Right I got some pictures for you guys
Firstly though I noticed something really really strange last night when moving the rad. When I took out the rad mount (I'll explain that bit in a moment) I noticed that on it there was a manufacture date of October 24 2008. It took a while for that to register but then I realised that the Area 51 "Dellienware" wasn't even released until at the very earliest December 09 but it could have even been as late as March 2010.
Very odd that, seems they were getting things ready long before they announced these machines !
OK so I got a load of pics to show around the case a bit.
Firstly hidden in the side of the cover duct is a set of rechargeable batteries.
These are to power on the case lights. Not the ones you thought, but the case has a ton of white LEDs dotted around to help you see what you're doing. For example here is the rear IO of the case. If you look closely you can see a small black button. Press it and the entire rear IO lights up so you can see what you're plugging in
There's also a ton of LEDs inside the case that are controlled by a door switch. So as soon as you open the case the inside lights up white
Here is the right side hard drive bay. It takes six full sized HDDs.
And it is cooled by this.
The outer rails are ducts and the fan disperses air over each hard drive.
Then the main duct fan is here. Was only when I took a pic of it that I realised how dirty it was so I'll remove it today and clean it all
That one is a 24v Delta capable of taking your fingers off :lol: thankfully it's fully controllable in Windows otherwise it makes a right old racket
This here is the main control board. This is the board responsible for pretty much everything (hard drive cooling, lights, vents, front door ETC)
And at the top of the case built onto the radiator mount is another control board that controls the pump, fans and so on.
Here is the radiator mount that swings down when you pull the lever. It takes a triple rad.
Here is how you remove the radiator mount. You just press in the white part and it swings down on hinges.
Then we have the door. It is a triple walled construction with the outler layer being 1/8 aluminium then a plastic layer to stop it vibrating and then a steel frame.
And at the other end is a set of weird hinges that allow you to either just swing it open for maintenance or remove it completely for building.
So that's pretty much the insides. In fairness to Dell back in 08 when they designed this (and tbh it could even have been designed way earlier) black insides and cable holes were still in their infancy. It was only in and around 2010 that it became a standard.
Either way there's no window and so much going on to play with on the outside that I don't care :lol:
I'll get a load more pics showing what the outside stuff can do once she's rebuilt.
Update. Just ordered a pair of these.
And one of these.
So that's the rad cooling sorted
