Also one can build a water cooling loop without a reservoir. Simply use the fill port on the eisbär pump/cooler combi or get a radiator with a fill port.
Came here to say this. The finish would have looked much better if you sanded in the same direction as the grain of the wood instead of sanding across the grain. Not a huge loss since he's planning to rebuild the shell, but it's something to remember for the future.
The first part inspired me to build my own sleeper "PC"... I took an old laptop apart and tried to throw it into a HiFi system casing... This went sideways in very many ways... I'll share my experience soon
@@RCP-1136 well Liking a video adds it to your liked video list, how embarrassing would it be to fill that up with your own vids?... and UA-cam cares about video engagement so either like or dislike is actually a good thing for the channel But that's just my guess
If you are going to watercool also your GPU, you can do; -Rotate the GPU to 180degrees and position as high as possible. - Use a slim GPU block to reduce the thickness of GPU from dual slot to single slot. - Put a slim radiator and fan below the GPU , there might be enough area when you do those. For watercooling first need is radiator surface area, radiator thickness comes second. I don't know the exact dimensions of the receiver, so it is best to check if my sıggestion will work by calculating how much area you will gain if you do this. Slimest Alphacool radiator should be 30mm , with 25mm fan you will need 55mm clearance. if you use slimmer 15mm fans, you'll need 45mm clearance.
For mesh on the back you can find some thin sheets that have holes at Home Depot for cheap, easily bendable so you have to be careful cutting it out but multiple patterns. Would be cool to see your logo show up as a burn in or different color stain somewhere on the wood. Nothing too big, just a quarter size to say hey I built this. Love the work you are doing and I can’t wait for part 3!
Thanks for the idea ! After seeing your first video I made a case from a newer denon av reciever i had laying around that wasnt working . I cut the back and bottom from a pc case and removed the back and bottom from the avr and rivited it together in which I added an inch and a half to the height .I cut out all the front panel controls and display except the for power button replaced it with glass. Above the power button I put front mounted usb ,mic and headphones. I made a power supply and wire area behind the power button with kydexsince you can see into the case. I have a a full size Motherboard in there with a tower cooler. The newer reciever is vented well with fans monted on the top blowing down on the gpu.
I've been thinking about my own build of a PC in a drawer. So far I think that the best option to go with it's back is to use a metal frame, not a sheet of metal. You can customize it with a few perpendicular bars to be able to screw things to it. And to add some dust protection you can use some sort of nets (cloth or metal mesh) on magnets to simplify the assembly
Nice build! If you do add more stain, try to use a rag instead of brushing it on. Basically apply the stain with a rag, let it sit for a few minutes, then wipe off the excess. The longer you let it sit before wiping off the excess, the darker the finish will be.
That´s a cool build. Thanks for sharing. My suggestions: 1) Use the Hard Disk activity indication available on Mother Board to lit the "FM Stereo" indication. There are some high brightness red LEDs that will do just fine for that use 2) Use the Speaker 1/2 buttons to reset the machine. Remove the locking rod from both switches and wire them in series to activate the RESET signal from Motherboard. You will need to press both at the same time to reset the machine. 3) Use the "Bass", "Trebble" and "Balance" to change the color of the LED strip. That should be achieavable using the arduino you have already.
What a cool build. Heathkit as electronic company from 1947 to 1990's was IKEA for nerds or mainly Ham radio operator. They would make electronic kits that had to be assembled. So it's very fitting you take a old Heathkit 1500A from 1970's Am/Fm receiver kit and make it your own. I really like how you kept the look of the old receiver, and stuffed a modern computer inside. Taking the time to make some of the knobs to be functional. I have a friend that took small tower case and put H2O cooling pump and heat exchanger and tank outside of the case behind the entertainment stand he had CPU and GPU cooling , the tube line routing is the trick for a clean look. Looking forward to see what you come up with. Awesome project.
LGR would love this, look at all that wood grain! Oh and waxing the wood will get a nicer finish, as you have already stained it, a clear wax would probably get the best results, then just buff with fine wire wool, I am sure that you don't need to keep that wire wool dust well away from those PC components though...
@Tech By Matt 6:41 You can use some really tight mesh to act as a dust filter, and make it easily removable (screws in to the rest of the BackPanel, maybe?) for fast & easy cleaning. Also, the cutouts at the top could be bigger, and have fan filters attached to them with some quick-remove mounting. Maybe fans, too - the new 120mm NF-A12×25 Noctua fans are friggin *beasts* , especially in the performance/noise area (look up some reviews of you don't believe me). Two of them above the GPU and one on top of the CPU would be absolutely savage. That is, If you're sticking with air cooling.
Get a modular or even semi-modular SFX power supply, the amount of space saved will be huge. P.S: make a slot for an IO shield on the back panel when you do make one so it looks cleaner and also gives you a little room for upgrade since all ITX motherboards have the same size IO shield
I would actually prefer air cooling since its a tight fit, helps cool the VRMs, just put additional intake and exhaust fans to improve air flow. I do have a mini ITX and ambient temperature never goes above 65 degrees Celsius.
You sir are not only a nerd but an elite nerd, those talents could be a huge money maker building custom pc cases, awesome video, I'm jealous of your skills and imagination.
