Post your "Ghetto Mod" pics

  • Thread starter Deleted member 96510
  • Start date
jamsomito said:
Put some old parts together for a netflix box. The old GPU cooler was too loud so I picked up that cooler master one on clearance for 2 or 3 bucks. It was really heavy though and the card sagged a good half inch at least, so I figured I'd add some support.

I couldn't find any fishing line, so it was either twine or dental floss. I'm not too flossy, and twine was way more manly, so I went with that.

4okd.jpg
Click to expand...

That bow-tie knot adds a bit of class. If you'd tied it like a blind kindergarten student you'd probably get more stamps.
 
If you don't know the right knot, tie a fing huge knot. That's what I always say. Sadly, I knew the right knot...
 
Here is the only picture I could find of my ghetto mod, my first computer. It was the most basic Pentium 4 Dell available in 2001, integrated graphics, everything. Left the hardware bone stock but I took it upon myself to cut a hole in the side panel, install a window with blue led fan, rounded ide cables and uv cathode, it was the shit. I took it to lan parties and everything.

A53P3Du.jpg
 
I know I'm going to end up paying for other people's food stamps on this one... but since other people have the same problem with this chipset fan I thought I'd show my solution.

EVGA used horrifying chipset fans on the X58 series, and every time they send a replacement to me it goes out in like 2 weeks. I thought it was time to do something about that.

Power drill. Circle bit. Nail file. 50mm Gelid fan. Insane amounts of luck. The second screw hole didn't quite match, but once I had it anchored with the first I just drilled my own. Mounted right back on the motherboard with no clearance issues.

iZkRtZt.jpg

wkANiEA.jpg
 
So... I was overclocking my old Venice Athlon 64 and hit a roadblock around 220mhz FSB, I tried several things including bumping up the cpu volt just a tad. This caused the machine to go to a black screen and refuse to boot. I finally narrowed the "bottleneck" to being the cheap power supply. With no other power supply's available, I chose the next best thing. Two power supply's in parallel! I know this isn't the best solution in the world, but it actually worked very well! I've since been able to get 290mhz from the FSB (after clocking down the HT link and Ram speed). I am using one power supply for the 24 pin ATX power, and the other PSU (turned on by an old automotive relay connected to the first PSU) powers the CPU 12V and everything else. Ghetto all the way! Also uploaded a pic of my modded XBOX, complete with USB port, and LED's for the HDD, ODD and Network activity :D



 
Zygomatic said:
*SNIP*
Click to expand...

You Sir, win the internets! I would be scared as hell to have to different cheap ass PSU's BOTH powering the CPU..

It would be one thing to use a PSU for the 24 pin+cpu power, and a second for the drives/fan etc..But you are doubling down on the CPU..Epic!:D
 
That is both ingenious and ghetto. 5+ food stamps for you. I had an equalizer just like that one a long time ago.
 
jamsomito said:
Put some old parts together for a netflix box. The old GPU cooler was too loud so I picked up that cooler master one on clearance for 2 or 3 bucks. It was really heavy though and the card sagged a good half inch at least, so I figured I'd add some support.

I couldn't find any fishing line, so it was either twine or dental floss. I'm not too flossy, and twine was way more manly, so I went with that.

4okd.jpg
Click to expand...

I've done that same thing with zipties in a chain....
 
It's hard to get more ghetto than this:

This is my pc from about 9 years ago:

Exhibit1: Stock PentiumII cooler used as front intake fan.



Exhibit2: 9cm fan installed on a 6cm heat sink with a postman's rubber band.



Plus note the cable management done with red tape. Also the window insulation foam used on the cross member to prevent the sides of the case from vibrating.

Exhibit3: The IO shield part of the case is cut out to increase air flow.



Exhibit4: If you haven't noticed the VGA cooling solution in the previous pictures here is a closeup:



The gpu cooler is an old retired cpu cooler, the fan too, only from a bigger cooler. You may also notice some fins missing from the heat sink, that's because some component on the vga pcb interfered with it, so I had to cut it out.

The ram sinks are two old cpu heat sinks probably from a P1 each cut in half, and held in place by metal pins I folded myself.

Exhibit5: The chipset cooler is a repurposed cpu cooler as well.



The top is sawed off which means it was used for something else previously probably as a vga cooler, so I saw off the top of the fins so it wouldn't take too many expansion slots. The gue on it is actually glue, it most likely had a fan glued on it at some point.

Exhibit6: A frackin huge capacitor



I installed it because I read it in some forum that by installing a capacitor between the negative and positive poles of a cooling fan you can reduce the noise it generates. Of course it had no audible effect.

Lot more pictures of this barbarism here Including a few pictures from years later, where most of the rubbish was removed, and the cpu fan replaced with an enermax fan.

