Production SENTRY 2.0: Evolution of console-sized gaming PC case

[hengster]

How do you find the noise levels on this setup? I have the same configuration except I have my fan blowing through the cooler (away from the mobo). The fan is quiet up to 1000 rpm (~55%) for me.

I saw a lot of people claiming intake was better, but that was mostly for the 92 mm fan, and when I tested with the bundled fan, it just became stupidly loud when set as an intake. With the 120 mm fan set as intake, I had issues with the raised screw holes for the 92 mm fan clipping with the fan blades. Did you file them down or add a spacer or something like that? The exhaust configuration avoids this issue by having the fan housing between the blades and the fins, which is ultimately why I chose to do it that way.

I ask because I keep questioning my decision, as everyone else seems to have done the opposite, but I have to disassemble my pc all the way to taking out the motherboard just to flip the fan orientation (perhaps I should have voted for the removable back panel after all ), so I want to know if it's actually worth it.

thanks! Great to know someone in same shoes. I faced clipping sounds but it seems to have come from the two fan clips securing the 120mm fan to the bottom. After tweaking it the sounds are not there at low RPM but became apparent when above 1500. After that I tried removing the fan clips entirely and no problems at all now no sound at low or high RPM. The 92mm screw holes touch the anti vibration padding of the Noctua A12x15 Chromax fan which I do not see a problem. Now without fan clips, the sheer design of the Sentry keeps the 120mm securely in place so I don’t worry about it. I tried strings and cable ties but both interfere with max 48mm height of the cover so finally gave up.

Edit: the fan is very quiet now at all speeds, even with intake setup. The intake direction brings fresh air to cool my m.2 ssd which is in dire need of it. When using Cryorig c7g in the past no such cooling and temps can be above 50deg active, now it is 40 deg or lower when active and 30+ on idle.

 

[Idle2824]

thanks! Great to know someone in same shoes. I faced clipping sounds but it seems to have come from the two fan clips securing the 120mm fan to the bottom. After tweaking it the sounds are not there at low RPM but became apparent when above 1500. After that I tried removing the fan clips entirely and no problems at all now no sound at low or high RPM. The 92mm screw holes touch the anti vibration padding of the Noctua A12x15 Chromax fan which I do not see a problem. Now without fan clips, the sheer design of the Sentry keeps the 120mm securely in place so I don’t worry about it. I tried strings and cable ties but both interfere with max 48mm height of the cover so finally gave up.

Edit: the fan is very quiet now at all speeds, even with intake setup. The intake direction brings fresh air to cool my m.2 ssd which is in dire need of it. When using Cryorig c7g in the past no such cooling and temps can be above 50deg active, now it is 40 deg or lower when active and 30+ on idle.

Thanks for the info. I might try to switch the fan direction at some point, though I'll have to come up with a suitable mounting mechanism as I don't fancy leaving the fan in there loose as you have (even if there isn't much room for it to move).

It's annoying that I can't really flip the fan without dismounting the cooler, or I would've tested both ways properly.

 

[Van0]

Thanks for the info. I might try to switch the fan direction at some point, though I'll have to come up with a suitable mounting mechanism as I don't fancy leaving the fan in there loose as you have (even if there isn't much room for it to move).

It's annoying that I can't really flip the fan without dismounting the cooler, or I would've tested both ways properly.

When I used to use this cooler, my fancy mounting mechanism for the 120mm fan was electrical tape around the edge of the whole thing haha. Has the added benefit of closing the very small gap between fan and cooler!

 

[Treshy]

With my A12x15 on my Black Ridge V2 with liquid metal as thermal paste on my 3800x (aorus itx board) the fan is pretty much silent when set as intake
The GPU is louder at basically any non idle load, and at idle the cpu fan is pretty much not noticeable.

 

[Idle2824]

With my A12x15 on my Black Ridge V2 with liquid metal as thermal paste on my 3800x (aorus itx board) the fan is pretty much silent when set as intake
The GPU is louder at basically any non idle load, and at idle the cpu fan is pretty much not noticeable.

Thanks for the info. I had my PC open yesterday and decided to bite the bullet and swap the fan orientation to intake. Having to take out the motherboard (GPU and riser first, of course), take off the cooler (and therefore clean and reapply the thermal paste) just to do this is a definite downside of this particular setup. It required 20 screws to be unscrewed, by my count ?. I also had to file down the raised screw holes on the black ridge for the 92 mm fan, which wasn't much fun but worked out fine.

Anyway, the results seem to be good. The CPU temperatures are better by about 6 C at idle (down to about 43 C), and the fan is still silent under 1000 rpm. The pitch at higher rpm is a bit different, but overall is not louder. One thing I did notice though is that the max fan speed is about 100 rpm lower than it was in exhaust, only reaching 1750 rpm, presumably because of a more restricted intake. At idle, it means running at about 950 rpm instead of 1000 as it was before (I actually didn't change the fan curve at all).

