nox-box

[tominox]

I've recently switched all my hard-ware over to an HTCP case, and I'm going to be doing some major rebuilding and modding on my old aspire x-qpack, that's already been hacked a bit (used to be watercooled).

I got an old lomita celeron board from a pavilion 511n from a friend of mine, which I am going to use.

My goal in all of this is not to make a fancy powerfull rig (the mb doesn't even have a pci-e or agp slot, just 3 pci slots) but rather to make a small portable good looking computer that is silent, well cooled, small and unique.

Time for some pics!


This is the xqpack chasis. You can see that it had been cut a bit, one for a dual 80mm radiator, the other for a 60 mm fan that helped cool the hard drives. This case is going to get hacked.

This is the motherboard in question. I added two ram sinks (right) and a cooler over the NB and SB using the superglue / thermal paste method. It may or may not make any difference whatsoever, I'm not even sure that there is any substantial amount of heat put out by these chips, but I had the extra heat sinks, so I figured might as well put them to some use. I have 3 pci slots to work with, usb 1.1, 512mb sdram (thats the max), the celeron 1.3GHz, onboard intel video and some random 2 chanel sound.

I also have an older small form hirpo 160W psu that's going to be powering everything. 160W should be plenty for the limited stuff thats going into this box. I've swapped out the fan on this psu (noisy) for a blue led 80mm fan that i tore out of the crappy xpack psu.
I have some black sleeving left over that will go on the wires (after I get a molex removal tool).

More to come soon!

 

[Mohonri]

That motherboard looks significantly shorter front-to-back than the normal 9.6"x9.6" uATX-standard motherboard. It looks like you'd be able to easily chop off the front 5 or 6 inches of the case and still fit everything in fine.

 

[tominox]

The MB is 9.25 x 7.25 inches in size. What I will be doing is basically getting rid of the top half of the case, although I did at one time consider getting rid of the front 5 inches, and making it more into a cube. Updates to come tommorow.

 

[tominox]

Just a few things today.

I cut down the MB tray so it fits the board exactly. The reason for this is because now I have almost 5 inches of room between the front of the MB and the front of the chasis where a 120mm fan and 2 hard drives will be going. Otherwise the 2 inches of the MB tray that the board did not sit over interfered with the placement of the fan and HD's.

The DVD drive sits overtop of (centred) the HD cage and 120mm fan. Above it, is a series of two switches that I had laying around. No idea what I am going to use them for just yet. Behind the switches, where the floppy bay is, is going to be the OS HD, probably just a 40GB. The actual HD cage that is beside the 120mm fan on the bottom of the case will remain empty until I either pick up a sata or scsi controller. Unfortunately, this board doesnt allow you to fully populate the two IDE controllers with 4 drives, only with 3. The black line at the far left just above the floppy bay is where the case is going to be cut, giving the case a final height of 5 inches.

Any suggestions as what I can do / control with the 2 switches in the floppy bay?

 

[tominox]

A few small things today.

I found a pair of blue led's connected to a molex. Wanting to make my own version of a tube light, I cut a small length of a purple plastic drinking straw, and attached the led, one on either end, into the straw. The unit sits in the cut out slot in the CPU HS that the clip that attaches the HS to the socket runs across. With the fan on top, you can't see too much light emanating from the top, but from the side there is a blue glow.

Another shot with the light on:

I found an old fan controller from a zalman HS fan that I attached to my 60mm HS fan. Then I sleeved it:

Also I sleeved the PSU, removing a floppy connector and the 4 pin MB connector, which this MB doesn't have. I suppose its because of a lack of an agp /pic-e slot. I ran out of clip ties and heatshrink so I used the tried and trusted electrical tape method to seal off the ends.

I also sleeved some other items. Ran out of sleeving, so I ended up using some extra tubing that I had laying around from a kingwin wc system. Alas I found a bit more shrinkwrap so I threw that into the mix. The top cable is the sound cable that goes from the DVD/CD to the MB, the power switch and HD activity LED cable beneath it, then an audio out cable that goes from the MB to the speakers, and a 120mm fan from the original xqpack.

More to come soon!

 

[tominox]

Small update.

Finished all the sleeving. I ended up using quite a bit of black electrical tape, first instead of shrinkwrap, then, in some cases, using 6mm tygon tubing instead of sleeving and electrical tape over the whole thing. Not that its going to matter too much in the end, there's just going to be 2 small windows in the actual case itself, and your not going to be able to see much cabling at all. Still havent figured out what I am going to do with the 2 switches, but some ideas come to mind. Obviously I could use it to control some of the lighting (have some red bubble lights I got for $2) or I could get a pci slot fan (since I only have 3 pci slots in the MB but 4 openings in the MB tray, and then hook the switch up to that fan. Anyway, a pic:

 

[GhengisKhan]

I could see this one getting interesting...

*subscribed

 

[tominox]

A few small updates for today.

I've done most of the rebuilding of the old xqpack chasis, have some more filing and deburrig and general detail work to do, as well as adding a bracket for the back, and the bracket supporting the optical drive in the front. Just to give you an idea of the size, I've included a comparison with the SG01, which I just picked up the other day. Pictures:

You can see how the right support bar has been cut. The gap near the front is to accomodate a vertically placed 120mm fan which will be the air intake as well as the hard drive cooling. Near the back of the case, the support has been cut to accomodate the PSU.

This is the back. Notice the absolute lack of any structural support. The left over piece of the back is somehow going to be riveted onto the chasis, hopefully adding some support. The PSU, which is the main weight issue, will actually partially sit on a set of silicone plugs attached to the back end of the CPU fan.

That bezel is riveted in the floppy bay, to house a pair of switches that I still havent figured out what I am going to do with. The bezel protrudes 0.25 inches from the front of the chasis, so it will line up with the plexiglass front cover of the case.

More to come soon!