Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part Three
Page 3 of 6
Back to the task at hand, install a pair of drive rails on either side of the Digital Doc 5. Near the end of the black thermal sensor wires, mark each wire to correspond to which thermal sensor it is connected to on the unit (1 through 8). You’ll want to know which thermal sensor is placed where in the case so you’ll know what fan to connect to the appropriate power connector on the Doc.  |
- CPU heatsink
- System Hard Drive (20GB Maxtor) and Data Hard Drive (100 GB WD)
- Northbridge chipset heatsink
- On or between the memory DIMMS
- Top of the Power Supply
- One or Two on the Video card heatsink/fan
- CD-RW burner (especially if you burn a lot of CDs)
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The Doc will cycle its display to show you the temp of each of the sensors at any given time. You set the point at which the corresponding fan will turn on to force the heated air out of that part of case and usher cooler air to that region, effectively cooling off that component. Once you have taped down the thermal sensors (use the included orange tape), find the most appropriate fan to plug into the Doc’s corresponding numbered power connector.
For example, I’ve taped thermal sensor #4 and #5 to my video cards’ heatsink. My side panel door fan (the one that overlooks the video card) is plugged into power #4 on the Doc and will kick in if the card gets too hot, and will turn off once it’s cooled off. If it’s not cooling off enough because I’m either doing something graphic card intensive or I’m baking a soufflé in there, fan #5 (located at the front, in the bottom drive cage) will kick in to force more cool air across the video card and the soufflé.
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When you’re done with the Doc install, your case will look like Wirey McWirewire’s House of Cords and Wires. Try to route these cords behind less accessed parts (like the hard drives), or better yet, use electrical tape to tape them down to the chassis, out of the way. A cleaner environment in the case leads to better airflow leads to better temperature leads to hotter women (or men). Really. Four out of five really hot women surveyed said they got really hot at the thought of a well-laid out computer chassis. And by "four out of five really hot women," I mean to say "not a single sane person," and by "got really hot," I mean to say "want to kill you after they demean you in front of their friends."
PaxMate Acoustic Absorption Mats Installation
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And that’s what all the broohaha is about with all the Fan Mates and the Digital Doctor 5 and the Stealth fans. But there’s one more step in this compulsion for quiet (aside from filling my ears with spackle), and that involves covering the inside of the case with acoustic mattes to absorb the higher frequencies of sound and stop any noise from metal vibration.
I’ve tried the DynaMat mats used in cars to dampen sound, and they work OK with the nose from metal vibration, but the Akasa PaxMate mats are better since they actually absorb the high pitch wheeze as well. Found at a few places like Directron and sometimes Ebay, these adhesive mats cover the inside lining of your case. Two boxes of PaxMate (at about $19 each, retail) will comfortably cover the inside of this Chieftec case, with a little left over to stick all over your little sister to shut her up.
The installation is easy and straightforward. Use the large piece to cover the inside of the removable side panel. Don’t worry about the little vent holes in the panel of this exact case, you can cover them up with no worries, or you can cut holes in them after the mat is affixed. Line it up first and use an X-Acto blade or scissors to cut out areas where the door handle is. Remove the backing and stick the stuff on the metal. Repeat till you’re done or you need a whiskey. It’s not vital that you cover every exposed metal surface on the inside of the case, but it’s best to get all the side panels and the top and bottom of the chassis. Make sure you’re not covering fans or vital air vents, or taping over cables or wires. This almost goes without saying, but don’t put any on the system components, like the drives or the motherboard. And don’t eat the stuff either; it binds you up something fierce. Before I had the mats installed, I could hear the somewhat high-pitched hum (even with the Fan Mates set to lower spin rates) from the case on the floor sitting two to three feet away at my desk. With the PaxMate installed, I can hardly hear much beyond two feet from the system. My fiancée, who I swear has bionic bat ears, noticed a dramatic reduction in noise from this thing from her desk five feet away, even when she was listening for it.
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