Project 005: Lian Li A05 silenced and air cooled.

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DG25

Gawd
Joined
Dec 15, 2006
Messages
550
Hi, this is my first worklog here (and anywhere as a matter of fact) and english is not my native language, so be gentle :D.

So, i purchased this case because of its small size and great cooling potential. The only drawback is that it's made of aluminium (1mm thick) and is prone to vibrations (from hdd and fans), but for this i will aply on the panels some dampening material and suspend the hdd.

Here is my current pc, in all it's glory :D:
CoreDuo 6400 with Ninja cooler
2 Gb ddram
Asus P5B mobo
7900GT video card with Aerocool VM-102 cooler
Western Digital 320GB KS hard drive
Antec NeoHE 400W PSU
2x 120mm Nexus fans.

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Here is the case:

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And this is what i want to do:

Remove the hdd cage, make room for two hdds on the bottom of the case, seal the front of the case (except where the exhaust of the psu goes), make a custom 120mm fan duct, and place it at the rear of the case, as an exhaust fan.
 
How will you be securing the hard drives to the bottom? Definitely put some rubber underneath them, otherwise they'll likely be just as noisy.
 
Why not just get two super quiet fans (Scythe 120's comes to mind), grab a hard drive silencer that you baymount... and grab some akasa sound mats for the top, bottom, and sides?
 
Bare case, with hdd cage removed:

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Rest of the case:

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Because the panels are not firmly held in place and make a rattling noise when you knock on them, i've put some 1mm thick double sided tape, which is made from some kind o elastic gel, good for isolation and dampening vibrations. After i've applied the tape, the panels where a bit harder to put back in, but once mounted, any sort of vibration stoped. Simple mod and highly recommended mod for this case.

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The dampening material. I bought it from here, if anyone asks. They are very good, 1,2 cm thick and very heavy for their size. I plan to cover all the interior with this.


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GJSNeptune said:
How will you be securing the hard drives to the bottom? Definitely put some rubber underneath them, otherwise they'll likely be just as noisy.
Click to expand...
I plan to use the hdd rails from the hdd cage and securing them to a rubber mount. Not sure yet about the details.

Ockie said:
Why not just get two super quiet fans (Scythe 120's comes to mind), grab a hard drive silencer that you baymount... and grab some akasa sound mats for the top, bottom, and sides?
Click to expand...
Nexus are better, hdd silencer i do not need and akasa sound mats don't do a thing (i've tried them). ;)
 
Seems you know what you wanna do and how to do it. Can't wait to see it finished.
 
I've started to work on the upper fan duct. Because i plan to use only two 120mm fans in the case and, in the near future, plan to upgrade to a 8800GTX with a ThermalRight HR03 cooler (used passive, cooled by the airflow from the two system fans), i had to design the duct so it can accomodate the size of the HR03 size (seen here).
Here is the drawing:
Without the cover, so you can see inside:

And with the top cover:

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Here is what i've done so far. Made from plexiglass and glued together with the fan in place, resting on a 3mm paxmate, done so to absorb some of the fan's vibrations. It's not final, and not cleaned and painted...yet.


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So this is it for now, i'll update in the next days and weeks, as i make progress.
 
DG25 said:
Nexus are better, hdd silencer i do not need and akasa sound mats don't do a thing (i've tried them). ;)
Click to expand...

Putting your opinions aside, the fundamentals of my question has not been answered. Just seems to me like a long approach to a simple objective.

I'm just curious on your own reasoning. As for your rattle, my A05 never rattled or anything, perhaps you got a bad cut or a bad fit.
 
If i put the hdd in a hdd silencer in a baymount, it it will get hot, since there is no airflow there and it will still be some vibrations from it, too much for my liking. Putting the hdd down, on the buttom of the case, give me two nice advantages: i can rubber mount them and also they will be very well ventilated, from the fan at the back, which also cools the cpu, gpu and mobo.
In original configuration, the front fan acted like a exhaust fan for the entire system and most of the heat from cpu and gpu was directed over the hdds. Not good.

