what to do with last 5.25 bay?

[ciz28]

currently i have a cd-rw and a dvd drive painted silver in the bottom two bays of my pc-67 and a dual temperature monitor in the top bay. i want to know what you guys are doing with your extra 5.25 bays and/or what ideas you might have for mine.

[Captain Slug]

Make a drawer from the shell of a dead 8x drive...

Or buy the new graphical VFD from Noritake.

[Tebore]

U could a HDD Cooler and use it to cool a HDD, or get a Solid all aluminum HDD rack with lock and use it as a safety deposit box. Or add fans and lights to it.

[ciz28]

i don't think i'd go for the hdd cooler or fans as i am trying to make my computer as quiet as possible. the lights are an interesting idea, as i have thought about having a kind of information center. all i can think to put there, however, is a network activity led. does anyone have any ideas of other status lights i could put there?

[{PMS}fishy]

Get a sound blaster platinum with the Live Drive. Sounds controls on the front of your PC rule.

http://www.soundblaster.com/accessories/livedrive/

[KeyboardCowboy]

dude, rig up switches for your fans


in one of my 5.25 bays i have 8 blue led's and 8 silver switches for my case fans, the lights turn on when the fans turn on, pretty cool

or get a hdd cooler, i have an antec hdd cooler with 3 highflow 40mm fans, pushing over 40 cfm over the hdd

[64Thunderbolt]

OR.....

[64Thunderbolt]

oops wrong pic.....well, this is the inlet filter grill installed

[ciz28]

that's a pretty sweet fan grill you made, however, i don't really need additional fans, hard drive coolers, or a baybus since my pc is already almost silent. i like the idea of some kind of live drive, however, i want optical out on the back of my computer but i don't think the audigy can do that. my sound card, the zoltrix nightingale pro 6, has a daughtercard that provides the optical and spdif in/out. does anyone know if you can attach this to an audigy?

[Diggrr]

I'd make a drawer out of plexiglass and keep your Ghost Image CD's and your OS CD safe and sound. You know how they like to wander around the work area and get scratched all to heck.

Don't know beans about Audigy, my speaker volume is right next to my keyboard. Though my AT7 mobo has spidf out right on the backplane.

[mdcomp]

Those are all great ideas. I would go with fishy's, get the audigy that would be sweet. If you have enough bays try all of the ideas.

[Shuruga2]

if you get the audigy/live with the live drive you can also get this (http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?product=72&category=186&maincategory=1) for rear optical outs. you dont need the live drive to use this card, but you were talking about the front of your comp right?

btw, i reccomend the livedrive, they recently updated their remote controll software and it a lot more usefull now. the remote was really the only reason i got this thing, but the front headphone jack has really come in handy as well.

[Colin]

Build yourself a fan control bus. This would make use of your extra bay and further your goals for keeping things quiet.

[ciz28]

would it be possible to use both the live drive and the rear digital i/o panel in conjunction?

[ciz28]

seeing as how i already have a soundcard with optical and coaxial in/out, is there any other solution to getting a multimedia remote control that fits into a 5.25 bay?

[drunkmonkey]

Originally posted by ciz28
seeing as how i already have a soundcard with optical and coaxial in/out, is there any other solution to getting a multimedia remote control that fits into a 5.25 bay?

AWSOME ideas and easy to do guides:

infared reciever(kinda easy)
http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/remote/

playstation controller-2-PC bus(SUPER easy)
http://www.narx.net/~mike/projects/psxadaptor/index3.html

Drawer(already said)

LCD Panel(easy)
look around www.allelectronics.com or do a searchin google

GFD(Gold finger Device, hard 2 to)
controls multiplier and vcore of chip using on-off-on switches
http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/gfd

1 more thing, you could combine the infared reciever, ps controller, and gfd all together. Have the ir and ps cont. part open up and reveal the gfd, or sme combination like that.
Hope it helps.

