Vectra ATX conversion

S

Silversierra

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 20, 2005
Messages
263
I'm modding an old HP Vectra case that was being thrown out. I will be making it a reverse(mobo upside down) atx case. It has the power supply on the bottom as well as the optical drives. The front has a sliding "door" to hide the drives. Here are some pix to start out of the how it looks without any mods.





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To start the mod, I cut out the divider between the top half and bottom half of the case with a dremel. I then cut out a 120mm fan intake on the front of the case with a metal-cutting jigsaw. I drilled fan mounting holes in the appropriate positions and test fit the fan. Finally, I used a right angle piece of aluminum to make a place to mount a hard drive above the optical drive bays. The drive bays in this case use metal drive rails and are pretty simple to use. I also found a stamp on the case that had a manufacture date...Dec 4, 1995 :). I purchased a sheet of steel to make the motherboard tray and some motherboard standoffs as well (despite my many bags of case screws I've accumulated, I could only find four or five standoffs that were the same). Here's a picture of the progress.

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As a side note, these are the parts I'm thinking of getting to go in this case.

EVGA 750i SLI FTW
q6600, e6600, or e8400 w/ Tuniq Tower 120mm (undecided, leaning q6600 april 20th :D)
4GB Kit Ballistix Cas4
8800GTS 512MB (reuse current)
640GB WD Sata
Corsair 650TX PSU (on it's way)

I have a question though in regard to using the 750i board in my build. Will the heatpipe cooling work ok in a situation where the motherboard is "upside down?" I've heard some people say it's a bad idea, and others say it doesn't matter, and I really have no idea...any help?

I'm also undecided on whether I should paint the exterior or not. On one hand the finish is "ok," but on the other hand beige is so...1995. :rolleyes: I would like to paint it black, but I'm not sure about painting around the sliding door on the front, I think the paint might make the door stick or will possibly rub/scrape off in use. I was considering painting just the metal casing black, but leaving the front plastics white, or painting the metal casing and the front plastic trim black, but leaving the door and track white. I've seen some people recommend vinyl dye for case plastics, but the last stuff I tried sucked big time. It went on "splotchy" and looked horrible, but maybe it was just a crappy brand or old or something.
 
Ok, I cut most of the back panel out of the Vectra and cut a piece of sheet metal to fit the back panel and also made the i/o plate and card slot cutouts.


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I then made my pci/pci-e card mounting rail from aluminum "L" bar. I will be able to fasten the cards down with a machine screw nut holding down each card.

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I finally then got the mobo plate mounted in the case and got the case cleaned up a bit. Here're some pix. The mobo in the pictures is a junk board I'm using to test fit the standoffs and card slots.




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It's starting to shape up a bit now. :) Looks like I'll have plenty of room for long graphics cards too. :D Also, just a note, my camera makes things that are square look slightly crooked, a little like fisheye effect, so if it looks a little off, it's probably the camera. I've decided that I will be painting the interior matte black and the exterior all glossy black.
 
(I had this post all written up and just went to post, and the comp I'm using hard-locked, so I lost my post, I don't really feel like retyping it all again, so here're the cliffs of it.)


My mod is basically finished so I will post the pictures of my progress.

I started by cutting out a slot to add front usb ports to the case as shown in the pic.

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I then primered the inside of the case with flat black auto primer.



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I painted the inside with flat black paint then as shown in these pics.



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I then proceeded to disassemble the outer casing. Once I had it down to individual pieces, I primered them with black primer, then I put two coats of glossy black paint on.
(fyi: these are pictures of just the exterior casing, this is why you can see light through the front vents in pic2)



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So there you have it, the mod is mainly done. I just have to put my parts in when I get them and do a few final details. It's been a fun and challenging mod. I think my three favorite pastimes are gaming, oc'ing, and case modding (even if I'm not the best at any of them, at least I have fun doing it :p). This case mod is somewhat of a combination of all three of my pastimes as it obviously involved modding, will be used for my new gaming rig, and will surely be oc'ed when I get it set up. Feel free to leave any comments if you wish.

-Silversierra
 
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