Maybe i've used the wrong word ("rattling"), or a too harsh one, for describing the sound the panels make when knocked. Let say it was not a like the sound you get when you knock a solid block of wood. :) After i applied the double sided tape and the heavy dampening material, i was getting the sound i was looking for; no vibrations whatsoever.

I will use Nexus fans because i'm very pleased with them. Paxmate doesn't do anything i want (making the panels heavier, sturdier, so to dampen the vibrations and absorb the soundwaves). Akasa Paxmate is too thin and light for that.

Covering the front side fan hole, where the exhaust fan was, will give me lower overall system noise, because sound comes first through open holes, so i plan to cover, with dampening material, all the non-airflow important openings.

Also, making the upper exhaust fan duct, will help with the GPU temperatures, as it is right beside the video card. In original case setup, factory setup, if you had a powerfull GPU, all the heat from it (or most of it), remained at the top part of the case, around the gpu. As i plan to use a passive radiator on the video card (and a very power hungry one), this was not helping.

Any other questions or comments are greatly appreciated. :)
 
Looks good so far, especially after having the components just laying around in the open. ;) This is probably the smallest Lian-Li case I've ever seen. It looks like airflow in from the rear and out the front? Or is it going to go out the air duct you're making on the top?

I really like the upper fan duct. Sweet job so far! :)

DG25 said:
Nexus are better...
Click to expand...
I don't want to take a dump in your work log, but I must dispute opinions that are not based on actual specs (nothing personal). Fan manufacturers have a tendency to artificially inflate their specs through vagueness. Well, here's the facts from silentpcreview's testing. You tell me which is better. :)

Nexus (Yate Loon) Real Silent D12SL-12 at 7V:
7V
<19 dBA@1m
680 RPM
27 CFM
0.62W

Scythe S-Flex SFF-21F at 7V:
7V
~20 dBA@1m
890 RPM
39 CFM
0.57W

Both are very quiet fans, but the S-Flex moves more air with less power at the same voltage (getting 890rpm from 7V vs. 680rpm means the Scythe is more efficient). The difference between an approximate 20dBA and less than 19dBA is almost inaudible. At 5V, the Scythe is also <19dBA, and still moves more air than the Nexus at similar voltages.

Any ways, any other mod plans than the fan duct? I'd like to see what you do with this case because it looks like an interesting project so far! :)
 
cipher_nemo said:
It looks like airflow in from the rear and out the front? Or is it going to go out the air duct you're making on the top?
Click to expand...
The original airflow in this case was from back to front. I don't like it, for the reasons mentioned in my earlier post. In my current setup, the air gets in through the rear buttom fan and gets out through the rear upper duct. That's all.

cipher_nemo said:
I don't want to take a dump in your work log, but I must dispute opinions that are not based on actual specs (nothing personal). Fan manufacturers have a tendency to artificially inflate their specs through vagueness. Well, here's the facts from silentpcreview's testing. You tell me which is better. :)
Click to expand...
I know about the SPCR review of the two fans, that's why i bought 2 Scythe S-Flex fans, but i didn't like them because their sound characteristics were not so smooth as the Nexus fans. Maybe same dB, but to my ear the Nexus fans (that i have) were smoother. :) Could be that i had bad luck with Scythe and bought some bad samples, don't know...


Other mods will be a secure and vibration free system for the two hdds at the bottom of the case, removing the front hdd cage, doing some small dremel work, padding the entire interior of the case with dampening material, painting black the remaining visible interior aluminium and that's it, i think. :D
 
Given that I'm working with one of these shortly, this project is interesting.

I must admit, I'm getting a drive cooler / silencer combo unit, probably either a Coolermaster Cooldrive 6 or a Silverstone FP53B to try and keep the noise levels down and the drive cool. If you had your heart set on 2 hard drives, I'm sure you could modify the 3 1/2" external bay to take a slimline DVD drive instead.


Still, cooling wise, I'm getting two fans on the side panel, one about the CPU as an intake and one above the GPU as an exhaust, both running off a 7v supply thanks to a nifty little panel I found.


Any suggestions on keeping the noise down would be useful, I've already got some fan vibration dampners and rubber securing screws, but as I wanted red LED fans, I was stuck with Coolermaster fans.
 
