Project: XeQtion - Votey's X-QPack Mod

V

Votey

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 20, 2005
Messages
464
Hi everyone, I'm Votey.

I'm pretty new to this whole "modding" scene, but I decided to just dive right in and start a worklog. It's still a work in progress, so I'll be updating this thread with new pics and info periodically. I want to apologize now for my atrocious digital photography skills.

This project started the minute I saw my friend's new X-QPack. I wanted one, too, but there was no way I was giving up my DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D.

Then it hit me...

The inside dimensions of this case are about 13" x 10.5".
The DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D is about 12" x 9.5".
It's perfect!

The pictures speak for themselves, and that's what you came to see, so here you go.

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The box was pretty beat up when it arrived, so I wanted to document the damage before I opened it up.

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Everything was packed very well.

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Aspire did a great job ensuring that the case arrived in pristine condition.

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Case, accessories, and power supply (never to be used, poor little bugger).

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The victim on the workbench, MB tray, HD rack and front face removed.

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A view from the back.

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Took out the rear exhaust fan, and made the first CUT!
Removed some aluminum so my PSU's 120mm fan can breathe easier.

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Shaved the edge off the MB tray, and added three more PCI brackets, taken from an old Dell.

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Drilled 5 holes to mount the tray back into the case.

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Test fitting the new tray in the case. <begin Ace Ventura voice> LLLike a glove! </voice>

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Ready to cut the outside shell. (This is the big one. Mess this up, and it's all over, pal!) In red, the proposed new piece I'll have to make (and paint).

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To be continued...

Thanks for looking! I'm super excited to continue this project, and I hope some of you will get a kick out of it, too. Post any questions to clear up things I forgot. :confused:


Votey
 
Update already!? Yes, I was so pumped after starting the worklog, I had to go work on it some more.

The opening in the exterior shell is cut, filed and sanded. Just needs a little black around the edges to finish it up.

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Up next: Either hack away the insides to fit my video card, or attempt that crazy custom piece above the I/O ports and PCI slots. :)
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Nakamori said:
If this works I want to have your kids
Click to expand...

But I like my kids. You may not have them. :p

HELP me name this thing! Any ideas? How about Project: XeQtion?
 
I was just talking to my buddy about this case and MB this morning and we were wondering how to start!! This kicks ASS!!

What video card you puttin in?
 
Project: OMG IT BURNS? cause i get the feeling its gonna be HOT in there...

and nice work so far :| SUBCRIBED! :D
 
Slayten said:
I was just talking to my buddy about this case and MB this morning and we were wondering how to start!! This kicks ASS!!

What video card you puttin in?
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I'll be using the 6600GT in my sig. In fact, everything in my sig is going in.
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Votey said:
But I like my kids. You may not have them. :p

HELP me name this thing! Any ideas? How about Project: XeQtion?
Click to expand...
project x-qpacked?

heh. looks good.
i'm invincible!
 
Props to a fellow Michigander.
I was going to try something like this(put my DFI NF4 in a SFF) but I gave up and bought a Lian Li V1200. Now if I could just figure how to add watercooling without getting everything wet. :D

LL
 
what are you going to do about the back panel, now that the tray doesnt slide in there? are the psu and 120mm fan gonna stay?
 
I have to make something to cover the opening in the back that the tray used to occupy. I'm thinking about plexiglas, but I have to think of a way to attach it. As far as the PSU and exhaust fan, yes, they will stay. I want them to create a sort of negative pressure inside the case, so that air is drawn into the front. I'm thinking of making the lower 5.25" drive bay into an intake vent, and maybe also having ducts throughout the case, to direct the incoming air to certain components first (chipset, RAM, etc.).

This sort of touches on a subject I've often wondered about...

Why would a smaller case mean hotter components? You see it all the time; SFF systems are notorious for overheating problems. I currently have an Antec budget case (this pic isn't mine, but I have the same case)

antec.jpg


and it has 2 fans moving air through the case, a 120mm exhaust fan and a 120mm in the PSU. I don't have any heat problems, even on my overclocked NF4 chipset under a passive heatsink.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my Antec has about 5 cubic feet of air in it. If my fans move a combined total of, say, 50CFM, then the air in my case is replaced with fresh air about 10 times a minute, right?

Soooo.... If I move all this stuff, fans and all, to a smaller case, wouldn't I be replacing the air in the case at a much faster rate? If my X-QPack has about 1 cubic foot of air in it, then those fans will replace the air inside the case about 50 times per minute. Wouldn't more fresh air passing over the components make them cooler, instead of hotter? What am I missing here?

I know that some of the warm air stays in the case for a long time because it's trapped in the top or bottom of the case, outside of the main stream of current, but that would be true in both cases, so it shouldn't be a factor here.
 
This will be amazing if you can pull it off! Looking forward to seeing how it ends up. Unfortunate that the wires will be coming out of the side of the case though. Just audio and video...I think I could live with that.

Thinking about it, the audio could be fairly easily "extended" through the case with right angle headphone jacks available at electronics stores. Then the whole of the back panel could be hidden (run the usb from the on-board headers) unless you need the parallel port for anything. The only thing from the side then is the video cable. Do right-angled video cables exist? You could always make your own from an HD-15 D-sub, and strip away the first few inches of outer insulation so that it flexes better and can come inside the case.

My imagination is running away with me now :rolleyes: Looking forward to see how this progresses.
 
