The Bodyswap (modernizing a classic)

jamsomito

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 29, 2010
Messages
3,202
Hey everyone, thanks for checking out my work log. I’m relatively new to the [H] community, but I’ve been an enthusiast and doing basic mods for years. The mod I have planned here is still somewhat basic compared to what I see in some of the other work logs on here, but it’s more advanced than anything I’ve done before. I’ve got a pretty good start on it already, but I’ve been waiting for the weather to start warming up a bit before I actually dig in and get out the dremel and paint. While I’m waiting though I thought I’d write up a bit about what I’ve got and maybe ask for some recommendations from you experienced veterans.


The Background

Prior to about 6 months ago I had been using the same computer for about 9 years. Originally it was built as a hot-rod with near top-end components. It lasted me some of high school (~3yrs), all of college (~5yrs), and a year or so after graduating. Being an enthusiast who appreciates the latest and greatest, I wanted to get my hands on Windows 7, but alas, the old machine finally was outdone by advancements in software. As a result, I built another computer on a very tight budget; something to run Windows 7 and play my old games. This was a bit of a mistake as I uncovered my inner geek and once again got the itch for upgrading and modding. This was also about the time I stumbled upon [H], which only added to the matter… Since I built that computer 6 months ago I’ve been wanting to do something more, but budget has always been a constraint.


The Plan

My birthday just passed and as a result I’ve gained a little bit of spending cash. Though I’m still on a tight budget, I think I have enough to engage in some new modding techniques and make something cool. Here’s a list of objectives for the mod:

Improve airflow and cooling with a positive pressure design
GPU​
CPU​
HDD​
PSU​
Try new modding techniques
Rivet removal/replacement​
Acrylic cutting/mounting​
Interior painting​
Enlarge window size
Side Panel​
Front​
Improve cable management
Create something more classy than classic

Because I couldn’t afford a whole new case or new components, I took a look at the two cases I own from my old hot-rod and my new budget box; the old one has much more modding potential, at least for a person of limited skill such as myself, so I decided to start by swapping my old guts into my new case and my new guts into my old case. With the new parts in the case to be modded, it was much easier to see which of my ideas would work and which would not.
For cooling, the plan is to add 3 giant fans on the bottom of the case (per the Silverstone FT-02 and RV-02, only I couldn’t physically fit the 180mm air penetrators), upgrade the 120mm front intake fan, maybe squeeze in an 80mm fan for HDD cooling, add a top 120mm blow hole fan, increase the rear fan size from 80mm to 92mm or 120mm, and swap the PSU for one with a 120mm intake fan above the CPU.
The old window is in terrible condition, and frankly, is just too small. I know I don’t have the best components, but I’m still fascinated with the way a computer works, so I’m going to do the best with what I’ve got, tidy it up, and put in a massive side window. The mounting idea I have is to dremel the window out of the case and add rubber u-channel all the way around. Then I’ll be cutting the acrylic window LARGER than the actual hole and rivet it to the outside of the side panel. I think this is going to create a clean and classy look to the case. To go with it, I was hoping to cut out a portion of the front panel and do a matching window of smaller size for the front intake fan.
Aesthetically I decided to go with an all-white look with black accents. That means white inside, white outside, black fan cases, black screws, black window rivets, and most importantly (and what I’m most excited about), black rubber u-channel. To top it all off, I’m going to be re-using my old green cold cathodes with the addition of a green LED CoolerMaster SickleFlow fan on display at the front of the case.


The Legend (a.k.a. GreenMachine)

The case I see fit for modding is an old PC Power and Cooling ATX mid-tower case. Our friends over at Ars wrote up a review that some may now call vintage… check it out here. In my opinion, and after having worked with it for years, I can tell you that it is indeed a tank. Everything is made out of relatively thick steel (except for the front panel which is plastic, but it still mounts nicely with good fasteners)and it weighs a ton. This is a good thing if I’m going to be taking a dremel to parts of it. There’s enough structural integrity to go around. It has a removable drive bay for ease of mounting and/or complete removal if it’s just in the way. Here’s a pic from the review mentioned above:

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As mentioned earlier, I had performed some basic mods to it in the past. Here’s a couple shots from its hay-day:

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It even comes with it's own light-up keyboard!

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By hot-rod, this is what I mean:
Athlon XP 2800+ (2.1Ghz)
ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe
1GB DDR PC3200 RAM
Gainward GeForce 4 Ti 4200+ Gold Sample
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
160GB 7200RPM HDD w/ 4MB buffer

This thing was great and it served me well for many, many years. It withstood anything I threw at it for the first 3 years... ran new stuff alright for the next 3, and barely hung on for the last 3, but it got me by.


The Horror

This thing makes ME feel old. I did great with cleaning it for the first few years, but all through college I struggled to find the time. Most of the time the box was on the floor with no filters on the fans, so it collected a lot of dust. Not a big deal if you clean it all the time. If you don't clean it... well, see for yourself, but be warned. *gasp*

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...and with the HSF off...

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This bad boy is in need of some major TLC. Though it doesn't look like it, being my first build/mod, GreenMachine has always held a special place deep down inside. Don't think I'll ever get rid of the old parts. Along with this mod I'll be cleaning everything as well.


The Replacements (a.k.a. RedDevil)

About 6 months ago I'd had it. I needed something that could run today's software, namely Windows 7. I also use Photoshop Elements 6 quite a bit, which surprisingly actually ran on GreenMachine, though not very well. Having just finished college and getting married, budget was a little slim, rather very slim. I broke down and bought parts for an extreme budget box. Enter RedDevil.