Well, the main and only reason i'm making the fan duct, instead of just drilling a hole in the left panel and putting a fan there, is to make the case more silent. A hole in the panel would mean more noise comming out from the inside of the pc. Some soundproofing material (like Acoustipack or what i use) also helps dampening the vibrations of the aluminium panels.
 
DG25 said:
...i bought 2 Scythe S-Flex fans, but i didn't like them because their sound characteristics were not so smooth as the Nexus fans. Maybe same dB, but to my ear the Nexus fans (that i have) were smoother. :) Could be that i had bad luck with Scythe and bought some bad samples, don't know...
Click to expand...
I know what you mean, because some people are more sensitive to certain frequencies than others. It is possible you got a few poor quality ones I guess. The question for you is which S-Flex did you buy? The low speed, medium speed, or fast one? I only buy the fast ones because I put them on a fan controller and lower to 7V or less. The slow speed S-Flex has a really odd sound that is sort of annoying at 12V. I've purchased and have used a total of 7 S-Flex fans of the high-speed variety, and one of the slow speed models. I never had a problem with the 7 high speed ones, so may be I got lucky? :)


As for the mod, sounds like work that won't be too tough, and certainly shouldn't have any hidden surprises. I'm certainly eager to see what the fan duct will look like. That sounds like fun! :)
 
I don't know about your airflow scheme. It seems that not much will get cooled, especially the psu and hard drives. AM I wrong?
 
Looks awesome, I'm excited to see how you pull this together.
 
belmicah said:
I don't know about your airflow scheme. It seems that not much will get cooled, especially the psu and hard drives. AM I wrong?
Click to expand...
The rear bottom fan, being an intake fan, will bring fresh air over the hdds and PSU. ;)
Below is a clearer picture of the airflow.
 
hi, nice mod going on there:).
I was curious tho, how do you remove the HDD drive cage?
Cos i just got the PC-A05 today, and i wanna change the front fan. But i dont know what to do with those rivets holding in the cage which is in the way of the fan.
Any help would be appreciated :)

Thanks
 
To remove the front fan, i think you need to remove the psu and psu metal holder\bracket (the one you screw the psu into) and slide the fan from underneath. Anyway, if you need to remove the hdd cage, you can do this by drilling the rivets out.
 
Thanks, i actually figured out how to remove the fan after i posted my question. The PSU cage and the power cable need to be removed and then the fan slides down and out quite easily.
I love this case :).
 
Looks good so far, and nice cuts. Now that I see it partially made, it looks like you might get quite a bit of turbulence from that duct's fan since the air has to make a sharp turn. That may add to the noise in the PC. Any way you can angle the fan a little more, or not??
 
The fan is angled, it's just not so clearly visible from the pictures i've posted.
Below it's a pic from above, so you can see the airpath. Anyway, the fan will spin at 800rpm, so it's very low, it shouldn't make any turbulences.
 
800rpm should be better. I'd still be worried by how close the one side of the fan is to the duct. That may create more resistance on one side of the fan, and in turn put more pressure on the bearing. I'm just guessing. :) We'll find out how well it performs when you're done. I wish you the best of luck with it and hope it works ok. I look forward to seeing it installed. :)
 
Thx! :)

I've put a test fan there and at 800rpm it's just a breeze of air, i don't think it's powerfull enough to stress anything. After 1000rpm, maybe, but i don't need that rpm.
 
Small update on duct:
Sanding the glued parts and scratches:

Sanding rough edges:

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Manual sanding results:



 
And the final coat of black paint on the interior side. The back panel is not finished yet and is easy to paint the interior, before the back panel of the duct is glued.



 
Clean job on the duct. Nice work!

The more I thought about your case, the more I kept thinking "side fan". May be I missed it in the posts above, but did you consider mounting the fan in the side panel instead of trying to direct its exhaust out the back of the PC? Seeing more pics of the final duct makes the gap between the fan and the enclosed area towards the front look smaller and smaller. It just makes me cringe. Anyway you can let some of the duct air escape directly out the side?
 
That's some good work.

I've been doing some measuring of my own in my Shuttle trying to find a good way to fit a dual-80mm rad in there...

