Project: Gardens of Versailles

[Mark_Hardware]

Hey it's pretty sweet. I'm sure your mom won't mind the delay one little bit

[Datech]

Alright, barring the final photos at my mom's place, this case is done. I'm happy with it now. You guys and the work Girlfriend did helped me come back to liking the case. In some respects it is better than what I had envisioned from the beginning, but in others I feel I could have done much better. It is far from the professional and clean cut case I was striving for, but as we all know time delays and time crunches don't always bring out our top manufacturing skill (especially when you're only using a Dremel for 90% of the work). Either way, the case is finished, and it came out ok. I'll let you guys judge from the pics below.

Started out trying to come up with a fan grill since it was Friday and an Xoxide one wouldn't be here until Tuesday.

Gave up and just cut a hole.

Super glued it and eventually taped the edges as well.

Works out just fine.

Super glued the fan in as well so I didn't have to worry about screw holes.

Test run in the light shows a nice blue glow.

Installed mobo.

The RAM setup on this mobo is weird. The clips are different on the two sets of DIMMs, and the recommended RAM setting for two sticks is 3,4,1,2 (y,y,r,r) instead of the more common 1,3,2,4 or the common sense 1,2,3,4. Oh well, works fine.

This Gelid cooler really is incredibly quiet. I didn't Prime the CPU, but I can imagine that the variable fan keeps it perfectly cool and still completely silent. I wish I had time to review it but the case is headed off and I'm not taking a chance with the 60mm stock HSF. For those that care, Gelid receives my complete endorsement.

Wire managing is so much easier with a 500W PSU.

Found the perfect textured gold for the bottom that most people will never see.

The biggest change is that we decided to paint the arc the same gold color. This makes the arc stand out less than if it were still primer, gives it a gloss to match the case, and lets us worry less about the artwork that would make it look like a proper Arc de Triumphe but still retain the symbolism of the Paris landmark.

Then awesomeness happened.

So, now for final pictures! First we start out in complete darkness:

Lights please!

Placed the trees on there just to see. Girlfriend likes them, I'm skeptical and think I need 8 more, two more in the center of each side, but we decided to let my mom decide tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will have final setup pictures and a wrap up of my thoughts (don't worry, you won't be quizzed, just enjoy the pretty pics, Oneslowz28 never proofreads articles or worklogs when I ask him to either). Hope you all enjoyed the quick and fairly painless mod so far, and I hope I can increase my product quality from here on out.

[DonT-FeaR]

looking great mate!

[FuzzyPlushroom]

It came out well, rush job or no. You get my mostly-worthless seal of approval.

One thing - the last photo appears to show rough, unpainted plastic edges around the top of the archway? Are those just the flash, or are you planning on sanding 'em a bit and touching 'em up with a brush (or even a Sharpie) when you get a chance?

[Datech]

One thing - the last photo appears to show rough, unpainted plastic edges around the top of the archway? Are those just the flash, or are you planning on sanding 'em a bit and touching 'em up with a brush (or even a Sharpie) when you get a chance?

That was mostly the flash. In trying to smooth the edges of the Lexan I ended up cutting into them in some places. To the naked eye the paint did a good job covering it all, but the flash brought it out there. I honestly didn't notice it was like that until you pointed it out, IRL or in the pic.

But, it is finally finished, delivered, setup, and in use! I know my mom genuinely liked it and appreciated the effort even if the box didn't have the wow factor we all hope for. She was definitely very appreciative of the components inside, which were a huge improvement over her P4 with 512MB of RAM. Her Windows Experience rating actually came out to a 4.9, and that came from the graphics card. All the rest were high fives with the RAM coming in at 7.1 on the new 7.9 scale for Windows 7.

Here are the final pics. Setting up:

She ended up liking the trees. She also got the idea to go to the local train and hobby stores herself and decorating the top how she wants. I told her to take pics if she did that and let us know how it evolves over time:

Yay Windows 7!

Thanks to everyone who helped with this case and also thanks to those who gave me encouragement throughout this worklog. This was definitely my burnout case that I should have completed over a longer period of time, but oh well, I can always go back and modify it later (after a 3 hour trip to South Carolina to pick it up, of course). Enjoy!

[Datech]

Finally got around to making a complete video worklog for this, and got some banners.

[Oneslowz28]

Damn those banners look good!!! Wonder who did them?

[Datech]

It looks a lot better on Vimeo in 1080p resolution.

Direct link cause you cant embed Vimeo

[Liquid_Scope_99]

Man thats cool loving the leather too