I need inspiration to sort out my "PC room" - at the mo it's a shit desk with fuck all space, with 2 monitors, 2 speakers, a printer, a DVD/freeview box and a hifi all vying for space! I need some inspiration of how to sort it all out

 

hi thrush,

here is my set up.

the desk would be a problem for you though, you may have a hard time finding it as im living in ireland and i bought it in a place called atlantic homecare. its basically like the store b+q .









here is a shot from each side , showing you the monitor arm ( i got this from www.elara.ie and they post to uk if needed , the sub just about squeezed in and i had to cut a hole in the side of the desk ) and the sub fitment.












a shot of monitor raised up so u can see the stand from head-on.
also, this shot is before i added my 5.1 speaker set-up.







im happy with it as i cut my keyboard shelf to the maximum fitment and i have plenty of room.
as for the pc, its a work in progress, its a modified xclio a380 , i just need to mesh and fibreglass the top fan and im finished.


my best advice, is to draw out all your hardware on a page, or even in xp paint ( easier as u can draw boxes in no time ) , just draw up your monitors , then your pc and fit the dimensions of the desk around that gear. it'll give you an idea of what kinda desk you need.

 

no pictures of mine, (as its not finished yet!) but heres another forum where other ppl have posted up theres (over 50 pages worth) so plenty to inspire you

http://forums.ebuyer.com/showthread.php?t=3662

 

Looks nice that mate

I kinda want something where I have a main desk, then a raised "shelf" like bit above it for my monitors and speakers to sit on, then under it things like my ipod, card reader, modem + router etc

Under the desk I need to house a printer (with lift up to for scanning) and hifi (all in one, not seperates) and a DVD/freeview box (standard DVD player size), along with general drawer and shelf storage....

As it is now;



Bit bland right?

 

hey m8,

not bland in the slightest. just a bit messy lol

i think you may already have the desk you need !!!!!!
but its going to involve you doing a bit of diy.

trust me, it'll be easy as pie !

all you will need is a bit of 3/4 inch pine board ( laminate if needed , both can be got from b+q 4 cheap ).
next you will need a set of roller supports , for the keyboard shelf. ( also in b+q ).

that desk you have looks like solid wood. ( well i hope so for your sake, otherwise my plan for your desk is over already ).

all you need to do is sand the crap out of it.

here is a rough sketch of what i am thinking for your desk :




all you need to do is look on that website i gave you, www.elara.ie and you will find the fitting for strapping your pc to the underside of your desk. ive seen them, really simple to do.
and all you'll need to do is use some lefttover pine wood to make a shelf for your printer and mount it using those white plastic shelf thingys you'd find in a kitchen cupboard.

job done

 

Lol, cool sketch

Desk is solid pine, bit flexy mind. Problem with it is it doesn't span the entire width of the room - which is what I want it to do. As for moving the PC and printer - no can do cos the leads to everything aren't long enough. I could move the printer, but not the PC (would need to get a longer USB lead for printer - easier than getting a LOT of longer leads for everything else tho)

I also would rather put the monitors on a higher tier "shelf" above the desk, as they could do with being raised a little anywa, and that would free up some desk space aswell - don't really fancy a roll out shelf for the keyboard etc.

I would like to put the hifi and printer below the desk, but would like to keep the drawers on the left side as they are full of stuff so I need them for storage.

I was thinking maybe a big ass bit of thick MDF (15mm?) so it's strong, about 2ft deep and span the entire room width (253cm), then drawers on the left as in the pic, but on the right, knock up something to house the printer, stereo, dvd player etc, kinda like this;



Maybe even get a new chest of drawers with more space in em.

What I am not sure about is whether to extrude the desk into the room a bit more - maybe on the right side, curve the desktop out so that most of it is 2ft deep, and one side is say another foot deep, like so;



Then I could have storage under the desk to the side aswell, but don't know how it will work as there will be a lot of dead space behind it, and might be overly large.

 

Hahah Thrush bangs out some more diagrams

Good topic though

Might post mine tomorrow, havent got time now.

Dave that looks great mate what spec is the pc? looks like your well into your gaming

 

If we could leave the PC specs etc out of the thread as there's enough spec threads in the forum as it is - I just want idea's on how to go about getting the right desk set up I am after

I must stress that is' a) important that I have enough storage space as I don't want to be putting up shelves etc on the walls and b) VERY important in regard to the speakers and seating position that I am in the middle of the speakers position, as I listen to a LOT of musicin here and hate when you have one speaker closer than the other!