[Shuruga2]

live drive and digital out card together? yes, tho your cords are going to get a little wierd. the soundcard connects to the livedrive via what appears to be an ide cable, on the livedrive there are 2 connectors one for the soundcard, the second for the i/o card, so you'd have to go back down to the i/o card with another cable. (the soundcard only has the one connector)

other remote systems. the only ones i've seen are on the livedrive or on some of ATIs tv-wonder/all-in-wonder cards. there must be more, otherwise why put an 'ir reciever' plug on a mobo like mine has (gigabyte 7dxr).

this is the only other one i could find to go in a drive bay and its for abit mobos only (aparently) (http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjsp/english/pt_main_back.jsp?pPRODUCT_TYPE=MotherBoard&pMODEL_NAME=Media+XP)

[ciz28]

i seem to be finding a lot of kits that support an irda connection directly to your motherboard. from what i can tell, this type of connection is really only useful from pc to pc. does anyone know of any remote controls that use this standard?

[Element-Xero]

i dont think, with the case I ordered, ill be able to ask this question any time soon:

http://65.119.30.151/productimage/11-124-004-02.JPG

[masitti]

I'd go with an LCD panel. They are useful, and they look awesome.

[CrystalMethod]

Front USB ports, front audio outputs, combination of the two. Stick a network hub in there. Bunch of stuff you can do with a spare drive bay.

[bob_the_d]

hm... it's sorta off topic, but i thought i'd share what i did with my live drive.

i use a creative SB Live! Platinum with the second generation live drive. now as someone who lives in asia, of course i use minidisc players rather than MP3 players (well people use mp3 players, but this region is infested with el-cheapo no-name pieces of junk... people who know a thing or two use MD's). i personally own two MD's... one of them being an old banged up Aiwa AM-F7 recorder. now when i use my headphones (invested in a set of sony mdr-d22 eggo cans... well worth it) on my live drive the bass response simply sucks. and this is true of any computer with any soundcard. and don't get me started on that crap winamp equalizer too... any set of headphones to me sounds tinny and pathetic on any system. luckily, the live drive comes with an optical output perfect for MD recorders. so i just ran the live drive to the MD recorder, and hooked up my headphones to the MD. anyone who's used an MD-R knows that the bass boosts generally are very strong. the end result totally rocks. everything that has sound on it sounds a million times better. if you decide to throw in a live drive, or actually any sort of device with optical outputs... i highly suggest making something like this. sorta irrelevant i know, but like i said, thought i might as well share it. nothing else better to do at 2 am. sleep? bah. sleep is for the weak. :cool:

[bob_the_d]

here's a shot of what i did, although it shouldn't be all that hard to visualize

[BinarySuperman]

hey bob, do u use creatives software for burning songs onto the minidisk player? if so how does it work, i was burning some songs onto my minidisk and some tracks skiped, also how long does it take for u to record stuff?

[roYal]

Originally posted by Element-Xero
i dont think, with the case I ordered, ill be able to ask this question any time soon:

http://65.119.30.151/productimage/11-124-004-02.JPG


omg, that's a lot of bays.

[Element-Xero]

YESS!!! IT CAME TODAY!! I can't wait to break into that (*@(^# monster! w00t!

:D:D:D:D

[roYal]

where to get that case?

[Matthew1001]

Originally posted by CrystalMethod
Front USB ports, front audio outputs, combination of the two. Stick a network hub in there. Bunch of stuff you can do with a spare drive bay.

To me this seems like the most logical idea for now because you aren't sure what you want to do. This way you can add what you want to later.

[Yodums]

Originally posted by Colin
Build yourself a fan control bus. This would make use of your extra bay and further your goals for keeping things quiet.

Woohoo, that's the first thing that came to mind. You can also add leds if you want for the fans that are on and off.

[ciz28]

i don't want to sound lazy, but i've tried a baybus i just didn't like having to switch on the fans when i did anything at all intensive. i'm not really sure how much i'd use front multimedia ports, however, i do like the idea of having some indicator leds at the front of my case. any suggestions on what i'd actually indicate?

[Shuruga2]

i always like the idea of having an equalizer display on the front of my case, just no idea how to make it or where to find something like that.