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cooling a portable PC... ideas?

H

Hashtag

n00b
Joined
Jun 29, 2013
Messages
15
Hi all,

I have been looking at building a PC inside an old army ammo case, the dimensions of which are; 11" long x 5.5" wide x 7" high

I have managed to build a virtual 3D model using sketchup 8 and all the components fit into the case, now however my attention turns to cooling the case and dissipating the heat.

This however is harder than I thought as the case is totally enclosed with no way in, and limited space for fans, I have enough room for 2 80mm fans on the top of the case but this means my intake and outtake are both mounted on the roof.

could I mount 2 outtake fans and create a vacuum or maybe get a faster intake than outtake creating a + air flow system?

any ideas would be really helpful

thanks in advance
Hashtag
 
Post pics of your Sketchup model. We've got good imaginations around here, but not that good ;) It will be useful to see how you have your components configured to see what your actual limitations and available space are.

But just a rule of thumb I operate off of when designing tiny cases: if you don't have any room for additional fans, at least give the component direct access to external air. In other words, orient the GPU intake right against the side panel to reduce the amount of air it will recirculate internally. Same for the CPU.

On small case mods in the past I've actually ducted the GPU/CPU intakes to the side panels so that they only pulled air from outside the case instead of the warmer internal air. Mixed results, but almost always dropped the load temperatures significantly. I did this on a couple of Shuttle SZ68/77R5 case mods.
 
I would, however I can not for the life of me find the options to add images to my posts, I read the FaQ and still the option does not appear at the bottom of the reply page, does anyone know how I rectify this?

figured it out all on my own, I do not have access to put attachments in my posts, is there any way to rectify this?
 
Hashtag said:
I would, however I can not for the life of me find the options to add images to my posts, I read the FaQ and still the option does not appear at the bottom of the reply page, does anyone know how I rectify this?
Click to expand...
Use any number of hosting services (imgur, photobucket, etc.) and then use the
 
ok, here is the inside of the case,

the big object at the back is the mobo, the object on the left is a 64GB SSD and on the right is a slim, slot style dvd drive, the whole thing is being powerd by a picopsu and so no need for a massive unit... the big rectangle in the foreground is a perspex window and the strip at the bottom is a cathode light

Computer_open_zps28e58686.jpg.html


this next picture is with the case closed up as it will look when finished, the 2 square parts on top are where I found room for the 80mm fans, the long gray bit at the back is where the mobo backplate will be and the gray bit on the right is the dvd drive opening for disks

Computer_closed_zps32e4cc9a.jpg.html
 
Do you have any better renderings/picutres with the components modeled? Those links/pictures are hard to tell what is where.


Your going to have a challenge, your stuck with probably an atom CPU, or a Zactate from AMD for the easiest fix.


What hardware are you looking to cool?


Also make sure to remove the rubber lining that makes it air/water tight on the top of the can ;)
 
Maybe you could consider just getting rid of the dvd drive, and use an external dvd drive when you need it. You could put a fan there.
 
my hardware is as follows...

intel i5 4570 (3.2ghz)
Gigabyte GA-H87N-WIFI
corsair 4gb vengence ddr3 RAM at 1600mhz
SanDisk 64GB sata 3 SSD
Liteon slim slot dvd drive

Removing the rubber is a good idea, however I was planning to put an aluminium panel over the top of the case so it was enclosed even when the lid was open to prevent accidental damage to the parts

and the reason the dvd drive is there is that all my Windows 8 pro drives and indeed windows 8 are on dvd, I will try now to clarify images which I will post in a few minutes
 
What are you going to be doing with this computer? 64gb isn't going to hold much.
 
ok here are the new images, I hope they help...

inside look at case:
Computer_open_zpsd1ab9de0.jpg.html


look from the outside:
Computer_closed_zps3d66cd3e.jpg.html
 
@king icewind,

it going to be running windows 8 pro 64 bit (20Gb), ms office google chrome and 1 maybe 2 games, most of the games I play are browser based so no storage required
 
I don't mind a little noise but then I don't want it to sound like a scramjet trying to take off either,

my biggest worry is, because the machine will be portable, the fans becoming out of sink during the movement of machine from place to place, I was thinking of putting a heat sink on the front/back of the case and using heat pipes but thought this would spoil the military look I was after...
 
Those scroll cage fans are loud ... especially compared to any normal fan, something to take into consideration.

Alot of what your wanting would need quite decent customization work, ideally you could also tie in your heat sinks to the casing itself and use it as a heat sink , to try and go all passive. I would highly suggest just getting a mini-itx case made for this stuff if possible, the mod is nice and all, but from a cooling perspective with a full power CPU, the cooling aspect is a little tight.


Or just pop it in and see what temps are with your highest load :D Just use the intel heat sink, make sure its not air tight ... and let it go
 
nice idea, i didn't think of that, the entire case is of metal construction, if I run heat pipes from the CPU to the case shell the outside air would cool the case and the cooling system would be entirely internal and silent.

does anyone know what the best layout or how many heat pipes I would need to spread the heat equal or would a set of 3-4 pipes just connected to the shell do the job, I mean its only a 3,2ghz quad, I currently have a duel core and it rarely get above 70% usage under load...
 
that is custom heat pipe work to work how it should, and correctly. TO know how many you would need, you need to find the formula's for heat transfer, and work the math out. There is no off the shelf solution to using the casing as a heat sink. And at that point, I dont know if it is a good enough medium to transfer the heat, and dissipate it correctly, atleast with a quad core..
 
this is true, and the case is steel, not exactly the best heat sink material available... maybe 1 turbo fan and an 80 mm fan.. is it better to have a + or - air pressure in the case?
 
that is all preference to having a positive or a negative pressure scenario in a case.
 
ok, I think I have it, I have 1 80mm turbine from coolmaster bringing in 35cfm at 800rpm offset with only 14db of noise...

and my exhaust is a blower pumping out 35cfm at 2,000rpm for 25db

not sure if this will be good enough, and looking at the numbers might be better off just getting 2 80mm fans for the lower noise, they both pump the same ammount of cfm anyway

I am also going to hook up the fans to there own switches and turn them on 1 by 1 if I feel like it, this way if I do need to change out the air flow system I have some control over what is going on
 
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