On water-cooling, a large free space that could open up would be under the gpu. If you put a waterblock on that you could raise it up as far as you can and potentially place a radiator under it. Alphacool is a good idea, when tight on space you could use a Eisbaer cooler like the 240 aio variant (if a 240 could fit under the gpu), that has a pump/reservoir/cpu block combined into one, a radiator, some fans and hoses with fittings in one package. Then you could still expand on that with standard water-cooling parts, like a gpu block. Sure the little pump doesn't have massive flow, but it should be sufficient for the CPU, gpu and a radiator. Good luck on your further progress.
You could finish cutting out the louvered areas of the wood and fill in with mesh so air can get drawn in. Leave the back open and install a couple of "free air" 120mm fans as exhausts back there. They would pull air through the top because there is no way in from the front.
Since you asked for opinions on water cooling, I'm thinking you could keep the larger power supply, remove the heat-sinks and fans from the video card and replace them with a thin water block, and use the gained space to put a bit thinner radiator against the top of the case. This, in conjunction with custom wire routing, could possibly allow the fluid piping some space to run as well. Just my take on potential options.
I know I am late, but I think watercooling would be cool, but not necessary. Unless your heart is set on it. Do you have space to throw 2 120mm fans in those vents up top? Get the custom cables for sure. Construct a stand that the cables can run under and so you could mount a HDD or SSD to the top for more storage. Great work man, very inspiring. I have been dying to do a sleeper PC, but I didnt even think about doing it in an old home theater system.
i think a neat way to get the cables out of the way would be to tuck them under the unit. Since you already have the feet on, you can just square off the whole unit with those and have some more space underneath
A big problem of all air cooling is that in a closed case cpu and gpu fans suck in the air they just pushed through the radiators. So essentially they stir the warm air. If you make sure these fans can get air direct from the outside and get NO air from the inside, their efficency will be significantly improved. The result of that is quite remarkable. Case fans do not much to help with that. The reason is that the part of the cpu/gpu fan where the air goes in is quite close to where the warm air comes out of the radiator. Kind of a short circuit. Case fans dont do much to break that, except they are directly on top of it. I once used a cardboard air duct to feed the cpu fan air from the outside from the back of the case. It lowered the cpu temp by about 10 deg celsius.
Awesome build man looks great! All those extras on the front end just bring that build together 100%. Og power button and volume knob that is dope to say the least.
watercooling requires more space than you think, tubes cannot bend too tightly and a serverrack radiator requires some decent opening. You can mount it remotely on an old speaker cabinet? and put new speakers in too. The alphacool DL LT block could be enough for this, if the speaker stays close.
Use a Alphacool Eisbaer Solo (Pump/Cooler Combo) to save space, dont go for a reservoir but try to use a radiator that is as big as possible. For better airflow use shrouds, they are very effective.
if you can get a bit more space with the cables and so on, you may be able to add a tiny radio module and perhaps wire some of the buttons and knobs so it would look like a radio an also work like one.
I have a Hard drive rack from a ThermalTake Core G3 which would fit in this perfectly if you want 2 or 3 Harddrives behind the the PSU.. For the Rear I/O I would suggest using acrylic or may be find a company to perfectly cut out the screws and I/O plate.
A simple way to get more space for the cable clutter would be to use taller standoffs for the motherboard and feed the excess cables underneath it. It should cost cents and would only take a few minutes to do.
Hey Matt, just a suggestion to help with temps, especially if you have to restain it anyway, if you have access to a router you could connect the vents on both sides in the top so they go all the way across and then cut another hole in the metal cover underneath above the CPU cooler and that should give the CPU pretty good airflow. Connecting the vents is just a suggestion to keep it looking as close to original as possible while still improving temps and doing so before you restain is just a suggestion to keep it looking stock and unmodified.
I usually am for air cooling, but I installed that cryorig a week ago on a Ryzen 5 2600 and it's quite loud. Water cooling this build would be absolutely amazing! Do the GPU as well and try and keep it as silent as possible! Very inspiring videos, will definitely do something similar in the future!
You should make a little cutout behind the black plastic for viewing the frequency and put in a little OLED screen with the details such as temperature, fan speeds, clock speeds etc. It only has to be super tiny so its barely noticable, unless you believe that'll ruin the Sleeper-look
You just need a bit of case fans. You can't properly cool without giving it some airflow. You'll see big drops. You'll need at least one 12cm or 2 80/92mm fans in the back. I suggest you blow some air on the VRM with any fan you can fit (blower style?). If there are openings under the case flip the gpu and put a fan sucking air in from the top, otherwise use it as exhaust as the gpu will heat up the air around. Also check the ssd temp. It may be passive but heat can reduce its life.
I think you're definitely on the right track, but as you said, airflow is a big issue. I think you may want to consider drilling a series of holes in the top of the unit to let the heat rise out of the box. Also, a metal mesh for a back panel is a great idea. Even something as simple as some bright aluminum window screen would cover everything up while allowing massive air to get in.
