SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

Really excited to see these changes! I love my Sentry, and these tweaks would make me love it even more. Thanks for all the hard work you guys have done, such an amazing job.

I do really like the idea you were discussing with Kingtron, to have better cooling support and finding spots to mount smaller 40mm fans. I've been looking at my case trying to maximize cooling and have been trying to find a spot to put a small fan or blower but there's nowhere I can really see--so having some more "non-standard" fan mounting positions would be awesome in V2 and might be great and wringing out maximum performance in our sexy, small case. If anyone can figure out some interesting airflow designs, I'm sure you can! Either way, really excited to get my hands on a V2.

Also Morzy, to answer you question definitively, I have flown with my Sentry at least a dozen times, between Columbus, Chicago Midway, and DC. No issues at all. I just take it out and put it in an X-ray scanner bin like a laptop, no one has even commented on it. I see people fly with Xboxes all the time, so I suppose TSA is used to it. Might be different if you have water cooling in it though, idk.
 
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Really excited to see these changes! I love my Sentry, and these tweaks would make me love it even more. Thanks for all the hard work you guys have done, such an amazing job.

I do really like the idea you were discussing with Kingtron, to have better cooling support and finding spots to mount smaller 40mm fans. I've been looking at my case trying to maximize cooling and have been trying to find a spot to put a small fan or blower but there's nowhere I can really see--so having some more "non-standard" fan mounting positions would be awesome in V2 and might be great and wringing out maximum performance in our sexy, small case. If anyone can figure out some interesting airflow designs, I'm sure you can! Either way, really excited to get my hands on a V2.

Also Morzy, to answer you question definitively, I have flown with my Sentry at least a dozen times, between Columbus, Chicago Midway, and DC. No issues at all. I just take it out and put it in an X-ray scanner bin like a laptop, no one has even commented on it. I see people fly with Xboxes all the time, so I suppose TSA is used to it. Might be different if you have water cooling in it though, idk.

40mm fans in my original Sentry are of negligible benefit. The cpu side benefits a little bit, but the most beneficial thing you can do is seal your cpu fan to the case lid. When you do that you get only fresh outside air and it creates massive positive pressure in the case, forcing out hot air. The holy grail would be 3d printing a duct or cowling to go between to fan and case but I don't have a 3d printer... yet.
 
40mm fans in my original Sentry are of negligible benefit. The cpu side benefits a little bit, but the most beneficial thing you can do is seal your cpu fan to the case lid. When you do that you get only fresh outside air and it creates massive positive pressure in the case, forcing out hot air. The holy grail would be 3d printing a duct or cowling to go between to fan and case but I don't have a 3d printer... yet.
If someone could design it (far from my expertise), you could get it printed online
 
40mm fans in my original Sentry are of negligible benefit. The cpu side benefits a little bit, but the most beneficial thing you can do is seal your cpu fan to the case lid. When you do that you get only fresh outside air and it creates massive positive pressure in the case, forcing out hot air. The holy grail would be 3d printing a duct or cowling to go between to fan and case but I don't have a 3d printer... yet.
IMG_20180509_185855379.jpg

Today I finally did something similar to yours. (I asked you about that in the old thread ages ago:p)
At that region of the case, it can easily get so hot to a point that it's unbearable to touch.

I don't know man, judging by how hot the air these little fans are spitting out, I think they're doing something.
Perhaps not much to the core temps, but definitely something for the surface temperature, which is equally important. That could be the reason you see my backup card in the sentry right now:cry:
(One night, big spark shot out from that region of my vega.....burnt smell, dead card)

I may not be a customer of the 2.0 (since the 1.1 I have is good!), but please let me urge high priority on this problem!
 
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View attachment 72486

Today I finally did something similar to yours. (I asked you about that in the old thread ages ago:p)
At that region of the case, it can easily get so hot to a point that it's unbearable to touch.

