Ok, odd question about building cases from scratch.

[trickedoutwizard]

I'll try to describe my idea completely. I've always thought computers were too big, and I've never liked pico/nano cases because they make the wrong decisions in my opinion. To be honest, I don't use optical disks and with the advent of semi-cheap solid state drives I don't need 3.5" regular hard drives. This got me thinking about how much space is wasted in modern computer cases to accommodate these two different items (plus floppy/card readers/etc).

So, I want to build a case that is very tall and thin. I've been looking at available hardware and think my computer will likely consist of:

1. ATX or Micro ATX Motherboard
2. DDR 3 Memory (3-6 dimms)
3. quad core amd or intel
4. fanless powersupply, either a server style or regular atx style
5. 1.8" intel solid state hard drive
6. slim htpc ready graphics card with display ports

Ok, so I want to leave the option open on the motherboard size and the type of power supply. I propose to use a Slab of Steel, maybe a quarter of an inch thick or smaller. Just needs to be thick enough to be rigid and support the weight of some of the system. Weight of the whole setup doesn't bother me. I want to make movable brackets that allow me to screw thumb-screws into them, and place a rare earth magnet on the other side, thereby making 6 of them strong enough to hold a motherboard and videocard/ram/gpu in the air connected to this steel slab. Since I can move the brackets I don't have to worry about the motherboard hole configuration, essentially allowing me to use whatever one I want so long as the slab is long/tall enough.

So the crux of the question now comes in, are rare earth metals safe to use around an operating computer. Since magnets don't affect Solid State hard drives, the only other things I could think of would be the motherboard bios, the state of the ram, gpu memory etc. Now, honestly considering i'm using at least 4-6 magnets they won't have to be terribly strong to reliably hold up 5lbs or so. I just don't want to waste time building the thing only to have it crash every hour because I'm the idiot that places powerful magnets inside my computer.

Please keep in mind the magnets will not be touching the motherboard and the thumbscrews will be aluminium or some other non magnetic material. I don't really know much about magnets so I apologize in advance if this is a preposterous idea.

 

[ekuest]

dont do it. just do like normal motherboard trays and make multiple sets of holes. if you look they have like 15 holes, but atx only uses about 8 of them. the rest are for eatx, uatx, etc. the magnets will be a pain in the ass, make your case bigger (and youre going for small here i believe) and be more expensive, etc. just not a practical idea.

id like to talk to you if you want about making a case. i just ordered the aluminum for the chassis of a small form factor, full atx, fully water cooled case in gonna build from scratch. i agree that cases are too big. everything is 2D for simplicity. i actually have the psu tirned sideways, and above the cpu for example. with watercooling i have 90 degree angle fittings instead of a huge heat sink, making this possible. just one example. i could maybe help you with some of the problems ive run into when designing a case with a similar intent.

like i said, mine is full atx (mobo and psu) and watercooled for cpu. i can add in a gpu block later if i have the money. the rad will be sufficient for it. i also have space for a full 3.5" HDD and a small SSD. and best of all, it will fit a fully sized video card, even one of the new long ones. this all comes in at 12"x14"X7.5" about. so with air cooling you could definitely make a pretty small case. granted, i havent constructed mine yet, so who knows what problems ill be running into... if you wanna talk PM me.

 

[Mohonri]

In this situation, you only need to worry about the fact that magnetic fields affect electric current. It might or might not turn out to be an issue, but I'd advise against it. The high currents on the power planes in the motherboard will definitely be affected, which means you'll likely get hotspots on the board where the designers didn't expect. And since you look to be installing expensive (well, expensive for me) hardware, it's not a risk I'd take.

1/4" steel is definitely overkill. 1/8" will be plenty.

That being said, once you've removed the optical drives and hard drives, the biggest, chunkiest part left is your power supply. You can get microATX or TFX power supplies that are good enough for a quad-core, provided your video card isn't too power-hungry. That shouldn't be an issue, since slim video cards aren't greedy.

If you're looking to go small, you might also consider orienting the SSDs so as to be parallel to the front of the case. That would allow you to cut off a couple inches of depth.