SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

4884 said:
Am I the only one who runs a vega 64 inside a sentry? :p
The area close to the exhaust gets hot while gaming. Since it's a blower card there is no performance hit though.
I'm starting to think about mounting a fan outside the case to cool it a bit:rolleyes:
Scythe slip stream slim seems good. It's all black and the thinnest of all.
Click to expand...

Do it. It made a huge difference for me. It allowed me to overclock and everything. I am using the CoolJag Falcon though with an open air 1080ti. It's not super silent but it's not too loud.
 
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4884 said:
Am I the only one who runs a vega 64 inside a sentry? :p
The area close to the exhaust gets hot while gaming. Since it's a blower card there is no performance hit though.
I'm starting to think about mounting a fan outside the case to cool it a bit:rolleyes:
Scythe slip stream slim seems good. It's all black and the thinnest of all.
Click to expand...

Definitely consider using weatherstripping to seal the radial fan to the vent on sentry. Also I added a bunch of 40mm fans exhausting hot air out of the gpu compartment. Here's my original post from ages ago.

Ej24 said:
So I've been experimenting with 40mm fans...
View attachment 24912
View attachment 24916
If I decide it's worth it, I'll make a more permanent mounting solution out of ABS or Kydex plastic, but for now, a ton of electrical tape will do! I decided to try on the GPU side, simply because there is a frame on the side to mount them to, but also because the 1080 Founders Edition has a vent on the top (side?) that ejects quite a bit of hot air, which I wanted to remove from the case as fast as possible.
View attachment 24913
I've noticed the max GPU temp went down a little bit (72C vs 75C), but, it takes for ever to go back down to idle (~37C). It lingers forever around 50C which didn't happen in an open air setup. I think that's because the fans are creating a region of low pressure, drawing CPU exhaust in that direction, filling the GPU side with warm CPU exhaust. Even when the GPU is doing nothing I feel very warm air being exhausted by the fans, most likely from the CPU. My GPU alone creates no net change in air pressure because it has a seal between it and the case, so it ejects all the air it draws in from the exterior of the case. If I can come up with a way to mount some 40mm fans on the CPU side I'll see if that helps even out the pressure and eject CPU heat out the CPU side of the case. However without a frame on that side it will be difficult. I'll probably need a powered fan hub if I add any more fans though.. We'll see.
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Here's a more recent photo. I have 4 40mm fans on the gpu side and one 40mm on the cpu side. I think in a future revision of Sentry the hole spacing on the narrow sides of the case could be such that 40mm fans will line up perfectly.

zzuHcNU.jpg
 
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Ej24 said:
Definitely consider using weatherstripping to seal the radial fan to the vent on sentry. Also I added a bunch of 40mm fans exhausting hot air out of the gpu compartment. Here's my original post from ages ago.



Here's a more recent photo. I have 4 40mm fans on the gpu side and one 40mm on the cpu side. I think in a future revision of Sentry the hole spacing on the narrow sides of the case could be such that 40mm fans will line up perfectly.

zzuHcNU.jpg
Click to expand...
Do you think those fans fit in the bottom of the case right under the motherboard?
 
Rysen said:
Do you think those fans fit in the bottom of the case right under the motherboard?
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Under the motherboard? I sincerely doubt it. The fans are 10mm thick. There's only 6-7mm space under the motherboard iirc. Under the gpu, maybe, given that a 2.5in drive can fit. But thats about it.
 
Ej24 said:
Under the motherboard? I sincerely doubt it. The fans are 10mm thick. There's only 6-7mm space under the motherboard iirc. Under the gpu, maybe, given that a 2.5in drive can fit. But thats about it.
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They are not PWM fans right? Are they loud?
 
4884 said:
They are not PWM fans right? Are they loud?
Click to expand...

Correct, they are not PWM but I can control the speed in bios. So it'll depend in your motherboard as to how much control you have over them. They are not loud at all. If you decide to try them, be sure to get the 12v fans. Not 5v as some 40mm fans are. Plugging a 5v fan into a 12v header will result in an insanely loud and fast fan that will die very quickly.