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Here's the parts breakdown. Total cost: $243.01 with tax and shipping.

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor (2.9 GHz, 2x1MB L2 Cache, 65W, Socket AM3)
$47.99 (orig $60.99) after $13 combo discount, free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103687

Motherboard: ECS A785GM-M7 (AM3, DDR3, AMD 785G chipset, MicroATX form factor)
$47.55 (orig $64.99) after $10 instant rebate, $15 mail-in rebate, and $7.56 shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135265

RAM: 3GB PC1333 DDR3 Crucial 2GB stick + 1GB stick (each latency 9)
2GB stick $59.98 after $2.99 shipping, no discount
1GB stick $29.98 after $0.99 shipping, no discount
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145246
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148196

Power Supply: OCZ Technology OCZ550FTY, 550W, dual rail
$44.99 (orig $84.99) after Shell Shocker deal, $15 inst rebate, $25 mail-in rebate, free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341022&Tpk=OCZ Fatal1ty OCZ550FTY

Case: Azza Orion 202, steel, ATX, mid-tower
$14.99 (orig $49.99) after Shell Shocker deal, $15 inst rebate, $20 mail-in rebate, free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517003&Tpk=Azza orion 202

The system was MUCH faster than GreenMachine, but only mediocre at gaming. A few months later (still on a tight budget) I found a deal on Newegg for an eVGA GeForce 9600GSO for $30 after rebate. I know it's a crippled version of the card, but you can't beat that price. It plays Left 4 Dead 2 maxed out, and anything more recent than that it will play at reasonable settings, so I'm happy for the time being. It came with an overclocking utility, so I cranked the heck out of it, just on the edge of stability. Hopefully with some additional cooling I might be able to tweak just a little more out of it.

I wasn't very fond of the case... I tend to prefer "classy" over what I like to think of as "tacky," however I could have done a lot worse, and for a while it was kind of fun having something a little more flashy (if anything to make fun of it saying "it's a sleeper... inside out"). Also, for the price, I'd take it any day.

That brings us to today. As an engineer, I feel as though a good background always helps with problem solving, at least knowing the motives behind the story. Sorry for babbling, but hopefully you can understand where I'm coming from with this mod. It's tough being an "enthusiast" with a limited budget, but the fact of the matter is that's life. Do the best with what you've got. Anyways, on to the mod. Drum roll please!


The Stuff

Per the previous plan, I went ahead and blew most of my budget on stuff I would need to make this mod happen. Here's what I got:

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3x NZXT 140mm Performance Fan
1x CoolerMaster SickleFlow 120mm Fan
1x Arctic Cooling F9 PWM (92mm) Fan
24x black fan screws
6x case thumb screws (beige... will need to be painted)
1x 18"x24"x0.22" Acrylic sheet
1x rivet tool
1x packet of 100 1/8" white rivets
20 feet of black rubber u-channel
1x Roll of 1" masking tape
1x can white primer
1x can white semi-gloss color coat
1x can clear gloss top coat
3x sanding sponges (medium, fine, extra fine, for dry or wet sanding)

What you don't see in the above picture is that I also got a couple parts for performance as well. I got a 2GB stick of RAM for $20 (compare that to the $60 half a year ago!), and an IDE controller/RAID card. I've always wanted to try a RAID configuration so I figured I'd spend the $10 and get one and try it out. If not, I've got a bunch of old hard drives totaling just under 1TB laying around so at the very least I can add some network storage. I've yet to decide if I want to put the IDE controller card in my new box or my old one...

There will be some additional items coming in a bit later, like drive bay covers (5.25" and 3.5"), expansion slot covers, and matching case/drive screws. I'll also need some longer rivets for the acrylic window; I don't think the 1/8" ones are quite long enough to grip where I need them to. To go along with those I'll need some small washers to protect the acrylic from cracking with the force of the rivet installation. Lastly, I'll need some taller case feet... hoping to not spend much money on these, so I may need to get creative here. This is a minor detail for the time being though, I'm sure I'll think of something by the time I need them.

That's all for now, folks! Thanks for checking out my work log, and I hope I didn't bore you with all the details. Stay tuned for the next section, "The Concept!"
 
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I love threads like this, nothing like resurrecting an old but trusty case! Very interested in seeing how this turns out. I'm like you; I never want to get rid of my old gear. If it were me, I'd put the RAID card in the Athlon XP machine, it's more than capable of serving as a good home fileserver. That 9600GSO is getting pretty long in the teeth now, but its surprising what those old G92 chips can still do. I had the 96sp version of the GSO in my LAN rig until very recently and it still ran everything I play pretty well, especially Source games. I'd say you put together a pretty good budget rig for $240.

One thing to consider, I see you bought another 2GB DIMM, are you going to put that with your current 2GB stick and remove the 1GB? If you don't you can't run dual channel; in my opinion, 4GB in dual channel is better than 5GB in single channel mode.
 
...are you going to put that with your current 2GB stick and remove the 1GB?

That was the plan. Unfortunately I only have 2 DIMM slots on this motherboard, so I swapped out my 1GB stick for the new 2GB stick. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made, particularly when I'm playing a game and have to minimize it, and running Photoshop.

Thanks for the interest guys!
 
I'm a bit further than where I left off, so here's a little more on what I've got.


