The Basics

This is gonna be my first computer case mod, I've done a few small xbox mods but nothing too crazy yet. With this case I hope to learn all the basics so that when the time comes to do my next one I can push it a little further.

I'm starting with a Compaq Presario SR1/2 case and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I want it to look so I'm taking suggestions. I know that I want it to be minimal and clean, this might be a little easier because I will not be including a cd/dvd drive or gfx card in this build since I use neither.

What I will need to fit in the case is a micro-ATX motherboard, psu, multi-card reader(3.5"), two standard hdds, and I'd like to get some usb ports in there somewhere. Here is the case as it looks now, I've sand blasted the front and side panel but thats about it so far:

There's more photos in my Flickr gallery, link is in my sig.

So far this is what I'm thinking for the design:

*Shave the front panel and add two 120mm fans, one closer to the top and another near the bottom leaving me a little area in the center for a single power button.

*Cut out the drive holders and fabricate a custom one to hold the two hdds maybe in front of one of the fans for cooling.

*Place the card reader and usb ports so they are accessible from the top of the case.

*Maybe add some windows to the side and/or top.

*Sleeve everything.

*Fab. new back plate without any expansion slots to make room for a couple of smaller fans.

I still havent figured out how i want to do the front if I put the fans there, maybe use some mesh or design and cut a plate to fit over them.

As far as tools and equipment go I'm pretty much covered, I work in a fabrication and machining shop on the press and I have access to a laser cutter, cnc, lathes, wire edm, drills, drop saws, sand blaster, etc. plus lots of scrap metal.

So if anyone has anyone help or maybe some design influence please let me hear is because I'm open to all suggestions! Thanks for reading!

In case anyone is curious here are the hardware specs:

MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with on-board ATI Radeon HD 4200
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6GHz 95W Quad-Core (stock cooler for now)
RAM: G.SKILL 2 x 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 1066 Dual Channel
HDD: 150GB Western Digital & 75GB Seagate
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2

(Should be getting everything tomorrow! Feb. 16)

This build has potential, that will be a very large case for such minimal hardware. Do you plan to run a large heat sink on the CPU or will that be minimal as well?

Yea I was thinking about picking up a larger heatsink and maybe later on water cooling since I can fab my own water blocks.

Ok I think I've decided to go with the two 120mm fans up front and a power button between them. For the button I was thinking something like Mnpctech's "Vandal Resistant Power Switch" but with a light around the button, I've seen them like that before but I don't remember where.

Anyone have any suggestion on the best way to go about mounting these fans?

Proposed placement:

Shave and bondo the front panel then bolt them to the case?

Looks like they will fit:

I looks like I can attach them to the case and once I shave everything off the front panel they should just fit. Any idea or suggestions?

I used this switch in my rockin case build, it may be what you're lookin for. I also have that same case that I cut up for my Monster project, which has been put on hold semi-permanently

Nice! Feel free to take any ideas you can use from my mod of the same case. I only have basic hand tools, so it'd be interesting to see what you can pull off with all that at your disposal. I'm waiting on spring to come so I can finish up the body work/paint.

Overload

This looks interesting. Sub'ed.

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Originally Posted by SXRguyinMA

I used this switch in my rockin case build, it may be what you're lookin for. I also have that same case that I cut up for my Monster project, which has been put on hold semi-permanently

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Yep thats them, I found them on FrozenCpu.com but the place you posted is cheaper so thanks ;)

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

Nice! Feel free to take any ideas you can use from my mod of the same case. I only have basic hand tools, so it'd be interesting to see what you can pull off with all that at your disposal. I'm waiting on spring to come so I can finish up the body work/paint.

Overload

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Weird coincidence that we both decided to stick two huge fans in the front grill haha, what kind of work went into "flipping" the case?

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Originally Posted by cellsite60

This looks interesting. Sub'ed.

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Thank you!

Here is the idea so far:

Basically seperate the top half of the case from the bottom with either plexi or alu, and have the psu and both hdds in there. Plus it will give me a place to hide wires.

Oh and you guys like copper right?

Ohhh copper is nice :)

mmm copper.

Today I came up with a slightly different direction on the design so let me know what you think.

