Mounting HTPC motherboard and other parts to wood

mdonovan

Active Member
Hey all -

I am building an HTPC to go with my new LCD TV, and I am having a custom cabinet built for it. I want to leave the HTPC parts out of a case and mount them directly to the cabinet to save space and to hide them, as well as hopefully help with cooling. What I'm not sure of is how do you mount the motherboard and other parts to the wood? My first thought was to take an old case I have and cut it apart so the motherboard mounting side could be screwed to the cabinet, then mount the motherboard to that, but I was wondering if there was a better way. I figure I could just make a couple of small shelves to put the hard drives on, and I'm going to mount the CD/DVD drives so they show through the front of the cabinet (perhaps with a little door to hide them.

I would appreciate suggestions or comments (nice ones) :)

Matt
 
Hey all -

I am building an HTPC to go with my new LCD TV, and I am having a custom cabinet built for it. I want to leave the HTPC parts out of a case and mount them directly to the cabinet to save space and to hide them, as well as hopefully help with cooling. What I'm not sure of is how do you mount the motherboard and other parts to the wood? My first thought was to take an old case I have and cut it apart so the motherboard mounting side could be screwed to the cabinet, then mount the motherboard to that, but I was wondering if there was a better way. I figure I could just make a couple of small shelves to put the hard drives on, and I'm going to mount the CD/DVD drives so they show through the front of the cabinet (perhaps with a little door to hide them.

I would appreciate suggestions or comments (nice ones) :)

Matt

The enclosures on PC's are designed to contain a fire (to a degree) and the plastic used in addition to the metal frames are designed with that in mind. I am not saying you will have a problem but consider it.
 
Hey all -

I am building an HTPC to go with my new LCD TV, and I am having a custom cabinet built for it. I want to leave the HTPC parts out of a case and mount them directly to the cabinet to save space and to hide them, as well as hopefully help with cooling. What I'm not sure of is how do you mount the motherboard and other parts to the wood? My first thought was to take an old case I have and cut it apart so the motherboard mounting side could be screwed to the cabinet, then mount the motherboard to that, but I was wondering if there was a better way. I figure I could just make a couple of small shelves to put the hard drives on, and I'm going to mount the CD/DVD drives so they show through the front of the cabinet (perhaps with a little door to hide them.

I would appreciate suggestions or comments (nice ones) :)

Matt

The enclosures on PC's are designed to contain a fire (to a degree) and the plastic used in addition to the metal frames are designed with that in mind. I am not saying you will have a problem but consider it.

that's what i was thinking too. and cases provide EM shielding as well. but then i ran across this:
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15125
 
that's what i was thinking too. and cases provide EM shielding as well. but then i ran across this:
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15125

Hehe...I like the "LA Airport " Antec case. They make some great cases.

I've never even heard of a PC having anything even remotely considered to be a "fire". (laptops excluded, because of the battery alone). I believe the main goals of any PC case is keeping the components within a certain distance of the motherboard, and more importantly, cooling. The cases are designed to draw cooler air in, usually across the motherboard, and then out the back. In an enclosed space like a cabinet, you'll have to pay attention to cooling. Being open air isn't usually good enough, unless it's a low power system. Even the antec open air system has a large fan on the top to make sure air doesn't just sit.

Check out the cases forum of silentpcreview.com. There have been numerous wood cases designed and detailed there. They're the experts on this kind of thing.
 
I would think that the case would also protect the components from electrical shorting. If an "open" PC was in my cupboard - I am sure something would happen to short out the motherboard.
 
I'd be worried about the EM portion. I've had issues with interference when I had the case open and something just above it. I think it was my IR receiver, but I can't quite remember.
 
Well... the consensus seems to be "don't do it". I had a case that I left all the sides off all the time, and never had any problem with overheating or interference of any kind. The problem I am trying to solve is I don't want a PC case to be visible at all (even the nice HTPC ones), and I don't want to take up the space that a case would take. The motherboard and parts would be exposed (in the back) to the ambient air in the room, and I was figuring on getting a better cooling solution than the stock fans. Maybe I'll need to rethink the design. What I want to wind up with is a TV which will be exposed, and all of the electronics and wires hidden. IR will be distributed back to the hidden peripherals.