The Bodyswap

I mentioned before that I'm putting my new parts in my old case to see how everything lines up. To start, I had to gut my old box.

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Cables out -

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Hard drives out

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Everything out -

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Once everything was out of the old case and the dust was cleaned up, it was time to free up the new case for the old components.

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Apparently I forgot to snap photos while disassembling RedDevil. At least it makes for good comparison. Here's the old parts put back together in the new case.

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I think I actually like the color scheme of GreenMachine's components in this case better now that they're in there. For some reason, this Azza case seems a lot more roomy inside. RedDevil's guts stayed very cool in this case, so hopefully these parts will be a little more happy in here. I forgot to mention previously that the old PC Power and Cooling case being modded seems to have very poor airflow and cooling. It burned out 3 PSU's (I'm on my 4th), and the metal on the back of the case gets hot to the touch with any significant sustained load on these components. I don't know if the old parts just get really warm, or if the case has a hard time venting the built-up heat inside or what. Hopefully with the airflow mods I'm doing it will end up being better than this new cheap case, but long story short, I think these old parts will do much better in this new case. (on a side note, I always seemed to find the most cramped corner to stuff my computer case in, which definitely played a role in it overheating) All in all, cooling is a very important part of this mod.

With the old parts in the new case and some more room to work on the table, I started to assemble the new parts in the old case.

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I noticed after mounting the motherboard to the motherboard tray that mine is actually warped in the middle... check it out -

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Is this common? It flares up by the rear ports (USB, PS/2, etc), down by the mounting screw, up by the processor, down by the second mounting screw, and down further by the RAM slots. It seems to work fine, so I'm not really worried about it, but it seems odd that it would be deflecting this much. Maybe it's just because it's a cheap board... Here's another angle -

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And finally the motherboard tray mounted in the case -

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Having an mATX board in this case really frees up a lot of room.

PSU, graphics card, and sound card mounted -

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With the majority of the components installed, I started playing around with the ideas I had for drive mounting, fan locations/sizes, and cable management. Since this is just a preliminary build to identify feasible alternatives to the final design, it's time for the concepts.


The Concepts

First I looked at hard drive cooling. I first realized how warm these drives can get when I stripped a system down after having just installed windows (shipping to a friend). The removable drive cage in this case is great for ease of mounting. Just simply take the cage out, screw in your drives and snap it back in place. Piece of cake... no worrying about having room for the screwdriver around the motherboard tray, removing fussy side panels, none of that. However, you can tell by looking at the thing that it doesn't allow for much airflow; it's mostly solid steel except for a few holes on the bottom and of course any unused mounting holes (which all get covered up when drives are installed anyway). There is space between each drive if 3 hard drives are installed though, so if a fan will fit between the drives and the front panel of the case, it's possible to get some decent flow between them for a significant cooling benefit. I tried to wedge a fan in behind the drive cage (I know it still needs to be cleaned... don't worry, it will be) -

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In this case, the airflow would have to come from the front of the case. See fan placement below -

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...and with front panel mounted -

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This is all fine and dandy, but if I decide to put my IDE controller card with GreenMachine's components, I really only have one hard drive that would be part of this computer. There's room enough next to the motherboard ON the motherboard tray to mount the hard drive vertically next to it, even if in the future I end up swapping to a full size ATX mobo. Check it out -

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If I mount my only hard drive here, there's no need for the 3.5" drive cage at all... my motherboard doesn't even have a floppy controller/port. I'll still probably end up painting the drive cage even if I don't use it, but completely removing it all together is a tempting option...

So you probably noticed the fans in the last picture. The CoolerMaster SickleFlow in the front and the 140mm NZXT on the bottom. I can't believe how big these 140mm monsters are. Check it out, it's as big as my hand!

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I hooked them up and tested them... they don't actually move as much air as the CoolerMaster 120mm does, and the actual fan blades are not centered properly; they wobble ever so slightly when running, but hey, they were cheap and they look sweet, so I'm happy with that for now anyway. If you remember the beginning of this log, I said my inspiration was the Silverstone FT-02 and RV-02. I didn't have anything in the house that I could use to measure metric with, so I guessed and hoped that they would all fit in the bottom of the case when they arrived. Turns out the do. But only barely. They all drop in no problem, but there is no wiggle room whatsoever.

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It's incredible how close they came to not fitting... It's like they were made for this case.

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I couldn't be happier with the fit. When I slide them all the way to the side of the case with the side panel removed, it leaves about 3/4" of space behind them. This is also just perfect because it leaves room for the power switch, power LED, reset switch, reset LED, HDD LED etc jumper connections on the bottom right hand corner of a full size ATX board that slides in right behind them (I cheated and tested it with the old GreenMachine guts before taking them all out), and like you saw back when I was talking about hard drive mounting, a full size hard drive fits behind them too. Again, couldn't be happier with the fit.

I realize that cleanliness is only benefited by a positive pressure design with the use of filters on the intake fans... The only 140mm pre-made filter I could find was $8 a piece PLUS shipping... with 3 of these mondo fans I just couldn't justify spending another $25+ for filters. For the time being I may just need to clean the inside more frequently, but I do have some ideas as to how I'm going to make some. It's possible I may go the ol' panty-hoes route, but the trick will be keeping this mod out of the ghetto-mod thread... At any rate, these bottom fans will probably end up elevated slightly more because I'd like to put the filters underneath them for aesthetics. I'll probably dremel out slots in the vertical portion of the case so they can slide in and out for easy cleaning (also per the silverstone design).