Black & White (still fits with the "basic" theme)

For the outside of the case I'm thinking a more "rough" but still minimal style so paint everything flat black and I'm still planning on putting in the two 120mm fans up front with a blue lit vandel switch in the center, maybe add some blue glow to the fans. A couple louvered vent style grills for the fans, kinda like the bottom right in this pic:

Then maybe 2-3 80mm fans in the back with the same style grill. I want some kind of window/s but I haven't decided where or how they should look to stick with the outer theme. That's the black part of course the inside will be the white part.

All white, smooth, with blue accent, white lighting and chrome sleeved wires. I was thinking since the case will be pretty empty with the lack of gfx card and dvd drive I could rig up the sleeved wires with a bit of thicker wire inside so I can bend them to shape, keeping them in straight lines and 90 degree angles.

Sorry if this is hard to understand but I'll try and get something drawn up to better convey the idea tomorrow, if you do understand what I just said let me know what you think or if you have any better ideas.

I personally like satin black better than matte black. just a thought. not quite gloss, but not so boring as flat black. :D

I agree, also satin hold up better than flat as far as handling goes. With flat if something rubs against it at all it gets a little shine to it that you can't really get rid of with out re-painting, unless it was powdercoated. Powdercoated flat doesn't have that problem unless it's rubbed with some pressure. Liking the ideas so far. :up:

Ok you guys sold me on the satin black lol, but now I'm re-thinking the whole white inside thing. The one thing I keep thinking about is how should I mount the fans to the front, should I keep the faceplate and do alot of bondo-ing and sanding or should I ditch it, cut and make a new one out of plexi. I'm leaning toward the plexi idea right now cause it sounds a little easier. Also I'm starting to think it might not be a bad idea to add a cd/dvd burner in this rig, there so cheap anyway.

Ok it seems I'm having trouble picking a design so I'm just gonna start working on the case and hopefully ill figure out exactly what I want to do on the way. I'll be drilling out some rivets to remove the drive bays and cutting a bit off the front. Ill try and get some pics of the progress for the thread.

Great concept, I love minimalistic mods!! Can't wait to see some work done here!

Here is yet another concept for this case haha, basically the whole front would be a louvered design but I would still have access to the cd drive, power button, and card reader.

Cd drive closed:

Cd drive open:

To open the drive I would slightly lift the third slat down which would hit the eject button

Slats mounted to drive tray:

This would be the slat used to open the drive:

I would do the main power button the same way as the eject button but maybe have it so you push it in instead of pulling it up. I still need to find a way to mount my card reader somewhere in there, any input?

You could put your eject button in somwhere else, just soldering some cables to the existing button :D

For the card reader maybe you could make the top slat with a hinge, lift it up and tadaaa

Yea that crossed my mind, maybe I'll take apart an old disc drive and see how difficult it would be cause I would much rather have the slat push down then pull up.

Anybody see any issues with this design so far?

EDIT:

Just took some pics of the case:

I removed all the rivets, took out the drive bays and motherboard tray, and sandblasted everything. When it's ready everything will be riveted back together and I'm thinking about ditching the MB tray all together and just making a simple one out of plexi and some standoffs, is there any downside to doing it that way?

At this point I have the option to flip the case so the door is on the other side and my psu is at the bottom but it will take a bit more work to cut the feet off and make a new top. So I'm wondering are there any advantages to doing this or is it just personal taste?

Looks good so far; I like the louvered front panel. :D

As for flipping the case, it could be argued that there are some thermal advantages, but in my experience the only real benefit (other than personal taste; personally I like the PSU at the bottom better) is that is moves the case's centre of gravity down, making the tower more stable and less likely the fall over.

Thanks for the info x88x.

No real update on the case as my time has been tied up in trying to design and build a case out of cardboard for a comp. on another forum. But I did get a few pics of the shop:

The laser, pew pew:

My press:

Gotta have the Woot lights!

And of course some more copper pron!

Ok now that I have your attention lol, I need to know the best way to mount a motherboard. I was thinking a piece of painted plexi with some stand-offs, the only thing is I would have to glue it to the case since I can't drill into the side without going all the way through it.

Wow... I hate you!!! LOL
Great to have all those machines at your service...

I am in the cardboard contest too :P

I wouldn't recommend gluing the MBB to the tray, just because you're probably gonna want to move/replace it at some point. Instead, maybe may plexi standoff cones that you can screw into, then glue those to the tray?

or pre-drill the mounting holes and thread in standard brass standoffs?

