Project: OptPrime Rev. 2.00 "By the books" - Update 11.01.04

[Optimus Prime]

Well the winter months are comming here in Indiana. School has been in session (I go to Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana) for like almost 7 weeks. :rolleyes: So naturally I am getting prepared for a long and boring winter in which I spend many hours infront of a monitor.

So, this being said... Why not pass the time with a project.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/comp2.jpg

That was my setup a year ago... You can see the fugly/nasty Thermaltake Xaser II just sitting there looking like something out of a vin-deasil movie. Bah how far i have come in the past few years. Since that pic I have painted the inside of the case, cut the fan grills out, swapped mobos, switched procs, did some etching, and swapped vid cards, bought new monitors, well basically switched everything except the case.

So onto the revamp of the old. The only thing that will be returning from my old setup will be the core components for now. I plan on keeping my nf-7s for at least the first 2 weeks of this project. My ram, 6800gt, sound card, and opticals will be staying. Everything else will be replaced with faster compnents. :clap:

This case will be all air cooled for now. Reason being IMHO i could either dump 200 bucks in a nice water cooler and MAYBE get 200mhz more out of my proc. Or i could dump 350-400 in board and proc and get the performance boost that I am really looking for. So to me the choice seems simple.

As you guessed from my name I am a huge Transformers nut. Wel not even so much as I am a huge Optimus Prime fan... So most things that involve computers and whatnot for me have my tag on them which is now "OptPrime". So as you can guess this case will be mostly featured around doing a personalized case around my handle.

So where am i at now. Right now i have these specs:
AMD Mobile Barton 2500+ running at 2.6
2 * 512MB Corsair PC-3000C2PT (this stuff is BH-5 So it will be with me until ddr2 time)
ABit NF7-s (the one with the black dimm slots :rolleyes: )
EVGA 6800GT
WD800JB 80gb 8mb cache ide
Audigy 2 zs
Thermalright slk900a
Swiftech North Bridge Sink (dont know the model number cause im lazy but you will see pics tonite)
Plextor 8x DVDR
Lite-On 16x DVD Reader
Thermaltake Xaser II (I wish i had never gone through the newb faze :mad: )

These parts are in the mail.
200 bucks off of hardforumSilverstone SST-TJ03 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-163-014&depa=1
50 bucks used for 2 months from roomate Enermax noisetaker 460 http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-103-422&DEPA=1
got this for 10 bucks off of hardforum http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?Part_Number=202-F1-EV19-01
55 bucks off of hardforum Matrix Orbital MX-412 http://www.matrixorbital.com/pages/products.asp?CatID=5&mx=4

I will be purchasing over the next few weeks:
120mm high output LED Fan
2 * 4inch ccfls (blue or white)
LED's for doing my own custom case lighting
90nm 939 board, and proc, along with Some thermalright Heatsink
Audigy 2 front live panel to go along with my new sinhiesser hd-555's

Preliminary list of mods:
1) The case doesnt come with a window... so a window mod will be in order... I will be turning to you fools for some help on this one
2) A ducting system for my 6800gt. Hey if you are going to aircool you have to do it right.
3) Considering painting, however it is gonne be tough to convince myself to paint up this $300 beauty
4) A super nice etching done by my woman of who else but Optimus Prime
5) some custom case lighting
6) either a top window or 120mm blow whole instead of the stock 80mm
7) I am thinking about modding my vantec fan controller into the case some how... not quite sure about this one yet.
8)Ne thing else that is feasable that you guys bring to light :p
9) some sleaving to the powersupply and possible fan replacment. Thinking about polishing it as well.

Alright so there is the intro to the project. This one will mostly be super simple. MY DISCLAIMER: THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT I WILL NOT BE DOING NE THING GROUND BREAKING WITH THIS MOD. I JUST GOT LOOT FOR NEW COMPONENTS AND SINCE THIS PLACE IS SUCH A FREEKING GHOST TOWN LATLEY I FIGURED THAT I WOULD JOIN VIO1 (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=316937) :thup: IN TRYING TO KEEP IT GOING.

I will have some updates in a few hours. Last night I lapped the 6800gt heatsink. I will give an explanation as to why i didnt purchase a nv-silencer as well.

Stay tuned if your completly bored... maybe this will at least give you some thing to look/laugh at. I'm out till I get off work.

[Optimus Prime]

Here is a small pictoral update...

