PC Musician
Technique : PC Musician
Putting your PC in a rack has a number of
advantages. Apart from getting the machine out from under your feet, and
making it easier to take on the road in a flightcase, there are
security benefits too. Here's how to perform the conversion, and
potentially make your PC quieter at the same time.
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If your studio is the kind that has people walking
in and out with gear every day, or you are unlucky enough to live in an
area where burglary is common, a sturdy rack case combined with a fixed
cabinet and a set of security-headed bolts could help preserve your
investment. Losing hardware and software is bad enough, but no amount of
insurance cover can replace studio projects stored on a stolen hard
drive. In an ideal world we'd take an off-site backup of all our data
every day, but in practice most of us don't. Just imagine how long it
would take to get up and running again if you lost everything on your PC
tomorrow; possibly weeks, or even months.
Unless you bought your PC from a specialist studio
supplier, it's likely to be built into a tower or desktop case. As the
mass market in PCs has brought prices down, corners have been cut on the
materials bill. The cheaper cases can be quite flimsy, often being made
of plastic panels push-fitted to a thin steel chassis. It seems the
studio market just isn't big enough to interest the large PC
manufacturers, and even the new Intel-based Mac Pro comes in a tower
case. While you can make your own rack brackets, or put a tower on its
side in a rack tray, this is far from ideal. For one thing, CDs will
probably fall out when you eject them, if the optical drives are now
mounted vertically. For another, you probably won't want to drill your
case to make it secure. If the case is really flimsy, there might not
even be anything strong enough to attach a bracket to.
Server case fans are designed for high air volume,
not quiet operation — so we can replace them with lower-speed versions,
or use a fan-speed controller.
Stock CPU coolers can be replaced with more
efficient models for quieter performance. Here, on a Tyan S2875
dual-Opteron motherboard, two Akasa heatsinks have their fans mounted in
a push-pull configuration.
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Fortunately, there is a wide range of purpose-built
19-inch (482.6mm) rack cases on the market, due to the fact that audio
racks have the same width and mounting-hole spacing as racks designed
for servers. Since the dot-com boom there's been a massive demand for
low-cost web-server hardware, which means that these rackmount cases are
now only marginally more expensive than regular PC cases of equivalent
quality. There's even an international standard to make sure your gear
will fit — it's IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standard
number 60297, which you can look up on the web if you're handy with
metalwork and fancy building your own case. However, unless you have
very particular requirements it will almost certainly work out cheaper
to buy a rackmount case 'off the shelf', with prices starting at well
under £100 for cases without power supply units. If you're performing a
conversion from a desktop case, you'll probably already have a PSU that
will fit, although you might want to take the opportunity to upgrade to a
quieter or better-quality one.
When converting your PC from tower to rackmount, or
building a rackmount machine from scratch, there are a few factors to
bear in mind. Firstly, cases intended for servers are likely to be
deeper than many audio cabinets and flightcases allow clearance for, due
to the large EATX dual-processor motherboards that server cases are
often designed around. Secondly, server cases are not usually optimised
for quiet operation, since server 'data-centres' assume high CPU density
and extreme amounts of cooling, usually in air-conditioned buildings.
The fact that data-centre space is priced in 1U
increments has meant that a lot of server cases are thin, typically only
1U or 2U in height. These cases are not particularly useful for
studios, except in some specialist applications, such as headless nodes
for disk-streaming samplers. The chief problem with these cases is that
they cannot accommodate PCI audio and graphics cards, except perhaps on a
horizontal riser which obscures the other expansion slots. In many
cases their internal height clearance is insufficient to allow the
fitting of a quiet CPU cooler, which most studio owners would wish to
fit in place of a noisy stock unit. Worst of all, the low front and rear
panel height will only allow small case fans to be fitted, and as SOS
readers who've ever tried to build a studio PC will know, small fans
turning quickly make a great deal more noise than large fans turning
slowly.
The Antec Take 3 is one of the first rackmount PC cases to have been designed specifically for studio use.
The Take 3's side fan, where the PSU would normally
be, means that the case will work best if the rack cabinet is not fully
enclosed.