Noctua fans are my personal favorite. As you can see they're rated at 18dba, so not loud at all.

http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x10-flx/specification
 
Ej24 said:
Correct, they are not PWM but I can control the speed in bios. So it'll depend in your motherboard as to how much control you have over them. They are not loud at all. If you decide to try them, be sure to get the 12v fans. Not 5v as some 40mm fans are. Plugging a 5v fan into a 12v header will result in an insanely loud and fast fan that will die very quickly.

Noctua fans are my personal favorite. As you can see they're rated at 18dba, so not loud at all.

http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x10-flx/specification
Click to expand...

These tiny fans are really expensive did you find a bundle price or something like that?
 
Ej24 said:
Correct, they are not PWM but I can control the speed in bios. So it'll depend in your motherboard as to how much control you have over them. They are not loud at all. If you decide to try them, be sure to get the 12v fans. Not 5v as some 40mm fans are. Plugging a 5v fan into a 12v header will result in an insanely loud and fast fan that will die very quickly.

Noctua fans are my personal favorite. As you can see they're rated at 18dba, so not loud at all.

http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a4x10-flx/specification
Click to expand...
I think I will get 2 of these little fans, for the sake of giving some air flow to the gpu compartment.
But first I'll have to think through how they can be mounted.:p
Perhaps sealing around the fans like what your did is not necessary in my case, as my gpu doesn't have any opening there.

Ej24 said:
They are expensive. No I did not find a bundle... Yes, I have spent waaay too much money on my pc.
Click to expand...
Tinkering a pc is fun! This is my first desktop pc and I'm starting to understand why people keep pimping theirs.:D
I just want to give it the best of everything.
 
4884 said:
I think I will get 2 of these little fans, for the sake of giving some air flow to the gpu compartment.
But first I'll have to think through how they can be mounted.:p
Perhaps sealing around the fans like what your did is not necessary in my case, as my gpu doesn't have any opening there.


Tinkering a pc is fun! This is my first desktop pc and I'm starting to understand why people keep pimping theirs.:D
I just want to give it the best of everything.
Click to expand...

I don't understand how you guys are worried about GPU temps. My GPU is a 1080ti and is overclocked and doesn't go past 80C. It's an open air card but my blower 1080ti FE never throttled.
 
Rysen said:
I don't understand how you guys are worried about GPU temps. My GPU is a 1080ti and is overclocked and doesn't go past 80C. It's an open air card but my blower 1080ti FE never throttled.
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Well, my GPU is a vega 64 which has even higher TDP than your 1080ti.
It doesn't throttle but the exhaust is so hot that even the case becomes too warm to comfortably touch.
(although I think nowadays less cooling means lower boost clock automatically. The card actually self adjust the clock speed and fan rpm to hit the temp target.)

IMG_20171002_153959378.jpg


I think experimenting with some little fans to see if this temp can be lowered is fun.
 
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4884 said:
Well, my GPU is a vega 64 which has even higher TDP than your 1080ti.
It doesn't throttle but the exhaust is so hot that even the case becomes too warm to comfortably touch.
(although I think nowadays less cooling means lower boost clock automatically. The card actually self adjust the clock speed and fan rpm to hit the temp target.)

View attachment 38290

I think experimenting with some little fans to see if this temp can be lowered is fun.
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Have you tried you exact setup in another case? You might be getting high temps, but it might not be the case
 
forScience said:
Have you tried you exact setup in another case? You might be getting high temps, but it might not be the case
Click to expand...
There's no problem with the sentry nor the setup. The card is that hot. I'm just making excuses to fiddle with my pc.
 
4884 said:
There's no problem with the sentry nor the setup. The card is that hot. I'm just making excuses to fiddle with my pc.
Click to expand...
as i said in an earlier post, why don't you try making a fan duct connecting the case vents to the gpu fan? I saw on another thread it can reduce temps by a few degrees
 
4884 said:
There's no problem with the sentry nor the setup. The card is that hot. I'm just making excuses to fiddle with my pc.
Click to expand...