Here is the upgrade heatsink from evga...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/coppe.JPG

Here is a pic of the lapping job... I watched the new punisher while i did it. Horrible movie.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/lapped.JPG

Here is the card before the sink was installed...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/before.JPG

And here is the after...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/after.JPG

The heatsink was worth about 6 degrees celcius on idle and load temps... not too bad. this means that un-overclocked my card idles at 48 and runs full load at around 58-62

[Optimus Prime]

Here is a pic of my current workbench... I dont know why i tossed this pic up... guess just something for you to look at.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/workbench.JPG

Here is a pic of the roomate's and my current lab setup in our new house
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/lab.JPG

Last but not least here is a pic of my current rig.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/current.JPG

Here is a pic of the etching that is on my current case window... I am designing a new one for the new case.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/etch%203.JPG

There won't be any updates for a while cause i am waiting till some parts come in. The case will be here early next week and I will start work as soon as i get it.

[Daewood]

lookin good and the best show on tv (transformers) got canceled and then they brought it back with some stupid episodes (lasted two months) but i still own the movie and that kicks but...

keep us posted

[phrkshw]

I plan on doing an Optimus Prime mod as soon as I can get windows and decals on my Predaking case ( yes , I will be dropping 200 smackers at christmas for the Predaking re-issue toy ) . It will be something like this . The case will be the trailer , and I will take my G1 Optimus and make him "hook" up to the case . I plan on cutting the case somehow and making it so i can make it look like the battle station that the trailer turned into . Now to get back to your mod ( sorry , rants and raves ) . Good luck and ill be keeping an eye on this post , cant wait to see it .

[Optimus Prime]

after drinking a little and being super bored. i hacked this up... plz pay no attention to my complete disregard for perspecitves... my 8th grade art teacher would kill me.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/mock.jpg
Original pic is from virtual hideout(http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/silverstone_temjin_tj03_nimiz_case/index.shtml) the review is there and YES I AM HOSTING THIS OFF OF MY OWN SERVER
.
what you see of the autobots symbol will actually be part of the aluminum side panel... what does not immediatly connect to the side pannel will be attached with two sided tape to the plexi window. Ne who i think this is really going to cover my drive cages well and frame my components really well.

I also aquired more parts today... I have a black audigy 2 livedrive w/remote comming from a guy off of ocforums.com for under 50 bucks. so that was cool.

I got this too of course I am going to work it in some how.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5925720047&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOAB:US:6

I should be getting some parts real soon. HeHe :p

[-Superman]

after drinking a little and being super bored. i hacked this up... plz pay no attention to my complete disregard for perspecitves... my 8th grade art teacher would kill me.

i allmost failed 8th grade art. :eh?:

[xanderjobizzle]

hey man, looking good. I cant wait to see it done.

-Good Luck,
Xander

[z0n3]

Looking good. Do you guys have wireless on the IU campus? Been thinking of going there.

[Optimus Prime]

ya actually we have a rediculus wireless setup... I can sit ne where on campus which is about 2 miles x 2 miles and get access sitting on just about ne lawn with my orinoco g card w/antenna. The have been installing waps in light posts. I can also get wireless on my pda in every building... super schweet.

what do you want to go to school for?

[k3nshin]

why dont you think abut reversing the image on the dor and making it so you can see the mobo through the face?

[Vio1]

Alright so there is the intro to the project. This one will mostly be super simple. MY DISCLAIMER: THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT I WILL NOT BE DOING NE THING GROUND BREAKING WITH THIS MOD. I JUST GOT LOOT FOR NEW COMPONENTS AND SINCE THIS PLACE IS SUCH A FREEKING GHOST TOWN LATLEY I FIGURED THAT I WOULD JOIN VIO1 IN TRYING TO KEEP IT GOING.

Right on! This place seems to have died off a bit. We need to keep adding some fresh blood so that it doesnt crumble.

Good job on the mod by the way!

[z0n3]

ya actually we have a rediculus wireless setup... I can sit ne where on campus which is about 2 miles x 2 miles and get access sitting on just about ne lawn with my orinoco g card w/antenna. The have been installing waps in light posts. I can also get wireless on my pda in every building... super schweet.

what do you want to go to school for?

Sounds awesome. I have to move out when I'm 18 and if I go to IU I can still mooch off the folks for a while longer. Where as if I go to Purdue I'll be skinned alive and used as a rug. I still can't decide. :D

[Optimus Prime]

wow cs:source tried to steal my life for a bit there. :p ive escaped for now... Ne way I am still recieving tons of parts by mail. I am ordering some stuff off of newegg and frozencpu and that should be the end of parts purchasing.... I will be buying a 120mm 100cfm Thermaltake LED fan... I will also be picking up one of the blue vantec sleaving kits... and last but not least Some plexi...

I do need some help finding some very lightly tinted plexi or acrylic. I also need some mirrored plexi/acrylic. If anyone knows where I can find these things plz let me know.