There is one slight problem with the fit, and that is the case feet are mounted through the bottom of the case. There are fasteners on the inside of the case that keep the feet on. I'll have to remove the existing feet and come up with some new ones (taller for air flow) as well as a new mounting method. A flat top screw with countersink would probably work just fine, but I'll have to see if I know anybody with a countersink as I don't have one. Otherwise I may be stuck with good old fashioned superglue or epoxy. Another concern is that since the current feet are penetrating the mounting surface for the new fans, the holes will interfere with the required locations for the mounting screws... the fans can't move at all, so hopefully there is no interference or a few fans won't get all 4 screws.

You'll notice in the above photo that the CoolerMaster fan was added to the front intake as well. I love the way this fan looks when it's running with the LED's, so I'm excited to put it on display right in front of the case. The only problem is that with the three bottom intake fans, it sits higher than my previous 120mm cutout... I'll have to cut out more to move the hole up and possibly use some excess from my side panel window cutout to cover the old hole underneath. Check out these pics to see what I mean -

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That covers all the intake fans (HDD, front, bottom). Now for the exhaust fans. Probably one of the biggest contributors to exhaust volume is the 120mm PSU fan. I like the 120mm bottom mounted PSU fan because it takes the heat directly off of the CPU cooler. Hopefully this will make a big cooling difference from the GreenMachine components as it only had two 80mm fans mounted in a linear airflow configuration. Also, heat rises, so this also helps the natural convection inside the case. One bummer is that since I tried to maintain a consistent color scheme with the RedDevil build, my PSU has red LED's... I've seen two-tone lights in cases before and if done right, I think it can look really cool, but my colors here are blatantly Christmas colors, so we'll see if this becomes a problem or not. It might be a cool subtle effect with the overpowering green cold cathodes I'm installing, but it could make or break the look of the final product. We'll have to wait and see. I do have a couple backup options though. Remember all those PSU's I fried in this case with the GreenMachine build? Well I kept them all, and one has a black fan (fitting for the color scheme), and another has a clear fan with green LED's. It'll most likely take a little electrical work and dismantling my new PSU, but I think I could pull it off if necessary.

The rear exhaust fan is an Arctic Cooling F9 PWM (92mm) fan (upgraded from the original 80mm). This will also require some dremel work. I debated a 120mm fan, but it was about 2mm too large. I would have had to grind some off the width of the fan, or do some sheet metal work on my case, which I would be too afraid I'd mess up, so I decided to go with a smaller fan and leave some guaranteed room for the cold cathode to fit along side it.

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Another cool thing about this AC F9 fan is that it has PWM capabilities meaning my motherboard can track it's speed and change it accordingly. It also supports daisy-chaining. The plan is to connect both it and the CPU fan so they operate in tandem. The motherboard can monitor the speed of both independently, but control them both as one. If the CPU gets too hot, it'll crank up both the CPU fan and the case exhaust fan, doubling the cooling effect (in theory). It's a bit of a bummer that the CoolerMaster fan doesn't have PWM because it's so dang loud... this AC F9 is about as quiet as they get, but oh well... kind of a cool technology regardless.

Lastly, I'm going to add a 120mm blowhole fan to the top of the case. This is a last-ditch effort in controlling this case's excessive heat buildup. Heat rises, so get rid of it where it accumulates. With a modular PSU and a shorter DVD/RW drive (newer, later technology than original GreenMachine drives), there should be plenty of room for air to come up between the drives and the PSU. See what I mean below -

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...and with all the cables installed -

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You probably noticed I'm reusing an old fan here. It's possible I might mod this fan or just swap it for one of the ones from my dead PSUs if I can handle the re-wiring. This fan has been used a long, long time... there's nothing wrong with it but who knows when it might die on me. Plus my dead PSU fans match the color scheme better.

I think that about sums up my cooling efforts. I know that the Silverstone cases I keep referring to allow air to seep out through mesh in the top of the case with only one fan at the top. This case needs a bit more of a forced-air approach, but I may play around with different slots or maybe even some mesh to allow the excess air a place to escape to. Still thinking about this.

Now, regarding the window, there's not really much to be said except that I want a huge side window, and a small front window. The side window will be cut out, smoothed out, and rubber u-channeled. The acrylic will be cut larger than the hole and riveted to the outside of the side panel. Because the u-channel has some thickness to it, the hope is that by riveting the acrylic around the cutout, it will provide a good seal. I don't want much air coming in and out through the cracks in the connection because then the whole forced air theory goes out the window (pun intended). That being said, I don't want to crack the acrylic from warping or bending, so I'll probably get some washers as spacers underneath the window.

The front window may prove to be a bit more of a challenge than I had first anticipated. Originally I just wanted to cut out the rounded portion of the front panel and mount the acrylic the same way as the side window. Now that I looked into it a bit more, it may not be very aesthetic as what's behind the front panel isn't very attractive looking. Also, it comes up past the elevation of the 3.5" drive cage, so it doesn't provide a very discrete cutoff point. Take a look at these two pics again to see what I mean -

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I thought about extending the window in an L-shape around the power button and light switch to include the drive cage, but I don't know if that would look tacky or not. This matter may call for a sketchup model, but that will take a little bit of time for me to produce.