I've done a lot of water cooling space isn't the biggest thing but airflow would probably be your biggest hurdle. You'd probably just end up heat soaking the components. Idle temps would be high and your fan curve quite aggressive pretty noisy too unless you do an external radiator. If it were me I would try to install some fans to bring in air.. Keep it the way it is 👍
If you really want to be sure it fits i know FSP makes a 500w Platinum flex supply, i normally would say 550w would be the minimum for these components but with a platinum supply i think 500w would be fine as long as you dont do heavy overclocking. Because how how niche the psu is its super expensive at $150 and is nonmodular but i think it would still take up less space, especially if you tried to open it up and make custom cables or tried to convert it to a modular
This is a really old thread. I find it coincidental that you used an old Heathkit radio for this build. I don't know if anyone has mentioned that Heathkit was a DIY electronics company. They encouraged one to start with a super simple crystal radio to get you hooked and as your confidence and skills grew so did your projects. The big projects were your audio unit and some TV kits. The kits were never really fancy looking but they were highly usable. The company was from the late 40s or early 50s through the late 70s. Cool project, I may do something like that for my HTPC.
For tge back venting look up hardware cloth. Its steel screen with 1/4 square holes it may be easier and better venting then drilling a bunch of holes. Ever think about hanging the radiator off the back from a solid bracket.
Before being too harsh on the stock GPU cooling fans/heatsink, it's likely in the software side. Put Afterburner on there and customize the fan profiles to be more aggressive. I keep my (Slightly older, granted) ROG Strix 1070Ti comfortably around 52-54C while gaming heavily JUST by applying a better fan profile and lowering the max target temp from 93 to 75 - it doesn't negatively affect performance by much at all, and allows very heavy overclocking if so desired, gaining back way more performance than the loss through voltage tweaking/limiting, though at the cost of temperature, of course. In your case, with the main purpose being HTPC, I'd try just doing the fan profile a bit better than OEM, but bear in mind airflow is going to be your biggest problem in that case either way, as it's hard to keep a consistent positive static pressure in something like this. The liquid cooling radiator is also going to be something you'll need to address this with. Perhaps bottom mount it in the case after cutting out a bottom exhaust hole and placing a grille over it? You'll still definitely want to look into high-airflow fans when it comes to the intake though. The reason you want positive static pressure is that rather than dust getting sucked in and finding a place to settle, when it DOES come in with the airflow, there's so much pressure that the air is already looking for a way to get out, meaning no dead zones and it'll basically find the closest escape path. Keeps it much cleaner/cooler/quieter over time that way. (Especially important in stealth PC builds, which have been a passion of mine for years. ) Amazing work on this, btw. I'm jealous! I'm working on a much smaller project myself right now - building a tiny portable one inside a 1970s portable TV - yes, the one from Blade Runner. Fortunately they used large lead 6v batteries, so there's a decent amount of space to work with for the GPU.
1:52 So how hard was it and how long did it take to complete the cat mod? LOL Great vids by the way, I just couldn't resist about the cat. Good looking cat by the way.
For me I would just use metal mesh for the back and on the cut outs for the psu, mb, and gpu. Then get some flashing from a big box home center because it is thin enough to just about cut with a good pair of scissors then cut a strip about an inch wide bend it in half and put it on cut edge of the mesh and just attach with a little metal epoxy. Don't worry about water cooling it's easy. The first computer I ever built was a 7700k with a gtx1070 and I put a custom 360 water cooling from EK with a full cover EK gpu block with rigid petg tubing. Great build and look forward to it in it's final form.
I was thinking for your water cooling use duel 140mm rads and have them against both intakes and if you tidy up the front panel there with bits your not using. You could get that big rad in there also pulling more air in the bottom like I think your planning to do already
Modular power supply. Lets you use only the cables you need. Cut away the other side of the vents to get rid of heat from the GPU. You might add a laptop fan or two and at least more air holes. Heat is going to build up badly in that case. The GPU is a bit of overkill for that processor. Maybe a 1660ti. No Ray Tracing but everything else
Yeah it’s very useful when planning a new build and being unsure of the perfect pairing for GPU and CPU. I almost bought a 1660ti for my 3600 and then saw that and ended up opting for the 2080. It’s unbelievable just how powerful the 3600 actually is. Chips like the 3900x are actually being bottlenecked by even 2080ti in reality.
Honestly with the size limitations of the case I wouldn't water cool it. I would use a liquid metal terminal compound for the CPU and GPU. If it was me doing this I would 3D print a spacer/duct for the Power Supply Fan and GPU fans to go between the fans and the Case top vents so instead of the Hot Air flowing around until it makes it way out it can just flow straight out. On the back rear panel add a 40mm exhaust fan over the IO shield of the motherboard for the CPU and RAM heat to exhaust out. Or if you decide to redo the veneer I would expand the top vents to go the whole width so the CPU fan can just exhaust upwards. This way you can also ditch the top metal plate and just use so brackets to stabilize the framing.
Take a look at the eisbaer solo and solo LT from alphacool, they are cpu -block/res combos, that way you wouldn't need a pump/res combo and could go with a smaller res or go without a res completely
Get yourself a 3d printer. It's not too difficult to design your own custom supports if you have good measurements. I think that would help out a lot on the back of the sleeper. Great build, man.
i'm a big fan of upcycling..other options...vintage electric heater pc case...and old engineering tool box could allow for a screen and carrying controllers/keyboard/mouse and headphones
Don't use dashlane, use Bitwarden, its free, there are no device limits, and you can self host it. It is more superior, and won't sell your data unlike Dashlane.