Also I need an opinion on the window situation. It was said on this forum and ocforums that some people think i should just cut the autobots symbol in the side panel as the window. The reason that I hadn't initially planned on doing this is because I was thinking that my first design was kinda more artistic. also I like seeing my parts through the windows clearly... in addition I want to have a fan right over my vid card. I was thinking that the autobots symbol would look kinda week with a fan hole right next to it... what do you guys think?

[k3nshin]

yeh thats true, but who want to look at their drive bays?

[Optimus Prime]

I got home from work for lunch and the case was sitting in my living room. :attn: OMG I almost nutted myself upon taking it out of the box... This is the nicest case I have ever seen in person. I can't wait to start work on it. I am going to do the design that I intially planned on with the autobots logo covering the drive bays... I agree no one really cares about seeing them so I might as well do something artsy with that part of the case.

STILL LOOKING FOR DECENTLY PRICED TINTED ACRYLIC OR PLEXI. I ALSO NEED MIRRORED SO IF YOU KNOW NE THING SPEAK UP. :D

[Optimus Prime]

well i didn't get many responces on my mirrored/tinted acrylic question so I think that I am going to try to tint it myself. It appears I am heading over to the HD today after work... I have another question for you guys. I plan on doing a window etching on one my windows. I am obviously going to experiment with this a little. What is going to be tough is I have to apply the tinting to the outside on this window otherwise the etching will be messed up (the etching obviously has to be on the inside). Is it even possible to apply tinting to the outside of a plexi window and have it look right... and also do you think the etching will show up decently if i light it well?

Ne who i will be starting on the removable motherboard tray tonite. It is going to be simple yet classy. What i am going to be doing is cutting out the tray so that you can see the traces on the board. once that is done i will either add some modders mesh or just leave it so you can see the board cleanly through the window with of course my girlfriends wonderfull etching of the armada optimus prime knealing.

Sorry that I havent posted pics but I have been super busy latley. I ordered 100 bux worth of cooling stuff off of newegg last night... the package included a 100 cfm TT 120mm fan, a 4 inch ccfl, and a blue cable sleeving kit, and some other odds and ends. I will be dropping some cash at home depot and that should be the end of purchasing for now until the 939 stuff comes into play in a few weeks.

The Matrix Orbital LCD should be here on friday or monday... and the sb audigy 2 livedrive should be here sometime next week.

[Optimus Prime]

Got the case a couple of days ago.... but was too busy playing source to post pis... So here I'll give you the quick catchup:
Sorry for the crap ass lighting in some of the pics... i dont know what i was thinking.

Beautiful
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/case.JPG
Mod ME!!!!!!!!!!

The dual front doors are nice. I will be making a custom fan grill for the 120mm up front... I figure with a 2800rpm fan up there some one could loose a finger...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/open.JPG

I have never had a removable motherboard tray before... I can aleady tell I won't be able to live without one from here on out. You can see that the guy before me had a hole so he could remove his proc heatsink easily... The hole was done very well, which is a good thing cause I will me incorperating it in my next step.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/tray.JPG

Overall this case is awesome... Well worth the high pricetag. The construction and finish is impressive... So impressive that I will not be painting it, well at least not yet. There is a possiblity that i may paint the inside but it is unlikley.

[Optimus Prime]

Ok so i finally got rolling with this thing. After seeing the case I took a trip out to lowes and picked some stuff up for this project and for an aria that I am going to be working on very soon. Here is the result of that trip.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/buy1.JPG
Haha the file is called a fat *******.... if my dad heard me say that and was within an arms reach he would smack me and accuse me of being a sissy boy. LoL

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/buy2.JPG
got a huge sheet of lucite acrylic... this stuff should be much more impact resistant the the plain ole plexi... and supposedly it is harder to scratch and has better tooling properties... we will see i guess. I am still looking for a way to tint my windows. I think that getting some super thin lexan (kinda like what is used on r/c car bodies would work well with some tinting rc car paint applied to it... Not sure yet though, suggestions?

Guess what I actually did some work to the thing. I cut the removable motherboard tray so that you can see the backside of the motherboard. I will be doing a window back there and a super detailed etching of none other than Optimus Prime... most likley the armada edition cause he looks bad arse. I borrowed this mod from FushyuGuru over at OCforums.com. I view his work on his lian as a guide for many things so i thank him for this idea.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/t1.JPG

Here it is from the backside without the case panal on it. The motherboard is just a tester pos with my first overclocking chip in it. 300A baby. Man those were the days.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/t2.JPG

[Optimus Prime]

Here are some sneak peak shots of what i will be workign on tomorow.
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/sneak1.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/sneak2.JPG

Let me know what you guys think of this before i cut into it. The logo will be case metal and will cover up the front bays/drives. This will still leave room for my handle to be etched up where the powersupply is and for a door fan w/ducting for the vid card.