In either case, the big white hunk of plastic that houses the reset button, power LED, and HDD LED will either need to be removed or relocated as it's right in the middle of where the front window will be. I'm fine with removing the reset button... practically never use it, but the power and HDD LED's are useful to me, so I'm still deciding what to do with this issue too. Who would have thought adding a window would take so much consideration?

I will have SOME steel left over from my side panel cutout, and I plan to rivet that to various unsightly areas visible through the front window. I just don't know if I will have enough to cover it all. Hopefully it won't end up looking like frankenstein's patchwork. I think it will work out though. Won't know till I try.

Along those lines, I will likely have some excess acrylic as well. At 0.22" thick (almost a quarter inch), I can't exactly substitute it in areas where the steel ran short, but I could paint it and use it for patchwork as well. Another idea I had was to cover my drive bay covers with it to provide a more uniform depth and look for the entire front of the case, but with my Audigy 2 ZS I/O panel, it messes with that idea a little bit.

Clearly I'm not done deciding exactly how I'm going to do things, but for the most part I have it figured out. Most of the little details will iron themselves out as I go (I hope)... and I learn by doing, so bring on whatever's coming to me; it'll only make me a better modder in the long run. That's all for now folks! Next time I'll sum up my challenges so it's a bit easier for those who don't like reading my ramblings to possibly offer their advice. Thanks again for the interest!
 
Dood!

Is that an SLK800 I spy on the old green machine?

its a monsta!! awesome
 
did u use the same size stand offs for the system board ( the brass loioking thingys )? using incorrect sizes that arent the same will cause the warpin you see
 
did u use the same size stand offs for the system board ( the brass loioking thingys )? using incorrect sizes that arent the same will cause the warpin you see

That's a good question... I don't even remember where I got the ones I have on there. They either came with this case, or accumulated from various builds over the years. I checked out the ones I have leftover and they all seem to be the same size. I don't remember my old ASUS board doing this though, and these are the same standoffs I used with that board.

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Dood!

Is that an SLK800 I spy on the old green machine?

its a monsta!! awesome

Wow, great guess! I couldn't remember, so I looked around for about an hour before I found this. Scroll to the last heat sink on the page... that's mine. Turns out it's a Thermalright SK-7. The SLK800 is a little bigger than the SK-7, and some report a few degrees C cooler, but nothing quite beats slapping a giant hunk of copper on your CPU, generally speaking. I found it to work really well, though I've also seen reports of people turning the Athlon XP processors literally into toasters... not much you can do with that much heat output.


it will be very cool when its done, no pun intended

Thanks!
 
The Concepts (Cont'd)

I forgot to mention the plans I had for cable management. There's not much room behind the motherboard tray for cables. Especially not the motherboard power cable...

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I may end up having to remove the sleeving here to get the wires all flat, kind of like an old parallel IDE cable. Unfortunately, it'll be hard to do this properly with zip ties, so I may also end up just taping the wires to the back of the motherboard tray; it won't be able to be seen on the final product, but just knowing it's a mess back there might be enough to keep me up at night. We'll see.

Also, it turns out that the 24 pin mobo cable is conveniently just too short to run around the motherboard tray, meaning it's forced to go behind it, or clog up the airflow on the inside of the case.

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I plan on cutting holes, maybe about 4 of them, long-oval shaped, out of the motherboard tray, outlining the motherboard. Like this, not like this. There's plenty of room behind the tray for ribbon cables, the sound card I/O drive bay panel connectivity, SATA cables, etc... just not the 24 pin power connector. My gut's telling me that I'll probably end up removing the sleeving on that one and laying it all flat. On a different note, I'd like to cut the cable holes in the tray and use the rubber u-channel around the edges. I think this will give it a nice detailed and professional look in the end.

Below is a pic of the rig after my preliminary build. All the cables that will be used in the final version are installed in the case. There's a bit of tidying up that can be done, like the ugly ribbon cable hanging down where I considered installing a second hard drive, but most of these cables will be easily cleaned up with access to the space behind the mobo tray.

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You'll also notice the addition of the USB ports. This was stolen from GreenMachine's ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe motherboard's accessories. The plan is to route this somewhere to the front of the case to provide 2 front USB ports, which currently don't exist on this case. I found front USB ports to be extremely useful on RedDevil's case, so they would be sorely missed if this didn't work out. The options here are a little limited because the cable is so short. It'll barely reach the front left side as-is, but with the fans, I don't think this will be an option. I think it will only reach about 4 inches up the right hand side, so that's probably where it will go - mounted vertically (one port on top of the other) in the bezel around the front acrylic window.

Switching gears here - I dug out my old PSU's that GreenMachine ate for lunch along the way and salvaged whatever parts I could.

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One man's trash is the same man's treasure, right? What I see here is a working, quiet 120mm fan with high and low setting switch (the other one is fried, which is what killed that PSU), a small on/off switch in good shape, extra sheet metal and modders mesh, and to top it off, a wealth of extra cabling if I happen to need to make any extensions to cables that are just too short. It's always good to have a few extra parts on hand, you know, just in case. I'm pretty sure I'll end up using this working 120mm fan because of it's speed selector switch and color. The mesh will be perfect for a few vent holes to allow the positive interior pressure to vent out in a specific place. The extra sheet metal will be used to patch holes and cover things up that can be seen through the front window.

