My new case...

[Martijn]

Yep, I've been messing with an old briefcase last week!

The donor pc + donor briefcase:





The result:




Specs:

P3 550 @ 733
384 MB Ram
Asus CUBX-E
NVidia GeForce MX200
Western Digital Caviar 80GB

[ex2cib]

now all you need is a small LCD screen and a decent battery to have a laptop

nice job

[Martijn]

now all you need is a small LCD screen and a decent battery to have a laptop

nice job

Yeah, and an acrylic panel as well...

[[XC] riptide]

Yeah, and an acrylic panel as well...

hey whats in all the PCI slots?

[RyderOCZ]

Damn nice Martijn...I think you did a smashing job

[Martijn]

hey whats in all the PCI slots?

NICs, it acts as a switch, I call it my Lanbox

[Haltech]

Wow, good work! Turned out great!

[RyderOCZ]

The fan in the lower right corner of the lid (if you have the handle/power connection facing you) Is that blowing down on the CPU heatsink or pulling air out?

[Martijn]

The fan in the lower right corner of the lid (if you have the handle/power connection facing you) Is that blowing down on the CPU heatsink or pulling air out?

It pulls out through the fairly large heatsink on it (in terms of speaking P3-coolers), but I removed the air duct for now (which fits only just over the sink). It looks better for the pics. I don't really care about heat, the old, high-voltage P3s can take 90 deg. C before they die. Actually, I saw this one at 120 degrees once (Celcius, yes... ) because of a wrong-mounted cooler (wasn't me ), and it still works fine. It was only for a second though, and it shut off instantly after I saw it in the BIOS.

The fan blows at ~1500 RPM now, the CPU is 65 @ load. If I let it run @ 5000 rpm, temps lower by around 20 degrees, but it makes a damn noise. I prefer heat above noise, so it runs hot, but you can only hear the rig running when holding your ear next to it now. With the duct, temps are around 50 degrees @ 1500 rpm and in the high 30s @ 5000 rpm. For now, it works just fine, cause the other coolers work at only 1000 rpm (yes, at 12v ).

[mcflurry4321]

Very nice man. Great idea. You did a great job on it!

[RyderOCZ]

Thanks....I wasn't concerned that you were overheating....just curious if airflow in or out made much diff in temps.

[Martijn]

Thanks....I wasn't concerned that you were overheating....just curious if airflow in or out made much diff in temps.

Yeah, a little, but hey, it's only a P3 550 at stock volts, I'm used to cooling a D820

[[XC] riptide]

NICs, it acts as a switch, I call it my Lanbox

hey i was just thinking earlier that would have made a nice lanbox (my oringinal thinking was gaming if it was higher specced.) portability guaranteed.!

[Movieman]

Nice job and well done!
What's the material inside the case? Just thinking of heat and spontanius combustion..If it's at 65C in there it will dry out that material over time. May not be an issue if it just runs for an hour or so here and there but if left running..
Not trying to rain on your parade as I like what you did..just I'm a real cautious old fart..

[rcofell]

As a switch I'd think there would be a performance hit due to increased latency versus a dedicated switch. But using it as a server with different permissions/services per interface would be interesting, that or as a router/firewall with each interface being a different subnet for greater control.

At first I was thinking it was a katmai and wondering how one of those would ever clock to 733 , but as it's a coppermine it should still be relatively cool.

Anyways, good job, it turned out very good.

This reminds me how I need to get working on making my server rack...

[Martijn]

Nice job and well done!
What's the material inside the case? Just thinking of heat and spontanius combustion..If it's at 65C in there it will dry out that material over time. May not be an issue if it just runs for an hour or so here and there but if left running..
Not trying to rain on your parade as I like what you did..just I'm a real cautious old fart..

Lol, it's only plywood, outside is plastic, but it runs fine. My motherboard is mounted onto a piece of my old case, which I cut loose. It transfers heat very well .

As a switch I'd think there would be a performance hit due to increased latency versus a dedicated switch. But using it as a server with different permissions/services per interface would be interesting, that or as a router/firewall with each interface being a different subnet for greater control.

At first I was thinking it was a katmai and wondering how one of those would ever clock to 733 , but as it's a coppermine it should still be relatively cool.

Anyways, good job, it turned out very good.

This reminds me how I need to get working on making my server rack...

I tried to put a dedicated 24-port switch in the lid, but it just didn't fit (it was about an inch too long) so I decided not to put it in, I'll first look for a smaller one. The latency doesn't really matter, I never really use my full 100Mbit anyways, it's only for internet, MJ-12 and Rosetta. Sometimes a bit of gaming, but hey, AoE II can be run through a 56k-line, so who cares about lost bandwith?

[rcofell]

I tried to put a dedicated 24-port switch in the lid, but it just didn't fit (it was about an inch too long) so I decided not to put it in, I'll first look for a smaller one. The latency doesn't really matter, I never really use my full 100Mbit anyways, it's only for internet, MJ-12 and Rosetta. Sometimes a bit of gaming, but hey, AoE II can be run through a 56k-line, so who cares about lost bandwith?

Yeah, the effects probably aren't that noticeable. How big is your 24-port? I have two that're both rackmountable, so they're pretty big, but they don't get used(in fact I'd like to get rid of them sometime soon...) since I don't have THAT many comps lieing around, I just use a 16-port with two gig fiber ports

Btw, what OS are you running on it?

[Martijn]

Yeah, the effects probably aren't that noticeable. How big is your 24-port? I have two that're both rackmountable, so they're pretty big, but they don't get used(in fact I'd like to get rid of them sometime soon...) since I don't have THAT many comps lieing around, I just use a 16-port with two gig fiber ports

Btw, what OS are you running on it?

It was an old 19 inch 10Mbit 3Com switch. I ripped it apart, but the content didn't fit in it, so I put it back again. I'm now looking for another one.

It runs on standard XP, no need for other stuff, it's terribly slow anyways

[Martijn]

I got myself a P3 800

It is now runnning @ 898, not yet fully stable, but it runs undervolted. Majestic-12 is now flying like mad

[[cTx]Philosophy]

Just checked this out, nice job, now get that beast up to 1ghz atleast..

[SoF]

this is a truely nice mod. I wanted to do this since I started modding my case but never had the time for this.
Good work!

[Martijn]

OK, the case has been upgraded!!


It now has a P4 Northwood 1.8 in it, clocked to 2.4... 768Megs of Ram, still everything cooled passive and dead silent... The little sister noticed nothing

this is a truely nice mod. I wanted to do this since I started modding my case but never had the time for this.
Good work!

It took me only 1 day of thinking, drawing and cutting. 2 days of painting afterwards. Not much when you're having a 10 week-holiday

[freakBYnature]

OK, the case has been upgraded!!


It now has a P4 Northwood 1.8 in it, clocked to 2.4... 768Megs of Ram, still everything cooled passive and dead silent... The little sister noticed nothing



It took me only 1 day of thinking, drawing and cutting. 2 days of painting afterwards. Not much when you're having a 10 week-holiday

This is truly genious... I love that case.... might build myself a socket A with something like that, or something different, don't know... Have this Duron 750 lying here ticking me off! Maybe a setup with 256Mb Ram and such... just enough to get on the internet Don't know yet if I will proceed, but the idea seems kind of cool....

[MikeMK]

Thats a really great job there! Very imaginative...

[Soker]

Wow! Nice case. You are fanatic