I really like the idea of your build in your signature! Great touch 4884! Whenever I see a comment from you, I automatically know your use-case. Awesome!
 
For those thinking of the new Coffee Lake platform.

After reading Arstechnica.com review of 8700K it doesn't seem like even delidding will make it viable in something like Sentry. Maybe liquid metal plus a solid undervolting would bring it down to acceptable temps, but power draw is pretty large and there's no way around it, more power = more heat.
 
Ej24 said:
For those thinking of the new Coffee Lake platform.

After reading Arstechnica.com review of 8700K it doesn't seem like even delidding will make it viable in something like Sentry. Maybe liquid metal plus a solid undervolting would bring it down to acceptable temps, but power draw is pretty large and there's no way around it, more power = more heat.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I decided is not worth it. The 8700k is not even available anywhere and it literally is just 2 more cores. I'll keep my 7700k and buy Ryzen 1600x for my other build, I will get the Asrock x370 as a placeholder for the Asus X370 that is coming up.
 
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Rysen said:
Yeah, I decided is not worth it. The 8700k is not even available anywhere and it literally is just 2 more cores. I'll keep my 7700k and buy Ryzen 1600x for my other build, I will get the Asrock x370 as a placeholder for the Asus X370 that is coming up.
Click to expand...

Yeah Ryzen is definitely going to be the better platform, especially considering it has 4 more pcie lanes on the cpu. You get full bandwidth for nvme no matter what. With Intel, if it's off the chipset (which it probably is) you're limited to whatever bandwidth is left over after your gigabit ethernet, Sata and USB ports which all consume some of that DMI link.

Hopefully there's a refresh of AM4 boards with Ryzen refresh or pinnacle ridge cpu's. We've seen a few lga115x mini itx boards with two m.2 slots. There's absolutely no reason it can't be done with ryzen on am4 with its 4 extra lanes. Let's hope board manufacturers start taking ryzen seriously. It'd be great to swap out my two 2.5in drives for two m.2 drives one day.
 
Ej24 said:
Yeah Ryzen is definitely going to be the better platform, especially considering it has 4 more pcie lanes on the cpu. You get full bandwidth for nvme no matter what. With Intel, if it's off the chipset (which it probably is) you're limited to whatever bandwidth is left over after your gigabit ethernet, Sata and USB ports which all consume some of that DMI link.

Hopefully there's a refresh of AM4 boards with Ryzen refresh or pinnacle ridge cpu's. We've seen a few lga115x mini itx boards with two m.2 slots. There's absolutely no reason it can't be done with ryzen on am4 with its 4 extra lanes. Let's hope board manufacturers start taking ryzen seriously. It'd be great to swap out my two 2.5in drives for two m.2 drives one day.
Click to expand...


Yeah unfortunately I can only make AMD my main CPU platform when they can actually compete with intel in single-core performance. In the meantime 7700k will do.
 
Ej24 said:
For those thinking of the new Coffee Lake platform.

After reading Arstechnica.com review of 8700K it doesn't seem like even delidding will make it viable in something like Sentry. Maybe liquid metal plus a solid undervolting would bring it down to acceptable temps, but power draw is pretty large and there's no way around it, more power = more heat.
Click to expand...
That is disappointing.... And it puts Intel on a awkward position for "console killer" builds.
The 200 series motherboards are dead and apparently there's no good gaming CPU with suitable heat dissipation compatible with the 300 motherboards.

Yeah, Rysen seems to be the way forward.
 
zeroth said:
That is disappointing.... And it puts Intel on a awkward position for "console killer" builds.
The 200 series motherboards are dead and apparently there's no good gaming CPU with suitable heat dissipation compatible with the 300 motherboards.

Yeah, Rysen seems to be the way forward.
Click to expand...
Also there will be a refresh on the same platform next year.
 