That, my friends, exhausts all my ideas for this project. It will probably be a month or so before the weather is nice enough to do any sustained work outside (I'm in an apartment, so I'll have to dremel and paint on the porch). In the meantime, I plan on posting any other pics/ideas I might come up with, and also start working on a SketchUp model to help visualize what the side and front windows will look like, and help with the placement of the motherboard tray cable holes and mesh vent holes. Keep an eye out for these to come soon. Also, I've done a couple really, really basic mods before, so this will be my first time doing a lot of this stuff. Anybody out there with more experience than me, please feel free to share your thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Till next time... Thanks again for reading.
 
this will be pretty neat. Makes me want to pull some of my old cases out of storage and re-visit them.
 
this will be pretty neat. Makes me want to pull some of my old cases out of storage and re-visit them.

Thanks! It's been fun planning so far. I hope it turns out in the end.

i also see some video card ram sinks made from the heat sinks in the psu

Manny, this is a genius idea. One thing that spurred this mod is that my video card often overheats when playing games and freezes for a few seconds while it cools off. It takes about 2-3 hours of playing to get that warm, but then it occurs once every 5-10 minutes when it gets there. I had some silver thermal compound left over from the GreenMachine build so I took the heat sink off, removed the thick, gloppy goo from the manufacturer (that there was also way too much of), and re-applied a nice thin layer of good TIM, and it dropped my temps 3 degrees C at idle and an impressive 13 degrees C under load. This allowed me a little more overclocking (a few more fps, actually), but now I'm in the same boat as before... right on the edge of stability. These VGA RAM heat sinks may be the answer.

Question: Where can I get thermal tape, and would this be a good way of mounting these to the RAM chips?

If you're interested, I snapped photos during the process. One thing to note: I added TIM to the RAM chips where the stock cooler covers them, but they didn't have enough thickness to actually touch the big heat sink :(. These chips may be SOL unless I get some sort of aftermarket cooler, which would unfortunately be out of the budget. See pics of the TIM swap below -

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So I like the idea. My metalworking skills are pretty much zero, but I think this is a good challenge for me as part of this mod. I went ahead and took out the heat sinks from my dead PSU's -

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These heat sinks must have been attached before all the soldering on the board was done... the capacitors were right in the way of the screws holding them on, so unfortunately, I had to guarantee the death of the PSU to get these things out, as you can see by the mutilated PCB... But, I got them all out. there should be more than enough aluminum to go around here.

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I also took the free evening's opportunity to clean the salvaged fans (even the one that doesn't work... it was just gross.

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lol, it looked like the weight of that first heat sink collapsed the PSU baord
 
i thought the psu was dead i hope you didnt need it. well thermal tape should be able to hold the aluminum to the ram on the bottom of the cards pcb the side that faces up, as for the under the cooler ones i wonder how far away are they from the bottom side of the cooler, you might be able to use a penny to make contact to the cooler, and if its too thick grind it to make it thinner or use a soda can to make an aluminum gasket to make it touch, or even if there is enough heat sink left from the psu grind it to the right thinkness, even if the method is a little ghetto a little cooling is a lot more than no cooling, you could also put it in the ghetto mods thread lol, just make sure the gpu stays in contact with the cooler. the ram on my 5770 gets just as hot as the gpu so cooling wont hurt anything. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3776/thr-18/Thermal_Tape_-_1_Inch_Square_148_0012.html the frozen cpu sells thermal tape in 1 inch squares im not sure if thats the cheapest but it will work but if its out of the price range, gas is going up after all, i think thermal paste would hold them on if you have any extra, a few times i removed heatsinks the cooler pulls the cpu out of the socket, so it might be a decent adheasive just make sure not to let any metal touch anything other than the ram and cooer same for the other side im sure you knew this just wanted to make sure
 
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No worries, the PSU's were dead. I have no problem with contributing to the ghetto mod thread, so I might try some of these techniques on the graphics card... so long as the case doesn't end up there.
 
may i ask why there is something that looks like a fan motor attached to the case ?
anyway great work so far!

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may i ask why there is something that looks like a fan motor attached to the case ?
anyway great work so far!

HA! I forgot about it until I saw it in the picture myself. You are correct; it is a portion of a fan motor. The Azza case came with a 120mm red LED fan that was about as loud as a lawn mower so I never used it. I ended up taking it apart for it's LED's to use in the case (you can see one sticking out about a quarter of the way up the back side of the case if you look hard enough). They make a nice spotlight for the CPU.

I tried for a while, but I couldn't get the stator off of the PCB without destroying it so instead, I cut the wires to the coils to prevent any unnecessary magnetic fields or current or worse. The reason for keeping the PCB from the fan was because I didn't know if the LED's ran at a different voltage than the PSU would supply directly. The whole mess is twisty-tied on through the air holes there... possibly a candidate for the ghetto-mod thread. What do you think?

I'm studying hard for a 4-hour test coming up here soon, so until that's done unfortunately there won't be many updates. Sorry :( Stay tuned.
 
There are some interesting things going on in this case. :D

Good luck on your test!
 
So I passed my test and decided to relax with a bit of measuring and 3D modeling. I only have a skeleton made up, but it's what I've got so far. The idea behind making this model is it would make the window placement easier, so I'll have to add the mobo tray, all the body panels and drives. Here's the latest update -

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I also had another idea that involved making my own fan controller... I hooked up all the new fans in this case, put all the body panels on, and it was really loud, even without all the extra holes in the case that I will be cutting later. So, I think it will be nice to have something to turn the fans down when I don't need the extra cooling. I could probably buy one for the cost it would be to make my own, but I think it sounds like fun. I will have a little bit of spare sheet metal and a bit more spare acrylic after cutting the windows. I could make a 2.5" drive bay box with variable resistance potentiometers fairly easily, so I think this is what I'm going to do.

