SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

You were installing the riser from the wrong side :/ I didn't know/believe it would be even possible... Did you read the online manual? Page 13 and 14?

If you had problems with 4th screw, did you try to uninstall the IEC14 connector and then screwing the mobo's 4th screw?

You inserted the riser from wrong side. It is supposed to go in from the GPU side not from the motherboard side.

Those cut-outs in the bottom surface are matching the plastic edges on the bottom of the riser's pci-e slot.

Ohhhhh...
That's... embarrassing... :D
 
It would be good if you fix the position of the riser and mount it properly because the card might not be perfectly sitting in the riser's slot and you may encounter some random GPU issues because of that.
 
It would be good if you fix the position of the riser and mount it properly because the card might not be perfectly sitting in the riser's slot and you may encounter some random GPU issues because of that.
I did it the wrong way too and it worked fine. It's the same thing.
 
I did it the wrong way too and it worked fine. It's the same thing.
From the photo NTRX_ attached it looks like the pci-e slot of the riser is recessed like ~1 cm from the proper position which means his GPU will barely connect.

For one, he will risk damaging the card's PCB on the connector edge while moving the case around if it's not seated properly in the slot. It also means that there's no guarantee that all of the lanes are connected properly...
 
From the photo NTRX_ attached it looks like the pci-e slot of the riser is recessed like ~1 cm from the proper position which means his GPU will barely connect.

For one, he will risk damaging the card's PCB on the connector edge while moving the case around if it's not seated properly in the slot. It also means that there's no guarantee that all of the lanes are connected properly...
Oh I see. Mine went all the way in.to the other side until it popped into place. I see in the picture that he's is definitely not all the way in.
 
It would be good if you fix the position of the riser and mount it properly because the card might not be perfectly sitting in the riser's slot and you may encounter some random GPU issues because of that.
Ok, i fixed it.
I took the riser out bent the metal back and put it in properly.
It's really easy this way :D
The card also sits much firmer!

On the second try the 3rd psu screw also fit!

Everything is perfect now! Thanks so much for the advice!

(Maybe you could make this riser thing even more clear in the manual for people like me?)
 
In the past i had a motherboard in which there was some boot security option built in bios. When i had some problems with my RAM or when i tried to overclock cpu a little bit or there were other issues made by my changes in bios, the system tried to start 3 times until it decided it will go with default settings. I do not know if this is the issue in your situation, but you can check if you don't have such option in your bios menu.

So, last night I turned it on, had the 4 time boot loop, made it into bios and then reset my CPU/RAM to defaults. Booted right up, so it appears you were right ZombiPL. I'll have to re-bench my R5 on this new cooler and see how high I can take it. I'm hoping I can get it back up to 3.7 again. I boosted my 3000Mhz RAM to 2933 again and no problems, so it was probably my open bench CPU Overclock that wigged the mobo out.
 
So, last night I turned it on, had the 4 time boot loop, made it into bios and then reset my CPU/RAM to defaults. Booted right up, so it appears you were right ZombiPL. I'll have to re-bench my R5 on this new cooler and see how high I can take it. I'm hoping I can get it back up to 3.7 again. I boosted my 3000Mhz RAM to 2933 again and no problems, so it was probably my open bench CPU Overclock that wigged the mobo out.

I've got R7 with 3200MHz RipJaws V ram on X370GTN. Generally after overclocking anything it boots seriously long.

G.Skill told me to set the memory on XMP profile and set the clock to 2933 so if your memory is not on QVL for your board you might not be able to run it at those 3000 MHz.
 
Finally got some sleeved cables from cablemod. Quite expensive:confused: and no economic shipping option to save some bucks (flat rate for DHL express)
Well it did arrived super quick and damn they're so much better than those stock cables!
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Also got some slim sata cables from silverstone. Finally I can call my system finished! No more "violence" fits :p
And no more stupid daisy chain sata power cable. They are separate cables now which look so much cleaner and most importantly actually fit!


