Cutting open a case?

[WillBlake]

So is it a good idea to cut open a small portion of a case for more room? I've got one of those extension cages lying around (Not a kit) and I'm planning to cut around the psu mount so that my psu could hang out a little bit with the extension cage (coz my case is an itx case and it doesn't have enough room for my 3.5" hdd). Is this a good idea or will it fry the system? Thx

[jnmbhj]

I would say take everything out of the case before you cut it. Any tiny metal shavings will short out the pins of the motherboard, graphics card, or might fall into the psu. We had an issue with metal shavings during the robotics competition and know first hand how it can completely destroy sensitive electronics. 

[Enderman]

It will look very bad and be a lot of works, why can't you find an empty space and mount your HDD in a different way?

Or get a 2.5" SSD.

[WillBlake]

13 minutes ago, jnmbhj said:

I would say take everything out of the case before you cut it. Any tiny metal shavings will short out the pins of the motherboard, graphics card, or might fall into the psu. We had an issue with metal shavings during the robotics competition and know first hand how it can completely destroy sensitive electronics. 

Ah I'll make sure of it then thx!

13 minutes ago, Enderman said:

It will look very bad and be a lot of works, why can't you find an empty space and mount your HDD in a different way?

Or get a 2.5" SSD.

Because it's a sg13 and I already have an ATX psu and the said 3.5" hdd lol

[Enderman]

Just now, WillBlake said:

Because it's a sg13 and I already have an ATX psu and the said 3.5" hdd lol

I'm sure there must be some empty space somewhere you can fit it...

[jnmbhj]

Just now, Enderman said:

I'm sure there must be some empty space somewhere you can fit it...

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!!! 

[WillBlake]

10 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I'm sure there must be some empty space somewhere you can fit it...

For 2.5"? Yes. But not for 3.5" tho...

9 minutes ago, jnmbhj said:

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!!! 

It's a system drive tho... if I was going to use it for storage for documents or stuff like that then yea I'd go there too but I'm using it as one of the main drives and having it accidentally disconnected while I'm working really doesn't help

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, WillBlake said:

For 2.5"? Yes. But not for 3.5" tho...

I'm talking about just any space, not specific mounting points.

[jnmbhj]

Just now, WillBlake said:

For 2.5"? Yes. But not for 3.5" tho...

It's a system drive tho... if I was going to use it for storage for documents or stuff like that then yea I'd go there too but I'm using it as one of the main drives and having it accidentally disconnected while I'm working really doesn't help

Hmm. I guess the only option is having the hard drive popping out the back. 

[WillBlake]

Just now, Enderman said:

I'm talking about just any space, not specific mounting points.

Yes I know. Take a look at the sg13 and some random ppls build with it (linus did one), you'd see there really isn't anywhere else lol

[WillBlake]

1 minute ago, jnmbhj said:

Hmm. I guess the only option is having the hard drive popping out the back. 

Ah that might work actually. But I do have thus cage just sitting here so maybe I'll give that a shot and hope for the best?

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, WillBlake said:

Yes I know. Take a look at the sg13 and some random ppls build with it (linus did one), you'd see there really isn't anywhere else lol

Beside the PSU?

 

Put the hard drive horizontally or at an angle.

[Enderman]

 

Or put it where this radiator is:

[WillBlake]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Beside the PSU?

 

Put the hard drive horizontally or at an angle.

I have a full size 1070 mate. Look at the Linus build for this, he put a Titian x and atx psu in it and there wasn't even space for 2.5" ssd besides taping it to the top of the psu.

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

 

Or put it where this radiator is:

And the radiator area do have a lot of cables and it's a radiator for the love of whatever god you believe in it's not a good idea to put a hdd where the heat from the radiator could blow directly onto.

 

look man I know you're trying to help but I have this case done setting up and with all the cables (even with whatever cable management there can be) there isn't anywhere else to mount a 3.5" hdd except if I was using a sfx psu (which looks like what's the guys doing in your pictures). And I don't have a sfx psu I have an atx psu so I either have to stick the hdd at the back somehow like jnmbhj suggested or I have to cut a hole and use my extension cage.

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, WillBlake said:

And the radiator area do have a lot of cables and it's a radiator for the love of whatever god you believe in it's not a good idea to put a hdd where the heat from the radiator could blow directly onto.

This is actually not true.

The air that comes out of a radiator is not very hot, maybe like 5 or 10 degrees above ambient.

Depends on the airflow going through it.

 

Plenty of full size cases have HDD bays in front of a radiator mount.

HDDs are rated for over 60C operation so it is perfectly safe.

[WillBlake]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

This is actually not true.

The air that comes out of a radiator is not very hot, maybe like 5 or 10 degrees above ambient.

Depends on the airflow going through it.

 

Plenty of full size cases have HDD bays in front of a radiator mount.

HDDs are rated for over 60C operation so it is perfectly safe.

