Tweaker builds PC in shelf
Tweaker ‘mux’ has incorporated a fully functioning computer into a shelf. The computer, which has baptized mux Plank2, is also completely silent, passively cooled and very economical, partly due to substantial modifications to the motherboard.
The PC was placed in an old pine desktop measuring 1.45 meters by 55 centimeters with a thickness of 2.8 centimeters, mux describes on his Tweakblog. Mux – alias Emile Nijssen – spent about three quarters of a day milling out the recesses for the computer parts. The Plank2 is the second computer to capture mux in a shelf; the new one is a lot better and more impressive, according to the modder.
In the shelf, which has yet to be painted, is a computer built around an MSI H81M-P33 motherboard, which has been heavily modified. Because Nijssen wanted the ‘closet computer’ to be very quiet and economical, the MSI motherboard was heavily modified. “Everything I didn’t necessarily need has been demolished,” Nijssen writes. For example, more than two memory slots were not necessary and the onboard audio chip also suffered. With this, Nijssen was able to significantly reduce the consumption of the computer – with a Celeron G1820 CPU in addition to the MSI motherboard.
By also modding the CPU, Nijssen managed to reduce the consumption of the entire computer to 5.5 watts in normal use and 3.9 watts when stationary. Including the pico projector that mux uses to display images on the wall, the computer draws 9.6 watts, but under maximum load that can go up to 32 watts.
The Plank2 is also very quiet. Nijssen has achieved this by not using fans, but passive cooling. The heat is spread over an aluminum transition strip; Nijssen uses a flat heatpipe to get the heat from the CPU to that strip. That is successful, Nijssen believes: during two evenings of normal use, the temperature of the CPU did not rise above 50 degrees. During stress tests, the temperature remained at 85 degrees.
Furthermore, the Plank2 is equipped with homemade amplifiers; the audio is driven by an amplifier module that mux made itself. The modder chose this because onboard audio chips suffer from interference. The volume can be controlled with two volume buttons that the modder also designed himself.