Ok so why's there no part 3. I just found this series and I was so excited to see you try and watercool it. Even if you couldn't watching you try would have been awesome
First, get a second radiator (like a 280mm or 2x140) under the gpu and flip the gpu block to get it flat on the top piece (also you could flip the two). Intake would be on the bottom with venting on the backside as with an itx it´s always recomended to have an positive pressure setup. As far as i would be concered, a pump combo with a proper drain port is your worst enemy (ek for expamle does it with hights of like 15cm´s). Maybe you gotsome ideas for your build :)
You might be able to fit a Corsair H5 liquid cooler into that to shoot CPU air out the back. A Kraken G12 could suffice for liquid cooling your GPU if you wanted to simplify the water cooling process. P.S. always ALWAYS sand with the grain of wood. Stain should be wiped off thoroughly. In my opinion, you should sand it again and start over. After you get a perfect sand-job, wipe the entire piece down with a damp rag. This makes the grain take a deep breath "popping" the grain. Stain saturates more evenly after water popping. Apply the stain when the wood is bone dry, let the stain sit for a couple minutes and then wipe the wood down completely. Make sure to get stain all the way down in those vents. They're sloppy looking with a partially saturated edge. Let them stay dark. After wiping, it won't feel dry to the touch but it'll be pretty damn dry. I'm a professional wood finisher, so hopefully this advice is taken.
Dude for the large back plate. In the motherboard (mobo) part, Just cut out a standard mobo backplate size, then you can push the backplate in that came with your itx mobo. It will look super nice and you should be able to drop any other itx mobo board in, in the future and then use its backplate that comes with the board as well in the future :) :) Edit: Also, if you have an old case you can cut out the main pcie expansion slots in one big plate, then cut it down to size and just pull out 2 of the metal cover strips, looks good and again, useable in the future if you get a diff gfx card!
Could you take the heatsink off the gpu and add a rad with 2 fans. Idk if this would make the thermals worse and how to mount it. You could have custom slim res made out of acrylic and have it go below the motherboard or some components where you have extra room. Then add 3.5" hard drive cages for more storage. You could have 2 slim psu's, one for the cpu and one for the gpu to save space. You could have air flow through the bottom of the case and be pulled throught the back. You could have hotswapable hdd bays in the back and have a cable pass through for your power supply with the on/off PSU switch turnable through another button. You could also have a reset button programed or use a dial to switch sources/brightness or any setting that you use. You could have a slim bluray disc drive come out from the bottom of the case or make the front pannel come in and out to put a disc in. Or have a ps3 like disc drive that sucks in the disc. You could use a knob of any remaining button have a usb 3/audio or a front side port that you use behind it once you remove/slide the cap/button. Maybe a prestain would help the wood take the stain better. You can always sand it smooth, the wet the wood, let the grain rise up then sand it it smooth, wipe with a microfibre cloth, pre stain, then stain, then lacque/polyurethane. A fine mesh for a dust filter in the back would be good along with them where air flows through.
i noticed you had a 2.5 " ssd as well, going NVME m.2 will drop a sata cord and you will be able to utilize the sata power for the water cooler , fans, or rgb things. def modular psu and youll be set
Stain plus poly is the worst! Use a good quality stain and wipe away the excess. Then put a coat of poly on and follow the instructions with a light sanding between 2 coats you will get a much finer finish. Stain plus poly is just gummy and gives an uneven coat. Great project good luck finishing it!
Alpha cool makes a pump/cpu block combo. That would cut down on space needed by a lot.
Also one can build a water cooling loop without a reservoir.
Simply use the fill port on the eisbär pump/cooler combi or get a radiator with a fill port.
Suggestion. When sanding wood, sand with the grain. It's easier and it leaves a much better finish. Good project.
Came here to say this. The finish would have looked much better if you sanded in the same direction as the grain of the wood instead of sanding across the grain. Not a huge loss since he's planning to rebuild the shell, but it's something to remember for the future.
_"WITH the grain, WITH the grain, you can't fight these big waves, Co."_
The first part inspired me to build my own sleeper "PC"... I took an old laptop apart and tried to throw it into a HiFi system casing... This went sideways in very many ways... I'll share my experience soon
I’m turning on PN right now
pls do
He disliked his own video 😂😂
indeed but why? at 1:25
@@RCP-1136 well Liking a video adds it to your liked video list, how embarrassing would it be to fill that up with your own vids?... and UA-cam cares about video engagement so either like or dislike is actually a good thing for the channel
But that's just my guess
Osyrus sounds plausible:)
I think it's just being humorous.
Usually they do it so people can't be like "OmG I FiRsT diSlikerhhbrjdjejdkdj"
For best wood finish always sand with the grain.
The cat vanishing in a slow transition at 1:56 was so funny to me.
If you are going to watercool also your GPU, you can do;
-Rotate the GPU to 180degrees and position as high as possible.
- Use a slim GPU block to reduce the thickness of GPU from dual slot to single slot.
- Put a slim radiator and fan below the GPU , there might be enough area when you do those.
For watercooling first need is radiator surface area, radiator thickness comes second. I don't know the exact dimensions of the receiver, so it is best to check if my sıggestion will work by calculating how much area you will gain if you do this. Slimest Alphacool radiator should be 30mm , with 25mm fan you will need 55mm clearance. if you use slimmer 15mm fans, you'll need 45mm clearance.
For mesh on the back you can find some thin sheets that have holes at Home Depot for cheap, easily bendable so you have to be careful cutting it out but multiple patterns. Would be cool to see your logo show up as a burn in or different color stain somewhere on the wood. Nothing too big, just a quarter size to say hey I built this. Love the work you are doing and I can’t wait for part 3!
