Project O.E.M. FRESH

[BigDan]

Project OEM Fresh came to life when I realized that my current configuration was not working for me. My computer was running hot and sloppy. An inadequate cooling solution and a sad excuse for cable management meant that my box could barely chug through a day’s work without need for a reboot. A year of total neglect while living in a hot, dusty, shit-hole of dorm room reduced my pride and joy to a barely running box of dust bunnies. When I came home and it was time for a LAN party my machine was hardly up for the task. I had to turn the computer off to let it cool down a few times because I felt like I wasn’t getting maximum performance. And that, as we all know, should never be the case.

So when my family decided to move to a new house this summer and I would be faced with a week without internet I felt it was the opportune time to re-outfit my computer. I won’t be upgrading much of the hardware, just a few small things for now, but everything is going to come out of the case and I am going to completely retool my box and then format and reinstall Windows try to make things are nice as possible.

So here are a few goals of the mod, nothing too fancy here just some basics:

• Adequate cooling - No water cooling here as I will be moving this box around and I have no desire to overclock or anything. The stock cooling for the cpu, northbridge and video card are all sufficient and the components will probably be upgraded in a few months anyways so this mod will look at case cooling only.
  
• Neat Cables - As you can see the cabling here is laughable. I basically threw everything together few days before school when I did a small upgrade and left things alone. Perhaps this will include some sort of sleeving only time will tell.
  
• Something to keep the dust out - As this case will no doubt be crammed into some small desk space I wont be able to clean things out as often as I would like so I need to get some sort of filter on my intake fan.
  
• Fixing all the other problems - As with any computer this thing one has its bugs, hopefully I can work some of that out. I plan on putting in a DVD-Rom drive and a faster primary hard drive to compliment my fresh install of windows and to get my computer ready for the next round of hardware upgrades.

The project was named “OEM Fresh” because I want to keep the appearance of my computer stock. The case itself is a rather plain looking Antec Sonata, a nice solid case that has served me well. It’s not a perfect case and is actually a bit of a pain in the ass to work on but I can see the potential.

And here are the current specs of the system:

• Athalon 2800+ XP
• DFI NFII 400-AL MB - Fry’s special - $50
• Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB
• 1 gig of Kingston Value Ram
• Lite-On 54x CD Burner
• Audigy 2
• Antec True Power 380 watt PSU
• 40 gig 5400 RPM Maxtor hard drive
• 120 gig 7200 RPM Western Digital hard drive
• 2 80mm fans

Here are the upgrade components

• 16x Lite-On DVD Rom Drive
• 80 gig 7200 RPM Western Digital hard drive (replacing the 40 gig)
• 2 120mm fans
• 802.11g wireless card (PCI)

We will get onto the pics in the next post.

edit - Updated and hopefully easier to read

 

[BigDan]

Just to familiarize us with my case, here she is in her current habitat. Looks like a nice little case.

Until you open it up that is! This is cable management at its finest.

You can see the layer of dust on the bottom of the case, I wiped some of it away with my finger. There is dust all over that intake fan and the intake side of the chassis. There is dust all inside the fans on the processor, video card, and psu. There is dust all over everything inside the case. This is especially embarrassing when you consider how long I have been a member of the [H] community.

Anyhow I took everything out of the case and brought the chassis over to my friend Tim’s place to use his dad’s workshop. Here she is in stock form…

 

[BigDan]

…And here she is after I ravaged both ends of her with a dremel! :-0 Note the fucked up case feet, I guess the case got really hot at some point and the glue melted and the feet shifted. I took a hair drier to the bottom of my case and moved the feet back for now. I would eventually like to get some good casters or something and get that glue residue off.

The front intake also got a bit of a reaming when I took a diamond coated dremel bit to it. Should open things up a bit to allow more airflow.

The drive cage also had to be modified slightly to accommodate the “extreme” cooling (and size) of my 120mm fans.

Here is the case after I put on the front 120mm fan and filter. Unfortunately the filter is extremely bulky and doesn’t fit in the front unless I really modify everything and even then it fucks up my nice front intake work so I ended up putting the filter on the back side of the fan. It may not the best solution but its better then a dust filled case.

And thats all for now... expect another update ASAP - feel free to leave some comments or suggestions. ONE TIME.

 

[KrakenGuy]

And you want better cable management? It looked perfect, I couldn't see a single cable.

</end sarcasm>

Keep up the good work, I hope to see more from you on this. I suggest copying Nightwind a little bit and doing a front grill instead of just making that hole bigger.

