Worklog: Hidden PC (HPC)

[Fisofo]

Hey Everybody! Well, this is my first mod project, and it's actually been completed for awhile, but I do have a worklog I'd like to share. I'll try to spread the pictures out, with the bad-quality worklog first, then some nicer shots at the end... and as long as its ok, some "benchmarks" at that point too. And if you can think of a better name for this thing, let me know and maybe I'll use it.

I originally started this project (not that I'd need a reason), because my dad wanted a PC in our living room that wouldn't look like a PC so that he could check email and do word-processing while sitting on the couch. Well, it took forever, but the goal is accomplished... except that I need to buy an LCD and a wirless keyboard/mouse

Oh, and before I start, if you'd like to check out the site I put together for this project with a nicer interface and the High Quality pictures (they're big), go to http://www.tc.umn.edu/~sann0023/. And just so you know, most of the text you read here is just copied from there. Here's one of the High Quality ones as a teaser before I get going:

Well, here is where our little journey begins: a rolltop desk accessory. Originally intended to hold office items, like pens, pencils, etc.... I plan to change that. Oh, btw, let me apologise ahead of time for these craptacular pictures. I used a digital vidcam that I thought would take decent pics, but frankly, they suck. Check out the High Quality pics for the end-result of the project (borrowed a friends camera... Argh! Should've done that earlier!)

Here's what the inside of it looks like, with all of the guts removed (there were dividers crossing the inside horizantally and vertically, all adjustable and removable... with a leatherman)

The goal is to fit as much of the stuff you see here (except the monitor, duh), into the little wooden thing, and have it work. All of the components are regular sized, even the monstrous PSU. What I've got there is a P3 530Mhz HP mobo, and some other goodies I'll reveal later

So, how tight is it? I tossed in the motherboard at the start of this project to see if it would work... just barely. With nothing holding the motherboard up, the back scrapes the sliding door. It needs something around a 1/4" lift

One of the first problems I had to figure out were the stand-offs. A buddy had some plastic ones that I could probably have used, but at the time lego's seemed to work just as well, and I had already started cutting to their height anyway.

Here's the first cut I made on the right side, designed for the typical PS/2, usb, etc... ports. I used a neighbor's dremel for practically all the cutting I did later on (I gotta get me one!) but for these first few I had an ancient 15 pound jigsaw to work with. At least, that's how heavy it felt to my skinny geek arms. Now after I did this cut, I realized what you're probably thinking right now: "That looks really ugly." Well, thankfully i noticed that too...

Here's a shot of the ports with the cut. Ugh, just doesn't look right

So I sat around a few days thinking and rummaging through stuff, and found this from the package of my Abit Ic7 board! So I grabbed that, cut a rectangle with the big ole jigsaw, and voila! It turned out like...

This! Yeah Yeah, the aluminum thing isn't in this shot, but you'll see it later. On the right side I've also made the hole for all of our PCI goodness. You may notice that the top horizontal cut is really really bad there on the right-side hole. I used the jigsaw to do all of these, and I kinda lost control at that point. That one screw up was my bane for a good portion of this project, I was constantly trying to figure out how to fix or fill-in or blow-up the dern thing...

I finally had an epiphany when I found this wire lying in our garage and thought...

how about cutting it into strips, and using it as a kind of framing? I used a box cutter to cut these, they were pretty tough to get a straight cut. I found it was easiest to leave the 3 internal wires in, and use them to make a straight cut before separating it into strips.

You can see the 'prototype' frame idea on the left side there, and a better shot of my really bad screw-up Well, now that I had an idea for that, I let it sit and moved on to other things that needed to get done.