When you make the back plate cut out for the io shield. Then make your measurements for everything else.
2:44 As a cooling fanatic, this line made me tear up. Give this man a medal!
Thanks for the idea ! After seeing your first video I made a case from a newer denon av reciever i had laying around that wasnt working . I cut the back and bottom from a pc case and removed the back and bottom from the avr and rivited it together in which I added an inch and a half to the height .I cut out all the front panel controls and display except the for power button replaced it with glass. Above the power button I put front mounted usb ,mic and headphones. I made a power supply and wire area behind the power button with kydexsince you can see into the case. I have a a full size
Motherboard in there with a tower cooler. The newer reciever is vented well with fans monted on the top blowing down on the gpu.
this builds is absolutely beautiful, someday I will do a build like that for my living room, or even my bedroom, really beautiful build man.
u should measure the power cables and see if they can fit around the perimeter of the case
I've been thinking about my own build of a PC in a drawer. So far I think that the best option to go with it's back is to use a metal frame, not a sheet of metal. You can customize it with a few perpendicular bars to be able to screw things to it. And to add some dust protection you can use some sort of nets (cloth or metal mesh) on magnets to simplify the assembly
Nice build! If you do add more stain, try to use a rag instead of brushing it on. Basically apply the stain with a rag, let it sit for a few minutes, then wipe off the excess. The longer you let it sit before wiping off the excess, the darker the finish will be.
That´s a cool build. Thanks for sharing. My suggestions:
1) Use the Hard Disk activity indication available on Mother Board to lit the "FM Stereo" indication. There are some high brightness red LEDs that will do just fine for that use
2) Use the Speaker 1/2 buttons to reset the machine. Remove the locking rod from both switches and wire them in series to activate the RESET signal from Motherboard. You will need to press both at the same time to reset the machine.
3) Use the "Bass", "Trebble" and "Balance" to change the color of the LED strip. That should be achieavable using the arduino you have already.
What a cool build. Heathkit as electronic company from 1947 to 1990's was IKEA for nerds or mainly Ham radio operator. They would make electronic kits that had to be assembled. So it's very fitting you take a old Heathkit 1500A from 1970's Am/Fm receiver kit and make it your own. I really like how you kept the look of the old receiver, and stuffed a modern computer inside. Taking the time to make some of the knobs to be functional. I have a friend that took small tower case and put H2O cooling pump and heat exchanger and tank outside of the case behind the entertainment stand he had CPU and GPU cooling , the tube line routing is the trick for a clean look. Looking forward to see what you come up with. Awesome project.
LGR would love this, look at all that wood grain! Oh and waxing the wood will get a nicer finish, as you have already stained it, a clear wax would probably get the best results, then just buff with fine wire wool, I am sure that you don't need to keep that wire wool dust well away from those PC components though...
dude, thats the best sleeper pc i have ever seen
@Tech By Matt 6:41 You can use some really tight mesh to act as a dust filter, and make it easily removable (screws in to the rest of the BackPanel, maybe?) for fast & easy cleaning.
Also, the cutouts at the top could be bigger, and have fan filters attached to them with some quick-remove mounting. Maybe fans, too - the new 120mm NF-A12×25 Noctua fans are friggin *beasts* , especially in the performance/noise area (look up some reviews of you don't believe me). Two of them above the GPU and one on top of the CPU would be absolutely savage. That is, If you're sticking with air cooling.
Get a modular or even semi-modular SFX power supply, the amount of space saved will be huge.
P.S: make a slot for an IO shield on the back panel when you do make one so it looks cleaner and also gives you a little room for upgrade since all ITX motherboards have the same size IO shield
I just wanted to comment the IO shield part of your comment.
A hole for a case fan would be useful too.
a mini graphics card will help with space as well. Love this concept!
For the back side , i would PUT strong magents on top and bottom , then put a dust filter for better airflow
I would actually prefer air cooling since its a tight fit, helps cool the VRMs, just put additional intake and exhaust fans to improve air flow. I do have a mini ITX and ambient temperature never goes above 65 degrees Celsius.
You sir are not only a nerd but an elite nerd, those talents could be a huge money maker building custom pc cases, awesome video, I'm jealous of your skills and imagination.
I remember my dad having one of these receivers when I was young. This is nostalgic.
Let's restore the radio function via the tuning knob.
so did you ever make a part 3?
Really enjoying this series so far. Never expected you to jump to watercooling in the third part!
On water-cooling, a large free space that could open up would be under the gpu.
If you put a waterblock on that you could raise it up as far as you can and potentially place a radiator under it.
Alphacool is a good idea, when tight on space you could use a Eisbaer cooler like the 240 aio variant (if a 240 could fit under the gpu), that has a pump/reservoir/cpu block combined into one, a radiator, some fans and hoses with fittings in one package. Then you could still expand on that with standard water-cooling parts, like a gpu block.
Sure the little pump doesn't have massive flow, but it should be sufficient for the CPU, gpu and a radiator.
Good luck on your further progress.
You could finish cutting out the louvered areas of the wood and fill in with mesh so air can get drawn in. Leave the back open and install a couple of "free air" 120mm fans as exhausts back there. They would pull air through the top because there is no way in from the front.
