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Anyone else have a PIA case?

O

Ockie

*** Self Proclaimed Storage King ***
Joined
Mar 2, 2005
Messages
18,003
If so, lets see them. I was lucky enough to hunt one down on ebay the other day... man am I the happiest man alive... I've been looking for one since the day they made it.

So I'm just wondering if anyone else has one out there that they care to show off :)


Btw, a PIA case is a small MATX cube case... perfect for lans... but very rare. Perfect now since the mATX SLI boards are out... makes for a great project :)
 
Pissing In Action? Pain In Ass? ive never seen one. is it any more perfect than a qpack or a silverstone sg01?
 
Got pics. Sorry for the shitty pictures, I'm by no means a photagraphy expert ;)






 
u should drill out that horrible fan grill. I bet hardly anything gets out of that thing.
 
It kinda looks squatty and ugly to me... But to each his own! If it floats your boat, then sweet!
 
strikeout said:
u should drill out that horrible fan grill. I bet hardly anything gets out of that thing.
Click to expand...
werd that fan grill is really bothering me btw wats it running?
 
Looks rather bulky for an SFF, much too tall.

I think so far the best mATX case I have seen is the Silverstone SG-01.
 
A little ugly atm, but it's definately got modding potential.

First thing to go is definately that fan grill. Depending on the internal layout you could probably move it down a bit and put a 120mm fan in the back - that SLI rig could put out a bit of heat into the case.
 
I don't think he cares too much about the fan grill... cause he doesn't even HAVE a fan mounted there. lol
 
Logan321 said:
I don't think he cares too much about the fan grill... cause he doesn't even HAVE a fan mounted there. lol
Click to expand...



I bought a full system with the case... I bought it only for the case :) The rest was just a perk.


Anyways, it's a AMD K62-500 in there, 128MB Memory, 15gb hard drive, 10/100 Nic, CDRom, and Floppy. Got the entire bundle on ebay for $4.99 no reserve auction and paid about 15 in shipping.


I'm not 100% sure on what style of project I want to approach, I might turn it into a little source lan gaming server, or turn it into a little lan box. And if anyone questions the strength of the handle... well lets just say they have to try it themselfs. Super strong.

As for the interrior, it has tons of space to do cool things with. You can mount multiple 120's if you wanted, you got plenty of space.
 
That front area with the circular dome would be great for one of those illumiglass disks.
I saw a mod with that case where someone put a PSone screen in that dome area.
 
I stripped the machine... tried some test fittings, looks to be a good fun project.


However, I encountered a problem, I found out that the I/O Shield it has IS removable, however not standard size!! So instead of fabricating my own shield or cutting the case up there, I found a new board with PCI-e that still has the old skool ATX header layout. I do however have to cut a little on the shiled to accompany the lan header ontop of the usb ports, but that is rather simple with a dremel.


Next step is to test the board when it comes in. I purchased a watercooling system from a friend, it's a brand new thermaltake kit that has now recently been discontinued... however, it has never been used and it's still in the box for $15! Can't beat that. So I figured... why the hell not?! ;)


So my next step would be to possibly drill out that 80mm fan hole so it can be airflow worthy and then mount the radiator on the inside and have it draw air from the inside to the outside, I'd finish it up with a standard 80mm grill and a rubber edge guard to clean up any potential imperfections that may occur.

As for the rest of the machine, not really sure what I'm going to do with it. I'm thinking possibly of putting in a slot blower to help cool, basically I just want this thing to have decent air flow and be quite. I'm also replacing the floppy drive with a black one, not that it's needed, but I don't have a bay cover for that specific case... so I may get a card reader bay cover so I can use it for my PDA's and such if the time ever comes that I may want to do that. Possibly install a dvdrw too to keep upto modern standards.


As for the function of this machine, I have no idea yet! I'm thinking of using it as a source server for lanparties, but I'm not 100% sure if thats what I want to do yet. I'm just building it up because ... hell I don't even know :eek:



Now I'm just trying to figure out what kinda PSU i'll need since I don't want to drop a lot of money into this project :)
 
I remember my Pia Cube.

I bought it in September of 2001.

Sold it in Dec 2001.

Got it back in Dec 2003 (the machine got hit by lightning. mobo fried, CPU, RAM, hdd, etc. were good).

Sold it in Feb 2004.

That guy watercooled an Athlon XP 2500+, and put in a PS1 LCD (I remember him showing pr0n and x-men at LANs on it!)


Great systems...but pains in the ass to deal with. They're MATX but not...too small for some boards. Cooling is shit. But back in 2001, they were arguably the most popular mATX cases available. small + handle = great for LANs.
 
Generaluser45 said:
I remember my Pia Cube.

I bought it in September of 2001.

Sold it in Dec 2001.

Got it back in Dec 2003 (the machine got hit by lightning. mobo fried, CPU, RAM, hdd, etc. were good).

Sold it in Feb 2004.

That guy watercooled an Athlon XP 2500+, and put in a PS1 LCD (I remember him showing pr0n and x-men at LANs on it!)


Great systems...but pains in the ass to deal with. They're MATX but not...too small for some boards. Cooling is shit. But back in 2001, they were arguably the most popular mATX cases available. small + handle = great for LANs.
Click to expand...



Do you have any pics of any PIA's?
 
Ockie said:
If so, lets see them. I was lucky enough to hunt one down on ebay the other day... man am I the happiest man alive... I've been looking for one since the day they made it.
Click to expand...

How much cabbage are we talkin here.. 20-30 bucks? and I thought the word PIA was universal for "Pain in the ass" :p.

That thing definatley looks too tall, yet it looks just right.. Im not sure if I would attack it with a plasma cutter or cram in as much hardware as possible. Its kinda cute looking till I see the front plastic "bank vault" door cover thing. Hhmm... I want one, how much? :D
 
bob said:
How much cabbage are we talkin here.. 20-30 bucks? and I thought the word PIA was universal for "Pain in the ass" :p.

That thing definatley looks too tall, yet it looks just right.. Im not sure if I would attack it with a plasma cutter or cram in as much hardware as possible. Its kinda cute looking till I see the front plastic "bank vault" door cover thing. Hhmm... I want one, how much? :D
Click to expand...


Got it for $4.99 with a full K62 system inside and a 15gb hard drive.
 
wonders...

Was it an MSI motherboard in it running the Alladin 5 chipset with onboard Rage Pro and Sound Blaster 64?

The rear I/O looks oddly familiar.
 
Wow, I had two of those. The first one showed up at my door and then I sold it just as fast. It was a nice case to have to lan with. :) Don't think I have any pics of it though. :(
 
incomudro said:
Would make for an interesting mod project...anyone know where to buy one?
Click to expand...



You can't, they are rare to find.
 
I am about to buy a blue one but I am slightly feared that it will be to small for modern micro-ATX boards.

They seems to be extremely rare, and expensive to. I saw one in a computer shop 2 years ago but it was priced at 100 dollars. Finally found one on the net second hand but it is priced at 60-70 dollars.

Would love to built it up as a gaming box with 7900gt and a good CPU.

There is something special about these cases (good loking, cube shape) but maybe I should get a more modern case?
 
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