Thanks for the comments. I'll have to give it more thought.

Matt
 
I know this is not wood, but I could not help myself.
Check out this aquarium set up and this Star Wars one.

my point is that perhaps you could find a cool way to display the HTPC, rather than hiding it...
 
One thought is to locate the PC in another room. I have a touchscreen in the kitchen with the PC in the basement at the other end of the house. In fact, it's about 50 feet away. I run all cables back to the PC. All "clean as a whistle".
 
Well... the consensus seems to be "don't do it".

Nonsense...go for it!! And then post pics of how you did it.

Seriously, silentpcreview has several "wooden cases" designs, and it wouldn't be a stretch to just mount it in a cabinet from there. I know I've seen pics of people doing that.

That's a relatively good point about shorting, though....especially if you have kids. They open a drawer, and throw in the lucky penny they just found....bzzzt!
 
Put the the server in a 4U case somewhere else on the wall with just 2 $.80 shelf brackets or in a cabinet and use a hardware extender at the TV.

This will get you the best of everything.
 
Put the the server in a 4U case somewhere else on the wall with just 2 $.80 shelf brackets or in a cabinet and use a hardware extender at the TV.

This will get you the best of everything.

That's something to think about. I have a wireless network, and I'm planning to get an XBox360, which can act as an extender. Hmmmm...

Matt
 
Well... the consensus seems to be "don't do it".

Nonsense...go for it!! And then post pics of how you did it.

Seriously, silentpcreview has several "wooden cases" designs, and it wouldn't be a stretch to just mount it in a cabinet from there. I know I've seen pics of people doing that.

That's a relatively good point about shorting, though....especially if you have kids. They open a drawer, and throw in the lucky penny they just found....bzzzt!

Now THAT'S what I wanted to hear! :) Seriously, I live by myself, and the computer parts would not be anywhere that anything would possibly be spilled on them or something accidentally dropped on them. It's hard to describe what I have in mind. The front wall of my living roonm has an 18" deep by 80" wide inset, with about 3.5 feet on either side. My plan is to put a set of shelves with doors across the whole wall There would be no doors where the speakers would be set up. Then in the inset I want to have a piece of birch veneer plywood mounted on hinges, with the LCD tv mounted to it with a wall mount bracket. I would then mount the HTPC parts on the back of this piece of plywood, and have a shelf with the rest of the components sitting on it. I'm hoping to use the HTPC to replace my CD player as well as a separate DVD player. I want to mount the CD/DVD from the HTPC through the plywood so I could play a DVD not ripped to the HTPC, or use it to rep CD's and DVD's to the HTPC. I would also mount power and reset buttons through the plywood. I'm also hoping (although I'm still not sure if this will work out) to use a fiber connection to the receiver(sp/dif or something like that) to the receiver and just use the tv to do the hdmi switching.

I don't know if that made any sense, but I appreciate all the advice. I'm heading over to silentpcreview right now to see what they have. Thanks for the tips everybody!. They are all very helpful.

Matt
 
Well... the consensus seems to be "don't do it".

Nonsense...go for it!! And then post pics of how you did it.

Seriously, silentpcreview has several "wooden cases" designs, and it wouldn't be a stretch to just mount it in a cabinet from there. I know I've seen pics of people doing that.

That's a relatively good point about shorting, though....especially if you have kids. They open a drawer, and throw in the lucky penny they just found....bzzzt!

I agree. Here are the points that I would keep in mind -

1) Heat. Typically, closing up a chassis makes it worse. Sometimes you will see special ducting in a PC, but it is usually just keeping cool (outside) air flowing to the CPU or GPU. If your design is open to the room for a significant area, you should be OK. If you are going to seal it (like it kind of sounds from your description) then you should allow for a way to move fresh air through that area. The power supply expects fresh air too.

2) EMI. PCs can be pretty noisy. I don't think you are going to be knocking any aircraft out of the sky if you have no shielding, but you may cause your TV some grief, especially if you are using any kind of a tuner. If you can wrap a metal shield (connected to ground) around your setup, you will greatly reduce any chance of interference. This an be as simply as lining the cavity with aluminum foil (I'd use a spray on adhesive) or that nice stick-on copper flashing you can get at Lowes, and making sure that the moving portion gets connected when closed.

Markd
 
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