Upside down mobo tray?

A

Alai

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 19, 2008
Messages
2,701
I've been thinking of making a case with an upside down mobo tray and I was wondering why no one else has done it before. Then I realized there could be issues with weight of heatsink and any discrete cards could be at risk of falling out. Then I thought further and realized those could just be speculative, not reasonable fears.

Does anyone know what actual problems could result from an upside down mobo tray? Can a graphics cards really fall out that easily especially after they are screwed into the case at the point of outputs? And are heavy heatsinks really a problem when they are screwed in tightly against the CPU?

EDIT: To avoid confusion, I mean, as if hung from ceiling.
 
Last edited:
I can't think of anything substantial, but you can always lay a tower case on its side to find out.

Heavier video cards can run the risk of falling out despite the screw(s) and the slot's retention hook.

Some heat sinks' heat pipes might not work well in the upside-down orientation.
 
I'm just curious, why do you want to install a system upside down?
I can think of it as a great way to have a hidden -sort of- system under a table/desk, but why on a case?
 
I am thinking heat issues. It is better to have the motherboard laying flat, with the heat generating stuff (cpu, chipset, and video cards) pointing up, not down.

Weight is a major concern, as heatsinks/fans are very heavy. And gravity will be wanting to pull the heatsink/fan away from the cpu...
 
Heat rises, not falls. An upside-down board would be a huge heat trap unless you had a heck of a lot of air movement in there. Take a look at the Silverstone FT03, it rotates the motherboard so that heat from the video cards blow upwards. Similar thinking in the RAVEN and other rotated motherboard cases, put fans on the bottom and all the exhaust thru the top to minimize dead zones for hot air to be trapped.
 
Hmmm... I've always felt that the regular computer cases have fans that never actually hit the motherboard itself... pushes away the surrounding hot air only. I'm trying to come up with a minimalistic (number of fans, in particular) design to cool all of the components and all of the motherboard.

As everyone stated, hot air rises. I am entertaining the idea of large bottom fans like the Silverstone cases, but the motherboard will be upside down. There will be vents all around the top of the case next to the motherboard for the hot air to escape. CPU cooler will ideally push through the heatsink and into the CPU thereby splashing the hot air up and out.

I'm still trying to think of some way that might make GPU cooling more efficient so it won't force people to buy blower type cards.
 
When you say "upside down" are you talking inverted (GPU above CPU) layout like theSilverstone TJ08E & Lian-Li A05N? If so, it's been done, it works fine. Some thermals are different but it still works well with proper case ventilation.
 
As others have said.. huge heat trap issues.

You will still want cross flow as blowing the hot air up against the motherboard is just going to make it fail quicker than normal.

You also have a higher chance of heavy PCI-E card (video) making the solder connections on the slots come loose as they were not designed to do this.
 
I believe the upside down motherboard tray is a older form called BTX. It is possible and works. Look into the silverstone raven cases you will see them there.
 
He's not talking about BTX, he's talking about completely upside down, as if you'd mount it from the ceiling.
 
I've done this and even posted a thread on here about it. Though I might be miss understanding what you mean by upside down.

Here's a pic in case you don't want to go to the thread. (yes the wires are messy) Been like this for a year and no problems.

 
Last edited:
I always thought Munkle's example above would provide better cooling for graphic cards.

Graphic card cooler heatpipes seem disadvantaged in tower case ATX format, as the liquid coolant would be pooled up at the end of heatpipes in the fins area instead of on the GPG core, and only the vapour would be contacting GPU core area. To my understanding.
 
Alai said:
As everyone stated, hot air rises.
Click to expand...

Unless pushed by a fan.

You want the motherboard cooled with air coming in perpendicular and with minimal fans? Here ya go!

p1.jpg

link
 
LOL!

Zap said:
Unless pushed by a fan.

You want the motherboard cooled with air coming in perpendicular and with minimal fans? Here ya go!

p1.jpg

link
Click to expand...

To avoid anymore confusion, I am actually talking about hanging the mobo upside down as though flat against the ceiling.
 
I don't get why there would be heat traps though... wouldn't the air just splash against the mobo and spread out from there and through the vents that would be next to the mobo? To provide a visual, I'm imagining the scene in a cartoon where the kitchen sink breaks and shoot water at the ceiling... and the water splashes outward.

cyclone3d said:
As others have said.. huge heat trap issues.

You will still want cross flow as blowing the hot air up against the motherboard is just going to make it fail quicker than normal.

You also have a higher chance of heavy PCI-E card (video) making the solder connections on the slots come loose as they were not designed to do this.
Click to expand...
 
Alai said:
I don't get why there would be heat traps though... wouldn't the air just splash against the mobo and spread out from there and through the vents that would be next to the mobo? To provide a visual, I'm imagining the scene in a cartoon where the kitchen sink breaks and shoot water at the ceiling... and the water splashes outward.
Click to expand...

I think it might be about the hot air touching the mobo. Even when it does spread out some heat would have already transferred to the mobo.
 
Sorry to bump up an old thread... I've been toying around with this idea as well, and while I see a lot of downsides with 1lb heatsinks hanging by the motherboard ( I am thinking about motherboard sitting horizontally and upside down, on the ceiling of the case if that makes a difference); I am looking at water cooling. The main advantage is in the event of any leaks, water would drip down on the hoses/away from the motherboard. And there would be no airflow with heat bubbling up in the top of the case...

Sooo anyone know of any cases like this? Anyone try it?
 
We've done a case with upside down motherboard tray 10 years ago, it was called "Lascala LC11." Worked OK but it was more costly to build. Check out this review of it if you are interested.
 
Zap said:
Unless pushed by a fan.

You want the motherboard cooled with air coming in perpendicular and with minimal fans? Here ya go!

p1.jpg

link
Click to expand...

That looks like some bad science fiction shit that crawled out of a forgettable time between the late 1970's and the early 1980's.
 
Tony Ou said:
We've done a case with upside down motherboard tray 10 years ago, it was called "Lascala LC11." Worked OK but it was more costly to build. Check out this review of it if you are interested.
Click to expand...

Very cool. What I'm thinking is more along the lines of the Thermaltake X9, but flipped upside down. Hard drives/PSU on top of the "ceiling", motherboard hanging from the ceiling, liquid cooling on the bottom. That way if there are ever any leaks, it would go on top of the radiator/fans/pump for the cooling system and nothing else. (hell could even have a humidity sensor on the bottom of the case sound off an alarm if you wanna get fancy with it).

Also, seems like with the right length and toughness of hoses, there would be no weight hanging from the motherboard...

It seems like a lot of the complicated/extra costs came from trying to make that into a very thin case; with the pci/agp risers. I'm contemplating making this into a monster the size of the X9 or larger - maybe even put a mini-itx board on top and offload the file server duties from the gaming rig... I found this thread mainly looking for the upside down motherboard tray deal, not necessarily for the small form factor part. That idea came after reading some of the other things on here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top