 

[Fisofo]

Okay, next: Here's a before shot of the inside right wall

and here's the after shot of the left wall...

and the after shot of the right wall. Why shave that ridge down? Well, I needed to get more stuff into the box, so I decided I would put the other items on top of a platform above the mobo. For the curious, I used the dremel here, with a bit that looks like a cylinder (sorry, no pic) that could shave the wood down without drilling into the side like a drill bit

And here's the platform! Well, actually, that's a piece of paper that's taped to the top of the platform so that I cut it right. I cut it using a jigsaw, then smoothed it a bit with the dremel, and then smoothed it more with sandpaper. It's made of plexiglass... I believe about 3/8" thick, bought from the local Ace Hardware for about $5. You can see on the right side the 'tab' that sticks out from the end, this makes the platform bigger than the ridges it sits on that I just showed, giving it more room to put stuff on.
Oh, and I lied, there's a picture of the drill bit I used! You can't tell the difference between it and, say, a leatherman, but it's the thought that counts.

Another shot. I made the ridges/platforms in the wood for the plexi for two reasons: 1. cutting it the way I did will allow me to set the plexi into the box and it won't slide forward/backward, and 2. I needed as much vertical space as I could get... the bottom of the ridges are just barely above the ram, such that the plexi is actually touching the ram on the frontside when it's in. More on that later. The shape of the plexi will make more sense later when you see what else I'm packing in.

In the meantime, knowing my platform is set to go, I got some paper together and cut out a replica of the face of the PSU. It's actually rotated 180 in this pic, but you get the idea. Using scotch tape (which thankfully didn't pull wood off the box) I put the paper on the outside on the left side and used various dremel bits to cut the design.

Here's the PSU plug and switch, as well as holes to screw the PSU into the case.

and here you can see the PSU's location... and it's mutilated side. There's a reason for this, but first:

another shot of the PSU on my Plexi, which is still in it's protective blue stuff. Oh, and if you had a clear view of the clock, it would probably say sometime around 1:30... AM. Just about when I get started each night

Here's the reason for chopping off the side of the PSU. Originally, my measurements were such that the PSU would actually fit with a little extra space for that corner. Well, the Plexi was thicker than I thought, by not more than about 1/16", so I had to "compensate." In a bit of frustration, but relieved that it still fit (albeit, not very pretty), I once again moved on.

 

[Fisofo]

Next up I needed to consider airflow. I really didn't want to have this thing needing to be open to run, so I picked up an extra 80mm and 90mm fan to put in. The sheets of paper shown here are the result of about two weeks of debate as to how to do fan grills. Big gaping holes with standard metal grills? No thanks.

I was gonna have my sis, who's a pretty awesome artist, design something similar to what you see here, but I'm afraid I get too picky about this sort of stuff... So, I finally found this design on the back of the pops PC, took a rubbing with red crayon (why does it look pink?) and thin sketch paper, and set to work!

Here's what I did: I took the dremel, put an appropriately sized drill bit in it, taped the sketch to some wood, and then drilled the holes!

Cha-Ching! This result was about the most exciting thing that happened on this project... well, except for that incident with the air compressor. J/k. But yeah, I really really like it.

So, after alot of careful drilling, I was able to get the PSU and 90mm drilled, minus that little middle hole in the design because I think this looks better...

another shot of the 90mm...

... and a shot of the 80mm and PSU! Now, for my next run-in with stupidity Although the dremel worked great, if you don't get the bit into the wood quickly enough, it spins out across the surface, or catches the wood and makes a bigger circle than intended. If you look at the left-hand side of the right fan grill (the PSU one), you can see what I mean.

This was madingly frustrating, a flaw in my 'perfect' fan grill, so I set to work fixing it. I borrowed the sis' oil-paints and set to work mixing.

Here's a piece of wood I used to match colors from the PCI hole... Argh, none of them look right!

Well, I finally picked something that looked close and set about doing the fixing. I filled the screwed up holes with wood filler, let them dry, and then re-drilled them, thankfully correctly the second time around. Then I applied the paint and here's the result!

You can obviously see the paint, but only if you're looking for it... So it ain't perfect, but it's a definitely better.

 

[Fisofo]

Anyway, having fixed another error, I moved onto the modder's mesh I got in the mail from www.MNPCtech.com, thanks Bill! I really wanted an excuse to use some mesh, and when I ended up hacking off the side of the PSU, I realized I had found my excuse

I used run-of-the-mill wire cutters to cut it the right width, and I used that aluminum guide for my dad's saw to bend the mesh into the right shape.

