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IBM Aptiva Ressurection

I

iToast

n00b
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
30
Hey all,

I have recently come across this old aptiva at work and I instantly was inspired to obtain it and do a nice case mod. But, I am rather inexperienced at case modding and suggestions would be helpful. I will be posting a worklog as soon as the parts come in from newegg. Here is the plan, to take this old aptiva which is a rather unique design utilizing an external SCSI enclosure to house its optical and floppy drives as well as be a really nice looking case because of its lack of clutter. I wish to maintain all of this when I modify this machine. The objective is to either formulate an HTPC or at least a more powerful machine within this case. The problem: I wish to keep the external drive device, but there is no scsi card that is pci that has a similar connector (that I know of) and the machine has a strange board design so cutting will be neccessary to fit an ATX board in the machine and due to the position of the power supply I will probably need to use a micro ATX board. Any suggestions / experiences would be helpful. Again I will post a work log as soon as i begin.
 
Here are some pics of what I am working with. Sorry for the quality.
aptivaback2kp.jpg

aptivafront1tw.jpg

aptivaside6jh.jpg

externalscsi6xr.jpg

scsiback8pn.jpg

scsiopen6ml.jpg

together1bp.jpg
 
I'm looking forward to seeing this! But I did have one question- the SCSI enclosure. Is it free-standing, or does it integrate into/onto the case somehow?
 
that's quite an interresting setup, I look forward to hearing more from this :)
 
The original intention that IBM had was to seperate the CPU and the drive enclosure in order to make it a more "spacious" desktop environment. So the enclosure is built to set on the desktop instead of on or near the case and thusly it has a VERY long SCSI cable.
 
Nifty. I haven't seen one of those in years.

As far how to run external bay, remove the SCSI guts (leave in the power supply, if it has one) and get something like this: http://store.yahoo.com/store4pc/usbtoidecabf.html and install an IDE DVD drive. Then replace the floppy with a USB one: http://www.pricegrabber.com/user_sales_getprod.php?masterid=2906304&lot_id=1160905&mode=googlegfr

If the drives received power through the data cable instead of a power supply in the external bay, use the power supply that comes with the above adapter to power the DVD.

I liked the pop-up action on those.
 
KomraD said:
I have that same computer!
Click to expand...
Yeah I've got one of those too (somewhere). Bought it brand new when a Pentium 166 was the thing to have. The remote removable drive/ on/off switch was a great idea. You could hide the main computer case and only need the satellite under your monitor.

edit: not much, but here is some old info at IBMs site.
link
 
I go with a firewire bridge myself. But yea it will prob be better to ditch the scsi for sake of ease.
 
Ok sorry it took so long to update, but I have finally come to the decision of what I am going to incorporate into this machine. I am going to use a dual PIII motherboard with 2 800Mhz PIII Processors. Any suggestions?
 
Eek. A full-sized ATX board will be a pain in the butt to fit in the tower, and I don't think they make dual P3 boards that are M-ATX. I'm not even sure you'll have enough room to relocate the power supply to the front. With a full-ATX board the I/O plate will be where the power supply is now.
 
yeah perhaps you are correct. I am going to take some pics of the interior of this case and maybe you guys could give me some suggestions on boards. The only i picked the Dual P III is because I have 2 P III 800 socket 370 and 1 P III 650 Slot proc. Any suggestion on a different board? The satelite and the optical drives will be dismantled today and I will be get some pictures of that for you all to see. Furthermore I have decided to swtich to using firewire connectivity because apparently it uses much less processor than the USB 2.0 interface does. I am not sure of this but it seems as though that seems to be the case.
 
For the external case, see you you can find an external SATA header. It's not an official format, but I've seen them here and there. I beleive that they just use a regular SATA cable too. Might be useful?
 
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