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p.s. I don't have a red/black gaming look fetish but it's just that the components I like happens to be in red and black only. The AMD card, asus motherboard, and sandisk:rolleyes: I guess I had to go for red cables with no choice:LOL:
 
Finally got some sleeved cables from cablemod. Quite expensive:confused: and no economic shipping option to save some bucks (flat rate for DHL express)
Well it did arrived super quick and damn they're so much better than those stock cables!
[snips]
Also got some slim sata cables from silverstone. Finally I can call my system finished! No more "violence" fits :p
And no more stupid daisy chain sata power cable. They are separate cables now which look so much cleaner and most importantly actually fit!
[snips]
tish but it's just that the components I like happens to be in red and black only. The AMD card, asus motherboard, and sandisk:rolleyes: I guess I had to go for red cables with no choice:LOL:
Could you post the link for the sleeves/cables you used? I bet some others would like to have these too. I did not even knew that existed ! :D
 
Could you post the link for the sleeves/cables you used? I bet some others would like to have these too. I did not even knew that existed ! :D
Just search cablemod. You choose the assortment of cables you want on their website.
Actually if you search "sleeved pc cables" many other vendors should pop up too. Cablemod is just the relatively popular one.
The slim sata cables are silverstone's cp11.
 
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Just search cablemod. You choose the assortment of cables you want on their website.
Actually if you search "sleeved pc cables" many other vendors should pop up too. Cablemod is just the relatively popular one.
The slim sata cables are silverstone's cp11.
Yeah - regarding that. I have seen many people having problems with Silverstone PSUs ... What other options are there?
Eventually we should setup a DB which holds the exact model specification, with a rating and comments on what works and what does not :}
I'll check a little bit more the forums to see what I'll use :D

Thx for your hints so far :D
 
Yeah - regarding that. I have seen many people having problems with Silverstone PSUs ... What other options are there?
Eventually we should setup a DB which holds the exact model specification, with a rating and comments on what works and what does not :}
I'll check a little bit more the forums to see what I'll use :D

Thx for your hints so far :D
silverstone is the company you like and hate at the same time.
They don't make the best quality products ever. But they do have the most obscure and niche products which you glad they exist.
I think they were the pioneer of small factor cases. They stuff more power in small psu than anyone else.
In this case they have the thinnest sata cable on the market (afaik).

I have a silverstone sx600-g psu but it's having problem with my vega64. But I've read it's a common problem with daisy chain pci-e power cable on vega cards so perhaps silverstone is not at fault.
Generally their products are okay.

I'll recommend doing research on specific models instead of generalizing a brand. Each manufacturer make good and bad products.
 
Ok, Sentry build done and running :)

Note, this is not final version because I will be using AMD wraith spire cooler shortened, but I still tried to make it as neat as I could.

Pics:

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Size comparison with node 202:


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It's substantially smaller! I will write extra thoughts below.


Natural habitat:


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So, my first thought. Installation is super easy and straightforward! I barely needed the manual, and PCI riser mounting is extremely easy (just a tiny wedge with screwdriver) and clever, and rigid. So much better than wiggly stuff in node 202. Also, graphic card is super stable, also without extra support like in 202. And I have big card, like you saw.

This case quality is through the roof, it so well and precisely built. When I put the motherboard on the case, holes matched 110%. I never saw that in any case before. I simply can't believe that people had problems with that. I had to mount the psu on two bolts because it has stupid 3 screw mounting pattern, but it is also super stable.

Also, I built this system in sentry mush faster than in node, it uses space so much batter, and I even had more room to hide the cables as you see.

Temps are bit worse than in node 202, but node was kind of cheating because I had two 120mm fans in front of GPU, which help a lot. Without them the temps are much worse than in sentry. I will try to source very thin fans to use in front of GPU.

Here are temps, note that they are sintetic loads on both CPU and GPU, so in games they will be much lower.

Node 202:

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Sentry:

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Thank you for reading, and thanks team Zaber for extraordinary case!
 
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Sentry manufacturing process - weekly update


Yes :( This is the end of our campaign!​


For the last few months we were manufacturing, assembling and sending you your Sentry cases. Most of you already have their units and some are still waiting for delivery. Even if it's the last weekly update, we will keep working hard to be sure every case will be delivered, so if you will have some issues with your order, please let us know.

With this update we would also like to address the questions raised by people who have followed the campaign updates, waiting for the case availability:

Q: When will you start retail sale?

A: We have planned to release case to retail IF everything went smooth with production, which obviously didn’t considering delays in fulfilling campaign orders. We want to solve the production issues and gather the feedback from all of our backers before proceeding with further orders, which may not happen before the end of this year.

Q: Will white cases be available in the future?

