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Quasi-Desk Mod

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[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 13, 2002
Messages
1,042
So last Saturday i just had a spur of the moment mod epiphany. All of a sudden i felt like stripping my case butt nekkid and putting all the parts into my desk. Well, it didn't go so well because of size and wire length constrictions but i did my best. It's not even close to done and I think I am going to set up a system of shelves where i can mount the motherboard and other components on.

What are the risks of leaving a motherboard screwed into wood? Should I instead screw some standoffs into the wood and subsequently screw the motherboard into those? Would that be safer? Give me some comments, flames, suggestions. THanks.

http://www.daocplace.com/tng/tng/pics/comp
 
Although it may not "hurt" your machine having the mobo mounted directly to the wood, i would definatly recomend useing standoffs, it'll give a little clearance between the mobo and the wood, that way there's a smaller chance of anything shorting out
 
Just make sure everything is grounded properly. usually the case is also used as an emergency ground to the psu then out of the case. here if something happens you better hope the power cable grounds do the job.
 
you have the case speaker ontop of your hard drive? Is this safe with the whole magnetic = teh lose idea?

edit : in the 4th pic i see you moved it... I think thats a good idea, but who knows might not matter at all.
 
Originally posted by File
you have the case speaker ontop of your hard drive? Is this safe with the whole magnetic = teh lose idea?

edit : in the 4th pic i see you moved it... I think thats a good idea, but who knows might not matter at all.
Click to expand...

The case speaker's magnet is not even close to being strong enough to wipe a hard drive's data. Besides, it's even magnetically shielded.

To ground the motherboard, how would I go about doing that?

Also, I have about 3 cases lying around not doing anything. I just got tired of having my case there so I decided it needed a change.
 
the speaker on top of the harddrives makes me wince

move that thing
 
Originally posted by kronchev
the speaker on top of the harddrives makes me wince

move that thing
Click to expand...

Are you serious? Have you seen those things? They are soooo small and like I said before it is magnetically shielded. In addition, it is only activated once in a blue moon, whenever you turn on your computer and whenever you fuck up. Doesn't really matter anyway, if you looked at the last picture, I used double sided tape to mount it to the side of the CD-ROM drive. :)
 
doesnt matter how big it is. it could be the size of a dime or a basket ball. the signals given off of it will screw up the drive. you will notice that the drive will start to crash. somtimes when you look for data it will be missing. also i think you would have a lot more room if all that was in a case. also it would keep everything runing better. i guarentee you that
 
Nope, that statement is wrong. The magnetic field produced by it is definitely not powerful enough to cause any harm. And, as I stated above, twice, it is shielded. Meaning that any magnetic field generated by the current going through the speaker would not escape. And as I also stated above, if you look at the last picture, it is on the side of the cdrom drive.
 
Originally posted by DRJ1014
doesnt matter how big it is. it could be the size of a dime or a basket ball. the signals given off of it will screw up the drive. you will notice that the drive will start to crash. somtimes when you look for data it will be missing. also i think you would have a lot more room if all that was in a case. also it would keep everything runing better. i guarentee you that
Click to expand...

yeh, thats wrong. its unfounded fear but it did make me wince
 
the best way to ground your equipment is to...

plug it in, you know those black wires they are the ground, and if your pluging your psu into an outlet with a ground then anything that is getting power from your psu is grounded

you dont need stand offs if you putting the mobo on wood wood doesnt conduct, no static, no shorting out shit, end of story (from reading some posters on this forum i get the idea that you need to live in a glass house surounded by an anti stacit bag to even look at a pc, and it just isnt so)

yo ass hatts, there are magnets all over your damn computer and it runds fine, what do you think spinns the hard drives, fans, CDs fairy magic, no magnets, what do think your moniters are full of, magnetshell there are damn speakers on mother boards and in cases, are you scared of them too??? what if i put two hard drives next to eachother, and write the oposite thing and the same time does it meen i wrote nothing b/c of the magnets
 
Originally posted by BLsibub666


yo ass hatts, there are magnets all over your damn computer and it runds fine, what do you think spinns the hard drives, fans, CDs fairy magic, no magnets, what do think your moniters are full of, magnetshell there are damn speakers on mother boards and in cases, are you scared of them too??? what if i put two hard drives next to eachother, and write the oposite thing and the same time does it meen i wrote nothing b/c of the magnets
Click to expand...

lol.gif
...well put.