NEED FEEDBACK NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! :D

[Daewood]

i like the mobo cutout idea and that autobots symbol is really cool keep up the modding

[SatanSkin]

looks nice. Let me know how things go with the etching and custom tinting. I'm thinking of something similar for my case, but don't know how it's going to work.

[Optimus Prime]

Well i got a ton of stuff done today. Really i got through all the things that put the case in immediate danger of being screwed up. Cut the windows, filed the down mostly, and found some groovy handles to put on. I just pulled them out of my toolbox and almost crapped my pants.
I will let the pictures speak for themselves (errr i guess i already didn't do that)

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/u1.JPG
Here you can see the case panel cut and layed out on a black background, so the two floating pieces aren't lined up perfectly yet... I think the cutting went really well. I hand filed with a "flat *******" file and then a small single cut file finshing it off with some small jewlers files. I only messed up one part under the nose thing, but i will be filing that out as i have time.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/u2.JPG
kinda hard for this pic to show you anything about what the final project will be. You can see why i want to tint the windows. The finish on the inside of the case is almost silver and makes the front of the window blend... but that will be fixed later.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/u4.JPG
Look at the handles btw... The just make this case scream, "Take me to a LAN!" :p
After I cut the motherboard tray I realized with the way this case is put together I have the opportunity to do some thing really neat with this window. I'll leave that for a suprise later, but I'll tell you that it will involve an etching :D

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/u3.JPG
Here you can see how i reinforced the case handles so they wouldn't rip out the top. nothing special just functional stuff.

overall i would say today went well. Hopefully I will be getting some parts soon so i can get this thing into it's later stages.

Lates for now.
Prizime

[dj_2004]

wow that window looks sweet, sexy case btw

[9mmCensor]

Nice, mod. Transformers are coolio. You need hydraulics in your case though. make it move and stuff.

[Optimus Prime]

I have a whole bunch left to do here... I'm not quite sure what comes next. but I would assume that I will finish up the windows in the next few days. I am waiting for some rc/car window tinting paint to come in. Once i get it i will do some testing to see if it messes up the etchings at all. Im not quite sure what the outcome of this is going to be but my hopes are high.

Then it is on to wiring and lighting. I will have the sleave the ps and all the other wires. I also have plans to paint or polish the supply. not quite sure which one yet. Lighting is going to be tough because I have some big plans for that back window. You will see.

Ne who done for tonite. Looking at the case is there anything that you think i shoudl do to it that i am not mentioning. Remember that i am going for a transformer themed case and not a transforming case... LoL

[Optimus Prime]

Quick question... http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/ele-75.html
will i be able to use these led rocker switches to turn on and off a bunch of parallel wired led's. the switch says 12v does that mean it needs 12v to work?

[Optimus Prime]

here is a little update for ya... no modding but some pictures of crap that i have recieved. I took the cheap way out and bought a matrix orbital mx series vfd. I didn't want to waste time getting an random one and then have it look all crappily backlit and green. so here go the pix:

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/v1.JPG
Front pic.... mmmmm yummy

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/v2.JPG
Pic of the back... just figured you guys would want to see it.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/v3.JPG
It also came with these led indicator lights. From what i understand you can set them to mean different things with the lcdc program. I think i will probobly throw them in the case some where.

It is blue backlit with a black face. I decided to go w/the black one cause all my drives are black and the entire 6 front 5 inch bays will be filled with black components.
2 x 5 w/ matrix orbital
1 x 5 w/ plextor dvdr
1 x 5 w/ Lite-On 16x dvd
1 x 5 w/vantec fan controller
1 x 5 w/sound blaster audigy 2 plat front drive.

Peace for now.

[-Superman]

how about we get a pic of the sexy man behind the prime ? :beer:

[Vio1]

looking really sweet. Love the motherboard window at the back.

[MODdaBOX]

You are amazing with a dremal everything looks awsome. Btw reading all that stuff about transformers made me think of this http://www.wilenkin.com/transformers/Video_player_06_content.html

[Optimus Prime]

you seriously just made my last hour of work awesome.... tnks for the comments and the uber sweet link...

Oh and vio tnks for the comments... u already know i think your rig rules. ;)

[Optimus Prime]

I love the fedex guy.... really every time i see him he makes me soooooo happy. Ne who i got more stuff in the mail today.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/new1.JPG
Out of these things I will be using 1 of the 120's (100cfm one), the cable sleeving kit, the fan grill, and the ccfl... All the other stuff is going into an antec aria that i am aquiring parts for... Stay tuned for that worklog as well. :D

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/new2.JPG
Ha Ha Ha.... the package says "Easy to Install" it is almost as if Vantec is mocking my skillz. Who are they kidding easy to install. They obviously never did it themselves.

