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[Rexyboy]

And the end shot.....  You may notice that I am still to pop in a few nuts and self tapping screws.

[mabuhay]

Great to see all these ideas

I also modified my GuruPlug. If anyone is interested, here are my notes about improving the cooling and making the fan more silent.

@Rexyboy: my fan is still a little loud. A bigger fan like yours would be another big improvement i think. Is it a ball bearing fan like the one built into the GuruPlug or another bearing type? Is it just a 5V fan running at full speed?

mfg

[mururoa]

I've done a much more easy mod.
I removed the PSU and the 2 cm fan.
Then I installed a 5 cm 12V fan on the bottom of the case powered with the 2 wires of the original fan so 12V --> 5V. Without the PSU in the case the fan blow directly on the MB.
I put the PSU in a smal Teko box with a female plug. It is still connected to the device with the original plug that goes outside of the box
And that's it guruplug server plus + 5 cm fan + Teko box + female PSU.
Now the device is just cold anytime with no noise

[Drumknott]

I'm going to start modding my plug, my tool supply is fairly limited so I think my first mod is going to be to remove the PSU and then stick a resistor on the fan to quiet it down a bit.

I am a bit wary of creating my own PSU, sounds like an accident waiting to happen, so I think I'm going to buy this: http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrical-Power/Power-Supplies/Plug-In-PSUs/31W-Interchangeable-plugtop-desktop-switch-mode-power-supply/81329/kw/85-3120?source=googleps&utm_source=googleps

and then wire it in to my guruplug

[regmund]

@mururoa

I am quite keen on your simpler mod idea, but I would love to have a better idea of the equipment you've used to replace the fan and psu and your new psu case.

Could you provide some more (or preferably) links to these.

I've not heard of Teko boxes, does the guruplug server plus psu get hot/warm? and if so, how well ventilated is the teko case that you have chosen?

[yj]

in case you're interesed in, this is what I made out of my guru plug server plus:
http://cesoft.free.fr/guruplug/IMAG0113.jpg
http://cesoft.free.fr/guruplug/IMAG0114.jpg
http://cesoft.free.fr/guruplug/IMAG0115.jpg

no more heat problems now.

[Confusticated]

The graph shows the temperature of the modified GuruPlug closely following the ambient temperature + 30 Deg.C whilst running at approx %15 CPU usage.
The 2 Degree steps coincide with one ethernet port link becoming active (as the connecting hub is switched on\off, which has a greater effect than increasing CPU usage).

[Confusticated]

Three and a half years of continuous operation have taken their toll, the fan has slowed and become offensively noisy.
The SoC now runs at 25 Deg C above ambient temperature, and whilst this is no issue during the winter could be problematic during the warmer summer temperatures.
As the Guruplug itself is fine, and so is the SDHC card, I intend to source a replacement fan.

[apemberton]

Finally I have rebuilt my three Guruplug+ into a Mini-ATX Master Cooler case with a raspberry Pi as the temperature monitor and fan controller. Power supply is by an old 250W PC power supply - lots of 5V current!. There are 3 2.5" SATA drives which use an eSata to sata cable (hard to find). The three Guruplugs are acting as routers with DHCP server, BIND9 and Quagga. Routing is RIP as that matches the DSL router. The Guruplugs are now on their second RTC battery replacement and, hopefully, the lower temperature will prolong their life. Routing configuration is a triangle so that if a Guruplug fails (usually bad disk writes), routing for Home Automation devices, PBX, etc. to the 'net is maintained. SNMP is active from another, external Sheevaplug running MRTG. Temperature is monitored by the RaspberryPi with DS18?20 sensors attached to the Guruplug's heatsinks. OWFS is used to collect temperature information which is picked up by a wget from the SNMP server running RRDtool. The latter will be replaced by MODbus which will be more efficient when I have finished writing the code. A Piface operates the fans through it's relays. Each Guruplug has a JTAG box attached where the USB is attached to a (awful - Elite Silicon device running Busybox) 4 port USB to ethernet 'hub' which allows console access from my Windows desktops when necessary. The Guruplug's reset switches have been removed and the pads wired to toggle switches on the rear of the PC case. The RasperryPi has also been fitted with a reset switch and has the console TTY pins wired through a USB to serial TTL cable and also attached to the aforementioned USB to Ethernet hub.

I am pleased with the result but it has required considerable time and effort on essentially obsolete products. I am now considering the future of the Guruplugs, although not a short term project. Mirabox's would be too expensive and would not offer any advantage (no Sata or eSata). I will likely go for Level 3 Switches for routing although there are no inexpensive devices, so far as I know, that have the flexibility of a full Linux device. In particular, a DNS server is not present which would require another 2 boxes just to run BIND.