For starters, I applied some of my knowledge from my recent test to create a bit of a data table pertaining to the Cooler Master fan in the front of the case. I need to know what speed the fan will be at different resistances (thus different voltages) in order to size the pots correctly. Here's what I came up with:

LINK TO GOOGLEDOCS TABLE

In your opinion, how slow can a fan go before there's really no more benefit from turning it down any farther? I know it's going to be different with every fan, but if I want this one silent (ambient noise level or below), should I be looking for ~1000RPM or ~200RPM? Just looking for ballpark here. Thanks for the help, and thanks again for the interest.

EDIT: Replaced my HTML table with link to googledocs
 
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most fans are around 18 - 22 db at 1000 or so, why not just save a little and get a fan controller, one with knobs dont get the nzxt sentry. i have one and love it it just wont let me turn the spped down lower than 40% the knobs are far more adjustible and you can tune them for noise
 
Yeah, a fan controller is really worth it when you want a silent machine when you read. Also, with that many fans at full blast, its going to be a wind tunnel.:D
 
no HTML on this forum, maybe link to a Google Spreadsheet

Ah, well that explains it. See above for link to GoogleDocs.

most fans are around 18 - 22 db at 1000 or so, why not just save a little and get a fan controller, one with knobs dont get the nzxt sentry. i have one and love it it just wont let me turn the spped down lower than 40% the knobs are far more adjustible and you can tune them for noise

Thanks, Manny. I'm going to do a little more research into the cost and difficulty of making my own, but I very well may end up buying one. This is really helpful data, thanks for the input.

First thing's first though. Sketchup model!
 
stop everything i found something awesome
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=RV-UCH-NNU1-GP&cat=VCD its far better than stock and has ram sinks included in the price

Wow, that's an awesome deal... I'm interested. Do you have any idea if all nVidia cards have the same heat sink mounting dimensions? According to the description, these are the supported cards:

8800GTS 512 MB (G92 Ver.)
8800GT
8600 series
8500 series
7600 series
7300 series
 
Ok, I ordered one of the coolermaster coolviva z1's. I like a lot of things about it... it seems to have surprisingly good performance for the price and it comes with VGA ram sinks (8). My graphics card happens to be the 1.5 GB version, so I'll have to come up with 4 more ram sinks to cover them all (unless the GPU sink covers some and/or the top fins cover some). There's 12 vga ram chips on the card.

I also think the orientation of the optional 80mm fan will do my case design well. What's nice about the Silverstone FT/RV-02 cases is that the graphics cards are mounted in a vertical fashion which allows the air to move between them, up, and out of the case. In my case, with the horizontal add-on cards, they serve as a big flow impediment. Hopefully this vertically pointed 80mm fan right in the middle of the case will help correct any kind of turbulence caused by the cards and provide more uniform flow throughout the entire case.

Also, my current GPU cooler is really loud. It's not like a deep wind tunnel sound, but more of an incessant hissing. It's not bad with the case assembled with the whole box on the floor, but I hope to put this up on the desk top once it's all done. With all the extra holes, you're going to hear it, so hopefully this will help with the noise levels too (granted I can do something about the noise from the other ~10 fans in the case).

Lastly, I'm just about at the point where I'm going to start taking my preliminary build apart. I need to have the parts out of the case and separated so I can properly measure them for my Google Sketchup model. Also, while my guts are out on my desk I'd like to get some open air temps from at least the CPU and GPU to have something to compare to in the final design. Stay tuned for temps and more sketchup pics.
 
im tuned in, i like the project so far, get some pics up when the coolers get there i plan on getting one for my card soon, i hope it fits i was looking and it looks like that cards gpu is kinda far from the edge well see
 
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Quick update -

The sketchup model is progressing at about a snail's pace. I think I'm a little bit of a perfectionist and I'm including way too much detail for what I want to use this model for. Really I just want to see how the window placement will work... Anyways, I thought I'd post what I have so far. Here ya go -

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I've also got my guts out of the case in my "test bench" configuration... basically just on the foam pad that the mobo shipped in on top of the mobo box. I'll post a pic once I get a chance to edit my photos from my camera (I shoot in raw mode by default, can't just throw it up on the page).
 
I think you're doing just fine. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how to "get an idea" of how things look on some of my projects.
I've recreated to scale out of cardboard entire layouts. Besides, going all out on these types of designs and such only teach you how
to work in programs like this much better. Just a side note, until recently I couldn't find a reason to justify to myself to learn other than for making mock designs,
until I realized I could use it as a selling point for my business.

Also, when you export a 2D image for the forum or wherever, just before you click the Export button, click "Options" next time (in that save dialog)
and check the Anti-alias under "Rendering". Also, if you're running a decent setup, in Preferences, click on openGL and click on the higher
Anti-Aliasing for smoother looking work.
 
Thanks for the encouragement, xjmtx. Believe it or not, I actually have a bit of experience in Sketchup. My previous job had me working on various structures for the local zoo; I designed a polar bear shade structure with retracting mechanism and an elevated platform for the gorilla exhibit. It was fun working on little obscure things like this, especially because I got to learn this program. One of the coolest parts to Sketchup, I think, is the ability to track shadows as the sun moves across the sky at different times of the year. I actually put together an animation that showed where the shade would be for the polar bears, and how much they'd have to cantilever their structure to get it where they wanted it. Pretty cool stuff.