A: White powdercoating, like the one we want to have on our cases, is really challenging to achieve without full control over the paint quality and painting process, which is hard when outsourcing this job to an external paint shop. Because of that we have decided to put the white cases production on hold until we resolve the general issues with production.

Q: Are there going to be any improvements in the case design?

A: We plan on redesigning the packaging to be more fitting retail product as well as resolving production and user experience issues.

Q: Will Sentry have USB 3.1 type C / audio connectors on front panel in the future?

A: Most likely not unless there’s a mass produced front panel connector that would fit Sentry without ordering custom PCB.

Q: Will Sentry support bigger GPUs like aorus/strix/ftw series in the future?

A: Definitely not – there had to be a limit somewhere and reference sized cards still look like a proper reference point for a case of this size.

Like we wrote in the previous updates, we are posting some more great Sentry builds which we found/received in the last few weeks:



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We are very grateful to all of you who helped us make this project a reality. We didn't expect it to become so popular and it's your merit. We hope that thanks to your support we will be able to make it even better in the future.
 
I tried to look and look and look for a external PCB with audio jacks and a HD audio cable extender (and utilized the HD audio headers) that I could possibly tape to the outside of the case but I had no luck.

If anyone finds anything like this please share.
 
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With the fan I attached to the side of the case I am able to overclock my 7700k to 4.6. I like it. It doesn't look bad and it still fits in my backpack just fine.

Here are similar test to the ones posted by riba using a 7700k NOT delided overclocked to 4.6 and a 1080ti with a120mmx 25mm fan attached to the side of the case. The biggest problem with the CoolJag Falcon is that the Noctua fan is unable to draw enough air from the outside of the case because the holes are very small but even with that drawback the cooler without the external fan is able to handle the performance of the 7700k but throttling a bit after more than 30 minutes of 100% load. With the external fan added the case also serves as a big heatsink as it comes in contact with the heatsink.

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Very nice. You are not using an IO shield?? The images look amazing.
thank you..
the IO shield didnt fit well.. i need to push the motherboard when IO shield installed..
and i think the hot air its easier to go out.. (just my own assumption) CMIIW..
it is necessary to put an IO shield?
I do some quick search and i found "Shield to keep electro-magnetic radiation inside of the case" is that true?
 
thank you..
the IO shield didnt fit well.. i need to push the motherboard when IO shield installed..
and i think the hot air its easier to go out.. (just my own assumption) CMIIW..
it is necessary to put an IO shield?
I do some quick search and i found "Shield to keep electro-magnetic radiation inside of the case" is that true?

It's negligible. It's looks amazing and I bet it'd be a pain to undo all that meticulous work. Don't worry about it if you don't want to force it to fit. Now I feel like my sentry is sloppy and unsightly.
 
No, don't worry, you'll be fine without it. I also don't use it, for quite some time now, and nothing ill has happened ;)
 
It's negligible. It's looks amazing and I bet it'd be a pain to undo all that meticulous work. Don't worry about it if you don't want to force it to fit. Now I feel like my sentry is sloppy and unsightly.
every sentry is beautiful.. :D

No, don't worry, you'll be fine without it. I also don't use it, for quite some time now, and nothing ill has happened ;)

okay thanks for the advice...
 
after doing almost a week of custom cabling and sleeving.. cable by cable.. inch by inch.. here some porn photoshoot.. Sentry No.719 codename : Quicksilver
One fine looking sentry you've got there.

What are the noise levels like with the NF-B9 against the case?
 
I just tried this app. it's a nice app. I get around 50db on load and 38db on dile ( 34db with no fans running). Measuring right next to the fan.

Measuring right next to the fan defeats the purpose :D

You should check it from the perspective of user sitting in front of the pc to measure the how loud the system is instead of measuring how loud the fan is since that you can get simply from fan's manufacturer's data and its reviews.
 
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Measuring right next to the fan defeats the purpose :D

You should check it from the perspective of user sitting in front of the pc to measure the how loud the system is instead of measuring how loud the fan is since that you can get simply from fan's manufacturer's data and its reviews.

It wasn't exactly right next to the fan it was about an arm's length away. I have the computer sitting right next to me on the desk but thanks for the tip. The fan I have attached to the outside of the case has Noise levels: 15 ~ 24 dB(A ) The noctua fan Acoustical Noise is 19,9 dB(A) .
 
