New Toys - Oct 2011

[slaveofconvention]

So I got me some presents heh - well I'm not sure you can call them presents when you buy them for yourself but *shrug*

I "won" an ebay auction for a Thermaltake Mozart TX Case and other "stuff" (to be honest, the case is the thing I actually wanted) for the grand sum of £100 (which is about $140-$150) and yesterday I got to drive a 200 mile round trip to go collect them...


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/01.jpg
The case itself - hard as this may be to believe, it's actually a bit smaller than I imagined heh....


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/02.jpg
One 22" Cibox monitor - I'm assuming el-cheapo as I've never heard of the brand - doesn't matter really, as long as it works - it's sold to a customer already - just need to plug it in and test it


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/03.jpg
Box of "bits" - more on this in a moment


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/04.jpg
I noticed a couple of the front 5.25" bays were full - time to dig.


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/07.jpg
This would be a 5.25" bay mounted Mini Itx PSU - I was expecting this but it's still pretty cool looking - plenty of connections with a 115W rating on the 3.3+5v plus whatever the 12's are - I havent looked that closely as I wont be running anything major off of this


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/08.jpg
5.25 -> 3.5" bay converter with power and reset buttons, and power and HD LEDs - I think I saw something very similar to this in a Thermaltake Armor years ago - I don't see this being reused in a hurry, but never say never :P


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/06.jpg
There's a PSU in here - and a modular one too - that wasn't part of the auction listing...


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/05.jpg
600W Zalman unit - not too shabby for free heh


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/09.jpg
And into the box of "stuff" - there's a tuniq tower cooler and a AC Super 7 cooler - they were part of the lot listing so no surprise there


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/10.jpg
Bags of fittings so I should be able to figure out how to use them, although I can see me downloading some .pdfs so I know which cooler which bits are for heh


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/13.jpg
Lots of 120mm Fans, 6 1GB sticks of DDR2, and a PNY 9600GT PCI-E video card - the card was another unlisted surprise


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/14.jpg
Plenty of extra-long SATA cables - useful in a case this large, admittedly, along with a could other bits I still need to identify, and a couple of motherboard specific (therefore useless to me) daughterboards. There's also a laptop - desktop IDE adapter - something I always meant to buy, and now don't have any use for because IDE is as good as dead heh


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/15.jpg
Loads more fans installed in the case - there must be at least a dozen all told, some thermaltake, some Delta, and some Xsilence units - not a bad little haul


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/16.jpg
Also part of the listing was a dual-core Atom 1.2 based Mini ITX system - pulled that out and threw it into my test rig for a quick test - turns out it's a hyperthreading single core 1.6 Atom system but *shrug* I think I'm up enough on the PSU and Video card to let this slide heh - especially as, really, I only wanted the Case :D

That's actually the Zalman PSU there, along with a spare 2TB drive I had laying around and....


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/17.jpg
It's ALIVE!!!!! - Going to throw an OS at it and test it more thoroughly - until later..... :D

[luciusad2004]

Nice buy! Not sure what I would do with a case that can hold two motherboards... but i want one now.

[AmEv]

That white cable looks like a FireWire cable.....



Is that sound card Asus specific?

[slaveofconvention]

White cable was just a standard USB A-B Cable - as for the audio daughterboard, yeah, it's an ASUS Supreme-FX Rev 1.84

[AmEv]

Dang tiny pictures lol.


What bits are you trying to identify?

[slaveofconvention]

Nothing urgent - there's a PSU cable extender with an unusual attachment which MIGHT be something to do with having the ITX PSU switch on when the Main PSU does - and there's a pile of clips n stuff which will go with one or the other of the CPU coolers, I'm sure. Anything else, if I can't identify it after 20 years in this field, I probably don't need it, or I'll never use it lol

[AmEv]

A little something for you: clicky (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/chassis/fulltower/mozart_tx/MozartTX.htm)

[Cale_Hagan]

CONGRATZ! :banana: you got a steal on all that! :D

[Twigsoffury]

so you can run two full sized ATX systems in that case?


man i bet that thing will tip 100 pounds fully loaded with two systems!

think your first mod for it ought to be one of these.

http://www.wifordrentalandsales.com/PublicMedia/GetClientMedia/4242

[slaveofconvention]

One full ATX, one mini-itx - and it's pretty damned heavy empty - when I got it, it had the mini-itx system installed, the two power supplies, and a load of fans - without any drives or the main ATX system installed, it was already heavy

[Twigsoffury]

One full ATX, one mini-itx - and it's pretty damned heavy empty - when I got it, it had the mini-itx system installed, the two power supplies, and a load of fans - without any drives or the main ATX system installed, it was already heavy

just a ITX? can't support a matx, sorta looks like it would if the power supply was up top and not down in the mainboard part of the chassis.

[slaveofconvention]

Definitely just an ITX without some fairly hefty modding.


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/19.jpg
There's a pretty substantial crossbrace which may well be structurally important there....


http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/slaveofconvention/imagestore/mozart/18.jpg
And only the four miniITX mounting points for the board screws

If you did mod it to take a bigger board, I think you'd have a lot of work to do to get the ports accessible (the ITX ports aren't externally accessible as standard) plus I don't think there'd be enough clearance for much in the way of PCI/PCI-E/AGP cards so you'd have to look into right angle or flexible risers - it MAY be possible but there's almost definitely a MUCH easier way NOT using this chassis

[AmEv]

The ITX board would be either used with the optional display, or as a built-in file server.

[TheMainMan]

What's the model number on the Asus soundcard? I'm pretty sure that I have the same one, and if I remember correctly it's merely PCI-E 1x and not board specific.

Nice haul, looking forward to seeing a build log!

[slaveofconvention]

There's no silicone on the board - not a single chip - it's definitely just a riser heh

[TheMainMan]

There's no silicone on the board - not a single chip - it's definitely just a riser heh

That forced me to have a good look at mine and it turns out you're right, it will only work in select Asus mobos. I can safely throw mine out as I RMA'd the board a long time ago and had it replaced with a different model.

[AmEv]

Did they SERIOUSLY ziptie the fan to the procy HS???

[diluzio91]

Did they SERIOUSLY ziptie the fan to the procy HS???

sometimes you do what you have to do... dont judge... lol

[AmEv]

The noise!
The raTTle!

[slaveofconvention]

Actually, I zip-tied the fan to the heatsink - the heatsink is designed to contain the fan, but the only fan there was in the case that was the right size was too thick. It's an extra deep fan, which means it's actually a lot quieter than the original, and as I tightened the zip-ties with a pair of pliers, there's zero rattle too :P