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Archaic: Old School Case Mod Project

xjmtx said:
just been waiting for a reply just like this...

So this case is brought to us by BBQ Ribs...

the BBQ Ribs Case....looks... delicious:D
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Haha, :) Does that Dave Chappelle skit ring any bells? "Mmmmmm, hickory.... Thanks ribs!"
 
I'd love to wrap this up this weekend. Just some minor fixes and tweeks before paint. Then the finishing flat black paint. I may come up with something for the power button. A design or etching of some kind. What do you all think so far?
 
I got the Archaic case mod all wrapped up this morning and I've just been detailing the cable management. I must say, I'm very pleased with the outcome. I looks even better than I thought it would in the end. I'll put up more pictures later, but here's a few to hold you over for now. Let me know what you think!
IMAG0913.jpg

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The optical drive, with a little tweaking actually turned out nicely and works really well. The button is a small stainless steel button head cap screw, M4 I believe.
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The inside is a pleasure to work in. Plenty of room. Not a whole lot of built in cable management, but there is room to hide the bulk of the wires.
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Please forgive the rat's nest at the moment. I'm still working on it. The biggest mess you see really is only the red SATA cables to the DVD and SSD, along with the fan wires. Those will be cleaned up in due time. I need to order some black 12"-18" cables for the SSD and DVD. The 6" and 10" ones I ordered originally are too short, but long enough for the other 2 HDDs.
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Well, I'm pleased. What do you think?

:D
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Update: I ordered a 92mm fan for the back, 2 18" black SATA cables and a Bluetooth adapter to put (and leave) in the USB port of the card reader. Woop woop!
 
Looks amazing man! The DVD drive turned out really nicely. What kinda temps are you getting?
 
CapnCrunch53 said:
Looks amazing man! The DVD drive turned out really nicely. What kinda temps are you getting?
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Thanks man!

The temps are reasonable. With both fans spinning on LOW, I get 28/32 @ idle on the CPU/GPU. Load temps are 34/62 respectively. GPU temps will likely improve once I get that 92mm exhaust in there. CPU temps likely stay the same. Not too shabby!
 
It looks like the lid fan is exhaust. I'd flip that over and pump some more cool air into the case. Remember a positive pressure situation in the case will give you better cooler then a negative pressure. It'll also make it easier to deal with dust.

Or you could add a pair of 120s to the left side and have them blowing directly at the video card. then put the 92mm as exhaust. 3-120 intake, 2-120s and a 92 as exhaust, should keep you positively pressured with alot of airflow.
 
Thanks!

Are my temps that bad that I need to reconfigure my fans? Or are you just making suggestions to make it a little better?

I'll give flipping the top 140mm fan around to INTAKE to see what kind of difference that makes. Can't hurt to try.

I thought about adding a 120mm intake fan or two to the LH side panel for the GPU. That may be a mod in the future.

Overall, my temps are good as is, requiring no remedy. But if it can be made better by just flipping fans around, why not! :)
 
Love the way this thing looks, gives me some ideas for my old school build I am planning for all of my Win 98 games.
 
dieseldog49 said:
Love the way this thing looks, gives me some ideas for my old school build I am planning for all of my Win 98 games.
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Thanks dieseldog. I'd have to say this is one of my favorite case mods I've done. Not common to see the old desktop cases anymore. They've evolved into htpc cases now.
 
cmadki4 said:
Thanks!

Are my temps that bad that I need to reconfigure my fans? Or are you just making suggestions to make it a little better?

I'll give flipping the top 140mm fan around to INTAKE to see what kind of difference that makes. Can't hurt to try.

I thought about adding a 120mm intake fan or two to the LH side panel for the GPU. That may be a mod in the future.

Overall, my temps are good as is, requiring no remedy. But if it can be made better by just flipping fans around, why not! :)
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I figured you were worried about since you said something about it. If you don't care, I'd say the temps are just dandy.

PS: Even though I haven't said it yet, the thing looks awesome. regardless if what you do with the fans, this a spectacular show of plain skill using the most basic of components. Well done sir. Lemme know when you sell it :D
 
Jorona said:
I figured you were worried about since you said something about it. If you don't care, I'd say the temps are just dandy.

PS: Even though I haven't said it yet, the thing looks awesome. regardless if what you do with the fans, this a spectacular show of plain skill using the most basic of components. Well done sir. Lemme know when you sell it :D
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Thanks Jorona! Those seem to be the case mods I have the most fun doing, where I take the mundane and make something cool out of it. I've done builds from scratch, but they are more technical than anything. Not as much wingn' it there as there is with mods like this one :)

Once I get that top fan reversed I'll run a quick comparison and see how it does. I'm always open to different ideas. How else do we learn?
 
Thanks gents! I appreciate the compliments. Keeps me motivated!

But you may question my quality of work after these more hi-res photos. I can't hide my shotty work with my cell phone camera anymore, haha ;)

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Thumbscrews, painted to match. Remove four of these and the top comes off:
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The rear. Still looking for my vented PCI slot covers. They're around here somewhere.
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Power/reset button and status LEDs pulled from Elite 360 ATX case. The buttons were black, but I sanded the finish off down to the aluminum:
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The "stealth" optical drive. A little more subtle than exposing the whole drive:
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The 140mm top exhaust fan. The grille is cut from the top of an Antec 300. This may get switched to intake experimentally.
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The front panel popped off. The face of the optical drive is remove. I added electrical tape to cover the gaps to prevent dust invasion. And you can see below the optical drive where the two HDDs are mounted via the rubber grommet/thumbscrews setup. You can also see the white "snap plugs" (for lack of a better term) that I pulled from another case to allow you to just snap the face panel on and off. No screws to undo.
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Sort of hard to see, but this is my storage. SSD on top and two HDDs below. I modified a standard SATA power cable to have the plugs spaced just right for the drives. And then the end plug goes to the optical drive.
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I was able to tuck some of the cables, like the HD Audio and USB, under the motherboard tray.
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Overall, it's relatively clean. I'm not a cable management freak, but I do like some organized chaos. ;)
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Oooh, look at all the lights! Usually only the power and card reader lights are lit. But I got them all going just for the pic.
IMG_3018.jpg


And there you go!
 
Grab some blue ram heat spreaders!

The thing looks great. It looks custom, and custom is never perfect. Little blemishes give it character. Once again, this is a great mod using simple supplies that just looks phenominal. They look like they should be available off the shelf.
 
Jorona said:
Grab some blue ram heat spreaders!

The thing looks great. It looks custom, and custom is never perfect. Little blemishes give it character. Once again, this is a great mod using simple supplies that just looks phenominal. They look like they should be available off the shelf.
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Thank you kindly! Yeah, the hand-made touch comes through in the imperfections and I'm cool with that. :)

For heat spreaders, I have contemplated removing the existing red ones and painting them flat black. Down side is if I ever choose to sell them (though not likely).

Also, I think I will need to, at a minimum, add an intake to the side panel by the GPU. It gets a little warm at idle if the room temp goes up. So I may try to remedy that. I was avoiding intakes on the side due to how the case sit in a cabinet. I didn't want it to recycle warm air back through the case, instead opting for a strictly front-to-back flow . So I'll just have to give some thought to where I want that intake at.
 
RogueTrip said:
Great work. You don't hold on to things for long it seems :)
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Thanks! No I really don't. Every mod I do is more about the process. I rarely mind if I keep the case or not. I just enjoy making something unique. :)
 
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