dave87's Home Media & Digital Lifestyle - WIP!

[vrykyl]

You'll be glad you ordered / fitted Acoustipack dave - I used an entire 'ultimate pack' kit in my corsair 600D and it made a world of difference... its a nightmare to get in tight spaces though as its VERY sticky on the back and bonds tightly almost immediately - to the point you'll have to rip it to get it off if you dont corrent a 'mis-stick' straight away.

I only wish Id bought a pack of blocks to fill the unused 5.25" bays - something Im going to do soon. Defo better than the paxmate stuff rest assured!

[dave87]

You'll be glad you ordered / fitted Acoustipack dave - I used an entire 'ultimate pack' kit in my corsair 600D and it made a world of difference... its a nightmare to get in tight spaces though as its VERY sticky on the back and bonds tightly almost immediately - to the point you'll have to rip it to get it off if you dont corrent a 'mis-stick' straight away.

He's not wrong. It is incredibly sticky, and tears rather more readily than I'd hoped.

Write up of install being written as we speak

[Biscuit]

I'm undecided whether to run the fans on the H80 off the H80 itself, or use motherboard headers to do the job...will have to see how noisy they are/what the fan profiles are on the H80. How do you control yours?

i have a H100 with these ridiculous fans (for aesthetics more than performance, although they perform fairly well) and i run it off the pump (same pump as in the 80 i believe), i had never thought to try it off the motherboard although the speed profiles are pretty decent anyway.

I have a PWM fan splitter anyway so i might give that a bash.

[dave87]

As can probably be guessed from the above, I decided to go for the Acoustipack sound deadening. Now the Lian Li isn't exactly a huge case, so one of the Ultimate Packs should be fine....shouldn't it?

Well here's the problem. The Ultimate pack only has one sheet of the 7mm thickness stuff....which you want to put on the sides of the case, and ideally the top. Even for a tiny case, that is unlikely to be enough. Ok, you get two sheets of the 4mm thick version, but I'd rather it be the other way round. The only sensible thing was to get the credit card out and buy the Ultimate and an additional 7mm thick sheet. Nigh on £50 spent, what do you get?

Well, these:



At least they don't come folded, which was one of my gripes with PaxMate, as it invariably left a crease in the material - which imho, looked rubbish.

Unboxing them, you get (if you order the same as me) two of each thickness:



First impressions? It is surprisingly heavy. I guess the comments about them using a denser foam than most of the competition have some merit. The 4mm stuff is fairly substantial aswell, so if you aren't after the quietest case possible, the ultimate kit would probably be perfectly fine. Oddly the thicker 7mm foam had a shiny back which made it difficult to write on - for marking out the pieces you are going to cut out etc - where as the 4mm stuff had a normal paper type backing which you could mark easily. Odd, and a little inconvenient until I found a pen that would write on both (Staedtler Permanent Lumocolour in case you were wondering ).

So started marking them up ready to cut:



(a side panel and the top panel - split into multiple pieces due to the 140mm blowhole on the roof)

Skip a few steps and you get this when attached to the side panel:



Then start on the top panel:



and keep going until it looks like this:



Separate pieces for the blowhole as mentioned, allows me to remove it later if I need/want to use it.

Then onto the bottom panel:



Slightly more complex this one because it has mounting points for SSDs and the air feed for the PSU once mounted. It also has the motherboard tray (non removable, which is a shame) riveted to it. Nevermind, after creating a cardboard template, the measurements were honed and then translated to the Acousticpack.



Measurements laid out, now to start cutting. PSU vent first. Stanley Knife with a fresh blade, and away you go.



Once you've also cut the hole for the motherboard tray it should look like this:



All that remains is to install it:



and test fit an SSD to make sure you can still mount them easily:



Which, as it happens, you can. Good stuff



Rubber mounts & Sound Deadening & no vibrations (cause it is an SSD) - this should be fairly silent!


On to the back panel. Spot the deliberate error:




After correcting that, and also cutting pieces to size for the back panel & motherboard tray, you should be left with something that looks like this (refreshments caught in shot):



For good measure, I've attached some of the Acoustipack to the front panel - help reduce any fan noise from the hard drive cage:







....and if anyone tries to tell you this is a neat & tidy task, it really isn't:

[Terbinator]

But is it quiet?

[dirky]

Atm I bet it is, there are no components in it

[dave87]

But is it quiet?

Atm I bet it is, there are no components in it

Dirky is on the ball today

[dirky]

yeah! although it would be nice to have some stats before and after the noise reduction. you should take it all apart again!

[vrykyl]

Looking good dave - I didnt manage to do anywhere near as comprehensive a job as you on my 600d as theres big chunks of it that arent removable like the lian li (I also had way more fan mounts to go around!).
Did you find once cut that the backing paper has a tendency to leave tiny little white piece of itself where you made the cuts when you peel it off?

[dave87]

IT LIVES!

