PC in a Desk Build - Part 1 - The Idea and First Designs.

in technology •  7 years ago 

Looking at my computer, it is in desperate need of an update. I am trying to do so much with it its untrue. And my desk... the less that's said about that the better.
desk pc.jpg

Initially it was supposed to be a gaming PC as I used to love gaming, World of Tanks, Mech Warrior online, star wars and star trek online, hitman series, metal gear solid games, and a lot more than that.
Currently the specs are....
Gigabyte 970 motherboard.
AMD FX 6350 pile driver
Radeon R9 270x graphics card
16 gig ddr3 1600 crucial memory
2 x 400 watt power supplies, (one for the motherboard and GPU, the other for everything else.)
7 hard drives totalling about 5TB give or take. All set to hot swap so I can plug in my back up drive and then the raw video storage drive.
All crammed into an NZXT phantom case that is so old, its now a cream colour and not white.

The airflow is terrible, I suffer from over heating issues when I play demanding games and every now and then, refuses to turn on unless I take it apart, clean it and try again. So yeah. Its old.
It is now used for video editing, gaming, a dedicated media server for the rest of the computers and TV's in the house, Dual boot so I can mess about in Linux and on occasion, I use it for audio recording when I dust my old 7 string guitar off. It is now getting ridiculously slow despite having fresh OS installed less than 2 months ago and setting up a raid 0 with 2 x 6gbs 1tb hard drives. I cant win. I have pushed the system as far as it will go.
It is currently over clocked to 4.5ghz from 3.9, the ram is over clocked and the north bridge now has its own dedicated fan glued to the heat sink. So I need to upgrade. This then got me thinking about what I can do.
dk-05-main-1.jpg
I have a history with joinery/carpentry, I grew up building furniture with the old man in his mill, for a short while I built guitars for myself and other people. (still do if I get requested to) so how could I use this?... I thought.
Well looking online there are a few, not many though, videos on face tube or my book about people who have created a desk that they stuck a pc in. and fewer still, companies that make desk PC's that are very boring and cost more than a dragon egg from Game of thrones.
red-harb-cross_full.jpg
So I asked Dee about it and if she could put up with a little mess. She reluctantly agreed but I have to raise the funds for the desk and all the parts inside myself.
Ignoring the computer itself for the time being as there is no chance in hell I can afford a threadripper or i9 system (unless you want to donate... please? I'm begging you... I'm broken and broke.) I concentrated on the design side of things.

Instead of going out and buying a new sheet of tempered glass, I will instead buy a used glass desk, (preferably a large one) do away with the frame and build a desk around the glass provided. So I got to work inside Sketchup and quickly threw a couple of ideas together.
desk 2.jpg

Not 100% I like them any better than what I have seen so more design work will have to be done before I settle on one that I like and I can work around. To that end, my next post will be a video about the design process.

Thanks for reading and hope you will follow to see how this build ends up.

Stu @TechMojo

Images...

http://www.lian-li.com/en/products-computer-desk/
http://www.redharbinger.com/press/

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This looks like a fun project. I've often thought of doing this but we move a lot and may be headed over-seas in a couple years. What do I want with a whole desk?

But man, all that room! And it would be so easy to switch components out!

I recently retired my Pentium 4 tower, so I know what you mean about getting by on old computers. Hard to believe I used to play Second Life on that thing!

second life... that takes me back.. i wonder if the online servers are still active.

Oh yeah, I think they're still up. People still play, but the folks who invested in Linden Dollars and second life real estate didn't make out all that well.

So much information @techmojo thanks for sharing.

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I have been considering a few different designs of a PC in a desk for some time. The first design was based on a simple wooden frame with a large monitor mounted to it, however, if you need another style you can buy from this long-sheng.com/product/sit-and-stand-up-desk-wholesale-series site easily. This had several drawbacks as it was not very stable and there would be no place for the keyboard.

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