a few reasonswhy this makes it quieter,the first is that, obviously, because thisis a much bigger cooler, it has alarger surface area, which means it cantransferheat to the air more effectively.Another thing is that becausethe air pathis vertical, all the heat from the cardgets ventedimmediately outside the case, rather thanjust being left insidelike a normal graphics card coolerusually does.For example, this is the original cooleras you can see, not only is it smallerbut itis designed just to basically below theheat off itselfrather than exhausted out of the case likethe new cooler does.The third reason this cooler helpswith noise levelsis that it allows a much bigger fan tobe used with the graphics card.For example this is a 140mm fanwhich is same size what I've actuallyused in here, andit is significantly bigger than theoriginal cooler's fan.This means that the bigger fandoesn't have to spin is fastto move the same amount of air, soit means thatoverall the whole thing is a lotquieter.So this thing's pretty much redundantnow... oh my goodness!That nearly hit the mirror!Weren't you paying attention?!She caught it.That's good. Yay.Now, as the coolest sticks out alotyou might be thinking that it might stressthe card's PCBbut I'd just like to point out that itis mountedextremely securely andall of the RAM and voltage regulatorshave heat sinks onand they're obviously in the airflowpath as well, so it's all kept withinspec.I personally think there should be a newstandard for computer cases, or at leastgaming cases, to allow big coolers ongraphics cards like thisbecause most of the time graphics cardsactually usetwice as much power as processes do, butthe heat sinks are restricted to only2 PCI Express slots, and the airflow isobviouslynot exactly direct after the case, likeas usual withprocessors. So I do hope that eventuallythere will be a nice new standardwhere graphics cards can have a betterairflow path andcan have bigger coolers because theyare just sopowerful and hot and noisy sometimes, andit would be quite good if that was allhistory,just like it was with processors whenthese big coolers became the norm.So...You might have noticed is that there issome weird greenluminous stuff inside here, and you'reprobably thinking'what on earth is that's doing inside acomputer case?'Well, what it is is folded fabric, andthe reason why it's there is to provide asoft mountfor the 2 fans, so this means thatthe vibrations from the fansdon't get transferred into the casegetting amplifiedprocess. This is something I covered in myhow to make a graphics cardquieter video and it does have asignificant effect on the overall noiselevels.Now, another thing this fabric does isabsorb any high-frequency sounds thatmight be omittedfrom the graphics card or power supply,like coil whine.It does really good job of thisbecause just absorbs it and prevents itfrom being bouncedelsewhere. These components actually don'thave that much wine to them, but they dohave a little,and that little coil whine is actuallylouder than the fan's,so it is important that this noise isabsorbed so that you cann't hear it,because when it's not been masked byfan noise it can be quite annoying.The hard drives are here the back andagainthe data drive, which is a 2.5 inchlaptop hard drive,is in a little pocket made out of the samefabricand that's for the exact samereason of absorbingits noise and vibrations. The powersupplyis mounted here beneath the motherboard,and as you can see it's been takenout of its case. The reason for thatis to getrid of a fan, because now it's beingcooled by the CPU's fan.So it's cooling both the processor and thepower supply.This works really well because inthis configuration the air can flowsmoothlyover the power supply without anyobstruction really, whereason a typical power supply the air has to go90 degreeswhich does mean that the fan has to turnquite a bit faster to move the sameamount or air.So it does mean thats it is quite a bitcooler this way.Before any of you say that having thisfabric near power supplyis a fire hazard, I'll just say thatbecause of the way the power supply hasbeenfitted, all of the high-voltageelectronics are isolated and withintheir ownlittle enclosures, you can't see it here butthere is an enclosurearound the power plug for example, andeverything high-voltagehas been kept well away from this fabric,so it is very safeeven if there was a direct shortthe PSU would obviously justswitch offand a fire is extremely unlikely.So please don't comment on how mycomputer is going to catch fire and burnmy house downbecause it's not going to happenokay soI think we'll look back now. As youcan see thisis the input for the power supply andthere are two more USB 2 ports, forsomething like a printer or whatever youwant to pluginat the back, and and two DC sockets.These DC sockets are connected to thepower supply's12v and 5v rails and basically allow youto plug in someextra devices that you want to bepowered by the computer.Here you can see that there is some moreof that fabric,on the bottom and we've got same thingat the top as well.So you might be wondering why not go withwater cooling instead of making a newcase like this.Well essentially the key word for thiscase isexperimentation: I just wanted to try out afew ideas I had.Another thing is that watercooling isactually quite expensive.For example, this whole case, excluding mytime,was built for less than a basic watercooling kitso it was economical for me to do thisas well.Watercooling isn't necessarily quieterthanair, because you've got things like pumpsto contend with, and essentiallyall it is is a better that way of takingheat away from componentsand cooling it down with better airflow pathtypically, whereas because I built thisfrom scratch it by default has a betterairflow pathso it makes it necessary to gowith water cooling,and it means that you don't have tomaintain it either. You can't see itbecause it's covered by this whiteplasticbut there is another hard driveinside here.It's a desktop drive and it's used forbackuppuproses, and I'l cover that in just a second.So, I think it's time to turn it on. So asyou can see this plexiglass light onthe front looksreally cool, as does the power button, andthe whole thing has been finished with alovely carbon fiber wrap,which is why it has this nice texture toit despitethe whole thing be made out of aluminium.It's actually this combination oflightsand vinyl wrap that it's been called cloudunitas it looks sort of droidish when it's on.On the top we've got a vertical loadingoptical drive,which is essentially just a laptopoptical drive,and we've got to usb2 portsone USB 3 port, a usb3 card reader,and a button. Now this button doessomething quite specialin that when it's pressed, the frontpower light turns red,and inside that additional hard drivetold you about behind the white plasticgets connected to the power supply soit turns onand then the system automatically beginsbacking up the datafrom the laptop drive, which is the datadrive,to the backup hard drive. So it'sbasically likea really easy backup system, which meansyou're more likely to keepregular backups of your data, which isobviously usually the most valuablethingon a computer. So I think that's prettymuchit. Thanks very much for watching thisvideo, and if you've liked itdon't forget to give it a thumbs up!In the next video I'll be doing a buildlog of this thingso I'll be showing you how I went aboutbuilding it and things like thatafter the build log I'll be doing aperformance test, so I'll be showingyou basically how quietthis thing really is and what kindtemperatures it gets as well.So I'm Matt and thanks again forwatchingand I hope to see you next time!Don't forget to subscribeif you liked this video!\n"