What should I do with this old case?

[athenian200]

So here's the story behind it. Skip if you don't care.

Spoiler

Back in early 2008, my Dad got me a Velocity Micro. It had 4GB of RAM, a Q6600, Windows Vista, and an 8800GTS. Also had two Hitachi DeskStar hard drives running in RAID 0. It seemed to do things at about the same speed or a little slower compared to my old Windows XP machine on a dual core system, and I wasn't initially impressed by the fact that it could run more things at once. Around late 2011, I was starting to feel unsatisfied with the gaming performance of an 8800GTS and got myself a 560 Ti thinking that because I had a 550W PSU, I would be fine. Well, I got that card and found that whenever I put a load on the GPU, the system would restart itself. Assuming it was a dodgy OEM power supply, I bought a 650W Antec unit. But the problem didn't go away when I swapped out the PSU. It turned out the P5N-E SLI that my system came with just couldn't handle the strain of both a Q6600 and a 560 Ti at once. I believe the Q6600 was the maximum quad-core it could support, and it was stretched to its limits when they built it basically. For some weird reason, I was told that a 560 Ti was simply too much for it, but a second 8800GTS in SLI would have been fine with my boosted PSU. I have no idea why to this day.

Well, I already had a new PSU and a 560 Ti, so I figured I would take the next logical step. I sold the motherboard, RAM, and CPU on eBay, and then got a used 2600K and Maximus IV Extreme off eBay while I was at it. So when I got the new motherboard home, it turned out even though the case was big enough to accommodate EATX and had mounting holes for it, the hard drive bays were oriented with the long side front-to-back and blocking me from physically getting it in there. I got so frustrated that I took a pair of scissors, cut a thin piece of sheet metal connecting the optical bays and the hard drive bays, and pulled up enough of the rivets holding the drive bay to the bottom of the case to get it twisted around so the back of the drive bay faced the side. That created just enough room to put my motherboard in, and I got everything working after that. The thing originally came with two optical drives, and I'd had to replace one of them with a SATA-based DVD-RW drive after it died. Now that I had my new board in, however, I realized the card reader and the old drive that still worked were both IDE, and thus I couldn't plug them in. So I hooked up the power to the top optical drive to get a disc out, and just left it like that. As for the two DeskStars, I just reformatted them and used them in RAID 0 again like the original machine because I was being cheap and didn't know how big a deal SSDs were yet.

The only problem was... it ran terribly hot. I had a non-modular PSU with wires coming out of it like crazy, a 560 Ti, and a 2600K all running in a case with older, smaller fans. I had to take the side off the case and point a box fan at it, and even then it would really heat up the whole room like crazy, especially after we moved and I had to put the PC in a tiny room where I couldn't even run it with my bedroom door closed without suffocating. So, by late 2012, I'm encountering a few titles that my 560 Ti can't run very well, and I'm getting pretty tired of suffocating because of my computer running too hot for my bedroom. When I hear that Kepler and Ivy Bridge have had a process shrink and can give me the same performance at a lower TDP, and also that the motherboard I picked couldn't do PCI-E 3.0... well, I built a new Z77 computer and turned this into a secondary machine. I dreaded parting it out, and I rationalized keeping it around as basically spare parts for the main machine in case anything went bad. I never wound up needing it.

So fast forward to today. I've gotten rid of the motherboard and have the CPU and RAM all packaged away, but I have this case... and I'm really not sure what to do with it. I don't think anyone would want it, it's OEM-branded and looks junky with a weird sticker on it because I took it to Fry's for repair once, and also has the hard drive bay twisted around and kinda loose so an EATX motherboard will fit in it. It also... has wheels on it. I've toyed with a few ideas. I'm tempted to try to find an old IDE motherboard to put in it and see how well the IDE devices still work, since I have no idea if they still do. Another idea is to just replace the ancient fans on it with new ones, put a semi-modern motherboard in it, but this time shove in a processor with a 65W TDP or something and run integrated graphics, perhaps even remove the hard drive bay entirely, toss it out, and have it be M.2 only so I can have more airflow and also not have to worry about the drive cage wiggling around a little when I move the case.

On the other hand, despite being kinda junky, it has three full 5.25" drive bays and a 3.5" bay. I could potentially have a Blu-Ray Burner, a memory card reader, a cool LCD panel that displays time, date, and CPU temperature, and also a floppy drive that plugs into a USB header on the motherboard. That is stuff I can't do with modern cases that have no external bays.

I guess my question is... what exactly do you do with a case like this? Any ideas or advice?

 

[Starfalcon]

That case looks a lot like a Lian-Li one, the fake carbon fiber on the front and the power button both look like they are from them. The PSU mount also is the same as the one on mine, along with the way the rear fan has the grill on the outside. If it isnt an actual case from Lian-Li it is a very close knockoff.

 

[Zeoclang]

Put it outside on the curb the day before your trash pickup. Someone passing by will be happy to find it.