It's safe but it'll affect the longevity of the hdd (I tried I had a hdd mounted right in front of the radiator about 2 cm apart and It died after about half a year). I had it replaced for free coz the person at the shop was nice enough for a wd black and that also died shortly after. So yea it's safe in a sense that it won't catch on fire but it's not optimal for the hdd health.

[WillBlake]

Heat builds up you know, it doesn't just come and go away

[jnmbhj]

8 minutes ago, WillBlake said:

It's safe but it'll affect the longevity of the hdd (I tried I had a hdd mounted right in front of the radiator about 2 cm apart and It died after about half a year). I had it replaced for free coz the person at the shop was nice enough for a wd black and that also died shortly after. So yea it's safe in a sense that it won't catch on fire but it's not optimal for the hdd health.

@Enderman Is kinda right. The heat coming from the radiator is about 5-10 degrees F hotter. So if you room is 70 degrees then the heat from the radiator is 80 degrees. Which is right in the operation range. also while the computer is idle its much lower maybe 2 degrees. But that being said I would not shove a HDD in that teeny case. It would further restrict the little airflow it has.

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, WillBlake said:

It's safe but it'll affect the longevity of the hdd (I tried I had a hdd mounted right in front of the radiator about 2 cm apart and It died after about half a year). I had it replaced for free coz the person at the shop was nice enough for a wd black and that also died shortly after. So yea it's safe in a sense that it won't catch on fire but it's not optimal for the hdd health.

Uh, HDDs should definitely not be dying after half a year in hot conditions...

Maybe you had a defective HDD or it died for other reasons.

 

9 minutes ago, WillBlake said:

Heat builds up you know, it doesn't just come and go away

It does.

It's called thermal equilibrium.

If it just built up then your computer would reach thousands of degrees if you left it on for a while...

It takes a few minutes to warm up under load and then it reaches stable temperatures because the heat being removed from the system equals the heat being produced.

[WillBlake]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

Uh, HDDs should definitely not be dying after half a year in hot conditions...

Maybe you had a defective HDD or it died for other reasons.

 

It does.

It's called thermal equilibrium.

If it just built up then your computer would reach thousands of degrees if you left it on for a while...

It takes a few minutes to warm up under load and then it reaches stable temperatures because the heat being removed from the system equals the heat being produced.

I'm not sure about hdd not dying in hot conditions. I mean the first one wasn't even a new one, I had it running for about 2 years happily in my other pc but then I had another micro ATX case and the only place to put it was in front of the radiator. So I put it there thinking yea it says 60c it'll be fine. Then it died. And the new that came also died in an almost identical time frame so if you want to try mounting it in front of the radiator I wouldn't recommend it.

 

And yes I know about the thermal equilibrium (I have a degree in chemistry) but that assumes the output (or the exhaust) is not greatly less than the input (or in this case the radiator). If I mount the hdd in front of the radiator (especially in this shoebox) I would be reducing the output greatly (hey what did you think when the hdd is even larger than the radiator) while the input stays constant. So the epuilibrium point would shift greatly to the right (in this case the thermal equilibrium would need to be quite high) resulting in the abnormal accumulation of heat at the hdd. This is why I don't want to mount the hdd right where the radiator is especially when this is a mitx case.

[jnmbhj]

12 minutes ago, Enderman said:

It does.

It's called thermal equilibrium.

If it just built up then your computer would reach thousands of degrees if you left it on for a while...

It takes a few minutes to warm up under load and then it reaches stable temperatures because the heat being removed from the system equals the heat being produced.

That is true. Heat is transferred from one source to another but at a limit. So if the radiator is pushing 80 degree air the maximum theoretical temperature the Hard drive can increase to is 80 degrees. It cannot get any hotter other unless there is another external source. The fire of a normal natural gas fire is a few thousand degrees and that is slowing transferring to the pot you are cooking with. Now if you completely close off the computer case with 0 vent. Now you have thermal build up from the CPU heat and the recirculating air. At that point pretty much everything in the system is gonna die. But there are many safety measures built in to prevent that. 

[jnmbhj]

2 minutes ago, WillBlake said:

I'm not sure about hdd not dying in hot conditions. I mean the first one wasn't even a new one, I had it running for about 2 years happily in my other pc but then I had another micro ATX case and the only place to put it was in front of the radiator. So I put it there thinking yea it says 60c it'll be fine. Then it died. And the new that came also died in an almost identical time frame so if you want to try mounting it in front of the radiator I wouldn't recommend it.

 

And yes I know about the thermal equilibrium (I have a degree in chemistry) but that assumes the output (or the exhaust) is not greatly less than the input (or in this case the radiator). If I mount the hdd in front of the radiator (especially in this shoebox) I would be reducing the output greatly (hey what did you think when the hdd is even larger than the radiator) while the input stays constant. So the epuilibrium point would shift greatly to the right (in this case the thermal equilibrium would need to be quite high) resulting in the abnormal accumulation of heat at the hdd. This is why I don't want to mount the hdd right where the radiator is especially when this is a mitx case.

You barely have space anyways. 

[WillBlake]

1 minute ago, jnmbhj said:

You barely have space anyways. 

My point exactly.