This is off the current subject so sorry in advance. Just something I came across that I found interesting. Was browsing the local Craigslist ads under computer parts and accessories and surprisingly came across someone selling a white Sentry case. Cost was $350 though. Regardless, I was still surprised to see one for sale locally.

On a totally separate note, I'm thinking about moving my Sentry from it's current location and will likely need a longer ( at least 6 ft.) PSU cable. After looking at replacements on Amazon and reading some of the horror story reviews, I'm a bit leery about getting one. Anybody have any suggestions? My PSU is the version 2 Silverstone ST45SF-G.
 
I would just get a extension cord or power strip with surge protection, GE makes a low profile one.
 
BlkRazor said:
This is off the current subject so sorry in advance. Just something I came across that I found interesting. Was browsing the local Craigslist ads under computer parts and accessories and surprisingly came across someone selling a white Sentry case. Cost was $350 though. Regardless, I was still surprised to see one for sale locally.

On a totally separate note, I'm thinking about moving my Sentry from it's current location and will likely need a longer ( at least 6 ft.) PSU cable. After looking at replacements on Amazon and reading some of the horror story reviews, I'm a bit leery about getting one. Anybody have any suggestions? My PSU is the version 2 Silverstone ST45SF-G.
Click to expand...
You mean the power cord? What king of horror stories did you hear? power-cords are pretty standard I am using an old power cord from a monitor I use to have because is longer than the one the PSU came with and it works fine.
 
FISCHER said:
I would just get a extension cord or power strip with surge protection, GE makes a low profile one.
Click to expand...

Thought about that too. It probably is time to replace my current surge protector anyway. Part of the issue though is where I'm moving it to will be higher up on a shelf so the current cord won't reach my the surge protector I have now. You have the GE one you mentioned?
 
Rysen said:
You mean the power cord? What king of horror stories did you hear? power-cords are pretty standard I am using an old power cord from a monitor I use to have because is longer than the one the PSU came with and it works fine.
Click to expand...

Yes, the power cord. Several reviews I looked at for some of the cables on Amazon mentioned the cables catching fire, smoking, melting, etc. Scary stuff. Now that you mentioned using that power cord from your monitor, I think I have an old power cord laying around somewhere too. Might try to find it...
 
BlkRazor said:
Yes, the power cord. Several reviews I looked at for some of the cables on Amazon mentioned the cables catching fire, smoking, melting, etc. Scary stuff. Now that you mentioned using that power cord from your monitor, I think I have an old power cord laying around somewhere too. Might try to find it...
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450W isn't a lot of power and 6 feet isn't very long.
Any normal IEC power cord should be fine. (It's only mere few amperes)
Don't buy the cheapest, buy the normal, popular ones.

Can you post the links to those failing cords you mentioned? I can't imagine someone can melt a power cord with their PC.
 
4884 said:
450W isn't a lot of power and 6 feet isn't very long.
Any normal IEC power cord should be fine. (It's only mere few amperes)
Don't buy the cheapest, buy the normal, popular ones.

Can you post the links to those failing cords you mentioned? I can't imagine someone can melt a power cord with their PC.
Click to expand...

This is what I was initially looking at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...=RN8F2YP3055SY5GK7PXH&dpPl=1&dpID=510A23-w3eL

It also looks like I jumped the gun on this one. I should have bothered to look at some of the reviews for the other power cords they have available. They fared better. I'm just really paranoid about this stuff and I guess I "panicked". Sorry!

On a positive note, I did find the cord I had and it looks to be 6 ft. Going to try that and see if it works
 
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BlkRazor said:
This is what I was initially looking at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...=RN8F2YP3055SY5GK7PXH&dpPl=1&dpID=510A23-w3eL

It also looks like I jumped the gun on this one. I should have bothered to look at some of the reviews for the other power cords they have available. They fared better. I'm just really paranoid about this stuff and I guess I "panicked". Sorry!