 

[BigDan]

And you want better cable management? It looked perfect, I couldn't see a single cable.

</end sarcasm>

Keep up the good work, I hope to see more from you on this. I suggest copying Nightwind a little bit and doing a front grill instead of just making that hole bigger.

Yeah I was inspired by Nightwind's work for the front grill but im not sure if I am willing to cut up the front of my case, I would prefer to look at it as a stock case. I think I am already looking at a definite improvement over the initial system, and if I elevate the case slightly more cool air will be able to pass through.

 

[BigDan]

At long last this worklog gets the update everyone has been waiting for!

Anyhow without further delay...

I threw together a little fanbus to help keep things tidy. The fans originally came with molex connectors to plug into the psu but I wasn’t having that bullshit clutter up my case. I only wired up half of the fan bus because I didn’t see the point in wiring up the other half if I wasn’t going to use it. This bad boy will sit on the bottom of my 5” device drive cage.

And here is another nifty little modification. I gutted an old CD-Rom drive, sealed up the end and now use it to store spare parts and tools. It’s actually pretty useful because it allows you to work on your computer anywhere and you can fit a good amount of stuff in it, especially if you use an older drive as they are bigger for whatever reason. Since my computer has a tool-less drive system I can pop the drive in and out easily to get at my tools whenever. Lets not forget the stealth factor too, I doubt anyone would mistake this for anything but a cd drive once it’s in your computer… good for storing all kinds of things… I actually did this mod last summer but since it is part of the case I figured I might as well post it.

aite y'all enjoy my hardcore modifications and dont be afraid to holla at your boy, feel me? More coming soon. ONE TIME.

 

[BigDan]

Alright ladies I've got another installment of my worklog ready. This will be the end of my first round of modifications and I must confess, I couldn't have gotten this far without your support. I've been thinking about what to do next and I have some good ideas and am confident that these ideas will revolutionize the way people approach modifying their computers. With that said lets get to the pics:

so fresh... so OEM Fresh.

Alright so it's not the best wiring job ever, but its an improvement. For your viewing pleasure I did a little comparison.

I'll probably end up redoing this but for now my comp is back in 1 piece, which is nice. With these few mods done I can already reap the benefits of improved performance and functionality. I would like to fine tune some things, futher increase the cosmetic appeal of the case, improve the wiring, work on my cooling a bit more, and perhaps even venture into silencing the dull roar of my high performance machine. I might do some more work this weekend if I get the supplies I need. In the meantime, y'all be sure to keep it real. ONE TIME.

 

[snoopy]

what are the differences between the before and after temps? if its cooler, who cares if a few wires are showing.

 

[BigDan]

Well just letting y'all know I haven't forgotten about the mod. This past weekend was a busy one as I continued to get settled into the new house. I got a fair amount accomplished but none of which is terribly interesting or important to the mod. The home network got tweaked and expanded and I put in a wireless print server and printer.

The computer also got taken care of a little bit, here are the various upgrades:

Hardware:

• Replaced the 40gig 5200 rpm primary harddrive with a 80 gig 7200 rpm unit
• Installed a new Lite-On DVD drive
• Installed 802.11g wireless card to work with my wireless print server

Software:

• Reformatted and configured the new drive and installed XP Pro w/ SP2
• Installed motherboard monitor to get temps for y'all (I'm surprised it actually worked, my last motherboard wasnt supported by it so I didn't think to install it earlier) - I'll get more into my temps later
• Installed all the other software and games I *need* on this box and got everything tweaked and running smoothly (a never ending process really)
• Got my ipod fixed and also got a USB cable for my Ipod... it actually updates now for the first time in months - an upgrade by every sense of the word!

This weekend I plan on devoting more time to the actual "mod" portion of the computer and should have some pictures to share sooner rather then later. Stay tuned as I continue to attempt to get this machine 100% configured the way I like it... there is still a lot that needs to be done.

 

[awdark]

I should do that with my computer... then I can rewire and get rid of the stupid rattle I often hear.

another person has a DFI Nforce2 400AL >_< wonderful mobo...

 

[BigDan]

I should do that with my computer... then I can rewire and get rid of the stupid rattle I often hear.

another person has a DFI Nforce2 400AL >_< wonderful mobo...

Gah! I didn't expect anyone to reply to this. Yeah the mobo leaves something to be desired. When I originally spec'd out the machine I purchased a nice ASUS mobo but it was DOA so I went to Fry's and picked out the cheapest NF2 board I could find... It works fine but not much room for upgrading.

