Project: Frame Box Media Center

I've had this box with glass on the front for a couple of years now and I've always wanted to make a computer out of it. The problem is: I've never had a reason. That has changed. I would like to have a basic Media Center down in my modding area for when I'm modding and want to hear music or glance at TBCS inbetween cuts.

I also have this Intel Atom 330/Mini ITX combo that would be perfect for such a mudane task as playing music

I removed the shelves with a hammer

And put in the board

Then I cut the holes for the motherboard and PSU

I'll have 2GB of RAM and an 80GB Seagate hard drive too. I'm still not sure how I'm going to mount the drive though

I'm going to be adding this to my wall of motherboards

Like this

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Luke122

I'd put a couple of exhaust fans at the top of that thing too. :)

As for mounting the hdd, do you mean positioning is giving you grief, or the mechanical solution?

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Positioning. I think I'll just drill in an old HD cage and then slide the drive in. I think I may remove the glass frame part and replace it with this:

I had this old hard drive cage laying around

So I cut it for this project

And then just drilled the hard drive into place

As you can see I removed the glass frame

I'll be using this instead. It was the cover to El Diablo that I did years ago

I got it all connected and booted into the BIOS

There's a single screw holding the box into place at the top

And two braces at the bottom

I temporarily connected a DVD drive to the board to install Windows. If I need to use one in the future I have an external one

I LOVE Vista, but went with XP because it's just going to be for Media. A dual Core Atom and 2GB of RAM should fly. It will not be on a network or connected to the internet. I won't need anti-virus or a firewall of any kind either. The less, the better, the faster

Next, I'll be working on lighting, exhausting, and mounting the LCD

I added the power button today. I used Gorilla glue to lock it in, thus the white foam

I just went with something ghetto. It's going to be behind the top piece so it's not like it's going to be seen

I did the same thing with the top screw. I add Gorilla glue to the screw and as it dries it expands and makes a far superior hold

I got my old El Diablo cover cleaned up

And mounted it

There's still more to do

If you compare this pic and the last one you'll see that I removed some motherboards and pushed others closer together

The monitor is 19 inches (Regular, not Wide) and has a handy carry handle on the back

I added two hooks to my wall

Then mounted the LCD and ran the VGA cable down the side

Looks pretty cool

Since the IO area isn't the easiest to access, I ran a USB extension cord down and tied it into my wall of shame

Now it'll be easier to quickly plug in a flash drive

I'll be leaving the cut out exposed to allow for the best airflow

I thought it woulld be cool if I signed the panel before I clear coated it

I bought this cool power y-cable to finish off my mod.

And I accidently chipped the paint on the top of my face plate :(

And there we go

I am finished

It's not connected to the internet either so no Windows updates, No Service packs, no Anti-Virus or firewall. just a superfast PC. Final Specs are;

Intel Atom Dual Core 330
2GB DDR2-800
320GB Seagate
450 Watt PSU
XP Pro SP2


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