Exhibit7: This is a completely unrelated mod from a few years later:



I've installed the insides of an alarm clock into the front panel of my expensive Thermaltake case. Note the two mouse button microswitches where the usb ports used to be. Those are for controlling the clock.
 
You win the "Most Ghetto Award". You get 5+ food stamps and a WIC card.
 
Going to try to beat or tie with M76...

Many a day ago this is what I started with...

Then I got something decent...

Then I became single and went nuts with water cooling. :D


Best cooling spot for the Bonnie 77 heatercore and cardboard shroud.

But I needed to be able to lug the system around (literally). So.... two cases became one.


Gallon Mayo jug swiped from work and glued to the bottom of the case. As well as ATX PSU shoved into the 5 1/4 bays...

Why is the fluid pink? Why its good old water wetter...
impp_0808_02_z+cooling_fact_or_fiction+redline_water_wetter.jpg

Pretty sure I just shoved that wires in that molex plug for the fans on the heatercore... (check out the hot pocket Microwave thing in the back!)

And I even had a server for those LAN parties...In a crate held together by zipties, and a wood screw or two if I remember correctly.
 
Last edited:
Alright, here it goes

My 4p's server case, the silver box is a 150 cfm silent blower, and there's a 120v IMC Boxer fan back there too.
ZKMuflr.png


3 POS CM Fans for exhaust
C3MsJDc.png


Core temps at 43c/51c/52c/37c
It works...
 
Case is from an HP that was given to me by a local shop, I was in need of a floppy drive and the manager gave me the floppy on condition that I also took the HP box out of his sight. Most parts were salvaged from a smoker's computer that had a video card die from nicotine and dust. Had to cut a few holes to route cables and shoehorn everything in. The power supply HP provided was DOA and I couldn't find anything that fit, so I cut the back out, put in what I had and secured it in place with duct tape. The HP on/off switch is some sort of proprietary plug. I hooked up the on off switch, the rest aren't connected. Due to the cramped conditions I hacked out the exhaust for a 120mm fan, disconnected and removed the front USB ports and use the front USB bay door as an intake for another 120mm fan that's screwed to the inside front of the case. The original CPU fan died, I couldn't find the right sized replacement so I used an old 80mm case fan and plastic wire tied it to the CPU heat sink mounts. The video card is a 9800 Pro. The fan died, couldn't find a replacement so I super glued a CPU fan (from an old Athlon TBird).

2ch0vis.jpg


wbv5.jpg


1zytp45.jpg


34e6d52.jpg
 
Last edited:
c2rex said:
Case is from an HP that was given to me by a local shop, I was in need of a floppy drive and the manager gave me the floppy on condition that I also took the HP box out of his sight. Most parts were salvaged from a smoker's computer that had a video card die from nicotine and dust. Had to cut a few holes to route cables and shoehorn everything in. The power supply HP provided was DOA and I couldn't find anything that fit, so I cut the back out, put in what I had and secured it in place with duct tape. The HP on/off switch is some sort of proprietary plug. I hooked up the on off switch, the rest aren't connected. Due to the cramped conditions I hacked out the exhaust for a 120mm fan, disconnected and removed the front USB ports and use the front USB bay door as an intake for another 120mm fan that's screwed to the inside front of the case. The original CPU fan died, I couldn't find the right sized replacement so I used an old 80mm case fan and plastic wire tied it to the CPU heat sink mounts. The video card is a 9800 Pro. The fan died, couldn't find a replacement so I super glued a CPU fan (from an old Athlon TBird).
Click to expand...

Well done, use your food stamps wisely!
 
I hereby nominate Bob_Dole for the following title:
M.S. African Engineering

Bob_Dole said:
Alright, here it goes

My 4p's server case, the silver box is a 150 cfm silent blower, and there's a 120v IMC Boxer fan back there too.
ZKMuflr.png


3 POS CM Fans for exhaust
C3MsJDc.png


Core temps at 43c/51c/52c/37c
It works...
Click to expand...
 
30hn0bl.jpg


I'm sure mine ranks up there. This was an old P4 Northwood. Many years ago, I didn't have another computer and the heatsink clip broke so that it would not sit fully on the cpu without overheating. So I rigged a few free weights on top of the side of the case just enough to bow it in and push the heatsink flush on the cpu and a mini-fan blowing it keep it cool enough. I miss being poor sometimes.
 
^^^This. Just when I thought I wasn't poor anymore, I realized that I'm still poor but at a higher level.
 
Well, I haven't gone 'back to poor' I had many good times and fond memories being poor and learning how to be thrifty.. now not as much.
 
OpenSource said:
Well, I haven't gone 'back to poor' I had many good times and fond memories being poor and learning how to be thrifty.. now not as much.
Click to expand...