Since you asked for opinions on water cooling, I'm thinking you could keep the larger power supply, remove the heat-sinks and fans from the video card and replace them with a thin water block, and use the gained space to put a bit thinner radiator against the top of the case. This, in conjunction with custom wire routing, could possibly allow the fluid piping some space to run as well. Just my take on potential options.
I know I am late, but I think watercooling would be cool, but not necessary. Unless your heart is set on it. Do you have space to throw 2 120mm fans in those vents up top? Get the custom cables for sure. Construct a stand that the cables can run under and so you could mount a HDD or SSD to the top for more storage. Great work man, very inspiring. I have been dying to do a sleeper PC, but I didnt even think about doing it in an old home theater system.
i think a neat way to get the cables out of the way would be to tuck them under the unit. Since you already have the feet on, you can just square off the whole unit with those and have some more space underneath
wait, since the back will probably not be seen, have you considered just buying like a 360/480 dust filter and cutting it to size?
he should also add dust filters to those top vents. They certainly save ME a lot of hassle with my new build!
A big problem of all air cooling is that in a closed case cpu and gpu fans suck in the air they just pushed through the radiators. So essentially they stir the warm air. If you make sure these fans can get air direct from the outside and get NO air from the inside, their efficency will be significantly improved. The result of that is quite remarkable. Case fans do not much to help with that. The reason is that the part of the cpu/gpu fan where the air goes in is quite close to where the warm air comes out of the radiator. Kind of a short circuit. Case fans dont do much to break that, except they are directly on top of it. I once used a cardboard air duct to feed the cpu fan air from the outside from the back of the case. It lowered the cpu temp by about 10 deg celsius.
Awesome build man looks great! All those extras on the front end just bring that build together 100%. Og power button and volume knob that is dope to say the least.
watercooling requires more space than you think, tubes cannot bend too tightly and a serverrack radiator requires some decent opening.
You can mount it remotely on an old speaker cabinet? and put new speakers in too.
The alphacool DL LT block could be enough for this, if the speaker stays close.
Is there no pt3 ?
Use a Alphacool Eisbaer Solo (Pump/Cooler Combo) to save space, dont go for a reservoir but try to use a radiator that is as big as possible. For better airflow use shrouds, they are very effective.
if you can get a bit more space with the cables and so on, you may be able to add a tiny radio module and perhaps wire some of the buttons and knobs so it would look like a radio an also work like one.
What happened to the 3rd part?
Anxious to see your solution to the back panel as i have a gamecube PC mod that needs a back panel as well.
this dudes audio receiver can play games better than my pc
I have a Hard drive rack from a ThermalTake Core G3 which would fit in this perfectly if you want 2 or 3 Harddrives behind the the PSU..
For the Rear I/O I would suggest using acrylic or may be find a company to perfectly cut out the screws and I/O plate.
A simple way to get more space for the cable clutter would be to use taller standoffs for the motherboard and feed the excess cables underneath it. It should cost cents and would only take a few minutes to do.
Hey Matt, just a suggestion to help with temps, especially if you have to restain it anyway, if you have access to a router you could connect the vents on both sides in the top so they go all the way across and then cut another hole in the metal cover underneath above the CPU cooler and that should give the CPU pretty good airflow. Connecting the vents is just a suggestion to keep it looking as close to original as possible while still improving temps and doing so before you restain is just a suggestion to keep it looking stock and unmodified.
I usually am for air cooling, but I installed that cryorig a week ago on a Ryzen 5 2600 and it's quite loud. Water cooling this build would be absolutely amazing! Do the GPU as well and try and keep it as silent as possible!
Very inspiring videos, will definitely do something similar in the future!
When's part 3 coming out? I'm curious because you helped get me more motivated to actually start working on my own htpc/sleeper build.
Working 3.5mm jacks would be nice
You should make a little cutout behind the black plastic for viewing the frequency and put in a little OLED screen with the details such as temperature, fan speeds, clock speeds etc. It only has to be super tiny so its barely noticable, unless you believe that'll ruin the Sleeper-look
Good morning Matt. Cheers to a great video to start my day with.
You just need a bit of case fans. You can't properly cool without giving it some airflow. You'll see big drops. You'll need at least one 12cm or 2 80/92mm fans in the back. I suggest you blow some air on the VRM with any fan you can fit (blower style?). If there are openings under the case flip the gpu and put a fan sucking air in from the top, otherwise use it as exhaust as the gpu will heat up the air around. Also check the ssd temp. It may be passive but heat can reduce its life.
I think you're definitely on the right track, but as you said, airflow is a big issue. I think you may want to consider drilling a series of holes in the top of the unit to let the heat rise out of the box. Also, a metal mesh for a back panel is a great idea. Even something as simple as some bright aluminum window screen would cover everything up while allowing massive air to get in.
I've done a lot of water cooling space isn't the biggest thing but airflow would probably be your biggest hurdle. You'd probably just end up heat soaking the components. Idle temps would be high and your fan curve quite aggressive pretty noisy too unless you do an external radiator. If it were me I would try to install some fans to bring in air.. Keep it the way it is 👍
This concept looks really cool. I might do something similar for my HTPC.
Nice. I am planning my own sleeper from an old gutted phonograph. This looks great.
