A Peek Inside

Here is a view with the cover removed. The top cover has been modified to be easily removable for service and upgrades. One problem that has been mostly solved is that the power cables are much too long. They have been bundled with nylon ties. I am still searching for an easy way to shorten them. The 4 pin ones are easy, but the 30+ pin motherboard connector is an issue. Because the Pentium 960 is a blowtorch I needed a powerful power supply. This meant also that it has a lot of extra leads. Until I can shorten and properly terminate them you can see them bundled and taped with electrical tape on top of the power supply for storage.

One common question is air flow? Does the system ventilate properly? During each case construction we did a lot of air flow testing, and yes the system moves air just fine and all components remain well with in normal operating temperatures. I did several temperature tests using both on board sensors as well as external measuring devices.

In the picture it appears that the wires from the power supply obstruct the main intake fan. This is not the case, they are bundled with a nylon tie and provide negligible obstruction to air flow.

Each of the arrows designates a different fan and thus air flow. In addition the Asus motherboard has several integrated cooling systems. One can be seen to the right of the CPU with a pipe leading down and to the left.

Fan Detail

1. Blue - Main intake fan
2. Pink - Each hard disk has a set of 2 slimline fans.
3. Purple - Zalman cooler
4. Green (under CPU) - Fan to extract air from the case. The Mark I did not have this fan as it required the case to be open. However in the Mark II this fan is necessary as the CPU fan is too far away from the vents and the air disperses around when it hits the them.
5. Yellow - This is a blade fan that pulls air away from the primary video card and ejects the air through a card slot.
6. Green (right side) - Currently it is empty. This fan will serve to cool the secondary video card. The Mark I had barrel fan that ejected air through the top. It was very noisy though and I did not want to put a ventilation hole in the top of the case just for it. I plan to add another blade fan like the yellow one here. When I bought the blade fan I was testing the effectiveness and noise levels of various fans, and the store only had one of these gems.