Here's the Lacquer I used to clean it, and the polyurethane I used to cover it... they worked really well and I haven't had any rust. I can't say the same for the half of mesh I forgot about... in about a week and a half of being uncovered, it was practically rusted over. Bummer.

Here's the resulting PSU! cool part about the modder's mesh is that its 1' x 1' size makes covering PSU's a cinch, it's exactly the right length.

Another shot. It's tough to see, but I also bent the edges down a bit on the sides, and later I snipped a few more links to make it more flush.

 

[Fisofo]

Well, now with everything cut and basically ready to go, it's time to assemble! I superglued each of my lego 'stand-offs' to the wood. You can also see the power LED and HD LED there in front, also superglued. The Legos aren't at right angles because to get them in, I held them in the holes on the motherboard, caked them in superglue, and then put the motherboard in place... doing each one individually. Took me awhile.

I seemed to have forgotten to take pictures of the long process of putting in the trimming. Oh well, you'll see the result better later. In the meantime here's a shot of the pci cards, with the IDE cable getting in position.

What's that in back, you ask? Ah yeah, baby, there's two of them, with a place for a connector across the top, you guessed it...

Voodoo2 SLI!! (insert rock music). With these two connected, it's just a dream; 2*12mb of video ram, and using monster3d overclocking tools, whippin the clock up to 90mhz.... Booyah! Nvidia may have some new-fangled SLI stuff coming out, but there's nothing like the original!

I'm still excited about the SLI, but i'll see if I can keep moving here. This is a shot of a cut I made in the IDE cable to accomodate the frontmost voodoo card, which was otherwise lifting out of it's pci slot. I guess I could've just used one Voodoo2 instead of two... oh wait, then I wouldn't have bleeding-edge, kick-butt, 1024x768 SLI! Schwing!!

Ok, ok, i'm done with that... for now. What you see here is the starting point of another idea I had towards the end of the project which I'll explain momentarily. For now, just realize that this is a keychain flashlight from IBM at a career fair. And no, I didn't get a job with them, those lousy stinking weasels

demonstration of lighting ability. you can also turn it on by pressing the Led... see where I'm going with this?

you guessed it! More legos! Well, actually, it's not the legos that's important, (who am I kidding?) but what they hold, superglued, on the inside. Before I demonstrate, notice I also carved out some of the wood so the lego structure could get in farther. Did I mention I superglued the structures base and front to the wood? Yeah, it's not going anywhere.

Ta-da! So what? My hand looks like ET's, that's what! Well, take a second look at the previous shot, and there in the back you will see attached to the two lego "pillars" a power switch. See, I realized midway through the project that I didn't have a way to turn the dumb thing on, and innovation struck one night while looking for a flashlight to take a closer look at some cuts I was working on. Anyway, the light and power switch frames are individually glued to the legos, and I cut the back of the flashlight to fit snugly over the button of the power switch. There's a better shot in the high quality section once I'm done with this worklog.

 

[Fisofo]

Moving on, here's a shot of the 80mm... tough to see from the crappy picture, but it's very close to the back, probably about 1/8" or so from the sliding door.

What's a mod without some plexiglass? I'll tell ya what: Not nearly as cool. So here's the obligatory plexi, attached to the hard drive by plastic 1/2" washers. Why not directly to the plexi? well, a couple of reasons...

For one it looks kinda cool just floating there...

For two, this puts it directly in front of the 90mm fan (which is also a tight fit with the top of the case), but there's one main reason, coming up soon. While we're here though, you can kind of see the ram and plexi touching eachother down in front there.

Take a quick look at just how close the Hard drive is to the fan. Think that's tight? Wait till you see the PSU.

Here's the main reason for lifting the hard drive that high. Just behind and below the drive is the Wireless pci card that I put in to replace the nic...

