Going to abandon my case

[trOver]

Things have just gotten too cramped in messy to work inside a case these days (for me). I think I am going to take all the parts out of my pc and put them on a cardtable next to my main work station. Doing so will allow me to use a very slow rpm, big fan next to the whole lot to cool, and it will be virtually silent. (zalman on cpu and gpu, 120mm psu) I plan on taking the removable motherboard tray out when I do this to add support to the add-on cards.

Anyone have any cautions before I do this? Things to consider?


this may belong in cases and cooling, idk.............

 

[tcG]

Prepare for a huge drop in temperatures...

 

[the Chase]

Works good for me. Just watch out if you have kids like I do. I SAID NO THROWING THAT AROUND THE COMPUTER and such.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

wire up a couple buttons for power and reset, maybe clear cmos too just for fun. switches can easily be mounted on a small panel

i haven't used a case for 2 months. if you fiddle with the machine at all, you MUST ground yourself first. if the cardtable is the soft vinyl kind, you should put a hard flat surface on top of it. mounting the drives in cages is pretty handy.

 

[jkresh]

Are you planning this as short term or long term? If you are looking for long term there are "cases" designed for benchmarkers/reviewers/technicians which are basically a large case with plenty of place for parts and no panels, or you could look at getting a nice fulltower case or mountainmods if you need the room (if you dont have enough room to work in a mountianmods case then ...)

 

[Jules]

Im in the same boat as you. i jusy got a new case and im not liking it. Ive had my computer on my mobo box for about 2-3 weeks and i think im going to go back.

 

[JasonE4]

Originally posted by: tcG
Prepare for a huge drop in temperatures...

Temperatures will actually be lower in a good case rather than no case due to airflow.

 

[trOver]

Well its done. Everything works great. I turned it on by shorting the pins w/ a screw driver, and that worked good too. My CPU temps have dropped 5C, and my harddrive temps stay about the same (have them in a cage w/ a 120mm infront).

The whole arrangement is VERY quiet. (i lost 3 fans by doing this)

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: JasonE4

Originally posted by: tcG
Prepare for a huge drop in temperatures...

Temperatures will actually be lower in a good case rather than no case due to airflow.

I always see people saying this, but sorry, i believe that's largely a myth unless you running a ton of insanely high CFM fans, which will not be quiet at all.

You can still have fans blowing over the HDDs, CPU area, NB/SB/RAM area if you rig something up, which all extreme overclockers tend to

 

[IEC]

No-case always wins over cased computers, but there are plenty of risks associated with running no-case...

If there is no chance for disaster I'd do it...

 

[JasonE4]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: JasonE4

Originally posted by: tcG
Prepare for a huge drop in temperatures...

Temperatures will actually be lower in a good case rather than no case due to airflow.

I always see people saying this, but sorry, i believe that's largely a myth unless you running a ton of insanely high CFM fans, which will not be quiet at all.

You can still have fans blowing over the HDDs, CPU area, NB/SB/RAM area if you rig something up, which all extreme overclockers tend to

Well, it was definitely true for me. My CPU temperature dropped about 4 degrees when I put everything in a case with one 120mm fan in the back (pretty quiet too).

 

[The Boston Dangler]

without a case, my cpu dropped 10C, to just a tick above ambient at idle and plenty of headroom. the passive cooled vid card went up 10C. i'm now using 2 90mm nexus in front of the mobo, this gives a good mix of OC and quietness.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I keep mine in a case just for the "organized" and "disaster" factors.

Looking at electronic components was awesome before I studied it. Now that I know basically how everything works, staring at exposed resistors, capacitors, transistors, heatsinks, etc. seems so... ugly. I keep my parts inside a case because from a glance, it looks a lot more organized to me.

Most importantly, there's many more risk factors involved with leaving your hardware laying out. If you have any pets, especially cats, you risk having them knocked over or laid on. Kids wise, 2-7 year olds usually can't resist just seeing what happens when they bend over that shiney blue thing, or push down on those little gold pins. Finally, I've wiped out more than one keyboard by spinning drinks into it. A keyboard costs me $10-30 to replace, (usually, I'll cry if I kill this G15) by frying my entire motherboard, processor, power supply, and possibly more?

If it works out for you, go for it. However, there are many larger, quiet cases out there that will enclose your computer, keep it running cool, and not bother you at all. Look into a Thermaltake Armor, for example. You can switch the stock fans out with even quieter 120mms for better dBA's.

 

[Pip75]

I have this case and it works great for me running an amdx2 4200+, 3 SATA hard drives, 7800GTX, 2dvd burners. It has plenty of space, 6 spots to mount hard drives and the whole front can be re organized to however you want it to. About the only downside to the case is that it is huge and fairly heavy.

 

[nineball9]

Originally posted by: JasonE4

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: JasonE4

Originally posted by: tcG
Prepare for a huge drop in temperatures...

Temperatures will actually be lower in a good case rather than no case due to airflow.

I always see people saying this, but sorry, i believe that's largely a myth unless you running a ton of insanely high CFM fans, which will not be quiet at all.

You can still have fans blowing over the HDDs, CPU area, NB/SB/RAM area if you rig something up, which all extreme overclockers tend to

Well, it was definitely true for me. My CPU temperature dropped about 4 degrees when I put everything in a case with one 120mm fan in the back (pretty quiet too).

Same here - my system runs a few degrees cooler in the case than with the case panels removed and is pretty quiet. (I've never run it outside of the case.) It has 3 "ultraquiet" fans (27CFM max), ATI graphics card with leaf blower which can be the loudest fan, and Seasonic S12 PSU w/120 mm fan. Previous PSU, an Enermax w/2 80mm fans was even quieter.

 

[Boyo]

i would be too scared of the X-factor in dealing with a PC out of its case. I might run a little hotter, but at least its safe.