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I just tried this app. it's a nice app. I get around 50db on load and 38db on dile ( 34db with no fans running). Measuring right next to the fan.
It wasn't exactly right next to the fan it was about an arm's length away. I have the computer sitting right next to me on the desk but thanks for the tip. The fan I have attached to the outside of the case has Noise levels: 15 ~ 24 dB(A ) The noctua fan Acoustical Noise is 19,9 dB(A) .

Heh... guys... such apps usually don't work :)

I have few questions:
- Did you use a calibrated sonometer to calibrate your microphone/app?
- Did you check what kind of drivers you are using for your microphone installed in your phone? (f.e. to check if you don't have active noise or echo cancelling, or frequency cutting).
- Did you at least check this app on two different phones to find out if the measurements are the same? (different values with the same noise source would show the problem with the calibration of one or both phones).
- Finally, did you measure the background noise? What was the value of it? 50 dB (which you measured) is lower than the sound level of typical conversation.

AVBCP1y.gif


Such apps aren't showing any useful information and they won't help anybody unless you will calibrate it with calibrated sonometer and you will be sure you have a really good microphone in your phone (i don't know if there is a phone on the market with a mic for such purposes).
 
Heh... guys... such apps usually don't work :)

I have few questions:
- Did you use a calibrated sonometer to calibrate your microphone/app?
- Did you check what kind of drivers you are using for your microphone installed in your phone? (f.e. to check if you don't have active noise or echo cancelling, or frequency cutting).
- Did you at least check this app on two different phones to find out if the measurements are the same? (different values with the same noise source would show the problem with the calibration of one or both phones).
- Finally, did you measure the background noise? What was the value of it? 50 dB (which you measured) is lower than the sound level of typical conversation.

AVBCP1y.gif


Such apps aren't showing any useful information and they won't help anybody unless you will calibrate it with calibrated sonometer and you will be sure you have a really good microphone in your phone (i don't know if there is a phone on the market with a mic for such purposes).

Agreed, same goes for smartphone "bubble" level apps, distance/length measuring apps, etc. Though for the purposes of measuring difference in fan speed it should be fine. Even if the raw values are incorrect the difference between minimum and maximum in absolute value should still be useful information? Or am I wrong?
 
Agreed, same goes for smartphone "bubble" level apps, distance/length measuring apps, etc. Though for the purposes of measuring difference in fan speed it should be fine. Even if the raw values are incorrect the difference between minimum and maximum in absolute value should still be useful information? Or am I wrong?

It would be a useful information if everybody would have the same smartphone with the same microphone and the same app version :)
 
I'm a proud owner of a new Sentry case (Unit no. 86, version 1.1) and I love it. In fact, yesterday I finished moving my PC components into it. However, I'd like to ask you guys if there's been reported issues with PCIe riser cables in general, as I've had a very bad experience with mine so far.

Prior to migrating my components, everything was working fine. However not long after running the rebuilt rig in the Sentry case, I began experiencing issues with my display, which is output to my monitor from a GTX 670 plugged in to the motherboard's PCIe port. At first, the system would gradually slow down to a crawl before becoming completely unresponsive and then shutting off on its own. After a few restarts because of this, I eventually heard a loud popping/grinding noise that sounded somewhat like a fan grinding against the metal of my PC chassis, but upon inspection none of the fans were dysfunctional.

The system then output a blue screen error on my display, but the way it output this was unusual; it rendered only a few pixels at a time, in rectangular chunks starting from the top left of the screen working its way towards the bottom right. After that, the system would no longer recognize anything plugged into the PCIe port. Integrated graphics work fine, and the graphics card still works in another working system. However neither this GPU nor another one (GTX 970) function in this motherboard's PCIe slot anymore.

I suspect that the riser cable may have damaged my motherboard's PCIe slot entirely, rendering it electrically inoperable, possibly due to incorrect wiring or a short in the wires. However I haven't come across any major complaints about this part in either Reddit or the other forums where the Sentry is discussed, so I'm hesitant to definitively call it out. I'm also very hesitant to further test the riser cable with other working motherboards and graphics cards, because if it is in fact the cause of the issues, I'd much rather not have to replace any more parts than is needed.

In the meantime I've moved my rig (sans graphics card) back into my old case and will be purchasing a new motherboard soon. I've also emailed the Zaber team about this. Looking forward to your thoughts on the matter.