Votey said:
I currently have an Antec budget case (this pic isn't mine, but I have the same case) and it has 2 fans moving air through the case, a 120mm exhaust fan and a 120mm in the PSU. I don't have any heat problems, even on my overclocked NF4 chipset under a passive heatsink.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but you live in Michigan. That's like cheating. Some of us live in the 7th ring of H... I mean Phoenix.
:D

 
Votey, I see what you're saying. Think about a radiator in a car. More coolant flowing faster through the radiator won't allow for the heat from the coolant to transfer to the metal radiator. Some will transfer, but since the coolant would be moving faster than normal, there isn't enough time for the heat transfer to be efficient.

The same applies for a metal heat sink. Too much air moving so fast over a heat sink won't pull as much heat away. The cool air would simply grab some of the heat from the heat sink, and move away. Slow the air speed, theres more time for the cooler air to absorb more heat. Plus, in a small case, there are tightly packed components that get in the way of air flow, so really the fan could be blowing warmed air over a warm heat sink.
 
Peder said:
Votey, I see what you're saying. Think about a radiator in a car. More coolant flowing faster through the radiator won't allow for the heat from the coolant to transfer to the metal radiator. Some will transfer, but since the coolant would be moving faster than normal, there isn't enough time for the heat transfer to be efficient.

The same applies for a metal heat sink. Too much air moving so fast over a heat sink won't pull as much heat away. The cool air would simply grab some of the heat from the heat sink, and move away. Slow the air speed, theres more time for the cooler air to absorb more heat. Plus, in a small case, there are tightly packed components that get in the way of air flow, so really the fan could be blowing warmed air over a warm heat sink.
Click to expand...

Also look at it this way: temperature is dictated by the presence of heat. 'cold' is simply defined as the lack of heat, not active presense of 'coldness'. Since larger cases have more volume, heat is spread out over a larger volume, resulting in a lower temperature than the same amount of heat spread over a comparatively smaller volume.

Thats why with a SFF and Tower running the same components, the SFF runs hotter.
 
Thanks, Peder and Nakamori. That brings up some points I hadn't considered. We'll see how things turn out.

On to the update!! (albeit small, I've been half-dead sick :( )

I cut out a large section of the cross-beam to make room for my video card, and its ridiculous-sized cooler. Hopefully, despite my horrific photography skills, you can tell what you're supposed to be looking at here.

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Yes, I've scratched the crap out of this thing.
 
Votey said:
you can tell what you're supposed to be looking at here.
Click to expand...
that's what red circles in paint are for. i can't tell what i'm supposed to be looking at... maybe i should go look at before pics and see what is missing now?
Votey said:
Yes, I've scratched the crap out of this thing.
Click to expand...
it adds character (or something) just add a LOT more scratches (more or less in the same direction) and call it brushed :p

edit: ah i see it now. nvm:eek:

you planning to do SLI in there?
 
rogue_jedi said:
that's what red circles in paint are for. i can't tell what i'm supposed to be looking at... maybe i should go look at before pics and see what is missing now?

it adds character (or something) just add a LOT more scratches (more or less in the same direction) and call it brushed :p

edit: ah i see it now. nvm:eek:

you planning to do SLI in there?
Click to expand...

sli ftw
 
rogue_jedi said:
you planning to do SLI in there?
Click to expand...

No plans for SLI currently. SLI doesn't make a lot of sense to me, when I look at bang-for-the-buck. Right now there are 6800's, when in SLI, barely match a 7800's performance, and they are priced the same. By the time all the 7800 owners get enough framerate slowdown (or money) to think about getting a 2nd one for SLI, there will be a new card out for the same price that has twice as much performance, and supports new shaders and other graphical bells and whistles. Those who decide SLI isn't for them can then sell their 7800's to defray the cost of the new card, and get more performance for less money.
 
Tiny update for you tonight. I've been sick, and busy at work, and there is a bat somewhere in my house!

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Yes, a rodent that CAN TAKE FLIGHT is in my home!! I swear the devil is sitting in Hell going, "Oh yeah, this 'hell' place is pretty terrifying. I got all sorts of abominations down here. Affronts to nature that will make a mortal man shrivel into... Wait a second... Where are my flying rodents!? Oh great. They're all over the Earth. Now how am I going to torture the souls of the eternally damned?"

Anyway...

I actually measured ( !! ) something for once, and realized that my video card's ridiculously huge cooler will not fit in the case. So, I started cutting.

Here is the hard drive rack after a little "moddin." You'll see later why this section was removed. However, you might not see the logic in eliminating 50% of my case's hard drive capacity to make room for a video card cooler. I'm not even sure I do.

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And here's where the HD rack attaches to the case. I removed a section here as well.

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And a blurry view from the other side.

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A close-up of them put together.

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And another blurry view from the other side.

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A view of the whole thing so far, so you can kind of tell why I had to cut this section out. Yes, the Arctic Cooling NV Silencer is humungous.

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Thanks, Grimdj.

I apologize for the lack of updates. "Me time" in the basement is rare these days. :)

I found a scrap of steel painted black that I am trying to cut the custom side piece out of. I've augmented the pencil lines in this picture (with MS Paint, king of graphics software!) so you can see the general shape I hope to achieve. The three circles are where I'll drill holes for the window rivets.

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I just about have that custom piece finished. Here are some pics I took while checking the fit. In these pictures, there is a big difference between the color of the case and the custom piece. But in person, they look like a near perfect match.

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Stay tuned, things are starting to come together.

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altec said:
Thats going to be one bada$$ lan rig. :D
Click to expand...

Thanks! That reminds me, when it's finished, I hope you guys can forgive me if I wait a couple weeks to show it to you. I want my buds at the local weekly LAN party to see it in person first, before I spread terribly framed and poorly lit photographs of it across the interweb. :D
 
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