DIY media PC picture : hanging frame style

lol

 

Do not get cocky! Your dad is right - (note the last line of my signature). Computers require lots of cool and clean air ventilation. Though a fire would be uncommon, it is not by any means out of the realm of possibilities.

If your IT degree curriculum and studies include heat management in electronics you should know this (and if not, then I say again - don't be cocky); what happens when heat goes up in a circuit? Several Laws of Physics apply here. Increased heat expands matter, for one thing. And when a conductor in a circuit expands, resistance goes down. What does Ohm's Law say happens when the voltage stays constant but resistance goes down? Don't know? Then don't be cocky!

Ohm's Law says when voltage remains the same and resistance goes down, current through the circuit increases! NOT GOOD as that results in more electrons bouncing around and through the circuit creating more friction and thus more heat - an ever increasing circle that if left unchecked, WILL result in thermal runaway! A VERY BAD thing.

Of course, the EEs design safety circuits to detect and prevent runaway situations (fuses, circuit breakers, regulation, and shutdown circuits) but until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, there will always be premature failures, weak or faulty components and devices coming off the assembly line that do not meet or maintain specifications and fail catastrophically.

That said, it is more likely your computer will become unstable and crash due to heat build up and/or simply shutdown out of self-preservation - perhaps corrupting the hard drive and all the data on it while at it.

Having an IT degree does NOT - in ANY WAY, make you qualified as an electronics technician - unless [maybe] your degree focuses on and is in "electronic systems maintenance". IT is industries within industries. No degree covers them all. So listen to your dad. He has been around electronics a lot longer than you. And remember too, anything that plugs into the wall can kill!

80mm case fans are considered tiny by today's standards - even with two of them. I generally recommend at least two large (120mm or larger) fans, not counting any fans in the PSU. Not only do 120mm fans move massive amounts of air (compared to 80mm), they typically do so at a significantly slower RPM resulting in significantly less fan noise.

Wood acts as an insulator. Metal cases tend to act as big heat sinks. So your wooden box will further trap the heat - compounded by the fact you seem intent in shoving the monitor into this same box, then the whole thing into a cubby hole.

What do you mean a "single venting hole"? Only one way for cool air to get in? Or only one way for heated air to get out? Either way, one hole is way too few! You should have lots of vents to let cool air in and naturally rising heat to vent itself out.

I don't follow this. Inverters (and the CCFLs they power) can generate a fair amount of heat. This is why EVERY single monitor case I have seen has a bunch of air vents along the top to let convected (heated and rising) air escape to be replaced by cool air being pulled in (again by the convection process) through vents at the bottom of the monitor. It sounds like you are trapping all the monitor's heat inside this insulated (wood) box, hoping two tiny 80mm fans will remove via just one ventilation hole!

I said above, electronics need "clean" air. How will you periodically open this hot box and gain easy access to all the nooks and crannies to remove all the heat-trapping dust that WILL be drawn in by the fans?

The more I picture this in my head, the more worried about heat I am becoming. To me, it does not sound like there are near enough ventilation holes in the case, nor a large enough "flow" of cool air through this case, to adequately remove the for the computer (CPU, RAM, motherboard, drives) itself. Now you want to stuff a heat generating monitor inside the same insulated case without adding more cooling support!

Sorry, I am all for DIY projects as they tend to be great learning experiences. And I am all for repurposing old electronics to keep such hazardous waste out of our landfills. But I am afraid you have more homework to do here before moving forward with this one.

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As far as streaming, that does not take much CPU horsepower as it is basically handing off tasks and that particular CPU, at 65W is pretty efficient so will not be generating near as much heat as those with 130W ratings. Streaming does require a fast home network, and a nice chunk of RAM for smooth operation.