That being said, I only had about 4 months of use, and it was about a year ago now, so thanks for your tips as well. I had completely forgotten about the rendering. As a matter of fact, the images I posted here are just screenshots that I cropped in paint... quick and dirty. I'll give your method a shot next time. Thanks!
 
As promised, just a couple pictures of my "test bench."

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I hope to have the project underway soon enough that these parts aren't out in the open for very long. Once the sketchup model is done, I need to mark my case for cuts, remove the rivets to take it apart, and dremel and paint. That should be the majority of the work there, so hopefully it won't be too long.

While I had my parts out on the desk, I got some open air temps for comparison with the final design (all deg C):

IDLE* (windows booted, a couple background programs running)
GPU: 46
T1: 42
T2: -128
T3: 54

LOAD* (during gameplay)
GPU: 72
T1: 55
T2: -130
T3: 61

*Note that it was a very nice spring day here and I had my window open. The fresh air was nice, but the room was a little cooler than normal... the GPU idle temp is usually about 47 or 48. These temps may be skewed slightly just due to the room temp.

I know gameplay isn't a true stress-test, but it's the most stress my system sees for sustained periods of time. I typicaly don't run prime95 or any of those other brute-force calculator programs because they simply don't apply to what I use my machine for. It would be cool to run Folding@Home, but I'm too selfish to pay the extra on the electric bill. ;)

The temps were taken with SpeedFan. The GPU readings in SpeedFan match the readings of the EVGA Precision software that came with my graphics card. I'm not entirely sure what T1, T2, and T3 are. It's obvious that T2 is either not connected to anything or is malfunctioning. I'd think it's an appropriate guess that T1 and T3 are either my two CPU cores, or the CPU as a whole and some part on the motherboard (northbridge?). Anyone have any ideas what these readings are coming from?
 
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t1 should be the cpu average and t3 should be the north bridge i think idk was t2 is... very strange
 
Coolviva Z1 came in today! I just got it all installed and put in the system. Fired it up and GPU idle temp is 56C... :confused:

This is with just passive cooling though. I will try attaching an 80mm fan with the included adapter and repost my temps. If they're still bad, I might try re-applying my thermal paste.

First thoughts: It looks pretty sweet, but it's not performing how I'd like! I'll post some pics no later than tomorrow.
 
Ok, so I had some time this evening to take some pics of the new VGA cooler. Enjoy!

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I did manage to find some time to do a bit of gaming to check out some temps too. It turns out the cooler does work pretty well... I won't be switching the thermal paste after all. At first, the temps seemed high, but I didn't have a fan installed. I grabbed an old 80mm fan and put it on and it made a huge difference. Looks like I'll be keeping it. Here's the new temps:

IDLE (no fan): 60 C
IDLE (w/ fan): 46 C

LOAD (no fan): 76+ C
LOAD (w/ fan): 61 C max

I didn't see how high the temps would go without the fan. It rose from 60 to 70 fairly quickly while gaming without a fan, and at 76 it was still climbing... I decided to give myself a little time to turn the fan back on in case the wires gave me any trouble, so I stopped watching at 76 (anything close to 80 and I get nervous...).

All in all, idle temps are relatively unaffected... without the fan, this cooler provides enough cooling to operate under normal low-stress situations. Add a fan, and it's miles ahead of the stock cooler. Temps dropped from 72 to 61 (load, stock to coolviva) for a total difference of 11 C. If you remember, I even re-applied the thermal paste to the stock heat sink. Before this, temps were close to 80 under load, so this cooler provides substantially better performance than the one that came with the card.

Furthermore, the fan I used is rather old, and frankly, is really wimpy. I may swap my YS Tech fan from my old Athlon XP for this one and I'm speculating the temps may drop to the mid-fifties under heavy load. I'm very surprised at the performance of this cooler. AND I'm excited to see how it works once the whole case is put together. With the vertically directed flow from the video card, I think it's going to contribute a lot to the cooling of other components as well.

I know there's lots of pics above, but I've heard a lot of interest on this specific cooler. Feel free to ask any questions or request different photos, I'll do what I can to help you guys out. Hope you found this interesting. I did!

Next step is finishing the sketchup model. Estimated completion date for the entire project is the end of April when my next LAN is scheduled :) so I gotta get moving on that. Till next time...
 
that is very awesome, and looks better than the stock cooler, i plan on getting one, but i like the way the referance cooler looks on my card
 
Ok, I got a little sidetracked with the VGA cooler, but I honestly think it's going to incorporate really well into the final design. Getting focused again on the actual CASE mod, I got a little farther on the model. I'm about ready to start making the side panels and utilizing the salvaged PSU parts to fill in holes... most notably the one for the front 120mm fan that is now in the wrong location since it had to be raised to allow the 140mm on the bottom to fit.

Here's a few simple renders of the progress -

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Some of the components aren't mine... the only exact matches are the 120mm front fan, and I believe the PSU was designed after my model, or at least one very, very similar. The VGA card is an 8600 or something like that, and the CPU HSF is actually intel's stock cooler, not AMD like mine. Anyway, the components aren't really what I'm modeling here, I want to know how the stuff fits. The major items of concern are window placement, hard drive placement, fan placement, and hole covering where it can be seen.

I'm plugging away at this whenever I get time, but it's going well again. That's it for now, though.
 
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