You're in luck. I run a "Being Poor Simulator".

Basically, how it works, you "donate" all your money away except enough to have $100 extra a month to live off of. All your bills, debts, all paid, including food cost, you get $100 to blow. Your place of employment is also part of this by requiring you to come in on your day off, and working a regular shift.

So, all the extra money that would normally go into your bank account gets deposited into mine and written off on your taxes as "donation to help the needy".

This simulator's goal is to humble people, remind them how good they have it, and how other people are barely scraping by.

If you'd like to participate, please PM me, and I'll have my people call your people, and we can arrange something.

Thank you for your interest in being poor, we hope to do business with you.
XOXO
-Phe
 
headphone1.jpg
headphone2.jpg


Mine is just a tiny mod/fix to keep my headphones working. My headset is a Arctic P531 and the plastic has cracked on both sides. My first fix was to put Black electrical tape over the cracks but it was still bending so I put up another temp fix. A piece of metal from an old USB Flash drive that stopped working. It holds on pretty tight and keeps its all together. :cool:
 
It's kind of fancy. The tape was neatly wrapped around the headset. And the metal part almost matches in color. Neatness actually works against you in this case. It does look "nice".

1.5 food stamps. Don't spend it all in one place.
 
M76 - I award 10 Food Stamps! That's just too much awesome that hits home with some of my own ghetto mods I've done in my hay-days of DIY lol
(I don't know how the awarding of FS works in this thread, so if you're only allowed to give out 5 a person, then lets just say that I'm giving M76 two month's worth :cool:)

Angry - Definitely gets 5 stamps for his use of Bonneville heater core (I always applaud incorporating automotive crap into computers lol); however, he gets bonus stamps, 2 for making it """portable""" by creating such an amalgamated Frankencase lol And then another 1 bonus stamp for arbitrarily pointing out the Hot Pocket microwave thinger... and I think Hot Pockets are gross lol


Zygomatic said:
So... I was overclocking my old Venice Athlon 64 and <snip> With no other power supply's available, I chose the next best thing. Two power supply's in parallel! I <snip> I am using one power supply for the 24 pin ATX power, and the other PSU (turned on by an old automotive relay connected to the first PSU) powers the CPU 12V and everything else.
Click to expand...

Zygo, I too have read lots about using a 12V relay to switch on the second PSU. Thing is I never did use that route, mainly for lack of an available 12V relay (and I didn't want to spend the couple bucks on one), but also because I didn't remember the explained logic behind that method. I just always have combined the means of running a dual PSU along with turning a PSU into a "bench top power supply", where you use a normal switch to turn it on. In the latter you just hook up a switch between PWR_OK (sometimes PWR_GD) and the PS_ON, which on pretty much all brand name PSUs ends up being Grey and Green respectively (as per ATX spec).

Anyways... that info aside, the Grey wire is irrelevant in this situation... What I do is just take the Green PS_ON (Pin 19) wire from the auxiliary PSU and hook it in with the primary PSU's Green. Power either of them on and the other will kick on as well since it has gotten the adequate signal voltage. :) How you go about joining them is your call! There are those blue plastic "redneck" quick-splicers that you just crimp down with a pliers and you don't have to do and soldering or stripping insulation. Or if you want to make it more permanent then a razor blade and some heatshrink tubing (at least) is needed, then cut off some insulator coating on the PRIMARY MOTHERBOARD CONNECTED PSU (since that is the one getting the PWR_OK signal from the motherboard to turn on when you press the switch, so it has to remain pinned). Take the Auxiliary PSU's Green (Pin 19) wire and unpin/cut/extend it and strip off a small end, wrap it around the bare section of wire on the other PSU then slip over the heatshrink over that spliced section (and melt it with a lighter or heatgun, naturally). If you wanted to solder, you'd of course do that before the heatsinking part :p

[By all means: Should someone know if there is any reason this is a bad idea, please correct me. I know enough about this sort of stuff to get me in trouble, but have not had any problems doing this sort of thing thus far; however, I obviously would not want to offer advice that may end up damaging someone's hardware. From what I can tell, all this does is bypass the need for a relay...]


Sorry for tainting the "Ghettoness" :( lol
 
Spray painted the corsair color rings to match my system.









Eventually figured out that gold matches with my Sabertooth better.





 
Painting the rings is not ghetto. But your camera seems to be. 3 food stamps awarded for the camera.:)
 
Know this has been done before, but burnt up cap on a video card, oddly enough I'm completely anosmic, and didnt know it blew, as the card was still functioning. Was moving the card to a new rig when I noticed it. So $80 video card a 7770, $12 to warranty shipping, the time dealing with shipping, make more since to do it myself. Dont forget, when inverting the side its on to switch polarities on the cap side so its right.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxIhca54vUKuWTNwdnRZeG9iRzA&usp=sharing
 
Last edited:
Not terribly ghetto, but not quite perfect either...