The downside is that it's definitely making the components underneath (dram, chipset) warmer, but it doesn't seem to be major in what I've seen so far. My ram gets to 55 C in prime95 large ffts now; it only reached 50 C before. My chipset idles about 3 C warmer, at 70 C, and gets hotter when my CPU is under load, whereas before I often saw it cooling down as the CPU fan ramped up. I haven't played any games yet, so I don't know how things will change there.

tl;dr: 120 mm fan under black ridge cools CPU significantly better as intake, is no louder, but warms ram and chipset up more. It's probably worth taking a file to your black ridge to do this.

 

[Dustbunnyck]

So update I have been running my system with the Folding@Home operations 8086k(delidded stock clocks) black ridge v2 heatsink and noctua 90mm fan, 2080ti founders edition both running jobs and the gpu is maxing at 84 degrees and the cpu at 78 which both are pushing for several hours. The fans are loud for a desktop but not nearly as horrendous as my old Razer laptop. The Sentry case powers through it it does cool off very fast when the load is taken away. I still love this case

 

[Idle2824]

It actually looks like the Sentry might be smaller than the PS5. By volume the Sentry is just barely larger than the new Xbox series X.

 

[republicat]

new to the forum. Does anyone know if I can fit this 50mm rx 5600 xt if I squeeze it in: http://www.dataland.com.cn/prod_view.aspx?nid=3&typeid=128&id=926 (sorry website is in Chinese) if not, then are there any suggestions for a decent full sized (non-itx) 5600 xt that actually fits?

 

[Chimpee]

new to the forum. Does anyone know if I can fit this 50mm rx 5600 xt if I squeeze it in: http://www.dataland.com.cn/prod_view.aspx?nid=3&typeid=128&id=926 (sorry website is in Chinese) if not, then are there any suggestions for a decent full sized (non-itx) 5600 xt that actually fits?

Nope, VGA compatibility is 305mm x 112 mm x 41 mm, your GPU in the link is 260mm x 117mm x 50mm. While you might get away with the width of the GPU due ti 18mm oversize area, the height is the limiting factor.

edit. Looks like Powercolor AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DH/OC or AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DHV2/OC is compatible.

 

[republicat]

Nope, VGA compatibility is 305mm x 112 mm x 41 mm, your GPU in the link is 260mm x 117mm x 50mm. While you might get away with the width of the GPU due ti 18mm oversize area, the height is the limiting factor.

edit. Looks like Powercolor AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DH/OC or AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DHV2/OC is compatible.

too bad but I thought the sentry can fit GPUs 54-55mm max. What if I don't mind the noise caused by fan turbulence? Can it still physically fit?

 

[Idle2824]

too bad but I thought the sentry can fit GPUs 54-55mm max. What if I don't mind the noise caused by fan turbulence? Can it still physically fit?

No. Measuring from the pcb of my gpu, there is about 43mm to the side of the case. The stated 41 mm max clearance is not particularly conservative, you really won't fit anything much bigger.

Edit: Looking at it again, I feel like I should stress that you really shouldn't buy anything over the 41 mm height for this case. It's cutting it close as it is.

 

[Chimpee]

too bad but I thought the sentry can fit GPUs 54-55mm max. What if I don't mind the noise caused by fan turbulence? Can it still physically fit?

That is a maybe if you don't mind fan turbulence but at 50mm, you are definitely gonna be very near or pressing against the side of the case. This case is really specifically design for exactly 2 slot max, if you do purchase that card, it is at your own risk whether it will be compatible or not.

 

[ZombiPL]

Hi guys,

You probably noticed that we’ve been busy for a while, and we were moving making another batch of SENTRY cases for an indefinite future. Right now we are still lacking time with our current projects, so we won’t be able to make a big crowdfunding campaign for Sentry project like we used to (at least for now). But we still have some good news

We will be able to find a little bit of time and are going to prepare a direct sale for a batch of 150 Sentry cases (100 deep black units / 50 navy gray units). All will be sent within 2 weeks after the end of the sale and we will keep the price from the last campaign (~230EUR).

This will probably be the last chance this year to get the Sentry case directly from us. However this time there will be some additional rules and guidelines which you will have to follow to get your pc case. We still want to keep Sentry as a truly community project, so we have to address some situations which occurred during the last few months/years.

In forum/reddit topics we see many complaints from people who want to get second-hand Sentry for themselves and they can’t find it at a reasonable price (prices going up to $1000 USD weren’t rare). Because of that in this sale we want to limit orders to one Sentry case per buyer. We know many people bought several cases in the last campaigns just for resale value. We understand that, if you find a good product and you can’t get it nowhere, then the market value for it is going up. In the sale which we will be preparing right now we want to sell cases to the people who really want to use them, not to only get financial profit out of them. That is why we introduced this limit: 1 case per buyer. We want to make cases for those who want to buy the case for themselves, who really appreciate this product, not for the profit of “middle-men”.

We also have made some guidelines about placing an order with the current Paypal fee policy and shipping companies additional COVID-fee.

All of those informations and terms you will find here:
http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/terms/
Sale will start on Tuesday, 21/07/2020 at 18:00 CET (we are currently working on updating our website for this sale).