As for the worklog, well this past weekend was spent fixing shit up around the house and tearing apart and rebuilding a laptop to fix the LCD screen so now I have a laptop (oldish p3 Thinkpad) to play around with. Consequently I haven't done a damn thing to this computer. I've got stuff purchased for this mod however and plan on doing some more stuff this weekend or next so watch out.

 

[BigDan]

Ok, time for an updated

First up, I wanted to cover a vent on my side panel to keep dust out and help improve the efficiency of my cooling. I think covering the vent helps "pull" more air through the front of the case and push it out the back and it helps keep dust out of my case. A piece of plexi and some double sided foam tape is all I need...

Next up was modifying my original fanbus to make the fanspeed controllable via rheostats. This involved rewiring the fanbus and mounting the rheostats, which involved a couple hours of me dicking around w/ a soldering iron, heatshrink and dremel but the end result looks, well somewhat OEM see for yourself

Here are the rheostats in place in the front of my case

And the view from the front:

I have it so it plugs into the clips of my fanbus so its totally modular, which I guess is a plus if I ever want to take it apart, and it looks like I will as I think 10k rheostats are too much and I should go with 5k.

This part of the project makes me realize how noisey the other components are in the computer. The graphics card and CPU both are stock coolers and they generate a good bit of noise. But I have some ideas brewing in the back of my head so fear not...

I will hopefully have more done soon(tm).

 

[BigDan]

Alright I got off my ass and did a little more work today. Let's see what got accomplished...

Today's project was to install the bad ass casters that I got from castersupply.com (an excellent vendor btw). The casters I chose for this project were heavy duty ball casters.

First a shot of some of the supplies including the bling bling casters I will soon be "rollin" on:

Next lets take a look at the stock case feet:

Needless to say the stock offering is pretty weak. The case barely gets elevated off the ground on a hard surface and forget about any elevation on carpet. These feet suck! And furthermore high heat melted the glue on some of the feet and made a huge fmess out of the bottom of my case. I will finally fix this problem. Here is a shot of the cleanup job (done with a hairdrier and some Goo Gone):

Looks pretty goddamn clean if I do say so. Anyhow, moving on - in short, I installed the casters:

Damn that looks pretty heavy duty. Easily a 100% improvement in terms of asethetics and functionality. Not to mention the fact that I can now roll my case around if I want...

And finally, lets take a look at the new profile shot of my case and see exactly how much elevation I get:

So whats next? I still have a lot planned for this case... so many things to do. I just ordered some more stuff and I have some time off so I hope to get a good amount of work done. I assure you it will be nothing too exciting but in the end it should all come together.

 

[2uantuM]

could always put fans on the bottom of the case to pull cool air in now that you have some elevation..

 

[DejaWiz]

Or some CCFL tubes to give it a 'hovering' look.

 

[darkhorse]

I just got the same case but black, nice mods.

 

[BigDan]

2uantuM

could always put fans on the bottom of the case to pull cool air in now that you have some elevation..

This is something that has crossed my mind... my CPU temp stays around 50-52C and my case stays at 35. I have no plans of overclocking. Do you (or anyone else) think that additional fans would offer much improvement? I do have more cooling modifications planned but none of them involve installing additional case fans.


DejaWiz

Or some CCFL tubes to give it a 'hovering' look.

This is also something that has crossed my mind. I do have plans for some lighting (that *should* show up in the next update) but no "ground effects" style lighting. If I can come up w/ a good way to do it I might.


darkhorse

I just got the same case but black, nice mods.

Thanks man. Have you done any work on yours?

 

[DejaWiz]

This is also something that has crossed my mind. I do have plans for some lighting (that *should* show up in the next update) but no "ground effects" style lighting. If I can come up w/ a good way to do it I might.

Maybe mount them inside the bottom of the case and cut small but long slats so the glow comes out, keeping the ccfl tubes hidden?

 

[Majin]

10 fold improvment.
Have you tought of maybe adding a bit of colour to that case?
Blue is nice
Orange is different
UV coloured paint would look sharp

 

[BigDan]

10 fold improvment.
Have you tought of maybe adding a bit of colour to that case?
Blue is nice
Orange is different
UV coloured paint would look sharp

I agree with you, the case looks a little sterile. None of the mods I have done are flashy, and are mostly for functional purposes. But since we are discussing my plans here is what I had in mind to "jazz" up my case a little:

For the front of the case I wanted to install 2 red 4" cold cathodes. For all of the wires I am planning on using a black w/ red wireloom (the nylon thread stuff) terminated with red heat shrink.

