Project: Pandora's Box
Heya guys,
Been lurking around these and various other mod forums across the net for a very long time but my "participation" has been... Well... There hasn't been any. I've always admired some of the things people do to what some would consider a simple computer and I've been inspired by so many of you but for one reason or another I just never got around to doing any work of my own... Time to change that.
Before getting into the actual "meat and potatoes" I would like to take a minute to thank all of you guys for putting the extra effort into documenting your projects and being so helpful to others, a big part of the inspiration comes not from the cases but from the people themselves, you're all doing such great work, keep it up... Now on to the fun!
Pandora's Box
The goal of this project is fairly simple, to create a small, silent, air cooled, moderately powerful MMO gaming rig using standard interchangeable parts. While I previously intended this to be a reserved mod which would serve more as a practice run in working with/cutting metal I decided to change my "direction", this mod is now going to be a test bed to see just how far I can go with this.
My intent is not to go spending 100's of dollars, in fact quite the opposite, I'm doing this on the cheap... Not because I can't afford anything else but from my own perspective it really isn't that hard to throw money at a mod until it looks good because everyone looking at it is largely going to see the money you threw at it, while that obviously isn't always the case I have seen quite a few mods where if it wasn't for the dollar investment it wouldn't be anything special so to test my abilities and see if I got what it takes I'm using low cost resources only.
My planning on this is VERY loose, I have a basic idea and concept but beyond that I intend on working with what the case and my inspiration give me, artistically speaking if I paint a picture or make a drawing I never do so with an image in my head, I just let whatever wants to come out come out and the art creates itself so with this case I am going to follow that same flow.
The case I am working with is some old junker I had kicking around, this is one of those cases they sell for 35$ including power supply so there is absolutely nothing special about it... or is there?
Here it is in its pretty much fresh off the floor where it's been sitting for 3 years form... minus the parts which I already took out...
As you can see this case minus the hideous front bezel is pretty much identical to any other low cost case which for all intents and purposes would do fine for what I need it for but that's no fun... So let's take a peek at what the plan is thus far.
(1) The first area of attack is the chassis as a whole, for some reason I've always liked the look of shallower MATX/ITX towers and the plan is to cut out 3.5 inches of the whole case to give it a bit more of a "cubic" feel, this change isn't so much for the cosmetic value as much as an experiment on working with/cutting case steel but the cosmetic aspect doesn't hurt either... The total case depth after the chop chop should be between 10.5 and 11 inches.
(2) Obviously if I'm shrinking the case these drive cages are going to have to go, that doesn't bother me at all though because this system will not be using an optical drive and if I ever changed my mind on that a slim optical could be worked in practically anywhere.
This cage removal is being done to address a pet peeve of mine in case design, I could make it work even with the reduced case footprint but for the longest time there has always been an aspect of case design that drove me nuts... Well... Not nuts but it bugged me. Why on earth do almost all case designers put one of the 3 hottest components in a computer right smack on top of the intake fan for cool air? Hard drive performance and life are nowhere near as dependant on being “cool” as the rest of the system so why on earth is the cool air hitting them first and spreading their heat through the case to parts where heat IS a critical factor in their life/performance.
I'm sure someone will come along to talk about convection and heat rising and how the cold air coming in is not spreading the heat into the case but let's be real for a minute here, the convection thing only works when the heat has a clear path to travel, with 5.25” drive bays sitting right on top of the hard drives there is a pretty big wall right in the path the heat would be trying to travel in. I'm sure arguments could be made for positive air pressure and all that but I don't know, I've gone over it in my head a million times and putting hard drives where all case manufacturers seem to love putting them just doesn't make sense to me... Or at least not as much sense as having them at the highest point in the case where the heat convection would actually go unimpeded.
I'm sure it's one of those things that would result in a never ending discussion but this is “my” case and in “my” case the cages are coming out and the hard drives are getting slapped right to the top of the case where the convection has nowhere to go but out... But more on that later.
(3) The rinky dink fan port is going too, actually... pretty much the whole front panel is going. With the drive cages gone and hard drives being mounted at the top of the case the idea is to put in 2 120mm intake fans for good airflow directly across the entire motherboard and out the back of the case.
I still have some other ideas swirling around in the old hat rack but the above 3 elements involve the bulk of the “reconstruction” phase of the project, after those are done the rest will likely be fabricated from scratch. I could probably save myself some time by making the whole case from scratch but I'm in this for the experience so make way for the hard way!
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Originally Posted by RogueOpportunist
Awesome idea, that would work perfectly and I don't have to worry about making all kinds of wood contraptions... You're a life saver. +rep for you!