I think that is all for now.
If you will have questions, please write here in the forum, or directly to us: sentry@zaber.com.pl

 

[vvv]

Hi guys,

You probably noticed that we’ve been busy for a while, and we were moving making another batch of SENTRY cases for an indefinite future. Right now we are still lacking time with our current projects, so we won’t be able to make a big crowdfunding campaign for Sentry project like we used to (at least for now). But we still have some good news

We will be able to find a little bit of time and are going to prepare a direct sale for a batch of 150 Sentry cases (100 deep black units / 50 navy gray units). All will be sent within 2 weeks after the end of the sale and we will keep the price from the last campaign (~230EUR).

This will probably be the last chance this year to get the Sentry case directly from us. However this time there will be some additional rules and guidelines which you will have to follow to get your pc case. We still want to keep Sentry as a truly community project, so we have to address some situations which occurred during the last few months/years.

In forum/reddit topics we see many complaints from people who want to get second-hand Sentry for themselves and they can’t find it at a reasonable price (prices going up to $1000 USD weren’t rare). Because of that in this sale we want to limit orders to one Sentry case per buyer. We know many people bought several cases in the last campaigns just for resale value. We understand that, if you find a good product and you can’t get it nowhere, then the market value for it is going up. In the sale which we will be preparing right now we want to sell cases to the people who really want to use them, not to only get financial profit out of them. That is why we introduced this limit: 1 case per buyer. We want to make cases for those who want to buy the case for themselves, who really appreciate this product, not for the profit of “middle-men”.

We also have made some guidelines about placing an order with the current Paypal fee policy and shipping companies additional COVID-fee.

All of those informations and terms you will find here:
http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/terms/
Sale will start on Tuesday, 21/07/2020 at 18:00 CET (we are currently working on updating our website for this sale).


I think that is all for now.
If you will have questions, please write here in the forum, or directly to us: sentry@zaber.com.pl

Finally some good news! Appreciate the 1 case per buyer rule, hopefully I will be able to purchase one next week, thank you!

 

[kazuma86]

I bought Navy Color for US$467

Reseller sold me in Indonesia

But, to be honest I'm okay with that, didnt pay customs fee and shipping cost.. Maybe profit from him US$60

 

[dtagirov]

this is fine )

I have a white sentry
i have gray sentry
but black sentry matter too, why not - and I'm going to uncover the wallet again ).

 

[Dax911]

Hi guys,

You probably noticed that we’ve been busy for a while, and we were moving making another batch of SENTRY cases for an indefinite future. Right now we are still lacking time with our current projects, so we won’t be able to make a big crowdfunding campaign for Sentry project like we used to (at least for now). But we still have some good news

We will be able to find a little bit of time and are going to prepare a direct sale for a batch of 150 Sentry cases (100 deep black units / 50 navy gray units). All will be sent within 2 weeks after the end of the sale and we will keep the price from the last campaign (~230EUR).

This will probably be the last chance this year to get the Sentry case directly from us. However this time there will be some additional rules and guidelines which you will have to follow to get your pc case. We still want to keep Sentry as a truly community project, so we have to address some situations which occurred during the last few months/years.

In forum/reddit topics we see many complaints from people who want to get second-hand Sentry for themselves and they can’t find it at a reasonable price (prices going up to $1000 USD weren’t rare). Because of that in this sale we want to limit orders to one Sentry case per buyer. We know many people bought several cases in the last campaigns just for resale value. We understand that, if you find a good product and you can’t get it nowhere, then the market value for it is going up. In the sale which we will be preparing right now we want to sell cases to the people who really want to use them, not to only get financial profit out of them. That is why we introduced this limit: 1 case per buyer. We want to make cases for those who want to buy the case for themselves, who really appreciate this product, not for the profit of “middle-men”.

We also have made some guidelines about placing an order with the current Paypal fee policy and shipping companies additional COVID-fee.

All of those informations and terms you will find here:
http://zaber.com.pl/sentry/terms/
Sale will start on Tuesday, 21/07/2020 at 18:00 CET (we are currently working on updating our website for this sale).


I think that is all for now.
If you will have questions, please write here in the forum, or directly to us: sentry@zaber.com.pl

Meanwhile I haven't build my sentry 2.0 yet since i've received it last year , I could have waited for this batch , hopefully the 3070 or 3080 will fit in it.

 

[dmznsdp]

Got a navy gray! Everything's cool but please never use PayPal again. They want me to disclose so much info about me that I start to feel watched.

 

[ZombiPL]

Got a navy gray! Everything's cool but please never use PayPal again. They want me to disclose so much info about me that I start to feel watched.

We are also not big fans of PayPal, but many people just did not like only credit cards option as a payment in indiegogo campaign.

What is more, you guys starterd to order sentry so fast (100 cases in just 4 minutes), that PayPal even blocked us for several minutes, and waited for explanation what is going on... ?

 

[kai535]

Safe to assume if my order went through for navy that im locked in?