sealed box can it be done

has anyone ever built a completly sealed case
i want to build my next computer and i live in arazona dust every where
so i was thinking of a completly sealed box
i would have to mount the cd drives on the out side and mabey the all the ports
has anyone ever tryed
i was thinking water cooled with the radator mounted and the top behind the cd drives

or just lots of internal fans and a huge heat sink built into the side

the cd drives would have there own mini box like 6 x4 or whaterver size 2 cd drives and there wires take

some kind seal around all the wire coming into the main box

this is a long way from me even trying to built but i had the idea for a while

any thoght or ideas would be welcome

 

If you go for water make sure your remember to cool the CPU, GPU and chipset, dont know if they make a memory waterblock but im sure they could.

The other thing to remembe is that the capacitors near your CPU rely on the CPU fan for cooling as they do heat up.

Thinking along the problem you will also need to relocate the PSU intake.

Not an easy one good luck

 

you are looking at A LOT of work. but it might be possible. i would install filters myself and make life easier.

 

It might be worth looking into imersing the whole lot in some sort of non-conductive fluid.

 

mineral oil, 100% distilled water.

Non conductive.

 

think thats going to be tricky even with watercooling theres still no recirculation of the air inside the case and as mentioned earlier you would probably have to mount the power supply outside as this needs to be vented



as celtpirate mentioned i think filters would be the way to go doesnt take much effort to clean them out once a week

 

Power supply has its own set of vents. Not to discourage any extreme modding, but why not just put a filter over the vents to keep the dust out?

 

Id go for filters cheaper and less hasal.

 

ya i think i will go filters

i got to building the case in my head last night and got even more problems.like the fact that i would need a special back with all the wires coming through a plexy cover with some sealant around them and moving the power supply outside the box the cd drives out side the box was enough to make the power supply look like a bitch
its a long way from being more than a daydream anyways
unless i can wipe a compaq mother board and just rebuilt my system with more memory cause i have a p4 1.7 (it enough for almost every thing i do )but i need more memory and a really good video card

i want to wipe the compaq board cause i think theres some thing in it that make it only want to use the compaq windows disk

 

A wise decision, imo. Fan filters are cheap and easy to install and are a far, far easier solution to your problem.

For example:-

http://www.hardwarecooling.com/default.php/cPath/48_101

 

I have a sealed box rig at work for a very stable system (Running QNX as XP is not all that stable). Room temp where it has to live gets to 110 degrees. And the PC has never failed or even had the OS crash. We are talking years of up time here, not months. The system reboots after a power outage.

I made a stand for an Antec 1080 style case and added a "supply" duct into the bottom and "return" duct out the top. You can get the ducting at Home Depot in the heating section. Pop rivet it on and seal with RTV. Then cover that with aluminum backed duct tape. Put a plate on the back that covers everything but the card connections, remove the front plastic and put a plate there as well. No CD, no floppy, just a plate up front. More RTV and pop rivies. Another plate to seal the unused PCI card blanks. The power supply has to be rotated to exhaust up into the "return" duct. Proper cable managemet and component placement is a must. You need good air flow for this to work. I got the rig to run with passive CPU cooling on my PIII 933MHz, you may need a CPU fan or just duct from the bottom to the CPU heat sink.
The second box is a refrigeration coil, fan and filter with ducting to match the computer case. I salvaged it from a salad bar cooler. The air is closed loop from the computer box to the air conditioning box and back. The only time I open it is to change the filter. It gets some dust in somehow, but not much. A new filter every 6 months works for me.
Keep the temps at 70 - 80 F and you will not get condensation. If you get the air too cold and the A/C turns off, the warm air hitting the cold MB will cause condensation. The unit and ducting will "sweat" if you try for lower temperatures. The salad bar temperature controller went that high, so I got lucky there.
I used an Advansys SCSI card for connection to a CDROM and HD mounted external to the case. Either will boot.

You may not want to go this far, but if you want a sealed case the "closed loop" cooling solution is a good option. Be sure to have a drain for the consensate from the air conditioning side. With this much work you had better plan on staying in Arizona for a while.

 

Now that is cool, DOA. Is there actually any use for this computer, or were you just bored at work one day?

 

The computer monitors a 11,000 HP gas turbine.
I kinda want it to ALWAYS work.

 

EEEEeeep!
i can see why you didnt use windows now !