 

Very much a work in progress at the moment. I have a 7.1 surround sound and a 26" monitor to go in, but its too dusty just now and I'm keeping them out of there. 7th April the tapers come in to re plasterboard the room, then I'll have a better go at fitting it all in nicely and report back. Some inspiration is nice though

 

bloody hell thrush, you can do better diagrams than me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ggrrrrrr lol


here is a pic of my old set-up :





just thought i'd add this as i know 90% of peeps would love one




ok, a word to the wise, avoid mdf at all costs please.
it may be cheap but its a fast fix and warps over time, especially with moisture and heat.
only way out of using any mdf is to laminate it, and thats costly and time consuming.

your best bet, is to get sheet pine , and dump the desk you have.
but before you do dump it, you can take the dimensions from it , and bring them to b+q and get all the wood cut there for ease of installation when your putting it together.
you will need to woodstain it also.

another way, is to get beech laminate , this involves no woodstaining and once you have it screwed together, your finished.
the only drawback of laminate is that it is weak if you use anything under 3/4 inch.
not only that, if you use a mouse on it without a mouse mat, it'll burn the top layer and give you a pitted look. ( this i know as i dont use a mat and my drawer looks worse than a 13 yr old during puberty )

example:


my best advice, if your any way decent at diy, is to build a new desk from scratch.
if your not, show a carpenter your sketch and get a quote.

as for mr VW , i wont write my spec, but i'll let my sig in evga forums do the talking

 

Very good spec dave

 

cheers matey

 

Here's my current one in the flat, not my best work but when we move i'll do a nice professional install

 

What a properly cool topic...

Sat up all night building my new quad core/4gb/8800GT PC and relocating my old PC in same office, so I will add to this topic in the next day or so. Some excellent systems in here. Well impressed with yoursd Dave, thats the absolute bollocks mate.

 

show us a pic of the case aswell. you have to have a good case to go with a good spec pc

 

oh and heres my workstation. An MFI desk that i just slapped a computer on

 

cases... i LOVE decent cases.

Just fitted it all into this.


http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6656

One of the Technically best cases ive ever seen.

 

now i think i may have dribbled some sex wee at that! Are the black panels mesh or just black moulds on the case? If its mesh, think of the possiblity for fans/neons/neon fans

 

He He...





And thats just 5 of the possibilities, it has them top bottom front and rear too.

 

 

The bloody tooless installation is a wiz, works on some kind of friction arrangement i think. Position the drive where you want it by hand, slide the lock from "unlock" to "lock" and its in. WELL impressed.

What games are you fellas playing on these high end machines? Im just trying to get back into it, hence some investment on equip to force my enthusiasm levels back up. lol

 

if you feel you dont have the entusiasm, ill give you a tenner for the system

 

Simple but functional, 2.4 P4 and 22 HP LCD monitor

 

Stu very good spec aswell then, look forward to the pics

 

Thats an excellent printer

 

Heres mine, another simple little desk


other two speakers out of shot behind me

EDITED to add that desk had two doors with a magnet shut thingy, those had to come off to accommodate my big case and allow better air flow

 

OMG VW 08, You got the same case, Speakers and although the monitors the same I think yours is a bit bigger. We must have some taste

 

Its GTi_iTG if you remember me, we pm'd a few times about pc specs last year
The monitor is the 19" Syncmaster 940BW, great screen all round, had it about 8months i guess

Wheres your setup picture then Billy? join in the fun, you know you want to

 

Still sat here building mine, i hate installing windows and software, its such a drain.

What are you fellas using to benchmark? Is 3DMark06 still the one most use?

 

Yeah I thought it was you. I remember you were looking at that case.

Might put a pic up when I've tidied up a bit LOL.

I think 3D Mark 06 is still the one Stu.

 

Stu, yeah 3Dmark 06 is all you need its about 570MB's so a fair sized download http://filehippo.com/download_3dmark06/

10k is the magic number that most pc folk like to beat, your system shouldnt be far off, if not more than that

 

good stuff

 

Downloading as we speak... Also researching how to get windows to use this 4GB... seems i may have overspent there. DOH!

 

If you have ANY version of windows which is 32bit it wont use all 4GBs, its about 3.2 or something that it can use, so its not far off.

To make full use you would need a 64bit version of windows, whether it be xp/vista.

which version have you got?

 

Ok, heres my first run, freshly built by me at standard settings. No bios tweaks at all... yet...



Well pleased with that.

 

Win XP pro 32bit. I realise only about 3.25gb will be mapped, but from what im reading it needs a boot switch and may actually slow most things down. Will run a few tests before and after...

 

12k is fantastic, first run aswell with no tweaks as you say, fair play

Im on xp pro 32bit aswell, ive not heard anything about xp being able to fully ultilise 4GB's of ram.
End of the day though it will be fast as hell either way

 

The reason i bought 4 is i do quite a bit of video editing nowadays, and my swop file is commonly 3.5GB when i have 2 gig installed, so i figured another 2gb would be of help there at least.

Cant wait to try overclocking it as ive heard these 2.4s will go to 3ghz comfortably, but want to get the build finished first and my raid array setup properly before i start pissing about. LOL

 

yeah you do need a fair bit of ram for that kinda stuff.


The quad cores go over 3ghz no problem, even with the standard coolers, or so i keep reading on pc forums

 

Well, watch this space, as i plan to find out for myself tomorrow evening.

Goodnight pal.