The Take 3's front door looks secure, at first glance...
...but inside we can see that the hinge and door surround are made of plastic.
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The smallest case size that will take PCI cards
vertically is 3U, while 4U allows for larger case fans, so these are
both reasonable sizes to choose. Server cases of 5U and 6U are also
available, but these probably take up more of your rack space than is
required for a typical PC setup. These larger cases are often specified
for RAID arrays, where the front-panel space is required for access to
up to a couple of dozen hot-swap drive bays.
The rackmount noise problem has begun to be
addressed by some of the specialist case manufacturers, who have
launched models designed explicitly for the studio market. These cases
feature both a standard 19-inch IEC fitting for the front flanges and
some innovations in noise reduction. Antec, case manufacturers who will
be familiar to builders of quiet PCs, have launched 521mm-deep 3U and 4U
ATX cases in their 'Studio Series', known as the Take 3 and Take 4
respectively. The Take 3 has an unusual design, in that the power supply
is at the front instead of the rear of the case, with an exhaust duct
removing warm air to the side. This prevents the waste heat from the PSU
mingling with that generated by the CPU fan, and leaves room at the
rear of the case for a couple of fairly large case fans, one of which is
on the side. This side fan should improve cooling without adding much
noise, as long as the side of the rack cabinet isn't completely
enclosed.
The Take 3 may well be the quietest rackmount case
currently on the market, but from a security point of view it isn't the
toughest. Although the Take 3 has a lockable front door, which is a good
idea to prevent tampering with your PC, the hinge on the door is made
of plastic, and the top of the door is too. As any locksmith will tell
you, a lock is only as good as the door and frame it is fitted to, and
this door looks as though leverage from a large, flat-bladed screwdriver
would open it fairly easily. Still, the rest of the construction is of
good quality, and it weighs less than 12kg without parts fitted, which
is not bad for a case made mostly of steel. Priced at £159 plus VAT and
delivery from X-Case (www.xcase.co.uk),
it looks on the expensive side, but considering that it includes a 450W
quiet power supply and two quiet fans with speed controllers, it's
actually pretty good value. It also comes with a very good installation
manual and a three-year warranty on parts and labour — unusual for PC
cases. The larger Take 4 case is more conventional, with the PSU at the
rear, although this features its own air inlet. It retails for £169 plus
VAT and delivery, but again includes a 450W quiet power supply. The
extra 1U in height over the Take 3 allows for more drive bays, a total
of eight, instead of six; more than enough for most studio applications.
The alternative is to take an off-the-shelf server
case, then fit a quiet PSU and some quieter fans. It has to be said that
this approach probably won't result in a quieter case, and could work
out at about the same cost. You would probably have to fit some variable
resistors to adjust fan speeds, plus other noise-tweaking parts, such
as vibration-reducing grommets on drives.
The Compucase S411 is a tough server case, but it's heavy — and deep, too.
Antec's Take 4 allows more room for drives than its Take 3 sibling.
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What the better server cases have going for them is
heavy-duty toughness, free of weak plastic components. The Compucase
S411 is a 4U case with an all-steel construction, so the lockable front
door feels significantly stronger than the door on the Antec Take 3. I
chose one of these cases for my own studio; ultimately, I judged its
security features to be more important than noise damping. The S411,
pictured at the start of this article and above, is reasonably priced at
£89 plus VAT and delivery from X-Case, not including a power supply,
but it is longer than the Antec cases, at 560mm deep, and the amount of
steel in the case means that it weighs 17kg before you've put any parts
in it. It's not a case you'd want to move often once it's fully
built-up, but it will take the larger dual-processor EATX motherboards,
and has room for up to 10 drives.
There's also a 420mm-deep version
available at the same price, called the Compucase S400, but the optical
drive-mounting hole in the front panel is vertically orientated, which
somewhat defeats the purpose of a specially-designed rackmount case. [Compucase now also have an S400 with horizontal drive bay on the market — Ed.] Of course, most servers aren't burning audio CDs all day, and only feature optical drives for initial software installation.