...And it is really really close. The IDE cable has just enough room to plug in. I knew this was going to be close, but not THAT close, phew! The HD is also close enough to the next pci card that the molex plug actually pushes it a bit...

 

[Fisofo]

Well, I eventually got the PSU in. Like I said, this is also really really tight, much more than the HD and 90mm fan. There is zero space between it and the 80mm fan, as well as between the wall, the PSU, and the HD. I actually have one of the side screws of the HD going through the back grill of the PSU, but I couldn't get a clean pic of it. Here you can also see that molex plug pushing the pci audio card back a bit.

Here's the other reason why the PSU is tight, it basically lines up at the bottom of that groove for the door...

Here's the door coming over the top, it actually is touching the PSU a bit, but I haven't had it catch on the mesh once, Hoorah! For some dumb reason this is the last internal pic I have in the worklog, but I've got some more shots after the worklog.

Now time for some wrap-up shots, here's a shot of the 80mm and the PSU holes.

The side panel. I really like how well my 'trimming' turned out. You might be able to kind of see how I cut the ends of each piece at a 45 degree angle, so that I get nice rectangular corners. I again used superglue to attach these, and they're really solid.

a shot of the pci ports, and that wicked cool wireless card. I suppose this is good a time as any to explain that the wireless is basically a replacement for a floppy or cd drive. This PC sits next to my other system for now (shown a few pics from here) and connects to any files/disks it needs through it and another PC a few rooms over. Anyway let's also not forget the two Voodoo2's, heck yeah!

Size comparison with a 15" monitor, I suppose it's just a bit bigger than a SFF, but I never checked. Oh, that's teh superglue there in front of it too, I used pretty much all of it

another comparison shot, this time including my comp. That's an Aspire X-Dreamer for those who want to know, about the size of a typical full-ATX system. Well, that's the last shot, so now let's check out the rest of the High Quality shots and then the benchmarks for this speed demon!

 

[Impact9]

Not bad at all. I was thinking ghetto there at the beginning but you pulled it off rather nicely. Good JoB!

 

[Deleted member 12930]

good job on the case the voodoo2 in sli is a great touch

it's a shame the pictures are such low quality though

 

[Fisofo]

Alright, now the nicer pics. You can click them to check out the High Quality shots, they're a bit too large to just directly post. Here's the typical beauty shot.


Here's the PSU side shot. You can see how the power button actually comes out from the case a bit, from sinking that Lego structure into the wood on the other side.


and our lovely panel and pci ports... Check out that trim! It's actually a lot nicer than I could have hoped for, not fantastic, but definitely better than just jagged wood.


Of course, ya have to have lights SOMEWHERE. Here we have the power LED on the left, and the HD on the right. Bit blurry, but whatever


All right, now for the internals! Nice view of the Voodoo2's in the back, and you can see them lego stand-offs too


Those caps on the mobo are a bit dusty, I'll have to clean that. Remeber how close I said the PSU, HD, and 90mm fan are? It was a HUGE pain getting them all in


This isn't the greatest shot of the PC, but you get to see my hands! Ummm, yeah. Anyway, you can also see that the molex plug out of the HD is pushing back the 2nd PCI card a bit... not much thankfully.


That's a big ugly painted board the pc is sitting on. In other news, you can see what I did with the extra power cables here... stuffed under the PSU! Originally I thought about just cutting the extra wires off, but I'd like to have them for future use, just in case. The mobo power plug is under there too, and I forgot to plug it in until everything was already installed... let me tell ya, it took a good 15 minutes to get the plug down there, and then another 15 to maneuver it and plug it in. Sheesh.


Finally, what you've been waiting for: a good shot of the lego power button! The crusty white looking stuff is the dried superglue, and you can see the power button in the back, with the button itself pushing into that U-shaped bluish thing, which is the cut I did on the back of the flashlight.


I know EXACTLY what you're thinking: 'ET go home...' Heh. I wonder if I could convince my computer-illiterate friends that it's a finger print scanner security device or something? Probably


Last but not least, a nice view of the plexiglass, proc, and the like. The Plexi hasn't melted yet, and I have high hopes it will continue to remain in a solidified state... ya never know though.