Looking good dave - I didnt manage to do anywhere near as comprehensive a job as you on my 600d as theres big chunks of it that arent removable like the lian li (I also had way more fan mounts to go around!).

Yea, doing the sound deadening took the entirety of my afternoon/evening yesterday. Definitely not for the faint hearted.

Did you find once cut that the backing paper has a tendency to leave tiny little white piece of itself where you made the cuts when you peel it off?

Annoyingly it did exactly that - spent as much time trying to pick those bits off as actually attaching the stuff to the case.

[dave87]

Yet to finish the write up, but here's a sneak peek....





I like

[Pob255]

Some points of interest about Acoustipack, the reason for only one 7mm and two 4mm sheets is because of older and smaller cases.
Many cases didn't have much room behind the right side panel, combined with the fact that most of it is covered over by the motherboard tray, so there's less area exposed to pick up sound vibrations (although it can still act as a sound board for vibrations from the frame)

Similar goes for the top and bottom, a lot of older and cheaper cases are tight on space, so 4mm thickness covers more bases, although who's going to spend more on sound damping foam than they did the case in the first place?

The foam is heavier than paxmate because it's denser, well half denser because it's actually multi-layered.

Shame the 7mm has that annoying shiny backing, that's a big issue with Paxmate for me, not only is a permanent marker the only thing that marks it, rulers are hard to hold in place for cutting.
If it's anything like paxmate then I found it best to cut from the backing side, although large scissors work very well, you don't have to lay the foam it one piece, you can cut bits and butt them together neatly with a little care.

One of the things I like about paxmate, apart from the lower cost, is because it's less dense it's more squishy and can be used for other things, also easier to shave some thickness off it. (see below)
Depends how much wiggle room there is in the 5.25" bays but I've use paxmate to line a dvd, two strips down the sides to damp vibrations and/or thin strips around the bezel to plug gaps around it and the case bezel 5.25" holes, which I started doing after realising how much air was getting sucked in on one case.
I've also used it on the inside of a mouse to make it sound less hollow.
Acoustipack is not so good for these odd uses because of the higher density and layered structure, making it less flexible and less compressible, although it's better for it's actual job of case noise damping

[dave87]

As promised, a write up of the install, albeit a bit later than anticipated....

First, the old build:





Trusty Antec P160 along with my first attempt at sound deadening (3+ years ago?) with Paxmate. Has served me well, but it was time for an upgrade. Even though it looked pretty clean and the temps were pretty good, dust had sadly made its home....



Disassembly and a good clean starting:





I won't post the pictures of what came out, but I was rather surprised at the amount of dust these things can hold with little by way of ill effects on temperature etc.

After a good clean, disassembly can continue:




Get to the centre of the system, the trusty Q6600:




The board stripped of everything except the CPU:



Flipped over:



and the backplate from the H80 installed:



install the standoffs:



Time to mount inside the case (no removable motherboard tray on this one )

[dave87]

Next bit was to replace the fan in the PSU.

DISCLAIMER - There is risk of getting a large electrical shock if you open a PSU. Anyone reading the following should not attempt the steps below, and if they do, are entirely at their own risk.

Anyway, with that out of the way, take one PSU:



Remove various screws (the four outer smaller ones, and the four that hold the fan in place:



Then remove the cover, and replace the fan:



I've left the fan grill off due to the positioning of the PSU in the case (bottom of the front, where fingers cannot get to it). Generally removal of them is unwise. As explained in most Haines manuals, installation is the reverse of removal:





With that done, it was time to fit the custom Lian Li mount to the PSU:



fit into the case, and plug in:




and then see the mass of wires that come with it (non modular PSU + small case....):

[dave87]

Fewer photos at this point because I got a bit engrossed in what I was doing!

Firstly install BluRay drive and Hard Drive caddy with 2x 150gb WD Raptors & 1x 320gb WD drive:



and install the Lian Li Drive cover:




The next step is the longest....cable management. This is the view after a lot of work...




Neat, eh?

The otherside says otherwise:



Lots of cables in a small space, I've yet to find a way of making them look even remotely tidy....at least they are out of the way of any airflow, so shouldn't affect cooling.

Note to self, buy a modular PSU next time......


Then skip a few steps (I did say I got a bit engrossed with what I was doing.....) and you get something that looks a little like this:



The XFi has since been removed because it was too close to the graphics card, and as such raising temps more than I'd have liked. Need to find a PCI one to replace it with due to the location of the PCI-E slots on this relatively early P35 board. I also turned the H80 the other way up as it put less strain on the tubes between the pump (on top of the CPU) and the radiator.


Anyway, that and a few other bits, and you get to this (as shown earlier):





Did all of this in the wrong order unfortunately, as I still haven't redecorated the room it was in (which was supposed to happen first....) so it'll have to be packed away safely when that does happen.

[Pancake]

Is that a T500 i spot up there? speakers look a little wide to be a 400

You finally got windows 7! Looks awesome