[SOLVED] Case side panel isn't cracking it?

[pcnoob2]

So i recently upgraded my system and never noticed anything this severe or even remotely close before the upgrade, so this must have happened within the last week or so, should i be worried?

Incase it looks like the light reflecting off of my side panel, its actually small what looks like cracks? thousands of them.


Any advice would be grand, cheers.

 

[Nemesia]

You upgraded the system. When did this appear exactly? You should know this since you're the one using the computer.

This doesn't look like a normal side panel breaking. It looks like someone threw stuff at it and scratched it. Does not look natural.

Since you don't know what happened. Are you living alone?

 

[pcnoob2]

I'm not living alone but No-one goes near my computer, im not sure when it appeared it must have been within the last 4 days or so as obviously i took pics to show off my new build and embarrassing cable management, it just doesn't look natural to me and i had this case for about 2 years and never experienced anything like this. i changed my graphics card about 2 weeks ago nearly, and since the cracks seem to be around where the cpu and gpu are, i'd expect it to be the heat. But thats where it gets confusing since they were not there for over a week. Temps are fine on all components. (cpu 30's idle - 50's under load) (gpu up to 62 under load).
Im honestly lost at what happened.

 

[Nemesia]

I'm not living alone but No-one goes near my computer, im not sure when it appeared it must have been within the last 4 days or so as obviously i took pics to show off my new build and embarrassing cable management, it just doesn't look natural to me and i had this case for about 2 years and never experienced anything like this. i changed my graphics card about 2 weeks ago nearly, and since the cracks seem to be around where the cpu and gpu are, i'd expect it to be the heat. But thats where it gets confusing since they were not there for over a week. Temps are fine on all components. (cpu 30's idle - 50's under load) (gpu up to 62 under load).
Im honestly lost at what happened.

I don't know what to tell you. Side panel are tested for heat and cold. It's actually cold in my room 17C and sometime it's hot and if that doesn't break the side panel I don't think heat from the CPU and GPU can cause this. Well I never seen it happen so I can't be sure. That's tempered glass right? Not an acrylic side panel?

I have never seen this before unless something was thrown on it.

 

[pcnoob2]

It's an acrylic side panel i believe. - Honestly this might be a mystery that I'll need to talk to corsair about. Normally there is an indication like really high temps or anything, but i can 100% guarantee it wasn't anyone damaging it purposefully.

 

[Nemesia]

It's an acrylic side panel i believe. - Honestly this might be a mystery that I'll need to talk to corsair about. Normally there is an indication like really high temps or anything, but i can 100% guarantee it wasn't anyone damaging it purposefully.

Well just look at this.

Benefits of Acrylic Side Panels:

- They Will Not Break: One of the main things that you must know is that acrylic side panels do not break that easily. Sure, it is mainly plastic but it is durable to breakages and dropping the acrylic side panel won’t result in a catastrophe.

There is no way that heat did this.

 

[pcnoob2]

Well, that is concerning. I guess my only option is to leave it for a few days, see if it worsens and if so ill look into another case or something, otherwise ill try get another side panel.
Thanks for the help anyway!

 

[Nemesia]

Well, that is concerning. I guess my only option is to leave it for a few days, see if it worsens and if so ill look into another case or something, otherwise ill try get another side panel.
Thanks for the help anyway!

I'm sorry I can't help you further. It's a mystery to me too. I know acrylic can crack but on what situations except hitting it I have no idea.

 

[Phaaze88]

I don't see cracks. What I do see is light refraction/reflection on cables due to a lack of cable management.

 

[bryanc723]

Thise look like scratches to me. Acrylic scratches very easily, and i would take a guess and say most of the scratches were already there, you just couldnt tell as much with different lighting? Even something as simple as it laying on the panel and sliding after you took it off to tinker could cause scratches like this.

 

[Phaaze88]

I'd suggest taking the panel off and holding it under a different light.
When I look more closely at these scratches, I see that they're actually the un-hidden cables refracting/reflecting light onto the surface of the window.

 

[cryoburner]

It's kind of hard to tell from the picture. Did you happen to clean the side panel using any sort of cleaning solution when you did the upgrade? A close up photo, and maybe one with the panel removed and under normal lighting might be useful.

 

[dudio]

That seems very weird.
The only other thing you can rule out on your end is that there's not a thin protective film of plastic either on the inside or outside of the glass that you can remove.

 

[pcnoob2]

Thanks for all the responses guys, i had a long hard think about it all night and retraced my steps over and over and the only plausible conclusion that i can come to is that the heat from the fans made the side panel slightly warm, and as soon as i took the side panel off i looked at it and thought "that looks dusty, give it a spray with compressed air and a wipe down". And since that gets really cold fast, the heat difference cracked it? Which would explain why the cracks are only at the CPU and GPU.
If that is what happened i genuinely feel so stupid. Thanks for all the kind help and wasting your time with my stupidity

 

[Falkentyne]

Thanks for all the responses guys, i had a long hard think about it all night and retraced my steps over and over and the only plausible conclusion that i can come to is that the heat from the fans made the side panel slightly warm, and as soon as i took the side panel off i looked at it and thought "that looks dusty, give it a spray with compressed air and a wipe down". And since that gets really cold fast, the heat difference cracked it? Which would explain why the cracks are only at the CPU and GPU.
If that is what happened i genuinely feel so stupid. Thanks for all the kind help and wasting your time with my stupidity

Never use compressed air. Those cans suck. A datavac, metrovac or xpower duster is your friend.

 

[Nemesia]

I use my vacuum cleaner and I switch it to reverse and I use a small tip so the air pressure is strong and I use it a little bit far away from the case and the dust flies everywhere.