ikea expedit pc!

the_r_sole

the_r_sole

the_r_sole

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25 Aug 2010
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looking for some advice on fitting a pc into an expedit shelving unit...
trying to work out if it's feasible to fit everything i need into one of the bits on my expedit bookcase
there are all ready inserts to fit the shelf http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40166569
33x33x37 cm - i was thinking of either trying to cram everything into one, but then thought maybe putting the psu in a seperate one to help reduce the temps and need for venting.
would likely rip up an old case for mounting etc, but wonder if anyone could recommend a good way or minimising vibrations and noise when trying to fix everything in... or if i should just ditch the idea completely!
 
Funny I posted earlier about earthing in PCs as I am considering exactly the same thing. I find the two "squares" that are accessable at the height of the desktop are useless for anything and thats why i thought use them for the PC.

Was thinking of a skeleton type cage with the mobo, graphics etc in, then putting the power supply and HDDs in the other "square". The front of the skeleton I would cover with some mesh and mount fans behind to pull air in through that front and out the back of the unit which is near the wall.

Still working on the idea a such but to me this setup is screaming to have your PC in the wall type unit. :)
 
rob,
do you not worry about the noise coming out of something like that?
i'm still playing around with mine, but i think it seems like a good idea to seperate the psu, i was wondering if watercooled might be the way to go with enclosing it like this, but obviously the £££ is my worry, i'm not planning on running any oc so hopefully temps won't be ridiculous!
 
Yeah think its going to be a "little" noisy.
But I have one of the Antec 900s so I doubt its going to be massively noisy compared to that!

Im still trying to think through all the pros and cons. I do in fact have 2x desktops I would be doing as I have a gaming rig and a ripping / encoding rig. I would put the power supply for the gaming rig in the compartment with the ripping rig as its the gaming rig that generates the heat.

I was looking at one of them scythe fan control units, controls 4 fans with 4 sensor probes, so would allow fine tuning to bring the airflow down to just the right amount to balance the system, and as its at desk height its not hard to spot the temps and adjust up or down. My 900 is under my desk so most fans are on high and would remain so just to keep the airflow.

Im running an old E6750 at 3.456Ghz so pretty heavily overclocked but am upgrading soon to an i7 (probably) just waiting to see if overclockers generate any better overclocked i7 950s compared to the 930s. In a month or so I will take the plunge.

Main thing holding me back is the covering for the front, want to find the right cover so its dustproof but not noisy. My view was that due to the surface area as long as it was effectively a closed box it would have a large surface area for filtering so the noise generated by this could be quite low.

I am actually very tempted to knock up a rough prototype with the ripping pc and test the apparent temps. My thought was a cardborad box whilst not looking pretty could provide the prototype and its easy to mount fans etc as required.

Noise well there are things that can be done, make sure there is nothing that can vibrate directly to the cabinet. Then if you have surface type resonance get some bitumen sheets from car places. They are self adhesive sheets that are designed to go under carpets etc, do a great job for soundproofing. I made a box for my CD changer when I was into car audio and sandwiched it in the middle of this box covered in about 5 layers of this bitumen stuff. It used to sit next to 2x 500w RMS subs that were run really hard and didnt skip, yet outside this box it used to skip in the glovebox fom the bass :)

I think most of the "noise" is air noise though, hence my thoughts to use a fan controller to tune the airflow down to whats actually needed, easy to up in summer and down in winter based on ambient, or changes to system itself.

If I do it I will post back up, may have a go this weekend if I can find a good box to start the process.
 
i'd be interested to see how you get on, i might start mucking about with it myself, was going to butcher one of the ikea inserts for it so it doesn't look so out of place, but live about 100 miles away from ikea, so would like to make sure i can do it before that trip!
 
Based on listed dimensions the ikea expedit volume per square is about 85% of the volume of an antec 900. Thats the listed dimensions though so prob the max external dimenisions, internal useable space could be 5% lower I guess.
So we are not a million miles away on volume, certainly looks to be enough air volume to support this attempt and if the airflow is good I see no reason this isn't good to go.

Have thought about it a bit more and think a skeleton isnt probably best, but a shell kind of like you showed from ikea. Ideally I guess metal, but Im guessing that 6 or prob 9mm plywood would be perfect, its strong due to its construction.
 
Had a play finally over the weekend
I stripped down the donor PC (annoying as itw as a pre built I found a few issues like non std motherboard mounts (some wierd screws I had never seen), and that the cpu heatsink was mounted to the case not the motherboard.
I didnt have any heatsink compound so I had to reattach using the old compound so I have only run the pc to boot and idle nothing serious.
Also the CPU power cables are like 15cm long, I kid you not so hardly gave me any room!

The motherboard is big, so its as wide as the expedit "square", which with the short PSU cables was a little logistically challenging.

So at the moment I have a double decker type design, the disk drives (1x DVD, 2x HDD and the PSU are under the motherboard. The motherboard sits about half way up the "square"

Issues that make this tricky other than listed above which tbh were issues with the donor components rather than the idea itself.

Connecting to back ports, so I mean power supply and graphics card etc. Cables lengths here will be super key, if they are shortish its a nightmare but it is possible with time and rubber arms ;)

The other back ports you may want to use, I decided to use the 2x front USb for mouse and keyboard but next stage will be to have a cable route from rear ports to front for these types of cable, hence freeing up front ports.

I have bought some fly netting to act as the filter so I will use 1 or 2 layers of this to "mesh" the front of the case. Its in fact very nice as its like grainly tights but its nylon mesh so feels much tougher and its proper black.

Will be next weekend before I can do any more, need to work out the exact dimensions for some MDF or Ply and get homebase to cut it, long cuts with a jigsaw aren't quite up to it and I want the edges smooth!

A small amount of vibration could be heard and I am not sure of the source. However the donor PC had the same issue but worse, its a fan but I am not sure which one, and due to the spec of the motherboard if any of the fans aren't connected it refuses to boot!
 
sounds good, i'm in the middle of putting a build together, went with a microATX board and i think it should fit no probs, although might have to get some extensions for power cables by the looks - would probably help if i had the actual thing here rather than a cardboard box mock up!
 
Well, you really want to create a wind-tunnel in there, especially if you are going for a skeleton build. Here's what I would do, cut a hole in the front of the cabinet and put some mesh there, you should be able to make it look nice! Then put two 120mm fractals (totally silent!) on the front. That will create a nice, steady input of air. On the back, once again cut some holes. On the back you will want some fans that will move a lot of air, making a negative air pressure. Try 2 of CM's 230mm fans (again, totally silent). This should allow air to enter and leave efficiently without adding to the system noise.
 
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