Before I forget, here's the basic system specs:
P3 530Mhz
Voodoo2 12mb SLI through intel graphics chip of 4 MB
384 MB sdram
54mbs intel wireless card
20gb HD
350watt PSU
running on WinXP

 

[TekieB]

Very nice mod!

 

[CrimandEvil]

Pretty cool!

 

[Fisofo]

Now hopefully you mods won't mind this, but it was late and I figured, "why not?" If it's a problem, feel free to delete

I was going to do some Far Cry testing, but I wasn't able to get it to run... don't worry though, I'm in contact with UbiSoft to figure out what the problem is. In the meantime, I've got UT2004 demo runnin for some fun!


I'm so excited I'm shaking...


Ok, first order of business when starting a new game is, of course, turning everything up as high as possible. Mmmm, can't wait to see that Trilinear Filtering and Dynamic Lighting, Let's do it!!


Ok, so if you can't tell, this is ONS-Torlan, getting ready for some Onslaught! I'm pretty sure the green you see here is caused from... ummm... Big triangular looking trees. I must be spawning in the forest...


K, this is really cool... I had heard they put weather effects into UT2004, but winter?!? Sweetness


More winter scenery with a cool building in the background. I just noticed I'm no longer holding a gun, better go look for it


Found my gun! Also, I finally got to a section with some awesome Dynamic lighting! Man, those rays of light from the, um... sun, are really cool.


Well, I decided that to be thorough, I should have at least one other map shown in my benchmarks... besides I couldn't get the fps counter to work in the last one. Oh, and to make it interesting, we're gonna do Deathmatch, on DM-Rankin with the max possible players: 32!


Right off the bat we've got some more awesome lighting going on, I'm pretty sure we're seeing "specular" lighting...
sweet


The menu must turn black to let me know we're about to start... oh, and the fps counter is working! Hmmm, must be in units of 100's... (of course with zero, does it matter?)


Assuming those fps units are 100's (what else would the be with such an awesome system as this?!?), I'm getting 200 fps, high quality! Got some more specular and diffuse lighting here, and you can see the nice trilinear filtering with bump mapping there on the floor. Good stuff


Here's the last shot from this map, my enemy is employing some sort of camoflage to hide in the lighting. Anyway, I'm gonna stop writing now and get back to teh gaming... I can't wait to get this thing running Doom3 and Half-life 2! I'll post pics as soon as it happens



Thanks for checking out the log! Feel free to comment/question/flame on anything, and let me know if you've got a better name for it too. Peace!

 

[memphis_1220]

Some people come up with some very intersting ideas.

Very nice mod!

 

[Impact9]

Don't UT2004 also use OpenGL? Try that and start disabling all the graphics and turn them on one at a time. I'm sure it will look somewhat normal after some tweaking.

 

[Fisofo]

Some people come up with some very intersting ideas.

Very nice mod!

Thanks!

it's a shame the pictures are such low quality though

Yeah, dumb vidcam.

 

[nst6563]

nice mod...

but....dude...your finger in that shot pushing the power button....is ....just...not right man. It looks f'd up...crooked and and all.....

I think you should have stuck a bunch of lan cards, routers and switches in there too though..oh wait...I did that with my case...


I like that though...very cool roll-top pc.

 

[Fisofo]

Don't UT2004 also use OpenGL? Try that and start disabling all the graphics and turn them on one at a time. I'm sure it will look somewhat normal after some tweaking.

I'm sure it would, but it was more entertaining this way But yeah, I'm gonna see if I can actually get it to run. Which reminds me, forgot to post the system specs!
P3 530Mhz
Voodoo2 SLI
384 MB sdram
54mbs intel wireless card
20gb HD
running on WinXP

dude...your finger in that shot pushing the power button....is ....just...not right man. It looks f'd up...crooked and and all.....

Yeah, probably cause of the scar on it, when I was a kid I shaved the side off of it while cutting carrots with my dad's knife Just missed the nerve thankfully.