Wooden PC Case

My interest in both woodworking and PCs have encouraged me to make a wooden PC case.
There was a lot of thinking, measuring, drawing ...and there was Internet for the ideas.
Eventually, I got started without any complete plan and now my project is stabbing down more than 100 working hours.

Step 1: Routing the Connections

Step 2: The Back Panel

Step 3: Mounting the Motherboard

Step 4: Graphics Card, Wifi Card and Power Supply

Step 5: The Fans and the Buttons on the Front

Step 6: Harddrive Tray

Step 7: Making a Window in the Side

Step 8: Painting the Whole Construction and Mount It Together

Step 9: And This Is the Result

I also mention the technical content here, but this was not my priority,
for me making the case was the most important.

Motherboard: Asus P7P55D LE
CPU: i5 750 2,67Ghz
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB
Graphics card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti
Power Supply: Cooler Master G650M
Water Cooling: Corsair H60
SSD: 120GB Samsung Evo 850
HDD: 2x Samsung 3.5 “2TB

Furthermore there are two Noctua fans inside, one fan from Cooler Master, and a laptop DVD writer from HP.
The fan grills, the legs and the front USB ports come from old desktops.
The system is installed with Windows 7 x64.

Comments

[tipigeon]

Very nice! i would've liked more a steambent wood piece, with a more glossy finish but i'll leave that when i'll be able to work wood correctly x)

[jlyvers743]

I like the idea. Some instructions how how you mounted different parts would be helpful. For example, how did you mount the standoff screws for the mother board?

[Elbee_]

I put the mainboard on the plate to indicate where the holes were.
I drilled through the plate with a drill as thick as the body of the stand-off. The stand-off itself as tapped into the plate and sat tight.

[RockeyDA]

I have had my own plans for something like this for a few months now... i just cant get any one to give me a ride to get the wood. imiges of my plans and what i have to work with... and i did deiced for card mounts, im just gonna cut the metal one out of an old dell case or something. im kinda pissed i cant get any one to just drive me to get wood, i started this in july.

[tp.pa.12]

Very nice case, I wish I had a computer worthy of one!

I do have to disagree with mounting the boards right to the wood, wood insulates too well, if you had a board in the middle, and cut out behind the boards, then your awesome two fan system could blow air across the boards cooling both sides, instead of just sucking the heat out that they produce.

very nice job once again, looks like a custom pro job.

Tp

[Dwargh]

Nice idea! :)

But it would be a better idea to move the PSU to the bottom of the case, like every case manufacturer does these days! And, as hijinx78 already mentioned, enlarge the exhaust of the psu on the back. Else, it will die soon! :/

[Elbee_]

Thanks for your comment, I know that most standard cases have the psu at the bottom. But why should that be better?

[hijinx78]

PSU on the bottom is strictly a design/appearance element. You MIGHT draw in slightly cooler air into the PSU when it's bottom mounted because hot air rises, but that's at the expense of venting a LOT more hot air out of the case if the PSU is mounted on top. Plus, with a top mounted PSU you can usually skip a secondary fan on the rear of the case to vent it - assuming it isn't a fanless unit. But you're using water cooling so the point is moot - your biggest heat generator is already being vented directly out the back.

[Elbee_]

Ok thanks for your explication.

[Dwargh]

It's obvious that placing the psu to the bottom is quite better... The hot air from the CPU/GPU/Case interior might damage the components of the psu in the long run... Plus, it get's the cooler air from the bottom (high case feet provided!) :) It's that simple!

[Elbee_]

Ok thanks, i'll keep that in mind.

[hijinx78]

<sarcasm>How in the God-fearing hell did this make it into the Instructables email? You didn't use pallet wood. You didn't use a laser cutter. You didn't use a million dollar CNC machine. It's not powered by Arduino or Raspberry Pi. And not even a shred of paracord in the entire thing! Oh the humanity!</sarcasm>

The only thing I would have done differently is enlarged the hole for the power supply. Almost all PSUs draw air in the bottom (inside the case) and exhaust it out the back. Way to go the extra mile and dovetail it instead of just gluing and screwing it. Well done.

[Elbee_]

Thanks for your comment! :-)

[Jake Maverick]

i have been thinking about something very similar for a while...but to echo the previous comment somehwat....I think it wd be safer and make a life lot easier if you used actual metal mounting plate for the motherboard....and the actual metal parts for mounting of the hard drives.

I also notice around your psu....you've not fully cut it out- the air intake for your fan on that is blocked, has your psu not overheated and blown yet? do you have any temp monitoring within your case...I imagine it's getting pretty hot in there under extended load?

[Elbee_]

I don't have a temperture monitoring in the case but all the standard temperatures (cpu, graphics card...) stays stable also at heavy use.

[Jake Maverick]

very nice work

[Elbee_]

Thanks!

[spe672]

Your instructable has a cool look, but be aware that computer electronics have to meet radiated emissions standards and that's why they are placed inside a metal box. The sealed metal box protects you from these emissions. Circuit boards working at extremely high clock rates emit energy that you don't want to expose yourself to.

I worked at a computer board company and we supplied PCI Express cards to Apple...apple was having dufficulty passing these tests without adding conductive gaskets around the express card slots.

[reverendchip]

I've run racks of unshielded multi processor motherboards (starting with overclocked BP6 boards) in my shop for literally decades doing distributed computing projects. I have yet to develop an antler, a tumor or illness. Sometimes government regulations are just stupid.

[Jake Maverick]

and at the other stream they encourage wifi everywhere and mandating smart metres....the adverse health effects are becoming well documented, despite the govt suppression of these facts....what they really want it for

www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-08/06/wifi-radar