USMC case

After almost 2 years trolling around here, I'm finally going to do something of my own. Project USMC. Work will officially begin tonight. My computer is currently housed in the case, so I'll be taking everything out and moving to a temp case. Here's pictures of the case I'll be using.

On top of the case is a Maxtor 80 Gig USB HDD. The shell for this will be painted also. Probably black with red accents. I'm also planning on changing the LED's from green to red.

I suck at cable management right now. That will be fixed with this mod.

The design:

System specs:
Soyo motherboard with onboard sound (don't remember the model number ATM)
Intel P4 2.66 Ghz socket 478 processor
1 Gb Kingston 333Mhz DDR RAM
internal - 160 Gb Seagate HDD with Windows XP Pro
internal - 40 Gb Maxtor HDD with Windows Vista
external - 80 Gb Maxtor USB HDD. Stores music, pics, docs, apps..
BFI Technologies NVIDIA 5950 Ultra 256 Mb AGP - *need to replace the fans somehow
Sony video capture card/TV Tuner
Linksys 10/100 NIC. The SOYO onboard NIC 5uX0rZ
2 - 80mm red/blue LED fans
1 - 80mm blue LED fan
Speakers - Labtec 2.1 system that I got almost 10 years ago. These things STILL rock the house.
Unknown brand DVD and CD burners. Might only go with 1 Optical drive. The DVD burner does everything I need.

That's about all for now. I'll post up some pics tonight. My oldest daughter (11 yrs) has been begging me to let her build a computer, so I'm going to have her help me transfer this one to it's new case. Comments, questions, suggestions, and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Sound like a nice project.
I like the contrast of the inside blue, we start to see it more often those days.
Maybe use some airbrush, particulary on the External HDD.

So no front air intakes ok. I guess the front looks really nice. Having the side fan is good as it will push air over the graphics card.

But the case has a dead spot as there is going to be little airflow around your hard drives if you lay the case out with the drives at the front. Because the air comes in through the side goes over the card and out the back. (Guessing on the fact that the side fan will be an intake and the back an outake)

And those puppies actually heat up a bit to. Just one thing to think about.

All in all the design looks very nice I especially like the striking front panel of the case with the two stripes and the USMC badge.

The front air intake is on the bottom of the case. I have a blue 80mm fan mounted there right now. It's just hidden by the HDD rack. I didn't know how to draw that in sketchup. Thanks for keeping cooling in mind though +rep for that. I was actually just thinking of doing away with the 3.5 rack altogether and just going with the 5.25 rack up top. I only need 4 slots for drives. Thoughts on that idea anyone?

Yeah you can by adapters which allow you to put 3.5" drives in 5.25" racks.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...oducts_id=1280

So, I transferred all my gear into the silver case tonight while the black case is being modded.

Gear

Silver case before it got a bath

Black case, damn it's dirty with a capital dirt

put back together

obligatory night shot

Next step. Sanding and cleaning the black case to prep for paint.

Hey Sarge!

Looks cool so far, I like the formal layout of the case and especialy like that emblem on the front. Just seems to me that for a themed case it needs a little more to it's composition, what do you think? BTW, let me know when you're ready to quit smokin ;)

Cool, can't wait to see it come together.

I agree, it does look like something is missing. More than likely I'll add to it later though. This is my first mod, so I want to kinda keep it relatively simple. So far, I have to do sanding, bondo the louvers on the side panels, cut a window, cut plex for an 80mm fan, prime, paint, paint opticals, and mod the emblem to fit over the power switch. I also have to do some lighting work too. The red stripes are frosted plex with LED's in them. I expect this to take me a couple of months. I've never cut a window or worked with bondo before. I'm also contemplating on cutting the 3.5" bays out and just going with the 4*5.25 bays up top. A little worried about cooling though. I guess I'll work that out if/when the time comes.

I like the clean looks, it will be a great mod. Have you thought about adding a fan in the right side close to the harddrive area ( it has work well for me ) or cut one into the bottom panel near the front ( make sure their is enough ground clearance) this will keep the front panel clean.