I don't know man, judging by how hot the air these little fans are spitting out, I think they're doing something.
Perhaps not much to the core temps, but definitely something for the surface temperature, which is equally important. That could be the reason you see my backup card in the sentry right now:cry:
(One night, big spark shot out from that region of my vega.....burnt smell, dead card)

I may not be a customer of the 2.0 (since the 1.1 I have is good!), but please let me urge high priority on this problem!

That's unfortunate your gpu died, hopefully covered under warranty? As for the heat on the gpu side, it may be a combination of hot air from the cpu and gpu accumulating there. I noticed heat pouring out the gpu side even with the gpu at idle so I think the cpu exhaust gets trapped there. I asked ZombiPL and SaperPL about 40mm fan support and their reasoning for not was that having fans right against the grill is too loud for such a small benefit. Which is true, it can be pretty loud for such tiny fans. I didn't notice a major impact in peak gpu temperatures but rather than my GPU didn't stay warm as long after exiting a game, it returned to idle more quickly with the 40mm fans. Even if they don't officially support 40mm fans, hopefully the redesigned V2.0 doesn't inhibit the ability to add 40mm fans.
 
Ah Ej24! I forgot it was you I first saw the 40mm fans on, so I'm glad you chimed in. Thanks for input, you're the person to know! 4884, it looks like you have an open air style card? I (and Ej24, if memory serves) have blower cards, so that could be why you're seeing different results with the 40 mm fans.

As for some kind of 3d printed duct, I actually saw someone do it on another case (Silverstone FTZ01, I think). Design is not my strong suit, but if someone made one I have access to a 3d printer and could test it and document results, to see if its worth investing more time/effort/money into.
 
I am also going to attempt the 40mm fan modification (not that it's much). I unfortunately won't have my room air conditioned this summer, and Michigan can get surprisingly hot. I already have the CPU sealed off, so I wonder how this will fair.
 
That's unfortunate your gpu died, hopefully covered under warranty? As for the heat on the gpu side, it may be a combination of hot air from the cpu and gpu accumulating there. I noticed heat pouring out the gpu side even with the gpu at idle so I think the cpu exhaust gets trapped there. I asked ZombiPL and SaperPL about 40mm fan support and their reasoning for not was that having fans right against the grill is too loud for such a small benefit. Which is true, it can be pretty loud for such tiny fans. I didn't notice a major impact in peak gpu temperatures but rather than my GPU didn't stay warm as long after exiting a game, it returned to idle more quickly with the 40mm fans. Even if they don't officially support 40mm fans, hopefully the redesigned V2.0 doesn't inhibit the ability to add 40mm fans.
I've sent the card back and hopefully I'll get a replacement.
For me the CPU exhaust maybe less of a problem because of the modest 6700 I have, unlike many sentry users out there using overclocked CPUs.
And I seldom do CPU intensive tasks beside gaming.
But anyway more hot exhaust from the case can't be a bad thing.

btw with some handcrafted electrical tape magic, here's mounting solution 2.0 for me. The panels fit better than with twist ties.:p
IMG_20180510_015832880.jpg
 
I've sent the card back and hopefully I'll get a replacement.
For me the CPU exhaust maybe less of a problem because of the modest 6700 I have, unlike many sentry users out there using overclocked CPUs.
And I seldom do CPU intensive tasks beside gaming.
But anyway more hot exhaust from the case can't be a bad thing.

btw with some handcrafted electrical tape magic, here's mounting solution 2.0 for me. The panels fit better than with twist ties.:p
View attachment 72655

Looks good! Better than mine! I'd share pictures but it's not very pretty haha
 
4884, it looks like you have an open air style card?

Nope. Both this (Asus 1060 turbo) and the late vega 64 are blowers.
Because of that, all the heat accumulates at the back (near the output ports)
That makes me wonder if blowers are really the better option for this case
 
The excessive heat is terrible on the GPU side especially if you have the Sentry on the Horizontal position. I don't even have a GPU on my build but i do have a PCI M.2 adapter that heats up a bit.
 
