TV Cabinet as a PC Stack?

Chris_Hebden · 13 Sep 2011 at 20:30

I am about to complete the final contracts on my new house and am starting to plan what's going in it! I want to have my PC to be plugged in to my main TV to act as the TV but also will be installing a blue ray dvd drive! Because the living room is quite narrow I have had a "different" idea on how to do this! The plan is to firstly strip down my current PC stack and install this on to a shelf in a wooden TV cabinet? Then later on in life improve the system I have!

Firstly, is this possible? Secondly I want to start mocking a CAD drawing of a motherboard layout and planning where the CD drive and hard drive etc etc are going to go? So i can try and work out the size of cabinet i need? Has anyone got a CAD drawing of separate PC internals (i.e. motherboard, hard drives, CD drives etc etc?)

Cheers Chris

Gregry254 · 14 Sep 2011 at 06:19

So you basically want to build your PC back up inside TV cabinet?

I suppose its possible but cooling might be a bit of a problem?

Chris_Hebden · 14 Sep 2011 at 18:33

Yea that's pretty much it, to save space! My thinking on cooling was I'd leave the back open, have a pulling fan on the top (protected somehow) and a puller on the two sides?

The front I want to have a glass door which is lockable but id need yo look for glass that can withstand quite high impacts due to having kids playing near!

Crazy, or possible??

Reaper 392 · 14 Sep 2011 at 18:54

i cant see why it wouldnt work. it would mean a lot of work of course, but if you have the skills to do that then i dont see a problem with it.

i know you can buy motherboard trays on their own, which will probably help you a huge amount, and i'd be very surprised if you couldnt buy 5.25 inch bays and hard drive bays on their own as well

should be an interesting project

Chris_Hebden · 14 Sep 2011 at 19:15

A motherboard tray???? Is that needed on wood? I was going to just fix the spacers on the base of the cabinet and bolt the motherboard to this? I may have a lot too learn.....

Reaper 392 · 14 Sep 2011 at 19:29

Chris_Hebden said:
A motherboard tray???? Is that needed on wood? I was going to just fix the spacers on the base of the cabinet and bolt the motherboard to this? I may have a lot too learn.....

nope, its not needed, but i thought it would make things easier for expansion cards and the motherboard back panel (at least i think the motherboard tray would come with PCIe spaces and the motherboard IO panel hole attached)

i have very little experience in this kind of thing myself, so i was just firing ideas at you that might help

cammy5477 · 14 Sep 2011 at 19:34

you cant be that hard up for space chris?
just buy a midi tower and find a corner for it or put that in a cabinet.....
i have heard of people building there own custom pc desk with the pc built into the middle

Chris_Hebden · 15 Sep 2011 at 14:51

cammy5477 said:
you cant be that hard up for space chris?
just buy a midi tower and find a corner for it or put that in a cabinet.....
i have heard of people building there own custom pc desk with the pc built into the middle

No of course there are many other options! Probably including leaving the stack as it is and fit it in somewhere! Unfortunately, i like all my things "hidden" and as want as few things round the TV as possible. Having a computer stack next to the TV cabinet just doesnt sound appealing!

The idea is the PC will be my TV, Blu-Ray, computer and games console with a Xbox 360 next to it!

cammy5477 · 15 Sep 2011 at 16:04

are you going to strip the cover of the xbox 360 and put it in the cabinet to?

Chris_Hebden · 15 Sep 2011 at 18:36

cammy5477 said:
are you going to strip the cover of the xbox 360 and put it in the cabinet to?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm lol no! I am hoping to integrate the xbox console with the stand. Its much smaller and easier to do than with a PC stack! Just stripped my computer down and taken the measurements of the bits that I need to re-use for now! Going to CAD them up and start playing.........................................