ultimatedesk Posted August 30, 2011 Posted August 30, 2011 First off I want to give out a huge thank you to Seasonic, who has decided to sponsor The Ultimate Computer Desk by sending a ~really~ sweet Power Supply my way. An 850 Watt Seasonic Gold. Thanks Seasonic! We'll take a closer look at that PSU a bit later.. I had been a little frustrated with the layout of the Dual CPU Xeon board for quite some time, so I finally made the decision to ditch it and setup the right-hand cabinet with an ATX sized board. This is more in spec with my initial design - the extra couple inches makes a big difference, and it will make it easier to upgrade in the future as well. On one hand, I'm a little disappointed that I won't be using that super geeked out board, but rest assured, I'll find something else neat to do with it. So I went ahead and removed everything and started from scratch. Looks way better already: I then decided that, unfortunately, through the miracle of cable limitations, it would make a lot more sense if I put the optical drive in the front of the case, as opposed to up above the desk, where I had originally wanted to put it. So, time to do some more cutting. The masking tape managed to pull off some of the polyurethane, but have no fear, I will be making a faceplate that will contain the power button, LED's, and USB ports that will cover that spot up quite nicely. And, we've gone so far, yet, gained so little, eh? It'll get done, I swear! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 Feeling a bit more motivated about the right-hand cabinet, I decided that the foam fan-holder had to go. It was too large, was akward, and was difficult to keep straight and in the proper position. I decided to put together a nice and clean fan holder: After doing some measuring, I took it to the drill press for the initial holes (I didn't have a hole saw for 120mm fans unfortunately... that would be pretty huge!) I then took out the spindle sander to sand right to the line. Just an fyi, I swapped out the spindle for a much larger one. This was my first time using this type of sander, and I was very impressed - the degree of accuracy and control is extremely high - perfect for sneaking up on the pre-drawn lines. Time to drill some holes for the fan screws And a test fit. The product came out quite nicely - accurate cuts, all 4 of the positions are secure with screws, and this piece should be much easier to align in the proper location in the case. I had cut a few other new pieces for cable management, but they were rough cuts, as I will not know their exact dimensions until I install hardware. I can't install hardware until I finish cutting and drilling in the right-hand cabinet, and since there is still the issue of the power button, LED's, etc... Time to get started on that, I suppose! Kinda looks like a bull head eh? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iskout Posted September 4, 2011 Posted September 4, 2011 This thing is turning into a beast! Looks amazing! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted September 4, 2011 Posted September 4, 2011 Looking sweet. Pity about the dual Xeon not fitting. As for the board that didn't work, did you test to see if one of the RAM sticks was to blame? With that many and having been got rid of its possible that one or more could be damaged. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GabrielT Posted September 13, 2011 Posted September 13, 2011 For the fans that you are mounting to the wood I would definitively think about anti vibration washers of some sort. I can't wait until this is done. You should contact your insurance company and add this to your home-owners/renters insurance. It sure would suck to lose that desk and not get a dime. I would say it will easily be worth $3500+ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xPETEZx Posted September 15, 2011 Posted September 15, 2011 shame! I was looking forward to seeing that Dual Xeon take shape! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 This thing is turning into a beast! Looks amazing! Thanks! Looking sweet. Pity about the dual Xeon not fitting. As for the board that didn't work, did you test to see if one of the RAM sticks was to blame? With that many and having been got rid of its possible that one or more could be damaged. Yup, it's a bit of a shame, but don't you worry, it will resurface again in a different project, it's much too cool to sit and collect dust! For the fans that you are mounting to the wood I would definitively think about anti vibration washers of some sort. I can't wait until this is done. You should contact your insurance company and add this to your home-owners/renters insurance. It sure would suck to lose that desk and not get a dime. I would say it will easily be worth $3500+ Thanks GabrielTessin, I'll take that as a complement! I'll be doing some sound tuning once everything is up and running! shame! I was looking forward to seeing that Dual Xeon take shape! Yup, same here - it was a really cool dream, but ultimately, a pipe dream. It was just too big for what the cabinet was designed for. I'm going to do some other cool project with the dual Xeon though, so stick around! I guess it's been a while eh! Well, you'll be glad to know, that I'm actually almost done. There've been a few changes to the original plan, etc, etc, but I've still been goign full steam ahead, just not a lot of time to post updates lately. Here you go, some photo bombardment! First off, my awful cutting job. Notice how the masking tape ripped off some of the polyurethane? Looks pretty great eh.. (NOT!) Fitting my original faceplate design I thought it didn't look too bad, but the USB ports were difficult to secure, and there were no audio jacks, so I went about and redesigned a new face plate Did some work with the band saw, scroll saw, and some sanding, and voila! Looks not terrible eh? That's a nice unit from Silverstone that I picked up from my local computer store. Everything fits real nice and tight Holes for the power switch and LEDs look good And a quick test fit Wonderful! I cut the hole for the card reader / usb with a jigsaw, but neglected to take photos... Anyways - after a couple coats of black spray paint, I think it looks pretty cool. With the faceplate out of the way, and hopefully, the last of the drilling / sawing / making sawdust portion over, for the right-hand cabinet, it meant I had the all clear to install more hardware. Here are the two hard-drive trays with the actual HDD trays removed. Gave them a nice coat of black spray paint and they mounted them inside the cabinet. I think they look pretty groovy. Even groovier loaded up with hard drives.. (Two missing in this pic, 7TB total, however!) Now, before we get to the next pic... another boon happened recently - traded some of those Core 2 Duo systems + some cash and picked up a really cool previous generation Core i5! Here's the power supply - a Corsair 650TX, a very quality unit. All that could be better is some modular action. Ah well! And another beautiful Gigabyte motherboard - a GA-P55-USB3 with 4 GB of G.Skill RAM Here's the sweet mother. A quad core 2.8Ghz. Wow, talk about moving on up the CPU chain! I picked up an older version of the Coolermaster Hyper 212 (Not the Plus version) and mounted a pair of Scythe fans to it Oooh, it's getting so close to boot time! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 That looks great loving the face plate but it has just occurred to me there is seemingly no airflow around you hdd rack Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 7TB??? What you doing? Downloading the internet? Sooo, close, FINISH IT!!!! I love it so far. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengiant912 Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 (edited) pretty cool build so far. Why did you spray paint the faceplate and not stain it, you did such a great job with the woodwork it would be a shame to finish it off with a spray paint lol... Edited September 20, 2011 by greengiant912 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
medbor Posted September 21, 2011 Posted September 21, 2011 That looks great loving the face plate but it has just occurred to me there is seemingly no airflow around you hdd rack +1 Is the wall perforated any and is the psu the only exhaust? I just love the looks of it, but if it runs at 80C no one will be happy... But i think you have something planned Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangeJuice Posted September 21, 2011 Posted September 21, 2011 Imagine trying to take this thing to a LAN party. lol. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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