You made the think of using a duct from the bottom of the rad onto the 92mm fan in the back and that might in fact make it all fit/work...
 
Cipher Nemo, i've thought about a side fan, it was the easiest way to do it, but i want a very, very quiet pc, having a big hole in the right panel, where all the noise can come out, was not an option.
 
highly skilled work on the side fan duct, just thought I would point you to these Lian Li products specifically made for that mounting point..

BS-01 120mm blower side-mount exhaust fan (blower fans are rather quiet in general)
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210&products_id=3147

BS-03 120mm side-mount fan duct - exhaust or intake - (replace fan w/ a nexus)
http://www.lian-li.com/product/product05.php?pr_index=52&cl_index=2&sc_index=10&ss_index=16

While we're on the topic, I'm not sold on your airflow plan. Especially with the CPU and with an 8800GTX both being 'passively' cooled via a twisted U-shaped, low-speed airflow. Both of them are going to get extremely HOT under any kind of load.

Top of the line performance & graphics do not go hand in hand with silence... That being said, high performance and 'quiet' is possible. The standard blower fan + heat sink combo on the 8800's isn't all that that loud from what I've read.

My recommendation is to do the following
1. keep the 8800's standard HSF (or get a much cooler card.) Perhaps arrange an external baffle to quiet it a bit, and to direct the exhaust away from the side-mount intake.

2. arrange the side-mount fan as an intake, to feed the 8800's blower fan. I'd recommend Lian Li's BS-03 duct but since you've already made a duct use that.

3. keep the front mounted fan, use another quiet 120mm. You need a rather direct airflow across the CPU heatsink. If you're concerned about noise escaping this front fan opening, make a baffle in the space freed up by removing the HDD cage.


kinda like this pic: http://shockwavevt.com/misc/crazypic.bmp
 
I know about those Lian Li fan ducts, but either of them didn't alow me to mount the TR HR03 heatsink, because of limited space.


ShockwaveVT said:
While we're on the topic, I'm not sold on your airflow plan. Especially with the CPU and with an 8800GTX both being 'passively' cooled via a twisted U-shaped, low-speed airflow. Both of them are going to get extremely HOT under any kind of load.
Click to expand...

Don't know what to say, i think it remains to be tested. :rolleyes: I will first try with my current card, 7900GT + Aerocool VM102 and see what temperatures i will get. The 8800GTX temperature would be 10-15 C more than with 7900GT, i guess.
 
DG25 said:
Don't know what to say, i think it remains to be tested. :rolleyes: I will first try with my current card, 7900GT + Aerocool VM102 and see what temperatures i will get. The 8800GTX temperature would be 10-15 C more than with 7900GT, i guess.
Click to expand...

Yeah with stock coolers, it would be about 10-15C hotter. A 8800GTX with the standard cooling setup runs at ambient +55-60C under load in a well ventilated case. By comparison a 7900GT runs at ambient +40-45C under load. (i.e. 25C ambient the 8800GTX is commonly at 80-85C under load, and the 7900GT at 65-70C). Note that the 8800GTX stock HSF is more robust than that of the 7900GT's.

I wouldn't be surprised to see your 8800GTX running at 100C + under load with your planned setup. I recommend coming up with Plan B now, so its less painful later if you wind up with heat problems.
 
I have to agree with ShockwaveVT for the 8800 video card route. I'm not sure what sort of temps you'll see, but your current cooling design might be hard-pressed to keep that case cool under load (ie: 15+ minutes of gaming).

How about some suggestions? I know you're trying to keep this mod as silent as possible, hence your dislike of the fan blowing out the side. How about a fan blowing in the top? The stock cooler on the 8800s are pretty good compared to 7x and earlier series. They take in air from around the card and blow it out the back of your PC. Your custom
air duct may be fighting with that 8800 cooler for air since it also exhausts. If you put more air into the case from the top, you'll end up with a positive pressure for airflow (which reduces dust), and be feeding air directly into your 8800's cooler.

I hope my advice helps. But take it just as that, advice. It's your mod after all. :)
 
Thx for the advices, but i really want to stick to my plan for now. :) The reason for this is that i had a similar setup in my previous case mod and it worked great. ;)
 
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