Another advantage to using server cases is that
there's a broader range of shapes and sizes available. For instance, the
demand for high density in data centres means that there are several
short-depth rack cases on the market that can be fitted back to back,
with the computer's I/O panel on the accessible side of the rack, which
is potentially very handy in a permanent installation. The Janus range
of cases from DV Industrial Computer (www.inpc.com.ua)
can be assembled to face in either direction, with the 3U DS35 model
being only 275mm deep, and therefore short enough to fit in a rack of
typical outboard gear. The disadvantage of this case is that it will
only take a micro ATX motherboard, limiting choice for system builders,
and there isn't room for more than one optical drive and two hard
drives. The build quality isn't as good as the Antec or Compucase
products, but that's reflected in the price of £70 plus VAT and delivery
from Avrio Ideas (www.avrio.co.uk).
The case takes a standard power supply, which is available from Avrio
Ideas for an additional £25 plus VAT, but the model supplied is the
cheap generic PC kind, and a false economy for a studio machine. It's a
much better idea to fit a quiet PSU from Antec or Zalman, or even to
re-use an existing PSU you have, if it's a reasonably good one. Still,
with its very compact size and weighing only 5kg without the PSU, the
Janus DS35 is potentially a useful case for a road rack, or when space
is otherwise restricted. A system this size would make a tougher and
more serviceable alternative to a laptop for a DJ, a band playing soft
synths live, or a mobile recording setup.
The Janus DS35 is a very compact and lightweight
case, but it's restricted to micro ATX motherboards only, and there's
little room for expansion.
Shown here during the build-up, the DS35 case is still a good option for a mobile rack.
If you're changing the power supply during the
transplant, it's vital to make sure the new one is compatible with your
motherboard.
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Once you've discovered what format of case you need
(see the 'Identify Your Motherboard' box) and decided on a design, it's
time to perform the transplant. But first, take a fresh backup of your
precious music projects. Hard drives are vulnerable to shock and static,
although they're pretty difficult to damage by incorrect connection.
More likely, if the PC doesn't work properly when you switch it back on,
you could accidentally reformat the wrong partition while attempting to
reinstall software.
You'll need a decent-sized table to work on; a
dining table should do, if you put a tablecloth on it to avoid
scratches, and corresponding censure from family members who take a
personal interest in the condition of household furniture! Next — and
this shouldn't need saying to SOS readers — disconnect your PC
from the mains before opening the case. Computer power supplies are
designed to deliver low voltages, but the currents can be high: you have
been warned.
With the old case open, if you don't already have
the motherboard manual to hand, read off the motherboard make and model
number from its PCB. Using these details, you should be able to download
a PDF of the manual from the manufacturer's web site, which will be
very useful during the re-assembly. If you're changing power supply
during the operation, you can read in the manual what kind of power
supply your motherboard requires (they're not all the same). If your
system is fairly recent, it's likely to use one of the following power
supply standards:
ATX12V: One 20-pin connector, one 4-pin, one 8-pin.ATX12V 2.0: One 24-pin connector, one 4-pin.ATX12V 2.2: One 20-/24-pin detachable connector, one 4-pin.
If it's a Xeon or Opteron machine, it might have an
EPS12V power supply with a 24-pin main connector, an 8-pin secondary
connector, and perhaps the optional 4-pin connector. If you use the
wrong type of PSU, you might get the system to boot up, but the voltages
could be incorrect or the amount of current delivered insufficient,
causing system instability. Your motherboard manual will provide figures
for the current requirements of the system, and a sticker on the PSU
should list the amperage that it can deliver.
With the new case open next to the old one, and
having established that the new power supply (if required) is of the
correct type, you can take notes on which slots any PCI or PCI Express
cards are fitted into, and which way around the hard drives and optical
drives are connected. If you put the system back together differently,
your drives may boot in the wrong order, or carefully tweaked interrupt
assignments may change. At this point you should remember that static
electricity can damage PC components, and either ground yourself to the
old and new cases with a brief touch of the finger or, for the
well-prepared, fasten the anti-static wrist strap that you had already
purchased. If you work on PCs often, you might consider buying an
anti-static mat for your table. Of course, you should always handle
motherboards and PCI cards by their edges, and never touch any exposed
metallic connectors.