Edit: The riser cable provided with the Sentry appears to be the ModDIY/Sintech one listed in iFreilicht's compilation post


Edit: I suppose I should share my build specs for the curious.

CPU: Intel i7-7700k, delidded and applied Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
GPU: MSI Reference GTX 670
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V F4-3200C16S-16GVK
PSU: Corsair SF600
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac (will be replacing it with a Gigabyte Z270N-WiFi)
Cooler: Thermolab (Cooltek) LP53 with Noctua NF-A9
 
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I'm a proud owner of a new Sentry case (Unit no. 86, version 1.1) and I love it. In fact, yesterday I finished moving my PC components into it. However, I'd like to ask you guys if there's been reported issues with PCIe riser cables in general, as I've had a very bad experience with mine so far.

Prior to migrating my components, everything was working fine. However not long after running the rebuilt rig in the Sentry case, I began experiencing issues with my display, which is output to my monitor from a GTX 670 plugged in to the motherboard's PCIe port. At first, the system would gradually slow down to a crawl before becoming completely unresponsive and then shutting off on its own. After a few restarts because of this, I eventually heard a loud popping/grinding noise that sounded somewhat like a fan grinding against the metal of my PC chassis, but upon inspection none of the fans were dysfunctional.
I'm not 100% sure what could be going on, but I'll give my best attempt to help.
How did you insert the PCIe riser? sliding it from the GPU area to the CPU area and plugging in the riser into the PCIe slot; or plugging the riser into the PCIe slot and pushing it into the GPU area?
Do the cards work if you plug them into the motherboard without the PCIe riser? (edit: I re-read your post and it sounds like this is a no)
I'm a little worried about the loud popping sound that occurred.
 
I'm not 100% sure what could be going on, but I'll give my best attempt to help.
How did you insert the PCIe riser? sliding it from the GPU area to the CPU area and plugging in the riser into the PCIe slot; or plugging the riser into the PCIe slot and pushing it into the GPU area?
Do the cards work if you plug them into the motherboard without the PCIe riser?
I'm a little worried about the loud popping sound that occurred.

I slid the riser in from the GPU slot towards the motherboard area, as it wouldn't go in the other way. Only after sliding it in did I plug the riser to the motherboard's PCIe slot.

Neither of my graphics cards work on this motherboard now, with or without the riser.

However both cards work in my other system, which is in a Silverstone RVZ02, which has its own riser implementation as well.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and offering to help, I'm truly at a loss here.
 
I slid the riser in from the GPU slot towards the motherboard area, as it wouldn't go in the other way. Only after sliding it in did I plug the riser to the motherboard's PCIe slot.
Ok, good. Some users have forced the PCIe riser to fit the other way which could damage the riser. It sounds like you didn't do that though.

Neither of my graphics cards work on this motherboard now, with or without the riser.
Since you put the riser card in correctly, it doesn't seem like the riser would cause problems unless it was damaged some other way, or is faulty. I don't know enough about the actual electronics of the riser to know of a good way to test it for a fault. You didn't scratch any traces on your motherboard when inserting it did you? It's odd that the riser allowed the system to work for a short time (if I'm reading your first post correctly). I would have thought that the card would have worked 100%, or not at all.

The only other suggestions that I can think of would just risk damaging other hardware such as testing the working system with the riser outside of the case. Hopefully the questions that you've answered for me will help someone else who might be more knowledgeable.
 
You didn't scratch any traces on your motherboard when inserting it did you? It's odd that the riser allowed the system to work for a short time (if I'm reading your first post correctly). I would have thought that the card would have worked 100%, or not at all.

I don't think I did, I was very careful upon inserting the riser as it was my first time working with a flexible riser and also the space is cramped so I didn't want to risk even dropping a screw inside the workspace and have to undo everything just to retrieve it.

Yes, you read correctly; the whole system was working for a while - a couple hours at least, and 1hr of that was running stress tests on the CPU to test thermals. It didn't fail outright, instead there was a gradual degradation of system stability until that pop noise, after which the system no longer recognized anything plugged into the motherboard's PCIe slot.

The only other suggestions that I can think of would just risk damaging other hardware such as testing the working system with the riser outside of the case.

If I had a throwaway system, I'd definitely do that. Unfortunately the only other build in the house is my brother's and I know he wouldn't let me risk his rig.
 
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