There should be 3 more packages comming in the mail for me before friday. I had my old rc/car racing sponsor send me some stuff.
Stuff that is in the mail:
Lexan Sheets
Testors window tinting spray paint
Deans Light Speed Connectors
Audigy 2 Live drive w/ remote
Mini Optimus Prime toy
Molex remover tool

I still need to order:
More ccfls
LED w/led rocker switches
939 board and proc :D

Right now i am just swamped with school work but that will end tomorow and I can get back to the really important stuff... ie case modding.

That's it for now...
Prime

[MODdaBOX]

you seriously just made my last hour of work awesome.... tnks for the comments and the uber sweet link...

Oh and vio tnks for the comments... u already know i think your rig rules. ;)
glad i could help out when i first saw that my jaw dropped in aw. Did you dremal or plasma cut that side panel? it looks so sick i cant stop looking at it

[phrkshw]

:drool: :drool: This case mod rox . Can you say subscribed . BTW that lil video was awesome . :drool: :drool:

[Optimus Prime]

glad i could help out when i first saw that my jaw dropped in aw. Did you dremal or plasma cut that side panel? it looks so sick i cant stop looking at it

As for the cuts... I have never had cuts that turned out this well. I'll give you the lowdown on what i did differently this time then the last few times:
1) this is the first time that I worked with an alluminum case. I think that since I did 4 steal cases first I tought myself to deal with the dremel kicking back and wobbling all over the place.
2) The dremel spins counter clockwise if you are looking right down on the screw that holds the cutting discs on. So i mad all my cuts starting on the right side and going to the left. I bet a bunch of people are going to disagree with me on this one but hey it worked. I found that it kicked back a whole bunch less. (im sure that i couldnt have done this with a steal case.)
3) I made my cuts kinda quickly. Once i got the blade in and spinning i lined up and got a good viewing angle on the line i wanted to cut on and went down to it. I was able to do this cause i had a dust mask and eye protection, it let me get right down close to it so i could get a good view of the potential cut.
4) HAND FILE!!! HAND FILE!!! HAND FILE!!! Really this is the most important part. go out and get a high pressure double cut large file such as a "flat *******"(about 3/4 of an inch wide), a single cut triangular file (about 1/4 inch wide), and a whole set of small jewlers files tringular, round, square, etc (between 1/16-1/8 inch wide). The you will be able to clean up any mistakes that you make and really make yourself look like a dremel god. even if you arent.

[Optimus Prime]

Finished my article for class early..... so i had a few drinks and did one of my favorite things to do while sauced..... Modding. :D

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/ccfl.JPG
Ne who i stripped the ccfl down so it could be shoved into a small place in the case. I'll show you where this weekend. But this is that neat lighting effect i was talking about earlier. This idea was obviously stolen from mashie's project "Doom3: Hell Inside"... I suggest you check that out cause obviously you can learn things from it like i did, and well lets face it... he is a modgod.

Also i recieved a livedrive today for the go ole audigy 2... pumped about this shearly for the fact that is has a front headphone hook up and volume control. This will go perfect with my sennheiser hd-555's

Tons more this weekend. I am planning to have this thing done before November first. So this weekend will be modding like crazy time. Also I am feeling the pressure of a looming 939 board and proc.... Need to give it a nice home right off the bat.
:D :D

[SK8]

Wow, what a nice live drive man! Didnt come from me or anything :P. keep up the good work!

[Optimus Prime]

TGIF... No seriously thank the lord. Ne who I got some great news.

I sold this right here today... http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=822277 and immediatly i started shopping around. What i came out with was a nice new 939 90nm winchester 3000+, and abit a8v mobo, and a 948u heatsink and dual white ccfl's. For a very short period of time i thought about water cooling. And for all of you that are thinking this case would be cooler if it had water... you are right. but i could not turn down the chance to go 64. Being cool looking is one thing. But being cool looking and fast as hell. that is another.

Needless to say i am super pumped. This rig is gonna be rawkin here soon.

But that is 3 business days away. I need to focus on now first otherwise my 939 stuff will have to go into the vin-diesel looking tt chieftec nock off. BOOOOOO TO THAT.

Tonite I will be focusing on sleaving all of the fan wires and such. I am also going to be starting to wire up the case a bit. with some of the things that I already have. In addition I would like to get the etchings done here in the next few days cause my tinting paint is comming in tuesday.

well it is been a flurry of shipping but the last few things i need are on the way. Looking very good for being done by next weekend. That would be great so i can start on the antec aria 64bit rig i have waiting to be built.

