Senfu DIY House Review

Senfu DIY House Review
Date : Wednesday, 16 August 2000
By : Wolfman
Product : Senfu DIY House Review

Today we're gonna take a look at another Senfu product, the Senfu DIY House Plus. What the hell is a DIY House? you asked. Well, it's basically like a case for your PC, except that it has got no covers whatsoever. Only metal frames. The DIY House is great for overclockers and PC geeks, where the swapping in and out of peripherals is a norm for these group of people. System builders will find it useful too when testing PC components before actually assembling the whole shitz into the case. There are two variants to the DIY House, the Standard and Plus. We got the Plus version. This review unit is kindly provided by the distributor here in Singapore, MultiplayCity.

The DIY House Plus comes neatly packed in a box, together with all the necessary parts, like the chrome plated bars and joints. Other parts include the acrylic sheets and foam sheet for the mobo. The Plus version differs from the Standard version in the sense that the Plus version comes with 4 extra bars. You can then stack up another DIY House on top of the existing one for more storage space.

Putting the DIY House together was failrly easy. Senfu provided a very detailed instruction guide and recommends the use of a adjustable wrench. This is because you will need to twist the bars onto the joints for it to lock tight. And believe me, you'll never get the damn thing to lock tight if you're using your bare hands! If you have a small vice or jig, it'll be much easier.

The bars and joints

You'll get a pretty rough idea of which bars and joints to connect to from the instruction guide. After about 10 minutes, the frame of the DIY House was completed. I immediately noticed that the constructed frame wasn't as sturdy as I would expect. Not all the feet are touching the ground and the whole frame wobbles a lot. Not a good idea if you plan to have some heavy stuff on board. However, Senfu did provide some 3M Sticky Rubber Feets and after slapping some onto the base of the DIY House, the frame stop wobbling. The feet also help the DIY House to stay firmly where it stands.

You can always connect the 4 extra bars to the DIY House, but it does get a little unstable, due to the fact that there are no more joints available. The solution? Get another set of DIY House and stack 'em up! You can find some other use for the extra bars in the meantime, like whacking the itchy little hands of your nephews/nieces when they come over to your house! LOL! Forget I ever said that!

Here's the DIY House all setup and ready to go. The two acrylic sheets are to be placed on the top and bottom layer of the frame and the foam for the mobo goes on the acrylic sheet on the bottom.

Here is a pic showing a close up of the foam used to support the mobo and prevent the mobo from coming into contact with the metal frames. For your info, any ATX Form Factor mobos will fit in the DIY House, with a little overhang on the edges. Not by much though. Unless of course you have some Dual CPU Mobos or other larger mobos, which will have a lot of over-hanging out of the DIY House frame.

And since the DIY House is like a temporary case for your peripherals, Senfu also provided the jumper connectors for your POWER and HDD LEDs, a speaker connector and also a RESET and POWER ON switch with the kit. Some cable or zip ties for your cables and also the 3M Sticky Rubber Feets. Another nice touch is the dust cover. Although it's a little large, mainly for use when 2 DIY House is stacked together.

And here are some shots of the DIY House in action. An ATX mobo, with CPU, RAM and some expansion cards are installed. The whole shitz is placed on the lower portion of the DIY Houce. On the top, you'll find the CD-ROM Drive, FDD, HDD and also the PSU. Here you'll see that everything is easily accessible and swapping of any of the components is a breeze.

Verdict? Well, for a price of S$46, it's quite a good investment and is a great addition to the overclockers/system builders arsenal out there. It provides greater flexibilty and accessibility when setting up or testing your rig, be it for normal usage or just overclocking and reviews purposes. Not to mention it's stackable so you get double the fun! As for me, the DIY House will definitely be a big help for any future reviews or articles here in VH Secret Labs! Even if you're not going to be doing any testing for sometime, the DIY House can easily act as a storage area for some of your other stuff. But because of the open concept design, you might want to keep your coffee cups or beer cans away from the setup. Go get yerself one peeps!