As for the grounding part, the previous posts gave me the impression that I should something in addition to the plugging it in part. I know enough about electricity to figure that one out. :p So yeah, I'm hoping to do some work in the near future, just as soon as I get through all my Spring Break homework and my Morgan Stanley mentorship program and my step practice and everything else in my busy spring break life. :eek:
 
yes magnets. have u ever tried to put a magnet together 2 different ways? it pushes away. thats basically what your doing here. if you put the magnet in the wrong spot it will do damage. just warning you.
 
Arghh...is it so hard to grasp these two concepts. 1, the speaker is magnetically shielded so it only emits an extremely minute magnetic field and 2, I moved the damn thing. :rolleyes::p
 
LOL. Those pictures were just to show the mess of modding. But sadly, it's still like that. :p Kinda hard to keep organized when living in an apartment and your "room" is just a portion of the living room. Yup, my sister is 22 and still loving at home. Gotta love it. :eek:
 
http://www.daocplace.com/tng/tng/pics/comp/DSCF0042.JPG

I figured out that my mobo tray was easily removable so I'll be doing something with that, not sure what yet. I'll either mount it vertically on the right side of the desk area or put the tray on "stilts" and situate everything else below it. The latter option would optimize space in my belief. My ultimate goal is to have a scanner shelf directly adjacent to the level of the main desk piece.
 
I had some grounding issues in my case, mainly when I touched it and I'd get shocked (or shock the case, whichever) I just ran a few wires from a screw on the bottom of each hard drive to a mounting screw for the mobo standoffs to the screw plate of my PCI cards to (effectively) the ground on the wall outlets. It's basically the same setup as a computer case with my wires now completing the circuit. Just keep it in my mind if your computer randonly powers off... =)
 
Thanks for the tip, Thartek. I'm going to try and work on it later tonight if I get some free time. Not exactly sure how I'm going to do it but I guess I'll figure something out. Keep the suggestions coming (not that there have been many).
 
company i started made custom desks with integrated components directly to the desks we'd sell. Everything was home made and designed. You're fine putting the components the way they are but you should think about cleanin it all up!
 
Heh, yeah, I am planning on redoing it later today. I bought some shelf brackets from Home Depot so I can elevate the power supply, hard drives, floppy and optical drives. The motherboard will be mounted onto the mobo tray. One question though: Is there any way to secure the PCI/AGP cards because the other day I went to move a cable out of the way of something else and accidentally moved the sound card and my computer froze.
 
If the motherboard tray has those little screws to secure the pci cards, i would hope that would be ok? might get an occasional freeze when 'pushing' the cards around, but youll just have to do your best to avoid it.

No outside way of securing the cards other than the mobo holding it in, and the little screws for that panel.
 
Thanks PyreFlame, that basically reinforces my previous statements in a more sophisticated way.

File:
If the motherboard tray has those little screws to secure the pci cards, i would hope that would be ok? might get an occasional freeze when 'pushing' the cards around, but youll just have to do your best to avoid it.

No outside way of securing the cards other than the mobo holding it in, and the little screws for that panel.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by those little screws to secure the pci cards? Are you talking about the back panel? With the bracket for the motherboard and everything. I was thinking about popping the rivets out of that and securing that to the tray but I'm not sure how.
 
Originally posted by DRJ1014
yes magnets. have u ever tried to put a magnet together 2 different ways? it pushes away. thats basically what your doing here. if you put the magnet in the wrong spot it will do damage. just warning you.
Click to expand...

You need a much, much, MUCH stronger magnetic field than even a unsheilded case speaker would produce to do *anything* to a hard drive.

Cut the chicken little routine ;)
 
"Long-Awaited" updates to the desk mod.

DSCF0058.JPG

Just a little test fit for the motherboard tray.

DSCF0059.JPG

My case after popping the backplate off which can be seen attached in the first pic. Finally got that thing off after about an hour of drilling, 1 broken drill bit, sweaty hands, and some help from a diamond cutter on my dremel.

DSCF0060.JPG

The shelf brackets that I bought to "mount" the power supply, optical drives and hard drives.

DSCF0062.JPG

The brackets are mounted for the power supply.

DSCF0063.JPG

DSCF0064.JPG

"Finished product." Still gonna mount up the drives at a later date but I'm spent for the night.

Also, that Panaflo is keeping my processor nice and cool at <40 C. Pretty damn good for a close to stock heatsink, with radio shack thermal goop. You likey?
 
"Bush F@$#in Sucks" haha.

Nice mod, takes some balls. Put some colored plexi around it and it'll be purrrrrrrrty.
 
Definitely gonna make a cover for this. I have some acryllic hinges that i can use too.

My mountain dew stays on the other side of the desk.
 
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