And thanks again for the live drive sk8... your contribution will be shouted out at the end of this one ;)

[PLOBBY]

Looking very nice so far, keep up the good work :clap:

[Optimus Prime]

saturday modding day... yay

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/m1.JPG
Here is the mobo tray all wired up and mounted. I still have to sleeve the fan wires and mount the fans as well. But here you can see the ccfl mounted and the foam that i have to act as a blocker for the ccfl light. This will be visiable to the back mobo window... So this side of the case will be lit up blue and the foam will make sure that not much light will seap through to match the white ccfls on the other side.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/m2.JPG
not too much to say here. the pic speaks for itself. really the effect is much cooler in person.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/p1.JPG
here u can see that i sleeved the powersupply. Nothing different here. The atx connector is still sleeved black from the enermax factory... i was too lazy to change it.

[Optimus Prime]

My girlfriend does all the etching. So i wont put words in her mouth. I will let her work speak for itself. She still has to go back and darken it up to make sure the led's that are put in the side of the window light it up enuf... but i think it is looking nice.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/e1.JPG
In the act...

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/e2.JPG
w/out lights and w/flash

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/e3.JPG
w/light and w/o flash

mmmmm starting too look yummy... :D

[Vio1]

thats amazing. Quality work, thats for sure.

[El-Scotto]

very nice :)

[xanderjobizzle]

oh my god, this looks freeking awesome!!!!

-Xander

[z0n3]

Simply WOW :thup: This idea maybe to late to use but it would be cool if you did an evolution chart for optimus. You know how it goes from ape to man well it could go from ape to 16 wheeler semi. And the other side panel could be Megatron from t-rex to... what ever he is now. I think a tank.

[Barrman]

Looks awesome man your girlfriend does some nice work. You do some pretty steller work your self. You should be very proud of the work you have done. By the way how are you likeing you senn 555s? I got some hd650s and love them to death. Well "keep on rocking (in the free world"?) Can't wait to see it done.

[MODdaBOX]

That is the best etching iv ever seen

[phantomditto]

Your girlfriend is freaking awesome.

Wish I had one that could do stuff like that. Mine only knows cooking, cleaning, and other essential household skills. Nothing important. :D

~pd

[Daewood]

that is by far the coolest etching i have ever seen... awesome.... i am without words...

[Optimus Prime]

Thanks for all the great compliments guys. It is really keeping me going through this project... :D

Did a bunch of modding today. However this day had a small down and then a huge up. I was starting to fit the components in the case to prepare for the mobo and proc that is comming in, in the next few days.

So i go to put my vantec nexus fan controller in the 5.25 bay... And the blasted thing doesnt fit. I have no idea how this is but it is like 2mm too big. WTF. I was furious. But right then i had an moment of brilliance. What follows is became of my moment of greatness.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/f3.JPG
You can see that i mounted the fan controller so the nobs and the blue led circles around them sit flush with the top of the case. It really came out perfect with the handle right there. The nobs match the finish of the case down to a T.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/f1.JPG
Here you can see the mounting brackets that I had to make for this thing to be mounted in there like that. Preaty simple stuff.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/f2.JPG
Here it is from the other side. Sorry about the blurry pix

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/begin.JPG
You can see that it wont be a problem that the fan controller takes up half of the top 5.25 inch bay cause i will have the matrix screen in there.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/wirehole.JPG
I put this wire hole in too so that it would be easy to send wires down the the front part of the case without them looking all ghetto.

So the case is still chuggin along nicley. The fan controller thing took me like 4 hours today cause i really didnt want to screw up the holes. I'm glad I spent all that time on it. :D

I NEED SOME FEEDBACK ON THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!
I really have no creative ideas for this fan grill area. I am down for making my own fan grill for it but i am not quite sure what pattern to make it. I am really thinking that a fan grill here is a good idea cause i bet this 120mm could take your finger off. What do you guys think?
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/question.JPG

[-Superman]

uh golly gee man i dont know maybe ... some sort of TRANSFORMER GRILL ?!?!

i never really watched the show , might of played with a toy or two.

Those knobs are preety slick man.

[phantomditto]

How about another plexiglass etching (with holes for air) to go in front of it? Maybe an autobots logo or something?

[phrkshw]

Definatley do a Gen 1 logo for the grills . I think that would look so sweet . Maybe your gf or you could do them out of plexi .

[Optimus Prime]

did some more late night work... ill leave you with some pictures of where i am at right now in this project.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/wire.JPG
Took this pick to give you an idea of where i am at with the wiring. Did a bunch of soldering today to make the cable runs nice and neat. did some more sleaving. Routed some wires under the mobo tray... really just normal stuff. You can see that i have the fans in place. This basically means that I am done working on the chassis of the case. Maybe a little here or there but no more dremeling. whew... didn't even mess it up once. HeHe

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/mess.JPG
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/hidden.JPG
If there is anything I have learned from my past projects it is that I am decent at wiring. But i am by no means a god. So i have to leave myself one spot in every project where i can stuff things and kinda make a mess. You can see where this is on this project. This is why i just have the mobo window and not two complete windows. Plus i like the artistic ness of it.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/etch.JPG
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in love with this etching. I can't wait to get some LED's and light this baby up... It is going to be sooooo secsie!