The stock paintjob is actually very nice. Its a smooth finish and feels almost auto quality. I recently bought another antec case and the paintjob/quality was bullshit compared to this. I like the color anyways and think it will work well w/ the colors I chose so I do not plan on painting the case.

Maybe mount them inside the bottom of the case and cut small but long slats so the glow comes out, keeping the ccfl tubes hidden?

I agree that underchassis lighting would look tight but I'm not sure if it is something I will want to do. If I put any holes in the bottom of my case I'm going to want to seal them w/ plexi or something so I don't let any dust in so thats something I will need to consider as well.

In other news, I ordered some stuff from SVC but it hasn't been shipped yet (sucks). Hopefully it will get here before I go on vacation next monday! There are a few little things I can do but nothing worth updating the log for.


Thanks for all of your advice and comments guys, hopefully I will be able to incorperate some of your ideas into this project to give my case a little more personality.

 

[Bepunk]

Since your case is a good 15C cooler than your proc, that means you have a very inefficient and insufficient heatsink.

Invest in an easy to install Zalman 7000AlCu/Cu or 7700AlCu/Cu. You could also get an XP-90 and install your own quiet 92mm fan.

Adding case fans will do nothing at this point.

 

[BigDan]

Since your case is a good 15C cooler than your proc, that means you have a very inefficient and insufficient heatsink.

Invest in an easy to install Zalman 7000AlCu/Cu or 7700AlCu/Cu. You could also get an XP-90 and install your own quiet 92mm fan.

Adding case fans will do nothing at this point.

Thanks, that makes sense. I wish I thought of that myself earlier because I doubt the heatsink I ordered is going to be much better... but it will be quieter. TBH I have never purchased an aftermarket CPU cooler before now. Perhaps there is some hope for it however...

 

[tooleech]

And finally, lets take a look at the new profile shot of my case and see exactly how much elevation I get:

damn, looking pretty aggressive.

Everything seems to be coming together nicely, and I like how you've focused on function first, instead of "blinging" it all out. Keep it real, keep it fresh.

ONE TIME.

 

[BigDan]

damn, looking pretty aggressive.

Everything seems to be coming together nicely, and I like how you've focused on function first, instead of "blinging" it all out. Keep it real, keep it fresh.

ONE TIME.

Word. 'pretiate the kind words podna. I'll be going out of town tomorrow for 10 days but when I get back expect some things to happen... should be fairly 1337.

 

[CrimandEvil]

I had that case, totally hated it.

I would have to echo the suggestion for a better like the Zalman.

I would also think of either a blow hole or a 120mm fan on the bottom to help with temps, I know that in mine alot of heat gathered right behind the 5.25 drives and PSU.

Also you might want to consider getting a more effiecent PSU, I switched out the Antec one that came with mine for a Fortron PSU and that helped to drop the temps alittle more.

Nice caster mod.

 

[V-e-l-o-c-i-t-Y]

I have that case and with some modification it can accualy produce quite nice airflow... i love my antec... but i dont think thats a lanboy is it? thats like a sonota or somthing right?

 

[Outback2k1]

That's not a LANBoy or a Sonata, it's an SLK2600. I got one of those too. I was a little disappointed at first, but it's really a great case.

And now that I've seen that, I'll probally be doing the same to mine, except I don't want to hack the HD holder so I'll go with a smaller fan in front. I never would have guess that a 120mm fan would fit on the back without hacking into the bar on the left.

PS. Mine doesn't have those extra holes to mount HD's in the floppy bays. But I see they're in your Before pictures...did you drill those yourself or did yours come like that?

 

[2uantuM]

Hey, do you have a link to those casters you bought? I looked at castersupplys.com but I couldn't find them. Also, let me know how the 5k rheostat went on controlling the fans

 

[BigDan]

Hey guys, just got back from my trip. Let see if I can handle things individually...

I had that case, totally hated it.

I would have to echo the suggestion for a better like the Zalman.

I would also think of either a blow hole or a 120mm fan on the bottom to help with temps, I know that in mine alot of heat gathered right behind the 5.25 drives and PSU.

Also you might want to consider getting a more effiecent PSU, I switched out the Antec one that came with mine for a Fortron PSU and that helped to drop the temps alittle more.

Nice caster mod.