On a positive note, I did find the cord I had and it looks to be 6 ft. Going to try that and see if it works
Click to expand...
If it's really 18 AWG as stated, handling your load should be piece of cake.
In fact, I think most people are using these for low load applications, thus the many positive feedback.
Apparently there are buyers reported the wires inside are actually thinner than 18 AWG, so they can't take as high current as they are thought to be. ( But given your small load it should still be ok)
So the few people who pushed it to the max had the bad experience.
 
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BlkRazor said:
Thought about that too. It probably is time to replace my current surge protector anyway. Part of the issue though is where I'm moving it to will be higher up on a shelf so the current cord won't reach my the surge protector I have now. You have the GE one you mentioned?
Click to expand...

So about surge protectors. The main thing you're looking for is the clamping voltage. To be UL listed in the US (with 120v) they must not let through any more than 330v. At 330v, the surge protector will ideally break the circuit. But lower clamping voltage is better. It's hard to find. But if you're concerned about protecting you equipment from failure the surge protector is where it counts. After seeing my dad's place get hit with a serious surge where not even the 220v appliances survived, I'm much more cautious about my surge protectors. Replace them every few years even if they're "working" because they may no longer actually have functional surge suppression capabilities.
 
BlkRazor said:
Yes, the power cord. Several reviews I looked at for some of the cables on Amazon mentioned the cables catching fire, smoking, melting, etc. Scary stuff. Now that you mentioned using that power cord from your monitor, I think I have an old power cord laying around somewhere too. Might try to find it...
Click to expand...

Ej24 said:
So about surge protectors. The main thing you're looking for is the clamping voltage. To be UL listed in the US (with 120v) they must not let through any more than 330v. At 330v, the surge protector will ideally break the circuit. But lower clamping voltage is better. It's hard to find. But if you're concerned about protecting you equipment from failure the surge protector is where it counts. After seeing my dad's place get hit with a serious surge where not even the 220v appliances survived, I'm much more cautious about my surge protectors. Replace them every few years even if they're "working" because they may no longer actually have functional surge suppression capabilities.
Click to expand...

If you are afraid you might buy the wrong cable, check how thick is the wiring. Usually 1mm^2 wire can transfer 6-8 [A] while some books claim even up to 10 [A] should be fine (depending on the instalation conditions (on air or in the graund or in walls), but usually professionals try to keep them in the first range).

If you already have your power supply, then you know how much power it can take from the wall. For ex. 500W can take up to 500W. You are looking for the rated power, not the power efficiency (in this calculations it doesn't matter if this is silver, gold or platinium efficiency). When you know that, and you know your local AC voltage, then you could just calculate the amperage by yourself (and the needed thickness of the wire) or you could check it with the types of wires that are on the market with one of the "wire online calculators":

https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2014/04/electrical-wire-cable-size-calculator.html
https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2014/04/wire-cable-size-calculator.html
http://myelectrical.com/tools/cable-sizing-calculator
http://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/

If you read somewhere that some cables were catching fire, then probably their wiring was too thin for the amount of amperes people were transferring through at them, or there was some damage in the PSU and it took too many amps (in such case some electrical protector should work). If you already have a cable, just read what is written on its side. Manufactureres usually write its number and the thickness of the wires, and sometimes a rated power for the voltage.

p.s.
I see we are in the field of conversation where people will start thinking why professional electrical cabinets have additional, visible grounding wire :)

uzemHS.jpg
 
Ej24 said:
So about surge protectors. The main thing you're looking for is the clamping voltage. To be UL listed in the US (with 120v) they must not let through any more than 330v. At 330v, the surge protector will ideally break the circuit. But lower clamping voltage is better. It's hard to find. But if you're concerned about protecting you equipment from failure the surge protector is where it counts. After seeing my dad's place get hit with a serious surge where not even the 220v appliances survived, I'm much more cautious about my surge protectors. Replace them every few years even if they're "working" because they may no longer actually have functional surge suppression capabilities.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I've generally just grabbed one off the store shelf and not thought too much about it. It's been just over 4 years since I bought the one I've got but I have more to "protect" than I did then.
 