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/top.JPG
I don't think I gave this enough attention before. This is a major triumph for me. Definatly consider the top of the case done. I really like what turned out here and i can't wait to see it with the fan controller all lit up.

Well that is it for today... There is still a bunch left to do here. I will be going rapid fire cause i want this done by thursday. If possible.
Here is the short list of To-Do's with this project before it will be considered done:
1) Have gf etch my handle in other window
2) install white cold cathodes
3) work on front mounted ccfl lighting switches
4) led light etchings
5) ducting system for vid card
6) finish and tint side window
7) Install remaining perifs and new motherboard/proc
8) Work on front part where 120mm is. (still not sure what i am going to do here, if ne thing)
9) Overclock this living **** out of this thing and then go on a gaming binge!!!!!!!!

Well i guess it isnt that short of a list but the big stuff is done. now it is all wrapping it up so that this case can be completed. Honestly I could continue this thing forever. But i am not some one who likes to leave projects unfinished. There is something to be said for profectionism... but there is also something to be said for knowing when something is simply good enough. So yes some things could be better if i spent a ton of time on them... like sleeving every wire in the case... but at this point what isnt sleeved will be hidden. So i am happy with the way this one has been turning out.

Stay tuned much much more to come.

[Optimus Prime]

Looks awesome man your girlfriend does some nice work. You do some pretty steller work your self. You should be very proud of the work you have done. By the way how are you likeing you senn 555s? I got some hd650s and love them to death. Well "keep on rocking (in the free world"?) Can't wait to see it done.

I love my sinehieser's... I would not trade them for ne thing in the world... well possibly your headphones. but seriously those of you that swear by your 5.1 sound systems have obviously never used a pair of headphones of this quality along with a decent sound card. some times it is like you are using a wallhack or aimbot in games. you just turn and headshot immediatly... well at least that is what i find in source. :thup:

[Vio1]

damn dude, you make me jealous... that is some real tight work. I wish I had some of that skillz.

[z0n3]

It just keeps looking better.

[PLOBBY]

Wow. Very Very nice work. I love the etching.

[Optimus Prime]

did some more work tonite. I did some work on the duct and i am really not happy with it. I couldn't get it down to the point where it wasn't ghetto. So what I am thinking is to just make a little scoop on the vid card itself to catch the air comming in from the side fan. See for yourself.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/duct1.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/duct2.JPG
In it's current state this thing is definatly not worthy of being in this case. Not sure what I am going to do now... might just ditch this idea completly. What do you guys think?

I did however find this cool led light strip. It has resistors on it and everything. I am going to try and figure out what voltage i need to supply to it to get it running and hopefully use it to light the etching on the back of the mobo tray. I don't suppose some one already knows the voltage that i have to send to this bad boy?

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/ledstrip1.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/ledstrip2.JPG

Actually after closer inspection it seems to just double up on the wires that come directly into the fan to give it power. you know the little 3 pin ones. Well i hope it actually works cause this would be great to light up the etching.

[-Superman]

why arent you on AIM so I can tell your girlfriend how much money you owe her ?

[evowatercooling]

why arent you on AIM so I can tell your girlfriend how much money you owe her ?

That is funny, especially since I just got quoted for $129.95 for a laser etched window.

Anyways, why dont you paint that shroud. If you did a chrome look to it it would be sweet, and all you have to do is sand down the outside. Any other color would work too.

[Vio1]

how did you connect the pieces of the duct? It also looks like your pieces arent perfectly cut... sand down the edges, and let a drop of crazy glue run down the edge(not side) of the piece you want to stick.

[Optimus Prime]

small update...

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/blurry.JPG
I got the light strip installed. Sorry for the blurry pic but my digicam sux and has probs with night shots... However you get the idea. The light strip really makes the etching stand out. Keep in mind that i have a ccfl back there too that i can turn on and off at my discretion. The light really disperses much better in person then on the pic so the effect isnt as craptacular looking.

What do you guys think. I might take another swing at the duct tomorow. but i am leaning towards the air scoop thing instead cause i think that has a better chance of turning out right. That is all for tonite.

El Primo

[SatanSkin]

That etching is ****ing beautiful! good work to the Mrs.! Hurry up and do the tinting so we can see how that comes out!

[Optimus Prime]

does any one know a way to test my powersupply after i sleeved it. I am really leary of tossing the a64 in without knowing if it is working 100%?

[evowatercooling]

You could use a digital multimeter. You could also put it back on your old computer and see if it works there. If you want I can give you a description later of what the order of the wires is on the ATX connector and the molex connectors?

