New Generation of Cases? 412
mikeb55121 writes "In my never ending quest to build a bigger and better computer i have come across this new design of computer case that is prety intresting to me and possibly any one else out there who build their own computers. This case is very unique because it is shaped as a "T" and the manufacture says that it ends cable clutter and has very good airflow." The aesthetics aren't bad, and the concept is solid. It'll be interesting to see if this catches on. I kind of doubt it.
I like it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:noise (Score:2, Interesting)
If I were going to make a case I'd do it like something like these guys [frozencase.com]. Only I would have no little fans (except maybe on the processor), just one large 15 inch fan mounted on the top of a cube blowing in at a low RPM. I'm so tired of the noise from my PC right now, that my next (and only) case mod might be doing something similar by mounting a fan on the side of my case.
Re:Something this case fails to consider (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apple G4 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:An old lesson from Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
A commonly held misconception. The truth is, however, that unless the hot components are in direct contact with the aluminum, the air will act as a thermal insulator, and given the fact that air is one of the best thermal insulators out there, the cooling advantage over a steel case is somewhere between jack and shit.
I'm cluster biased (Score:4, Interesting)
It insulates the machine too much and regardless of how hard you work to cool it, you are exacerbating the issue if you have it in a slot in your desk.
That said, I'm not sure the shape is all that great for my uses because I basically only ever really want either a laptop, or a bunch of small and compact machines to cluster. Something that shape on its own and under an open desk is just dandy - but trying to put that in an area with others just like it takes up more space than just the traditional "brick o' computer"
The main things I want from a case are compactness,quietness, and cheapness.
None of those seem to help keep it cool, but when you have multiple white noise sources going, they seem to amplify each other, and it SUCKS on hardwood floors.
I want a case that is quiet and clamshells, but is just a normal shape that is easy to cram a bunch of them in a small place.
basically I want a rackmount, but for way less money
Re:noise (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't beat some lego (Score:2, Interesting)
The Awesome 1337 Lego LAN Case! [one.net]
All I need now is some lego :-)
Re:Next generation of cases (Score:3, Interesting)
Something happened to it the other night, right in the middle of reading Slashdot- the video signal suddenly went away and it doesn't reboot anymore. No BIOS screen, nothing. The only things that work anymore are the NumLock light on the keyboard and the noisy fans. Except for one restart attempt when it worked normally for 30 seconds and died again.
OT: Thermal management: PC design sucks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the old VME systems (e.g. what is in use at a telephone switching office).
The backplane board is vertically mounted along the back of the enclosure, and the cards are ALSO vertically mounted into the backplane. Any plugs on each card are on the front of the card. One whole section of the bus is reserved for I/O connections, so standard connections are on the backplane.
As a result, natural convection can move air over the system. If you need forced air, you put a fan at the bottom of the system, pressurizing the cabinet - that way you are moving denser, cold air with the fan.
When the S100 systems came out, they almost got this right, but they put the backplane on the bottom, and mounted the cards vertically. As a result, you now have the backplane blocking natural convection. Plus, with the connectors on the BACK of the card, you have yet another impediment to air flow.
When the first PC was designed, they stole the design of the S100 bus systems in that regard.
Now, you have one of two options - the tower approach, with the main board vertical and the cards horizontal - so your GPU cooks in its own heat, and the cards block the natural airflow over the main board, or the desktop approach - where your cards are vertical, but your main board cooks.
All case designs for the PC are work-arounds for this rather BAD design.
And until the PC industry starts making a change, no case tricks will completely ease this.
That said, I must say these things:
1) That was possibly the BEST use of a Flash animation for a site I've seen in a long time. Rather than wasting my time with BS, they show me the case in operation. Bravo to the webmaster!
2) The case actually would solve one problem I have in my setup - with all the cables exiting out the back of the tower case, and the tower being in the bay in my desk, it is a bitch to get to them, and they tend to get nibbled on by the fans I've put at the back of the desk. This case, with the cards exiting from the side would avoid that.
Re:Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Next generation of cases (Score:3, Interesting)
use computers not for games switch to laptops.
I guess maybe non-laptop computers will be used
for servers only in future.
Re:An old lesson from Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
"If it's an insulator, why does it get hot?"
"The fact is that trapped air is a good insulator relative to flowing air and to solid objects like lumber."
Good grief, make up your mind! The fact is that air is a very good thermal insulator, one of the best, because, like almost all gases, it has a very low coefficient of thermal inertia. That means that for a given volume of air, it will conduct less heat (energy) over a given period of time. One of the reasons is that the molecules of air are less dense than, say, a given volume of steel.
Why does the air get hot? Simple...you've got a limited volume inside the case and a number of components that are emitting a (relatively) stupendous amount of heat. The small volume of air in the case will most definitely heat up.
Although the fans in the aluminum case will transfer some small amount of the heat to the case, you'll actually find that because the coefficients of thermal inertia are so mismatched between air and metal that very little thermal transfer is taking place between, say, the CPU and the case. That's because the metal can conduct the heat much faster than the air can deliver it.
The real problem is getting the hot air inside the case out of the case. I design memory modules, and part of the work is doing thermal analyses of them. Our models (which reflect reality pretty closely) show that the material of the case is not particularly important when it comes to managing thermal issues within the case. What is far more important is getting the hot air out of the case as quickly as possible...and that's because the air itself simply will not conduct the heat to another location effectively. Why? Because it's an insulator!
Incidentally, air is quite a good electrical insulator, too, unless it is ionized by a fairly high voltage.
"Why is there always somebody who has to argue with the obvious?"
Indeed!
-h-
Re:Two Observations (Score:2, Interesting)
While I generally like the case and the accessibility is nice, I agree with you. Having the cables come out the side could be a pain. Looking at my desk, my tower is on the right side of my legs. Given that the case doesn't look very deep, that means I'd be knocking cables around (and out) with my feet/legs.
I actually kinda like the current Dell Dimension case [dell.com]. It still has problems as far as cable-spaghetti goes, but the PS and motherboard are on one side, with drive bays on the other. You can open it easily without tools and without having to lay it down, and the drive bays are easily accessible.
i've got one and here's what I think (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:OT: Thermal management: PC design sucks... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. First you talked about passive convection cooling, now something else. Make up your mind about what PC's need to copy. If you look at something like a sun 10k or 15k you'll find a midpoint-to-top airflow but that's got much less to do with convection cooling than with the ability to pull a board out without removing the fans. Once you force enough air through the system the orientation is pretty much irrelevant, and driven by concerns other than cooling.
As opposed to VME-based telecom equipment?
Now that's a relevent argument, and definately a problem in most low-end/home pc's. Rackmount and high-end machines tend to have better airflow due to improved cable management and integrated design.
For which components is this even relevant? Convection cooling is totally inadequate for the hottest part of a modern system. (CPU and HD now, and increasingly other components.) Moving things around so they match an ancient VME design isn't going to change the fact that you'll need a big honkin' fan. More importantly still, the ideal solution just won't have any dead air...
Everything from rackmount pc's to multirack storage arrays to liquid-cooled computer systems. Ain't none of that stuff going to benefit from passive convection air cooling.