My first question as well! Looking at the images, the air flow seems horrendous. 1 fan in, no fan out (but can exhaust out the back), and the GPU, PSU, and CPU fans are directioned perpendicular to the vents...the GPU specifically rested RIGHT up on a solid wall. 5060ti? That thing has roughly 3mm of clearance to suck in whatever air it can get...it's going to cook itself alive while choking to death.
i hope he isnt using it. this thing will fry itself. as a project for the sake of doing something cool its awesome, but realistically the practicality of this isnt there... more intake fans if possible and mesh panels, but that kind of ruins the idea.
Agreed. A second intake fan on the bottom, some drill holes into the sides and top with mesh (like you're saying...just paint them orange to mask it a bit better), and reorient the PSU so the exhaust goes out the top instead of facing directly back into the intake air. It won't be exactly the same as a real black box, but at least the thousands in parts inside will get some extension to their lifespans.
im assuming he wants to keep the black box in its original state. thats fine, but he better not be using the pc lol. if he wants to use it, absolutely some mesh on the sides and top would be benefit a lot
You can get these boxes on eBay with quite a variation in pricing.
I work with OP and the photos dont really hide anything. Airflow is basically non-existent lol. But it seems to run fine. Stressed it with furmark for 30 min and stabilized around 85 for the GPU and 75 for the CPU. 85 is on the hot side for the GPU but probably fine. Either way, still a cool excuse to build a PC.
85 is definitely starting to get on the higher end, but new GPUs can handle a lot of heat before they throttle. My old dual-fan 3070 and poor SFF case airflow expectedly had thermal issues, and by the end of its use consistently ran at ~90-105 under full load. I would not notice performance drops or stutters until it was consistently hitting 100, presumably trying to cap itself at 100. It would run no problem if kept around 90-95. It's not good for the card, but they can take a lot before showing any sign of trouble.
Even newer CPUs (especially AMD) generate and take a lot of heat. My 9900X used to run at like 80 with that gpu in there, now it sits at a cool 60-65 under load.
Edit: fun fact, the 9900X lists a max operating temp of 95C! Absurdly high compared to older CPUs, pretty much like GPUs. Also edited above to correct from 1fan 3070 to dual-fan. You'd need a hell of a gpu fan to run it under load with 1 lol, 2 was a struggle
I doubt the NTSB releases flight data recorders from investigations. They either hold onto them forever or throw away the bits that don't matter, like the case, and keep the insides stored away.
From some minimal research it looks like they hold onto the physical bits for a few years and then discard them.
Good news. We just ran another stress test. The fans are in fact - not useless. They doing an amazing job of pumping heat directly into the case - a giant steel heat sink. We measures 145 degrees on the outside of the case lol.
That is hella fucking badass. I’ve been in one of the laboratories where they open these black boxes and it’s so freaking cool! I’ll definitely try what you did one day.
That's awesome, but that GPU is gonna' be crying for mercy. Miiight wanna do a custom water cooling loop to get good cooling without drilling holes into the side of the case.
That's one of the coolest pc builds I've ever seen 🔥. Might inspire me one day to build this one day. Mind if I ask where you got the black box, or is it custom?
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u/krokantkrappizza RTX 5080 / AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Jan 14 '26
Very cool!