I replaced the stock cooler on my EVGA GTX 480 after one of the heatpipes ruptured and oozed some kind of corrosive material onto my card. I decided to go with an Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid that was on sale at the time. The problem with the AC cooler is that there is no support for the back half of the PCB of the card. It was too big to keep the factory heatsink retention plate in place and I wasn't able to find any backplates for it, so I used some string that my wife uses for dressing up roasts and our Thanksgiving turkey every year. I looped it around the series of extra thumbscrews along the back of the ODD cage rather than tying knots in it.

87e2508f-13e8-43b8-98da-47ef12db7ec6_zps529647e1.jpg


6642f935-7546-4595-a6d3-1cadb0c0a28d_zps6871e0a6.jpg


Next up is the Lego mod...

I ordered a GTX 670 for my portable rig, but the card was flexing so bad that the PC didn't want to stay running. I grabbed up some of my son's Legos and made a spacer to support the back end of the card. As it turned out, it worked so well that I replaced them with glossy black Legos and even used one of those smooth plates for the top. It was ghetto with mutli-colored bricks and the studs up against the video card, but now people don't notice it unless I point it out to them.
CIMG0538_zpsc1b757f7.jpg


CIMG0539_zpsf24ada50.jpg
 
Actually I am shorting the green wire (PWR ON) to ground with the relay contacts, and the coil is just wired to the 12v on the first PSU. I've never heard of using the grey wire (PWR GOOD) as a trigger. AFAIK the PWR Good signal is initially LOW ( 0v ) until the power supply has stabilized all voltages then it is switched to a HIGH signal which tells the Motherboard it is ok to start the processor. The PWR ON signal is shorted to ground through your motherboard and after the power button is pressed on the PC.

I should also note that I did that particular project just for the fun of it using old equipment I wouldn't mind damaging :p

Formula.350 said:
*snip*
Zygo, I too have read lots about using a 12V relay to switch on the second PSU. Thing is I never did use that route, mainly for lack of an available 12V relay (and I didn't want to spend the couple bucks on one), but also because I didn't remember the explained logic behind that method. I just always have combined the means of running a dual PSU along with turning a PSU into a "bench top power supply", where you use a normal switch to turn it on. In the latter you just hook up a switch between PWR_OK (sometimes PWR_GD) and the PS_ON, which on pretty much all brand name PSUs ends up being Grey and Green respectively (as per ATX spec).

Anyways... that info aside, the Grey wire is irrelevant in this situation... What I do is just take the Green PS_ON (Pin 19) wire from the auxiliary PSU and hook it in with the primary PSU's Green. Power either of them on and the other will kick on as well since it has gotten the adequate signal voltage. :) How you go about joining them is your call! There are those blue plastic "redneck" quick-splicers that you just crimp down with a pliers and you don't have to do and soldering or stripping insulation. Or if you want to make it more permanent then a razor blade and some heatshrink tubing (at least) is needed, then cut off some insulator coating on the PRIMARY MOTHERBOARD CONNECTED PSU (since that is the one getting the PWR_OK signal from the motherboard to turn on when you press the switch, so it has to remain pinned). Take the Auxiliary PSU's Green (Pin 19) wire and unpin/cut/extend it and strip off a small end, wrap it around the bare section of wire on the other PSU then slip over the heatshrink over that spliced section (and melt it with a lighter or heatgun, naturally). If you wanted to solder, you'd of course do that before the heatsinking part :p

[By all means: Should someone know if there is any reason this is a bad idea, please correct me. I know enough about this sort of stuff to get me in trouble, but have not had any problems doing this sort of thing thus far; however, I obviously would not want to offer advice that may end up damaging someone's hardware. From what I can tell, all this does is bypass the need for a relay...]


Sorry for tainting the "Ghettoness" :( lol
Click to expand...
 
PS3 Cooling Mod

Even though it didn't solve the overheating issues. Can I still get some Food Stamps for effort?




















It runs for about 10 seconds then shuts itself off again. :( Anyone else have any ideas? I could always try to waterblock it but I really don't want to spend the money.
I guess It could make a good decoration.....
 
Use an external 200W PSU with paperclip jumper. You'll earn more food stamps that way.
 
voodoo3.jpg


The fan died on my Pentium II so I used electrical tape in the form of a sling to hold a case fan over the dead cpu fan. The electrical tape wasn't holding on its own so I duct taped the electrical tape.
There wasn't room for a second hard drive so I just laid it in the optical bay.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top