Computer Built Into a Desk

This is my desk....and my computer. They are one in the same, isn't that AMAZING! With a new school year starting I realized I was going to need a new desk, so I decided to build my current computer into it.

Computer parts and tools needed are minimal and easy to find.

Supplies

- One piece of at least a 3/4 inch piece of plywood. I used inch thick plywood for the bottom of the desk.

- 3/4 inch piece of plywood for the inside of the desk

- A piece of thick TEMPERED GLASS. Do NOT use normal glass. Mine is a 1/4 inch thick. A custom glass shop can make this for you.

- Double-sided tape

- screws for the legs and the base.

- Paint

- You may line the desk with some material. Mine is lined with extra wood flooring, or could paint the inside.

Computer part size specifications

- The motherboard should be an ATX. Anything smaller will look too small. EATX can fit but your desk would need to be a bit bigger.

- You can use a standard ATX power supply. I would recommend fully modular.

- 5 120mm fans in enough but I have 8 because it looks better.

- Make sure your CPU cooler will fit. This determines how thick the desk is. Leave space at the top for the fan to breathe.

- 13.5 (317.5 mm) graphics card will fit with my sized desk. Standard Nividia 10 series graphics cards fit in the space as well. You may need to place your graphics card in a different place if it is too long.

Tools

-Jigsaw

-Circular saw

-Clamps

-Wood glue

-Power sander

- Band saw (Nice to have not necessary.)

- Table saw (Nice to have not necessary.)

Your desk should be sized to fit your piece of tempered glass. You will need to cut the leg cut out later, which we will talk about in the next step. My piece of glass is 45 3/4 in by 25 1/2. I had my piece of glass custom-made to this size. You must use a THICK TEMPERED GLASS. Regular glass will cause safety issues. My glass is 1/4 inch thick.

A leg cutout for the desk is a must because it is such a thick desk. My leg cut out is 14.5 inches deep and 15 inches wide. You can make it bigger if you want but it is unnecessary to do so. I do have my power button mounted in the leg cutout.

In the front of the desk, I made the sides less tall. This is so I could fit a piece of Lexan there WHERE???. Not only does this look very cool but it makes basic maintenance much easier. Since those pieces of Lexan are there I can easily turn off my power supply, swap my graphics card and NVME SSD, and mess with the fan controllers.

Cut two 1/2 inch pieces of wood to 2.5 inches tall and 13.5 inches wide.

Next, get your 3/4 inch piece of plywood and cut two pieces that are 24.75 inches long and 6 inches tall. These go on the outside of the desk. Glue and screw the piece on the right side. Cut a slot in the left one for the rear IO of your motherboard. This will vary from board to board. The size of your board will determine how big the hole needs to be. Make sure to leave extra room for a wifi PCI card or a USB card if you need it.

Cut a piece of 3/4 inch plywood for the rear of the desk. Its dimensions are 44.25 by 6.

For the leg cutout, you need two 3/4 inch pieces that are 14.5 inches long and one that is 15.25 inches long. I do have my power button, an arcade button from this instructable Raspberry PI Arcade Machine. I have only hit it once by accident (During a math test of course).

I went to a glass shop and they made this piece of tempered glass to the specific size for $60. My glass is 1/4 inch thick and will not shatter into a million pieces if it breaks. Don't use normal glass. When tempered glass shatters it breaks into big pieces. It is also stronger in general. Regular glass will hurt you if it shatters. The Glass is just placed on top of the desk. I have no frame holding it in. It really does stick to the paint.

Overall the Lexan was not the best thing to use here because it scratches. I thought it would be ok but it is not. The Lexan is 3.5 by 13.5. I would recommend a different material if you were to do this project. The pieces are pressure fit and don't fall out by themselves. If I did this again I would use polycarbonate and screw it in so it can be taken off from the outside.

I cut my legs to a cool shape. Another popular thing to do is use the Ikea Alex storage cabinet that can be used as legs. It does make the desk much more useful because this desk has no storage.

In the back, I do have a 46-inch long divider. There are so many wires behind the desk this gives you a place to tuck them out of the way. look at the picture above. Also, the legs are attached together by the divider to give them strength. Without the divider, legs like this will not work.

I used fake wood flooring as the inside of the desk. It is leftover flooring from a basement. The flooring clips together. Every six inches or so there is a place for me to cut a hole to route cable. If you only paint the desk then you are going to need to cut big holes for some of the computer's connectors to go through. I cut holes big enough for the cables where the wood connected together. This made it so I did not need to make the holes for the cables as large as the connectors. For example, the 24 pin connector is 3 inches long but the cables are only 1/2 an inch. The hole in the real wood is 3 inches but the hole in the fake wood is only a half so the cables can go through. You can have some of the holes be under things like the motherboard as well to hide the cables even more. The sides I did glue in. The fake wood does make the desk very heavy.

Everything is double-sided taped or velcroed into the desk other than the motherboard and the fans (Talk about the fans in the next step.) Layout all of your components in the desk before you mount anything. Also, run all of your cables to make sure they reach. Don't put too much strain on any of the cables. I originally cut out pieces of paper the size of my parts and used string to model all of my cables. You should do this especially if you want custom cables. Mount the power supply and drill the holes for all of your cables. Run all the cables through. Now start adding components. The motherboard is by far the hardest thing to add. I bought a bag of motherboard standoffs at Micro Center and screwed them to the motherboard. I then put paint on the bottom and placed it in the desk to leave a mark for each standoff. I then drilled all of the holes and places the motherboard in. Everything else is placed in there with double-sided tape or velcro (Other than the fans go to the next step.)

The fans are cooler master RGB fans. Any 120mm fan will work, but these fans were cheap. You can layout your fans in whatever configuration you want them. Just make sure that you have at least two fans intaking air on one side and the rest on the other side. You don't need so many fans but I had nothing else to put on the right side of the desk. When I put my hand in the desk I can feel the air getting pulled through. You need to mark where the fans are and cut a hole in the bottom of the desk. You also need to screw down the fans. Make sure you use washers so the fan blades don't hit the desk

My GPU is mounted on 1/2 square wooden sticks that were all glued together. This has worked great. You could also just let the GPU rest on the bottom of the case. You are going to need a PCI-E riser cable to make the GPU mount like this at all. Any mount for the GPU will be specific to whatever GPU you have. For the GPU I would recommend a blower-style cooler. Nividia founders edition cards are all blower style, as well as some third-party cards.

You should have a fully functional computer but don't put on the glass yet there is one more thing, RGB! I have about 70 feet on my desk. It enters through the IO spot loops around the inside and exits there to them go around the rest of the desk. It is controlled with a remote that comes with them. You can connect the lights to the computer but I like to have the controller.

This is fairly difficult. With the cables hanging out the bottom of the desk gravity does come into effect. You are going to want some hooks to screw into the bottom of the desk. You are also going to want a lot of zip ties. It takes a long time and is difficult but is totally worth it. Anything else like fan controllers can be mounted where you want them to be. I would recommend not near the leg cutout. Mine are mounted with metal on the inside of them. They are then screwed to the desk. If I were to do this again I would just use a smaller fan hub from Corsair. They could just be double-sided taped inside or on the underside of the desk.

This is it. :) Place the glass on the setup the computer.

Overall this is a really fun project that is not super difficult. It took me about 4 days to make this. It makes your computer setup look truly amazing.

Things I would change

Front USB or any IO at all.

I would have definitely have done the cable management better. (perhaps a second layer under the desk just for cables)

Different fan controllers, these ones are to big.

That's it. This desk is really great!!!