Help with selecting the best case for a PC to be positioned in a cupboard

J

jamesaevans

n00b
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
13
My brother has asked me to build a PC for him, but the challenge is that the PC must be located in a cupboard as shown below (not actual cupboard but for illustration):
218055d1309724276-help-selecting-best-case-pc-positioned-fitted-office.jpg


The space which currently houses a Dell tower is 25cm wide, 62cm high and 70cm deep. The sides, rear and top of the cupboard as sealed, so other than the cupboard door which will be left open when the PC is being used, there is no additional ventilation to exhaust hot air or bring in cool air.

This arrangement is far from ideal, however my initial thinking was that the best approach would be to reverse the normal air flow, so that cool air is brought in through the rear and top fans and exhausted by the fans positioned in the front of the case. As the cupboard is not much wider than a typical PC tower case I don’t thing side fans will be of much use in this scenario.

Having had a quick look at PC cases which fit the above description, the Lian-Li PC-A77F case:
218056d1309724276-help-selecting-best-case-pc-positioned-lian-li-a77f.jpg


And the Antec Twelve Hundred case both look like possible options:
218057d1309724276-help-selecting-best-case-pc-positioned-antec-twelve-hundred.jpg


Both of these cases only leave a couple of centimetres between the roof of the case and the top of the cupboard, so going for a slightly smaller case might improve the airflow to the rear and top fans which would be the intake fans, at the expense of reducing the number of exhaust fans at the front of the case from 3 to 2.

Any thoughts on potential cases and fan configurations would be very much appreciated.

Thanks
James
 
Last edited:
Plugging a CM 690 II Advanced only because I just put a system in one and man is it super nice for the price.

But if it's a full tower you are looking for, I'd have to say not a fan of the Antec 1200, I had a friend with one and just... no not a fan. He had SLI'd GTX 275's and man they ran bloody hot.
 
Thank you both for the case suggestions I'll take a look at them.

Would these cases work for my particular suggestion where I am looking to reverse the airflow through the case due to it being located in a cupboard?

James
 
I don't know if it would work, but I suppose you could reverse the top and rear fans in the CM 690 II, then reverse and have 3 fans in the front and bottom blowing out.

You could also (Maybe) rig up something like Kyle did, he actually had to put a "Vent" on the top of his RV02 to get the air out from under his desk from the SLI GTX 480's when had them. I searched I can't find that picture now...
 
I agree the Fractal Design cases are very nice, but I'm not sure they would they work well in my scenario where the case is located inside a cupboard with no ventilation other than the open cupboard door.

I would have thought that the door on the case would have limited the ability of the front fans to effectively exhaust the warm from the case?

James
 
Your going to need a case that vents entirely through the top, and even then your thermal control will be crappy, as it's going to be trapping the heat in the cupboard.
 
.... This is goofy, but you almost need to put the case in there backwards. What I think will be the big issue is the GTX 580's exhausting straight into a barrier. Gotta get that video card exhaust out of the enclosed space imo.
 
What about the RV02? Would its vertical configuration help get cool air from underneath up through the case and eventually push the hot air out the front of the cabinet as it sucks cool air from the bottom?
 
Outamyhead said:
Your going to need a case that vents entirely through the top, and even then your thermal control will be crappy, as it's going to be trapping the heat in the cupboard.
Click to expand...

bowmanm3 said:
What about the RV02? Would its vertical configuration help get cool air from underneath up through the case and eventually push the hot air out the front of the cabinet as it sucks cool air from the bottom?
Click to expand...

That's a very good suggestion, I'll have a look at both the Silverstone RV02 and FT02 as the vertical cooling could be the answer.

Having checked the specs on the Silverstone website both the RV02 and FT02 are 50cm tall which would leave a gap of about 12cm between the top of the case and underside of the desktop, so that should be enough to allow the warm air to escape from the front of the cupboard.