If you really want to be sure it fits i know FSP makes a 500w Platinum flex supply, i normally would say 550w would be the minimum for these components but with a platinum supply i think 500w would be fine as long as you dont do heavy overclocking. Because how how niche the psu is its super expensive at $150 and is nonmodular but i think it would still take up less space, especially if you tried to open it up and make custom cables or tried to convert it to a modular
This is a really old thread. I find it coincidental that you used an old Heathkit radio for this build. I don't know if anyone has mentioned that Heathkit was a DIY electronics company. They encouraged one to start with a super simple crystal radio to get you hooked and as your confidence and skills grew so did your projects. The big projects were your audio unit and some TV kits. The kits were never really fancy looking but they were highly usable. The company was from the late 40s or early 50s through the late 70s. Cool project, I may do something like that for my HTPC.
For tge back venting look up hardware cloth. Its steel screen with 1/4 square holes it may be easier and better venting then drilling a bunch of holes.
Ever think about hanging the radiator off the back from a solid bracket.
Before being too harsh on the stock GPU cooling fans/heatsink, it's likely in the software side. Put Afterburner on there and customize the fan profiles to be more aggressive. I keep my (Slightly older, granted) ROG Strix 1070Ti comfortably around 52-54C while gaming heavily JUST by applying a better fan profile and lowering the max target temp from 93 to 75 - it doesn't negatively affect performance by much at all, and allows very heavy overclocking if so desired, gaining back way more performance than the loss through voltage tweaking/limiting, though at the cost of temperature, of course. In your case, with the main purpose being HTPC, I'd try just doing the fan profile a bit better than OEM, but bear in mind airflow is going to be your biggest problem in that case either way, as it's hard to keep a consistent positive static pressure in something like this.
The liquid cooling radiator is also going to be something you'll need to address this with. Perhaps bottom mount it in the case after cutting out a bottom exhaust hole and placing a grille over it? You'll still definitely want to look into high-airflow fans when it comes to the intake though.
The reason you want positive static pressure is that rather than dust getting sucked in and finding a place to settle, when it DOES come in with the airflow, there's so much pressure that the air is already looking for a way to get out, meaning no dead zones and it'll basically find the closest escape path. Keeps it much cleaner/cooler/quieter over time that way. (Especially important in stealth PC builds, which have been a passion of mine for years. )
Amazing work on this, btw. I'm jealous! I'm working on a much smaller project myself right now - building a tiny portable one inside a 1970s portable TV - yes, the one from Blade Runner. Fortunately they used large lead 6v batteries, so there's a decent amount of space to work with for the GPU.
Ocool got a cpu block with integrated pump on it. Same concept as a AIO but made for custom loop. It called Ocool Eisbaer LT
1:52 So how hard was it and how long did it take to complete the cat mod? LOL Great vids by the way, I just couldn't resist about the cat. Good looking cat by the way.
For me I would just use metal mesh for the back and on the cut outs for the psu, mb, and gpu. Then get some flashing from a big box home center because it is thin enough to just about cut with a good pair of scissors then cut a strip about an inch wide bend it in half and put it on cut edge of the mesh and just attach with a little metal epoxy. Don't worry about water cooling it's easy. The first computer I ever built was a 7700k with a gtx1070 and I put a custom 360 water cooling from EK with a full cover EK gpu block with rigid petg tubing. Great build and look forward to it in it's final form.
I was thinking for your water cooling use duel 140mm rads and have them against both intakes and if you tidy up the front panel there with bits your not using. You could get that big rad in there also pulling more air in the bottom like I think your planning to do already
Modular power supply. Lets you use only the cables you need. Cut away the other side of the vents to get rid of heat from the GPU. You might add a laptop fan or two and at least more air holes. Heat is going to build up badly in that case. The GPU is a bit of overkill for that processor. Maybe a 1660ti. No Ray Tracing but everything else
Actually a 2080 is the best pair for no bottleneck with a 3600. Pc-builds.com is a bottleneck calculator. Try for yourself.
@@Buchta179 Nice man didn't know of this Calculator =)
Yeah it’s very useful when planning a new build and being unsure of the perfect pairing for GPU and CPU. I almost bought a 1660ti for my 3600 and then saw that and ended up opting for the 2080. It’s unbelievable just how powerful the 3600 actually is. Chips like the 3900x are actually being bottlenecked by even 2080ti in reality.
Maybe a cover for the original radio components to clean it up and an optional acrylic cover that you can switch to the wood one if you want.
The I/O shield is for RF so there wont be interfere with the TV or any other receiver device such as HIFI WIFI or Bluetooth
Honestly with the size limitations of the case I wouldn't water cool it. I would use a liquid metal terminal compound for the CPU and GPU. If it was me doing this I would 3D print a spacer/duct for the Power Supply Fan and GPU fans to go between the fans and the Case top vents so instead of the Hot Air flowing around until it makes it way out it can just flow straight out. On the back rear panel add a 40mm exhaust fan over the IO shield of the motherboard for the CPU and RAM heat to exhaust out. Or if you decide to redo the veneer I would expand the top vents to go the whole width so the CPU fan can just exhaust upwards. This way you can also ditch the top metal plate and just use so brackets to stabilize the framing.
Take a look at the eisbaer solo and solo LT from alphacool, they are cpu -block/res combos, that way you wouldn't need a pump/res combo and could go with a smaller res or go without a res completely
I think the way you stained it looks awesome. It honestly looks really vintage. It looks like the wood on an Atari 2600👍
That sponsor segue was EPIC! Very cool build too.