The excessive heat is terrible on the GPU side especially if you have the Sentry on the Horizontal position. I don't even have a GPU on my build but i do have a PCI M.2 adapter that heats up a bit.

Do you realise that you need some airflow to vent out that heat from the M.2 adapter? You should install a fan somehow. The case was made with GPUs in mind that have fans.
 
Do you realise that you need some airflow to vent out that heat from the M.2 adapter? You should install a fan somehow. The case was made with GPUs in mind that have fans.

Yes I do realize that. That's why i feel it's important to have some sort of fan adapter for the gpu side. Similar to the bracket that was designed a few months ago.
 
Yes I do realize that. That's why i feel it's important to have some sort of fan adapter for the gpu side. Similar to the bracket that was designed a few months ago.

The case is designed around using a dedicated GPU and in such config there is hardly any space to fit additional fans below the GPU and adding mounting holes matching fans to perforation is cumbersome as well.

If you are referring to the adapter that I have shown earlier for 40 mm fans, then I still plan on preparing cad drawings for it, but we'll only make it available after we test this out with both 1.1 and prototype of 2.0 and there's still some time till that happens.

Since you are not using the GPU, you could simply mount a bigger fan like 92 mm below the m.2 adapter to induce the airflow. There's no dedicated mounting holes for that, but you can use bent wire as a clip or zip-ties to attach it to the GPU vent, and since you are using the case in horizontal position, it won't be as visible from the outside. The advantage here over those 40 mm is obviously the less noise generated by the bigger fan.
 
I managed to cool the GPU area with my PCIE M.2 adapter by adding a PCIE exhaust blower. Now the warmest part of the chassis is the PSU area. Most likely due to the semi passive function of the Corsair SF600 PSU.
 
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I just realised there is a massive indent above the GPU on the inside of the case, what is it's purpose? You could open it up so we can fit some ssd's or 2.5" HDD's in there with some toolless mounts.
 
I just realised there is a massive indent above the GPU on the inside of the case, what is it's purpose? You could open it up so we can fit some ssd's or 2.5" HDD's in there with some toolless mounts.

heh, nope :)

If we could do that, then we wouldn't have to push hard drive mounts in the middle of the case. What you are proposing is exactly what ncase LRPC was supposed to do and it didn't happen because of the heat.

The piece above the GPU is there to limit space above the GPU to the minimum so there's very little amount of hot air gathering there. This limits recycling of hot air when case is in horizontal position. It also separates case cover from directly being heat up by the hot air above the GPU for safety reasons - this makes smaller hot spots instead of huge hot surfaces that could burn your hands.
 
very nice changes guys
you do an incredible job
my white sentry right next to me on the desk is a dream of a case (i have only changed the io button for one with asus aura support hehe)
 
very nice changes guys
you do an incredible job
my white sentry right next to me on the desk is a dream of a case (i have only changed the io button for one with asus aura support hehe)

Which button did you use specifically? I got an RGB button but the guy who made it provided little to no documentation and supposedly it needs a specific controller like an arduino, needless to say it's not as plug and play as I was hoping for.
 
heh, nope :)

If we could do that, then we wouldn't have to push hard drive mounts in the middle of the case. What you are proposing is exactly what ncase LRPC was supposed to do and it didn't happen because of the heat.

The piece above the GPU is there to limit space above the GPU to the minimum so there's very little amount of hot air gathering there. This limits recycling of hot air when case is in horizontal position. It also separates case cover from directly being heat up by the hot air above the GPU for safety reasons - this makes smaller hot spots instead of huge hot surfaces that could burn your hands.

I get the structural integrity of the cover can be compromised if additional vents were added from another post, but I really feel increasing the perforation and removing that "heatshield air distruptor" design on the GPU side would increase ventilation. Another reason was exposing the PCB. It's not any different from the motherboard side which is just as prone with the open vent above it. Strategically placing additional perforation holes shouldn't compromise the integrity that much, considering the steel construction. Sounds more like an aesthetic design choice.