When you open up the PC, it's a very good idea to take notes on how the cables are attached.
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Having disconnected the drives, the power supply,
any case-mounted headers and the small, fiddly wires that connect to
case switches and LEDs, you can now remove the PCI, PCI Express or AGP
cards. Place these in anti-static bags during the transplant (if you
don't have any, your local computer shop can probably find you some).
There's usually no need to take the RAM out, and I'd recommend leaving
the CPU in place too. The CPU cooler and fan can come off if you plan to
upgrade it during the operation, or if it's particularly large and
unwieldy; otherwise, leave it in place. Certainly, don't remove the heat
sink unless you've got some fresh heat-sink compound, and preferably a
purpose-made degreaser to get the remainder of the old gunk off. This
sticky compound fills the microscopic air holes between the CPU surface
and the heat sink, and without it your heat sink won't work efficiently.
Next, remove the screws that hold the motherboard in
place, without dropping any of the screws back on the motherboard. They
could cause short circuits if they get wedged down there and you forget
about them until you switch the machine back on later. A very small dab
of Blu-Tack on the end of a Philips screwdriver can help get them all
out safely. Then take a look at the new case. Are there small threaded
tubes welded on the floor of the case, corresponding to the mounting
holes in the motherboard? These aren't for screwing the board to
directly; they are for the hexagonal brass motherboard spacers which
will have been supplied in a small plastic bag with the case. If you
leave these spacers out, none of your PCI cards will line up properly.
You may also end up with the heat-sink backplate wedged against the case
floor — not good. So screw these spacers in first, until they are good
and tight; otherwise they'll unscrew themselves if you have to take the
motherboard out later.
Reassembly & Fitting
The Compucase S411 mounted under a studio desk with
security bolts and steel rack-strip. That PC is not going to come out
without a fight!
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Now you can fit the motherboard to the new case and
reconnect the PCI cards, power supply, case connectors and drives. If
there are variable resistors on the new case-fan power leads, you can
set these to halfway initially. Once you've fitted the new case cover
and booted the newly-assembled machine for the first time, you could
check fan speeds in the BIOS, and also that any temperature-sensing
fan-speed control features are enabled. For peace of mind, you can
install desktop software for most operating systems that will keep an
eye on CPU and system temperatures, or monitor fan speeds, which can
alert you to any problems. PC cooling is very sensitive to ambient room
temperature, so fan settings that are appropriate for a cold spring day
may not provide enough cooling in midsummer — or, for that matter, in a
hot and humid venue during the moshing hour. School physics lessons told
us that a black metal surface in direct sunlight can get hot enough to
fry an egg, and indeed it's still true; keeping the rack in the shade
seems to make a big difference to the amount of cooling noise produced.
If you're taking the PC on the road, you can choose
from traditional plywood or moulded plastic flight cases. The plastic
cases are lighter, but the plywood ones are easier to get in custom
sizes, which is worth considering if your rackmount PC case is on the
deep side. SKB make a couple of shock-absorbing flight cases, available
from Studiospares (www.studiospares.com),
which contain a floating rack suspended inside the shell, but they
aren't cheap, at £325 for the 8U case and £369 for the 12U version (plus
VAT and delivery). However, the investment might be worthwhile if you
know the case is going to have a hard time at the hands of the roadies
or the airport baggage handlers.
When it comes to the choice of rack or cabinet for indoor use, the DIY route is quite practical. Cabinets can easily be assembled from 18mm MDF, with lengths of steel rack-strip and cage nuts bought from Studiospares at modest cost. The rack strip can be cut with a hacksaw to fit any cabinet of the right width, and for a secure application Studiospares also sell the security bolts used in telephone booths, which can only be unscrewed with a special Allen key. Build the rack furniture into the studio room, or at least make it too big to take out through the door, and you've made a thief's task considerably more difficult. The only disadvantage is that if you need to do any work on the PC you have to remember where you left that special Allen key!
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