The other option is to pursuade my brother that cooling is more important than aestetics and to build a SFF PC that he can place discretely on his desk. But I'm not sure that is going to happen. :D

James
 
Mosher said:
.... This is goofy, but you almost need to put the case in there backwards. What I think will be the big issue is the GTX 580's exhausting straight into a barrier. Gotta get that video card exhaust out of the enclosed space imo.
Click to expand...

That's actually quite a sensible suggestion.

I was trying achieve a similar result by reversing the air flow through the the case, but as you pointed out this would still leave the graphics card, which will be the hottest item in the case exhausting into the rear of the cupboard where there is no ventilation.

I'll give it some more thought, but at the moment I think I am going to recommend to my brother that we go with one of the Silverstone cases which exhausts verically.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful advice. :)

James
 
If he's worried about aesthetics and has no place to put the case but inside of a cupboard which is going to get hot with a GTX 580 in there why doesn't he just get a laptop or an iMac? What kind of needs does he have for this computer? If he's dead set on needing the specs you listed above then I would probably go the route of a mATX build and find some place outside of the cupboard to put it.
 
Last edited:
jamesaevans said:
That's actually quite a sensible suggestion.

I was trying achieve a similar result by reversing the air flow through the the case, but as you pointed out this would still leave the graphics card, which will be the hottest item in the case exhausting into the rear of the cupboard where there is no ventilation.

I'll give it some more thought, but at the moment I think I am going to recommend to my brother that we go with one of the Silverstone cases which exhausts verically.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful advice. :)

James
Click to expand...

This might give you an idea though what it might be like :
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/09/30/my_quiet_galaxy_geforce_gtx_480_sli_build/

So that's something to think about, Kyle resolved this later I think by adding a improvised "Shroud" venting the hot air from under the desk into the room. I can't find that for some reason.... maybe it was just a forum post.

Another case to condsider is the RV03. It's a little taller, a little cheaper, cools as well, but does have a few issues (Such as tabs breaking if you are not paying attention.)
 
Mosher said:
This might give you an idea though what it might be like :
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/09/30/my_quiet_galaxy_geforce_gtx_480_sli_build/

So that's something to think about, Kyle resolved this later I think by adding a improvised "Shroud" venting the hot air from under the desk into the room. I can't find that for some reason.... maybe it was just a forum post.

Another case to condsider is the RV03. It's a little taller, a little cheaper, cools as well, but does have a few issues (Such as tabs breaking if you are not paying attention.)
Click to expand...

That's a great thread which illustrated whats possible, but hopefully a single GTX 580 will be cooler than a pair of GTX 480s.

I've passed the link and recommendations onto my brother, so hopefully he will make a decision on which case he is going to go with in the next few days.

James
 
jamesaevans said:
That's a great thread which illustrated whats possible, but hopefully a single GTX 580 will be cooler than a pair of GTX 480s.

I've passed the link and recommendations onto my brother, so hopefully he will make a decision on which case he is going to go with in the next few days.

James
Click to expand...

yea it should be, well good luck to your brother!! I hope he enjoys the new setup. :D
 
It should be a lot cooler, And plus one on the "I hope he enjoys the new setup. :D"
 
jamesaevans said:
Sandy Bridge i7 2600K, GTX 580, 128GB SSD, 1TB HD, Blu-ray drive, 8GB ram are the main components.

James
Click to expand...

thats not all that much stuff...get a shorter case that will leave ample room at the top of the cupboard, that also has a blowhole or two, but set them to fire down.

then exhaust out the front.

if you havent already bought the GTX 580, buy one with an IE. if you have, and its EE, take out the shroud, and get creative with mounting a case fan on it (i have some ideas if youd like) frozencpu has a GPU - mobo header PWM compatible adapter cable. or use an aftermarket cooler.

another thing you can do is to NOT put the CD Drives at the top, but at the bottom, then, get a good CPU cooler, and mout it so that it fires towards the front of the case, leaving a clear path of exhaust towards the front vent holes.

no need to put the case backwards, you just to to make your airflow pattern backwards.
you should be fine.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top