 

[athenian200]

Thanks guys. Somehow being told to put it in the trash or sell it cheap made me realize I didn't really want to get rid of it after all, but it also wouldn't make sense to build a third PC in it when I have two already. I'm slowly realizing that it's actually not a bad little case, I just didn't like the computer I built in it at the time and it has a lot of old junky components I need to get rid of to make it useful again. Like the non-modular PSU and the old worn out fans. I've already burned a ton of stuff to Blu-Ray, and I have a tendency to lose my USB drives or else mess them up while trying to write disk images to them.

That second comment about it being a Lian Li case helped a lot. I'm not sure if it is one, but the case fans are Lian Li model fans, and it does seem awfully close to this one:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071231...ex=12&cl_index=1&sc_index=1&ss_index=4&type=b

It looks like this one, except it has a second intake fan and a couple fewer drive bays. It's remarkably close actually. Kind of changes how I view it actually... I was thinking it was like a junky OEM case, but this is actually a nicer PC-007B with twice the intake fans. It just doesn't look so nice at first glance. I assumed the fans were 80mm, turns out they're all 120mm just like my new case. The only real difference is the PSU is on top rather than on the bottom. I kind of wish it had an exhaust fan at the top over the CPU, but then I wish my new case did too.

Truth be told, it's probably better than the brand new Antec GX202 I just built my PC in for what I need, because... well, it's almost an inch deeper, it has an optical drive bay (I had already bought the Blu-Ray burner before looking at cases and realizing how tough it was to find a case with a drive bay, which was the only reason I got the GX202 aside from the Antec name), and I'm currently running a Noctua NH-D15 with the side panel off. I think... I might actually just replace the three case fans in that thing with Noctua case fans, move my computer into it, and someone will be more likely to take the GX202. The more I think about it, the more I think my mistake was buying the new case out of desperation to get the last new case I could find with an optical drive bay rather than just using my old one.

That logic probably won't make sense to anyone but me, but I think that's the path I'm going to take with this. Probably Nasgul's advice was the most practical, but if I was a practical guy... I would have bought a case without an optical drive and just done everything with USB external devices like everyone else to start with and not been debating with myself.

 

[Starfalcon]

Thanks guys. Somehow being told to put it in the trash or sell it cheap made me realize I didn't really want to get rid of it after all, but it also wouldn't make sense to build a third PC in it when I have two already. I'm slowly realizing that it's actually not a bad little case, I just didn't like the computer I built in it at the time and it has a lot of old junky components I need to get rid of to make it useful again. Like the non-modular PSU and the old worn out fans. I've already burned a ton of stuff to Blu-Ray, and I have a tendency to lose my USB drives or else mess them up while trying to write disk images to them.

That second comment about it being a Lian Li case helped a lot. I'm not sure if it is one, but the case fans are Lian Li model fans, and it does seem awfully close to this one:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071231...ex=12&cl_index=1&sc_index=1&ss_index=4&type=b

It looks like this one, except it has a second intake fan and a couple fewer drive bays. It's remarkably close actually. Kind of changes how I view it actually... I was thinking it was like a junky OEM case, but this is actually a nicer PC-007B with twice the intake fans. It just doesn't look so nice at first glance. I assumed the fans were 80mm, turns out they're all 120mm just like my new case. The only real difference is the PSU is on top rather than on the bottom. I kind of wish it had an exhaust fan at the top over the CPU, but then I wish my new case did too.

Truth be told, it's probably better than the brand new Antec GX202 I just built my PC in for what I need, because... well, it's almost an inch deeper, it has an optical drive bay (I had already bought the Blu-Ray burner before looking at cases and realizing how tough it was to find a case with a drive bay, which was the only reason I got the GX202 aside from the Antec name), and I'm currently running a Noctua NH-D15 with the side panel off. I think... I might actually just replace the three case fans in that thing with Noctua case fans, move my computer into it, and someone will be more likely to take the GX202. The more I think about it, the more I think my mistake was buying the new case out of desperation to get the last new case I could find with an optical drive bay rather than just using my old one.

That logic probably won't make sense to anyone but me, but I think that's the path I'm going to take with this. Probably Nasgul's advice was the most practical, but if I was a practical guy... I would have bought a case without an optical drive and just done everything with USB external devices like everyone else to start with and not been debating with myself.

Yeah I have been a Lian-Li fan for a long time, I did look around to see if I could find a similar one with not much luck. It has a lot of things that look like one, but they have made so many cases over the years and dont show them on their site, it isnt easy to know for sure. Maybe you could contact Lian-Li and see if it is one of theirs.

 

[Smoblikat]

Put an original xbox in it! Ive got my eyes on a nice V1.0 that im trying to get to do the same thing.

Just so we dont both show up to the party with the same dress on......im planning on painting mine camo colors

 

[Comixbooks]

Goodwill