It get's really toasty in the GPU area when in the horizontal position with the top cover on. Works MUCH better with the cover off.

This chassis works best vertically. Would be nice to have even more ventilation on the GPU side for horizontal users. Otherwise I would recommends the S4M over the Sentry for those planning a horizontal build.
 
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I really feel increasing the perforation and removing that "heatshield air distruptor" design on the GPU side would increase ventilation.

Yes, we are increasing the perforation on the side and on the bottom. No, removing the "heat shield" won't increase the ventilation. We tested it in several scenarios. If it would help, we would be doing it, because that additional element over the GPU probably is more expensive than a set of holes over the GPU.


Another reason was exposing the PCB. It's not any different from the motherboard side which is just as prone with the open vent above it. Strategically placing additional perforation holes shouldn't compromise the integrity that much, considering the steel construction. Sounds more like an aesthetic design choice.

It's not an aesthetic design choice. Back of the GPU can be really hot. We decided we don't want this temperature on the external side of the Sentry's cover, so we needed to reduce it somehow. What is more, when we were testing a scenario with only vent holes there or just a cover without this insert over the back of GPU, then the temperature of the card rised a lot faster and some of the cards were working with lower clocks. We simply did not want that.


This chassis works best vertically. Would be nice to have even more ventilation on the GPU side for horizontal users. Otherwise I would recommends the S4M over the Sentry for those planning a horizontal build.

As we wrote in the first post, the ventilation will be increased up to 65% in comparison to v1.0 and v1.1 revision. It should help a lot in both orientations of the Sentry. S4 Mini might be also a great choice for horizontal builds, but (if we are talking about ventilation) you have to remember you have a really big venting holes there so small to medium objects like coins can get there making a short circuit (not a big problem if you are careful).
 
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I get the structural integrity of the cover can be compromised if additional vents were added from another post, but I really feel increasing the perforation and removing that "heatshield air distruptor" design on the GPU side would increase ventilation. Another reason was exposing the PCB. It's not any different from the motherboard side which is just as prone with the open vent above it. Strategically placing additional perforation holes shouldn't compromise the integrity that much, considering the steel construction. Sounds more like an aesthetic design choice.

It get's really toasty in the GPU area when in the horizontal position with the top cover on. Works MUCH better with the cover off.

This chassis works best vertically. Would be nice to have even more ventilation on the GPU side for horizontal users. Otherwise I would recommends the S4M over the Sentry for those planning a horizontal build.
Replace the top half of the case with a cardboard with some poked holes and see if it really makes a big difference; shouldn't be hard. That way you don't have to rely on your "feels".
 
Replace the top half of the case with a cardboard with some poked holes and see if it really makes a big difference; shouldn't be hard. That way you don't have to rely on your "feels".

I actually have a better idea... cool that gpu down with some water :) Project coming as soon as I can source a waterblock for the PowerColor VEGA56 Nano :)

BTW i actually tried that with some acyrlic and yes ambient temps were lower... ;) Used a infrared thermometer and temp probe from an Aquacomputer Aquero 6 LT.... I think there's a confusion on temps. i'm referring to the ambient temp of the GPU side. NOT the Core temps of the gpu itself, cover off or on is about ~2C, negligible at most likely within variance. I just feel comfortable dumping all the hot ambient air outside of the chassis over keeping it inside. Reason for this is I have the Sentry inside a media cabinet with fans.

With that said i'm still looking forward to V2.
 
Ok, I'll explain what we did 'step by step'.

Around time when we were asking people about logo cutout on the cover above the GPU, we were trying to figure this out. We did not had this inlet designed at that point.

1) We did test 50 mm and 60 mm fans mounted in various ways to the GPU compartment side bracket. Performance/thermal wise it worked magic for blower style GPU but was a total mess when it came to open-air cards. It was also quite troublesome to figure out a way of mounting the fans to the bracket. Additionally acoustics varied a lot from fan to fan when they were facing the perforation directly.