ZombiPL said:
If you are afraid you might buy the wrong cable, check how thick is the wiring. Usually 1mm^2 wire can transfer 6-8 [A] while some books claim even up to 10 [A] should be fine (depending on the instalation conditions (on air or in the graund or in walls), but usually professionals try to keep them in the first range).

If you already have your power supply, then you know how much power it can take from the wall. For ex. 500W can take up to 500W. You are looking for the rated power, not the power efficiency (in this calculations it doesn't matter if this is silver, gold or platinium efficiency). When you know that, and you know your local AC voltage, then you could just calculate the amperage by yourself (and the needed thickness of the wire) or you could check it with the types of wires that are on the market with one of the "wire online calculators":

https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2014/04/electrical-wire-cable-size-calculator.html
https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2014/04/wire-cable-size-calculator.html
http://myelectrical.com/tools/cable-sizing-calculator
http://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/

If you read somewhere that some cables were catching fire, then probably their wiring was too thin for the amount of amperes people were transferring through at them, or there was some damage in the PSU and it took too many amps (in such case some electrical protector should work). If you already have a cable, just read what is written on its side. Manufactureres usually write its number and the thickness of the wires, and sometimes a rated power for the voltage.

p.s.
I see we are in the field of conversation where people will start thinking why professional electrical cabinets have additional, visible grounding wire :)

uzemHS.jpg
Click to expand...

Thanks! Based off of this it looks like the other cable I already had will do the trick. :)

And thanks to everyone overall because you all saved me a few dollars too. Hate to spend money unnecessarily.
 
For those excited to play Shadow of War, I can say with certainty it's a beautiful game that pushes your hardware. With everything maxed out on ultra, at 1080p, I'm hitting the limit of the vram on my GTX 1080. After about 2 hours the GPU peaked at 68C and my i7-4790K (delidded running stock speeds with -0.06v undervolt) maxed out at 66C. Ambient temps were around 24C (75F).
exGJ2I1.jpg


As you can see, those with 8gb or less of system ram and less than 8gb of vram are going to have to stick with medium to high even at 1080p. However even with as demanding as this game is, none of my components got too hot in Sentry. Everything stayed below 70C. Really impressed.
 
Ej24- I don't know what kind of monitor you have, but have you tried a higher resolution? Curious what happens with gpu temps when you're more gpu limited.
 
masteralef said:
Ej24- I don't know what kind of monitor you have, but have you tried a higher resolution? Curious what happens with gpu temps when you're more gpu limited.
Click to expand...

Only 1080p unfortunately. You are correct, while I am vram limited, I am not gpu limited. With vsync off I get 100-120fps, but all my monitors and TV's are 60hz so no point in going over that. According to HWmonitor the GTX 1080 hit 85% on power draw, so while you're right, I wasn't pushing it to the limit, it's not like it was sitting idle either.

I do have a 1440p monitor at work... I suppose I could go back and test it after work one day with my Sentry PC :D.
 
You can enable virtual super resolution in nvidia drivers, and set up to 4k resolution on 1080p display.
 
kingtron said:
I was checking "Silverstone" website and I saw these two new SFX non-L modular PSU's with a 92mm fan ( SX500-G and SX650-G ) !!! Do you think it is a better option than Corsair SF450 / SF-600 ?

View attachment 39367

Links:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=761

http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=762
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I'm actually getting the 650-g when my case arrives (hopefully less than 3 weeks) it looks to be a big improvement in noise over the old 600w version but I'm unsure of how that will compare to the corsair one. corsair are known for quality but in getting custom cables for one i found the pinouts weren't great (lots of crossing wires, didn't look great). they both have the same pinouts but silverstones has an additional 4pin sense connector (whatever that does). silverstones might be better if you plan on running close to 600w for whatever reasons as it has greater headroom. in terms of fan quality, corsairs hits between 43-46 DBA in loads excess of 350w (toms hardware) I couldn't find any noise data on silverstones as they only claimed it had a min of 18 DBA. I can test it in person though when i get the damn thing.
 
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