Do you want to cool the GPU as well? You can modify an CPU AIO and add tubes for the gpu. Wont be the best but will save you space & is decent.
Get yourself a 3d printer. It's not too difficult to design your own custom supports if you have good measurements.
I think that would help out a lot on the back of the sleeper. Great build, man.
i'm a big fan of upcycling..other options...vintage electric heater pc case...and old engineering tool box could allow for a screen and carrying controllers/keyboard/mouse and headphones
really need to do something bout the cpu cooling
Don't use dashlane, use Bitwarden, its free, there are no device limits, and you can self host it. It is more superior, and won't sell your data unlike Dashlane.
Ok so why's there no part 3. I just found this series and I was so excited to see you try and watercool it. Even if you couldn't watching you try would have been awesome
i saw both parts i like them you smart guy keep doing them !
Alpha cool also makes pump/res/block combo for the AM4 platform if I am not mistaken, might be too tall but it’s worth looking at
First, get a second radiator (like a 280mm or 2x140) under the gpu and flip the gpu block to get it flat on the top piece (also you could flip the two). Intake would be on the bottom with venting on the backside as with an itx it´s always recomended to have an positive pressure setup. As far as i would be concered, a pump combo with a proper drain port is your worst enemy (ek for expamle does it with hights of like 15cm´s). Maybe you gotsome ideas for your build :)
You might be able to fit a Corsair H5 liquid cooler into that to shoot CPU air out the back. A Kraken G12 could suffice for liquid cooling your GPU if you wanted to simplify the water cooling process.
P.S. always ALWAYS sand with the grain of wood. Stain should be wiped off thoroughly. In my opinion, you should sand it again and start over. After you get a perfect sand-job, wipe the entire piece down with a damp rag. This makes the grain take a deep breath "popping" the grain. Stain saturates more evenly after water popping. Apply the stain when the wood is bone dry, let the stain sit for a couple minutes and then wipe the wood down completely. Make sure to get stain all the way down in those vents. They're sloppy looking with a partially saturated edge. Let them stay dark. After wiping, it won't feel dry to the touch but it'll be pretty damn dry. I'm a professional wood finisher, so hopefully this advice is taken.
1:56 But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
Where did you buy that pc motherboard mat?
Remove the am/fm plate and do a custom reservoir behind it. That would be sick. BTW nice build. i love these things.
Wow! Amazing job, who would have thought of making such a master piece? 👍👍👍
Dude for the large back plate. In the motherboard (mobo) part, Just cut out a standard mobo backplate size, then you can push the backplate in that came with your itx mobo. It will look super nice and you should be able to drop any other itx mobo board in, in the future and then use its backplate that comes with the board as well in the future :) :)
Edit: Also, if you have an old case you can cut out the main pcie expansion slots in one big plate, then cut it down to size and just pull out 2 of the metal cover strips, looks good and again, useable in the future if you get a diff gfx card!
Drill holes in bottom and have air pull from bottom and air out top for the rad
You should use metal mesh for extra ventilation
i think the psu ight not be enough but it seems from the benchmarks to be all good
8 months later, still no part 3 lol
And there’s still no part 3, maybe he’s waiting to play Half Life 3 on part 3
You could use a sff power supply that has a power brick outside of the case and make even more room for the water cooling parts
Could you take the heatsink off the gpu and add a rad with 2 fans. Idk if this would make the thermals worse and how to mount it. You could have custom slim res made out of acrylic and have it go below the motherboard or some components where you have extra room. Then add 3.5" hard drive cages for more storage. You could have 2 slim psu's, one for the cpu and one for the gpu to save space. You could have air flow through the bottom of the case and be pulled throught the back. You could have hotswapable hdd bays in the back and have a cable pass through for your power supply with the on/off PSU switch turnable through another button. You could also have a reset button programed or use a dial to switch sources/brightness or any setting that you use. You could have a slim bluray disc drive come out from the bottom of the case or make the front pannel come in and out to put a disc in. Or have a ps3 like disc drive that sucks in the disc. You could use a knob of any remaining button have a usb 3/audio or a front side port that you use behind it once you remove/slide the cap/button. Maybe a prestain would help the wood take the stain better. You can always sand it smooth, the wet the wood, let the grain rise up then sand it it smooth, wipe with a microfibre cloth, pre stain, then stain, then lacque/polyurethane. A fine mesh for a dust filter in the back would be good along with them where air flows through.
i noticed you had a 2.5 " ssd as well, going NVME m.2 will drop a sata cord and you will be able to utilize the sata power for the water cooler , fans, or rgb things. def modular psu and youll be set
You could probably fit an Asus Rog x570 Crosshair Impact VIII in it too!
I love the build, but it frightens me that you weren't surprised by your cat suddenly disappearing at 1:55
how cool is the build that. the way it turn on sound and turn on pc
Stain plus poly is the worst! Use a good quality stain and wipe away the excess. Then put a coat of poly on and follow the instructions with a light sanding between 2 coats you will get a much finer finish. Stain plus poly is just gummy and gives an uneven coat. Great project good luck finishing it!
Man I’d really like to know where this one went I’m in the process of doing something similar and this video has been very informative
Did part3 ever come out?
For the mb io I would just cut in a way the io shild fits as it would look cleaner in my opinion