2) We took one of the prototype covers and perforated it above the GPU. The only difference was that the GPU core clocks were slightly, almost negligibly higher. We were seriously thinking about doing it this way before doing this test so we asked about various design ideas for what to do with those cutouts/perforation above the GPU on the forums. Anyway this didn't do much simply because there wasn't any induced airflow that would help push that heat out. If we had fans mounted somewhere, that could've been a different story. It's just that there's not much airflow at the back of GPU. hot air just slowly gathers there, and letting it go with perforation just slows down that heat build up over time. But this doesn't solve the safety issue of hot cover above the GPU.

3) We figured out we could do an inlet cutting down the space above the GPU so it couldn't radiate the heat directly to the cover and also there wouldn't be that much space for hot air to gather. We tested this with few cardboard prototypes and then we made a metal one that did work.

For all test we have logged the core temps, clocks and case cover temperatures measured by such infrared surface thermometer.

Important note here is that for the most tests the core temperatures were roughly the same, as I'm telling people over and over - modern GPUs have a target temperature where they boost up until they reach it. Stable clocks are what counts. And also in this particular case, the temperature of the case cover.

Finally, we are not designing a case around the media cabinet that has fans. That's not a standard. It is also (most likely) not going to be installed in a server rack with front to back airflow. If you want to have a cover like that, then pick up a CAD software, draw the cover you want and order it from some local metal shop. The case cover of Sentry without the inlet is actually really simple to manufacture. You could even make it yourself from some perforated steel sheet if you can figure out how to make a 45 degree bends.
 
Ok, I'll explain what we did 'step by step'.

Around time when we were asking people about logo cutout on the cover above the GPU, we were trying to figure this out. We did not had this inlet designed at that point.

1) We did test 50 mm and 60 mm fans mounted in various ways to the GPU compartment side bracket. Performance/thermal wise it worked magic for blower style GPU but was a total mess when it came to open-air cards. It was also quite troublesome to figure out a way of mounting the fans to the bracket. Additionally acoustics varied a lot from fan to fan when they were facing the perforation directly.

2) We took one of the prototype covers and perforated it above the GPU. The only difference was that the GPU core clocks were slightly, almost negligibly higher. We were seriously thinking about doing it this way before doing this test so we asked about various design ideas for what to do with those cutouts/perforation above the GPU on the forums. Anyway this didn't do much simply because there wasn't any induced airflow that would help push that heat out. If we had fans mounted somewhere, that could've been a different story. It's just that there's not much airflow at the back of GPU. hot air just slowly gathers there, and letting it go with perforation just slows down that heat build up over time. But this doesn't solve the safety issue of hot cover above the GPU.

3) We figured out we could do an inlet cutting down the space above the GPU so it couldn't radiate the heat directly to the cover and also there wouldn't be that much space for hot air to gather. We tested this with few cardboard prototypes and then we made a metal one that did work.

For all test we have logged the core temps, clocks and case cover temperatures measured by such infrared surface thermometer.

Important note here is that for the most tests the core temperatures were roughly the same, as I'm telling people over and over - modern GPUs have a target temperature where they boost up until they reach it. Stable clocks are what counts. And also in this particular case, the temperature of the case cover.

Finally, we are not designing a case around the media cabinet that has fans. That's not a standard. It is also (most likely) not going to be installed in a server rack with front to back airflow. If you want to have a cover like that, then pick up a CAD software, draw the cover you want and order it from some local metal shop. The case cover of Sentry without the inlet is actually really simple to manufacture. You could even make it yourself from some perforated steel sheet if you can figure out how to make a 45 degree bends.