Haha, I wasn't saying that I would glue the MB to the tray but that I would attach it to the plexi with some stand-offs then glue the plexi try to the inner wall of the case.

Right, I think what they were saying (perhaps there was a misunderstanding somewhere along the lines?) was that you shouldn't glue the tray in the case. If you ever wanna do any further modification, removing a plexi-glued motherboard tray would be something of a challenge.

Off topic: HAAAAATE you for having such fun toys at your disposal. All I got is a measly little Dremel and some files. =[ Yay for being poor?

Actually I did think you were saying glue the MBB to the tray... As for gluing the tray to the case, it really depends.. If you think you're ever gonna want to change the tray again, probably not a good idea. If you know you're never gonna change the tray, then sure, no prob. Removable MBB trays are nice, but I've used enough cases without them that I don't see the lack of one as a hindrance.

(quick summery at the end if you don't want to read my little novel haha)

I been trying to decide exactly how I want to go about modding this case I keep having new ideas so this week I'm just gonna pick one and stick to it.

Last weekend I bought an old computer from a yard sale for 5 bucks and as soon as I got home I gutted and cleaned it and was very happy to see that the case looked very modable.

It accepts a full ATX mb but also has holes for micro and baby atx, the hdd rack is removable and the drive bays will be after a few rivets are removed. This case is much more stable and has a ton more room then my current case, and because of that I have decided that this will be the case I use for the Louver design idea.

However I don't want to just throw out the current case and the work I've put into it already, so I will continue to mod the current case in a different style which will not only help me practice a bit but also give me more time to plan out the Louver design. I think that with enough planning and the proper execution the Louver case can be an awesome case so i don't want to rush it.

So for now were back to square one with this case but I have some little notes on where I want to go with it:

1. I want to create a straight airflow in this case, two 120mm fans up front, big heatsink for the cpu, and more fans on the back.

2. No cd/dvd drive, no video cards or any other add on cards so I will most likely remove the slots all together. I think this will also help the airflow move the way I want it to.

3. I'm thinking now that I'm gonna have a few plates of steel cut on the laser cutter to replace the front and back plate, maybe even the top. I'd like to incorporate some sort of mesh or perforated metal since I love the way it looks and again help with the airflow.

Summery:

big fans upfront
big cpu heatsink
more fans in the back
no cd drive or gfx cards
minimal design

So what I need is some advice on how to go about getting everything worked out, the last photos I posted on page 2 of the case shows how it looks as of now but I'll probably be cutting out the back plate like I did on the front soon.

What would be the best way to attach and new faceplate and backplate? I was thinking of having another plate cut, then sandwiching the lip of the case with the two pieces of steel and screwing them together so they hold tight. Does that make any sense? I'll try and get some sketches made up soon to help describe this better.

In the meantime if you have any advice on how to keep this project minimal, quite, and functional please let me hear it.

Thanks for reading!

Haha, 'baby ATX'..wow, it's been a loong time since I've seen that. :D And I love the random HDD mount above the PSU. It's like case manufacturers were like "What's the most unintuitive location possible for a HDD? Hey, I know, let's stick it up in this tiny gap between the PSU and the top of the case, so they have to take out the PSU to service the HDD." :facepalm:

Seriously though, I love old cases; I think it's all the random non-standardized stuff that makes each model unique. You just don't see as much of that anymore.

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Originally Posted by Jake2k

What would be the best way to attach and new faceplate and backplate? I was thinking of having another plate cut, then sandwiching the lip of the case with the two pieces of steel and screwing them together so they hold tight.

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That should work fine.

Here's what I'm thinking:

That looks suspiciously like a 6U rackmount... :whistler:

yep haha, I'm gonna have to find a place that sells handles like that or maybe just make em at work.

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Originally Posted by Jake2k

yep haha, I'm gonna have to find a place that sells handles like that or maybe just make em at work.

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I think I have a site that sells those handles bookmarked at home. I will check tonight after the hockey game.

Do you have a specific measurement in mind? If not I may be able to pull a set off of the systems in my scrap pile. If so, they are yours for the cost of shipping.

wow thanks man, i don't know the dimensions yet but as soon as I do you'll be the first to know.