Need help/advise for DIY Desk-PC Build!

Keptains · August 13, 2017

Hello LTT Forum,

ill try to keep the introduction short. First of all im from germany and 19 years old so please dont hate me for my horrible english and grammar. I have some expierience in pc building but not at building desk's or even working with wood at all. I try to cluster the topics a little bit in the following:

The Idea
What i allready have
Where i could need some help/advise

1. The Idea

So i was thinking about a desk with a build in pc for a long time and the video from linus burned it in my head.

Now i want to build my own Desk-PC and have many ideas for that.

1.1 Hard Drives

So in generell to keep it short i want to craft a desk where i build in my computer with many differen accessories like HDD hot-swap bays in the front left side with power switches for every single drive. The Idea behind that is because i like to have operating systems seperated that every OS has its own drive. The power switches will have the use that i simply turn the HDD's off when i dont want to use the OS which allows me to keep things seperated but still gives me the possibility to have multiple OS's. The other arguments are that i get asked to backup data from hard drives which is the biggest reason i want to use hot-swap bays. In addition i simply think it looks cool to see where the drives are and be able to shut them down with a simple switch and i want to be able to access evrything i could want to change or plug in evrything to my computer without dismounting the top plate.

I would get something like this from Amazon(Germany):

Hot-Swap bay

Power Switch

1.2 NAS integration via RasperyPi

I allready have build a simple NAS with my Pi which wasnt that hard to to (OpenMediaVault, RaspberryPi, patch-cable, some 32GB USB-Sticks and power). This was just a "Proof of conecpt" so the idea is to integrate this as well. I though that for the start 2x 1TB HDD should be enough (1TB actuall storage and 1TB for backup). I want to connect those hard drives via USB to the Pi.

Besides that i want to have LAN-Ports on top of the desk that i can connect other devices to the internet when friends are here with their laptop or if i have to update pc's which have a fresh OS for example. In addition to that i want to integrate a simple wireless access point because my router is quiet far away that im kind of on the edge of the wifi range.

So the idea is to have a area for the Pi where it is mounted but still to be able to change the SD card for example. Then i want to install a basic switch with enough ports. I want to buy one which got 8 Ports because 3 will be permanently used (pc, pi and wifi access point). But as i menationed earlier the switch and access point should be inside the desk but to still be able to connect other devices my idea was to use extension cables which will be plugged into the switch and the other end will be mounted on top of the desk.

I whould get something like this from Amazon(Germany):

Switch 8 Ports

Patchcable extension

Wireless access point

1.3 Additional accessories

I want to add a card reader, USB hub, Fan controller and things like that but i guess this is pretty straight forward where i dont need much help. But im sure open and happy for some suggestions what other things i could add besides those i mentioned before.

As before those are the first things i would get from Amazon(Germany):

Final words for the idea:
Overall the desk should be clean, cable free (as much as possible), silent, good looking, good productivity/gaming and evrything besides bad and awfull. Im kind of scared that it wont be silent because i think with such wide spreaded compontents ill need many Fan's to be sure that evrything has a nice airflow and doesnt gets too hot. I even though about using glas that i can see every component from the top and combine that with good sleeved cable management.

Im sure i forgot something for the idea part feel free to ask anything! For now ill move on to the next one.

2. What i allready have

Besides the idea i have my computer in a normal Zenimax case. The speccs are the following (I try to add some links as well):

Mainboard: X99S SLI PLUS

CPU: I7 5820K

RAM: 16GB DDR4

GPU: GTX 980 AMP Extreme Edition

PSU: G650M

CPU water cooler: Thermaltake water 3.0

Besides that i have some HDD's and some SSD's. I would be happy for some good HDD's i think ill need some more for my build.

So thats it for my PC. I dont plan to upgrade any components soon but i think that my PSU will be to weak for all those HDD's and the other stuff.

For the NAS i allready have a bunch of micro sd cards, a Raspberry Pi 2, power cable, patchcable. I guess the NAS should be straight forward because i allready did that i only have to think about the new storage (I tried id with 32GB USB-Sticks which worked completly fine).

3. Where i could need some help/advice

So i guess the wood crafting stuff is up to me where you guys cant help me that much(Or am i wrong?).

The things which "scare" me are the cooling, noise(should be as silent as possible) and the power consumption part. And which cable do i can easily extend and which i shouldnt? I planned to extend almost evrything from power cables to USB-cables, aux, sata, patchcable maybe even HDMI for the Pi.

Okay so i wrote quiet alot down here now ill just leave for now like it is. I would be happy for any kind of feedback(besides hate) even if its only that you like/dislike the idea but for me its importatnt to know why you like/dislike it and what you would do better. This is not the final idea how it will be and im sure it will take be months and will be hella expensive but thats fine for me mostly i only see how i can get good components and safe on the wrong end. This is meant to be something buitifull where im happy to be at my desk and computer.

So feel free to give me some feedback, tipps, advises or anything else which could help me! And for every one he went through all this cancer english: Thank you verry much!

faytleingod11 · September 5, 2017

Definitely sounds like you're looking to expand on linus's desk idea. Sounds like a cool plan, and while I don't really know much about about the pi nas, or hot swapping os drives and such, it sounds like it should be simple enough to integrate it all into the desk. The first thing I suggest is checking out cablemods international site, or talking to @CableMod for the extension cables for power and data. I used them in my desk pc, and they are working great.

You can check out my build here:

With the setup I have, 3 intake fans and 3 output fans, I have had no issue with cooling. I have the corsair h100i for cpu cooling, and my temps don't get above 55-60 under full gaming load with new AAA titles like deus ex, or mass effect. My psu and gpu fans are almost never spinning up, and the most I've ever seen on the gpu is 2 of the 3 at any one time. So air cooling would be a very feasible option, so you could use the space that ltt used for radiators and pumps and placement for your drive cage and an access for the pi.

With some careful measuring and cutting you create precise cutouts for the fron of the drive cage in the sides, and maybe a panel that opens for the pi that you can just reach in and make your modifications. If you're looking to make it cable free, you could take ltt's method of hiding the tubes and power cables further, and do it for all the cables. I have a usb hub mounted to the underneath the desk to run the cables for my monitors usb, and the wireless adapters for my keyboard and xbox one controller.

Hope this helps, let me know if you wanted to know anything else.