Thanks for the break down. Not trying to spin wheel again, just pointing out my experience in my use case. As mentioned I did my own testing and experienced the same with the core temps. My focus was on ambient. Just wanted to make that clear for others reading the topic. Pretty sure the Saber team went through that journey. As for the top cover, i'm not too concerned with it now considering the next evolution of my Sentry will involve water-cooling the GPU. Keep up the great work!
 
Could I fit the following in this?

Mini ITX Mobo
Low-Profile Air Cooler
GTX 1050Ti or Equivalent
1 NVMe or 2.5" SSD
2 3.5" HDD?
 
Could I fit the following in this?

Mini ITX Mobo
Low-Profile Air Cooler
GTX 1050Ti or Equivalent
1 NVMe or 2.5" SSD
2 3.5" HDD?

In version 2.0 with short ITX GPU you will be able to insert 1x 3.5 HDD or if you will resign from dedicated GPU and you will stay with integrated one, then 2x 3.5 HDD will be also possible. Other points shouldn't be a problem.
 
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I hope you'll manage to produce white units, they are so sexy!
+1 on the white option for 2.0!!!!

Like we said before, if our submanufacturer let us know that they can paint in white with the quality we want, then we will offer such colour. With version 1.0 and 1.1 we had a lot of problems (mostly time consuming) and additional costs connected with this colour (painting in a separate paint shop than black cases). If you do not have an automated line for powder coating, then you will have problems with achieving similar, repeatable results on every product when painting with lighter colours. When the colour is darker, then it is easier, because the background material can be more easily covered without changing the final look. With white paint the final result on galvanized steel can be a white, gray or even a light blue surface (and gradients of those colours ofc). We do not want that. As I said before, if we will be able to paint white with repeatability we need (without taking cases to some other paint shop), then we will give you such option.
 
In the event that a white version is not feasible for V2.0, its worth noting you could always vinyl wrap it in almost any color for a relatively cheap price. You could also find a local paint shop that could paint it white for you, though that would be a more expensive option. One of the original reviewers of Sentry 1.0 did a cool vinyl decal, so with enough patience, it should be possible to wrap the whole case.
 
Sentry 2.0
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Gigabyte GA-AB350N mini-ITX
Noctua NH-L9a Low Profile Cooler
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD
WD Red 10TB x2
Silverstone SST 500W PSU

My body is ready. :cry:
 
If a white version does not prove feasible, is it possible to request an unpainted/untreated unit for version 2.0? Cheers
 
If a white version does not prove feasible, is it possible to request an unpainted/untreated unit for version 2.0? Cheers

This was asked a few times during the original campaign. Unless things are significantly different for V2, the suggestion during the first campaign was to simply chemically strip the powder coating using common paint strippers like this. Be advised most stripper aren't very friendly so you'd want to use it outside and wear gloves. From there you can do whatever you want to the case. Of course the zaber guys may say otherwise for V2.
 
This was asked a few times during the original campaign. Unless things are significantly different for V2, the suggestion during the first campaign was to simply chemically strip the powder coating using common paint strippers like this. Be advised most stripper aren't very friendly so you'd want to use it outside and wear gloves. From there you can do whatever you want to the case. Of course the zaber guys may say otherwise for V2.

Cheers for the heads up
 
Sentry 2.0
AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3000Mhz
Gigabyte GA-AB350N mini-ITX
Noctua NH-L9a Low Profile Cooler
Crucial MX500 500GB SSD
WD Red 10TB x2
Silverstone SST 500W PSU

My body is ready. :cry:

I had a very similar setup with a Version 1.1. Have a VEGA 56 NANO with the 2400G now though lol.
 
It's going to be my Kodi living room box. Does AMD have some sort of SLI with their APU and GPU now?

They used to support it on lower end gpu and apu back during the HD7xxx days. Idk about Polaris and Vega though. Honestly anything more than an RX560 and the integrated graphics would just slow down the dedicated graphics card. Especially a Vega 56 or something like that. Maybe if you have a 2400G and an rx550. That's about the only amd gpu that needs a boost.
 
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