Yes, the case has its problems. My main complaints would be that its cramped and doesnt have a removable motherboard tray, or even a way to get behind the mobo tray for that matter. As for the temps I ended up ordering a Zalman heatsink fan and if it wasn't for the fact that FedEx refuses to leave packages at my door I would have it in my hands right now.

As for the PSU, the stock 300watt unit crapped out on me after a year so I went for an Antec 380watt quiet psu or something a while ago... the PSU is another part of the system that needs some more attention/modification so I'll try to get to that next. And thanks for the kind words.

I have that case and with some modification it can accualy produce quite nice airflow... i love my antec... but i dont think thats a lanboy is it? thats like a sonota or somthing right?

Yes despite its shortcomings its actually a really nice case (very solid) and I like it a lot. I have been referring to it as a "Sonata" but yeah I think its actually a SLK2600 or something as Outback clarifies.

That's not a LANBoy or a Sonata, it's an SLK2600. I got one of those too. I was a little disappointed at first, but it's really a great case.

And now that I've seen that, I'll probally be doing the same to mine, except I don't want to hack the HD holder so I'll go with a smaller fan in front. I never would have guess that a 120mm fan would fit on the back without hacking into the bar on the left.

PS. Mine doesn't have those extra holes to mount HD's in the floppy bays. But I see they're in your Before pictures...did you drill those yourself or did yours come like that?

If you raise your computer up like mine you always have the option of mounting a 120mm on the floor of the case, or you could put a 92mm in the front.

Those holes are all stock but that drive bay is actually from another case, a friends old antec full tower. I didnt want to chop the original bay up when I had a spare... so to answer your question, I really have no idea.

Hey, do you have a link to those casters you bought? I looked at castersupplys.com but I couldn't find them. Also, let me know how the 5k rheostat went on controlling the fans

You can find the casters here: http://castersupply.com/NAV/store_ball_transfers.htm They are actually listed as "ball transfers" although I originally searched for "ball casters" to find them.

As for that 5k rheostat well, honestly I wouldn't advise doing it... at least the way I have it set up. You can't control the fanspeed that well before the fans stop spinning... its a very small window. I need to play around with it, perhaps trying just 1 rheostat to see if that would work, or I might need to actually do a little electronics here... the shitty 5$ analog multimeter I am using isnt helping so once I get a new one I can really see what its doing to my voltages.

I originally posted the idea in the electronics forum and the replies I got suggested that it would work fine, but thats not the case. The reason why I haven't really "fixed" it yet is because I discovered that the fans on my CPU and GPU were much louder then the case fans so it was kind of a moot point anyways. Hopefully I'll get the problem sorted out once I install my VGA silencer and new HS/F and you can learn from my mistakes.


Well thanks for the comments guys I have a couple free weeks ahead of me so I hope to wrap this project up so stay tuned!

 

[BigDan]

Well, I recieved some stuff from SVC the other day, my dual 4" cc kit and a VGA silencer for my 9800 Pro. An obligatory shot of the goods:

Today's update will focus on the video card. This is the first aftermarket heatsink/fan I have purchased and installed for a video card, and is a mod I probably should have done a year or so ago when I first bought the card, but I plan on holding onto this card for at least a few more months. Dropping temps and silencing the noisey card are my goals.

Well the install was straight forward enough, took me 15 minutes or so to get the hardware installed. I imagine people have seen a VGA Silencer before... I saw the pictures online but I hadn't imagined the thing being so massive... its as big as the card and twice as thick... pretty sizable. Anyhow, here is a really crappy comparison shot because I'm all about comparisons in this mod...

on a sidenote: does anyone know if I should have removed that square piece of metal surrounding the "cpu" of the video card? The pictures of the card in the documentation didn't have it... perhaps it varies from brand to brand.

After that I decided to update my drivers and try to figure out if I could see what the temps were. I uninstalled the drivers following the advice in this thread: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=752253 and ended up using ATItool ( http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/ ) to overclock the card. All in all it was an excellent experience. I got a nice performance boost (at least on paper) overclocking from 378/338 to 410/374 and I have it set so that it overclocks only when a 3D application loads... a nifty little feature. Unfortunately, my card doesnt have a temp sensor so I couldn't figure out what the temps before and after were like. My guess is that its a lot cooler and thats all that really matters.

In terms of noise I still have a loud stock HS/F on the CPU so until my Zalman unit arrives (which wont be for a while, my order never got delivered - its a long story but I'm hoping I'll get it sometime next week ) the computer is still pretty loud, but this is a step in the right direction.