Also your computer is beautiful. I only wish that I could make my computer look half that good. All I have right now is AMD and ATi symbols cut out right now. And I made a tube out of two peices of angled alluminum with hinges to put all the wires in. It looks really good (to me). I just need to get some cable sleeving to finish it off and shorten the wires. I also need to find a way to etch my gremlin into my window. What kind of bit does your gf use to etch. I wish my gf could etch. She can not even draw stick people well. I still love her though. :)

With the air scoop, watch out that it doesnt cause too much turbulance in the case. I say just paint what you already have and see how that turns out. No loss except a couple of ounces of paint.

Oh yeah, Your case is CRAPTACULAR. :D

[Optimus Prime]

cool... i got my answer from mashie over at hardforum... :clap: I was almost 100% sure of it before... but i wanted to second guess myself. I really don't need a reversed connection on my 6800gt you know. LoL... ne who it appears black is black, obviously i guess. Ground is ground, so as long as i have red and yellow in the right place everything is just peachy. :cool:

[phrkshw]

Just a lil opinion ..... if you had one more of those led strips on the other edge of the etch i think that thing would stand out a lot more . All in all a GREAT mod . Transformers are teh roxor . :attn: :attn: :attn:

[evowatercooling]

Yeah. I had to reconnect a molex last night. I cut all the ones i didnt need off, then realized that I forgot to send connectors to the CD drives. woops. But yeah ground is ground, it all goes to the same place in the power supply.

[Optimus Prime]

tnks for the compliments guys. The air scoop will get its second chance tonite and if it fails again... it will be axed. no big loss, i am comfortable with that being unsuccessful if it comes to that.

As for the lighting i did find another one of those led light strips and i will be using it to light up the other side of that window so the etching will stand out much more. I might not even need to turn on the ccfl back there at all. I guess we will see when that times comes.

I have a little story for you. I ordred a 939 board and proc from the egg last friday. In my acct summary it has said shipping in 1-2 days. Today would be the third business day after i ordered it and it still said step 2 of 5... So i was like wtf, and called them. Well the customer service rep said that the prob was that it was shipping from a new warehouse and they were having some probs getting things organized. She assured me that it would be shipped out today... and for my troubles she would ship it overnight shipping for no addition charges. Why do I newegg? THAT'S WHY!

[evowatercooling]

NewEgg is the ****nit.

Ordered my entire computer from their. I tried to order my speakers from other web sites. The first site ran out of the speakers I ordered. I then decided I wanted the Promedia Ultras so I searched for the lowest price for those. I found them for $200 at one site (they are normally $300 - $350), so I ordered them. I found out a week later that the order was cancelled because the item no longer existed. I checked the website and it seemed that they did still exist, but where now $300. They cancelled my order just because they f'ed up. ****ed me off so I decided that I would just go with the best service and cheap shipping from newegg. Got them in 4 days. Newegg Rocks.

[wfarid]

WOW, amazing job, really its great... and give ur gf my compliments cuz that etching is like woah...

[SpeeDj]

Here's an idea for your fan grill at the lower front and to replace the upper. Why not take the face design you cut out of the side panel and do a full mockup of it as a fangrill ? I think it would look really sharp and really draw the whole theme together. You could dremel the two grills out of the excess material you got from cutting the side panel.

Just my two cents.

J :cool:

[Optimus Prime]

got home for lunch and the ups guy left me a little package from frozen cpu. So now i have my 2 white ccfl's, my ccfl extension cables and my 948u heatsink. The heatsink is a thing of beauty as all thermalright products are. The white ccfl's have a huge ugly switch so i will have to do something about that.

So the plan for tonite is to get the ccfl's mounted and in place. Get the cd drives in. Work on the fan ducting a little and try to put some sort of design together for the font fan grill if possible thinking gen 1 autobots symbol outline if possible. I also have to finish the led wiring on the etched window. I am still waiting for the tinting spray to come in :( but when it does the windows will be done. Everything is still looking good to be finished with this by Thursday/Friday.

btw speedj im from wisconsin so word up man! Good ole wis ::sacarsm:: lol

[phrkshw]

your gf wouldnt be willing to do a Predaking etch for me for cash would she . btw im VERY serious .
Also if you did the grill with your left over lexan ( or plexi ) you could do the gen 1 autobot insignia pretty easy ( i guess :) ) .

[Optimus Prime]

actually i was discussing this with her last night. She was saying that she would be willing to do etchings for people for 30-50 dollars depending on the complexity. I know that price seems a little steep. but trust me per hour for what she puts into these things... it is actually quite cheap. i dont want to market here but if any of you guys are interested please pm me instead of posting here. :) more updates soon.

[pby5cat]

did the LED lightstrips come from fans?

[Optimus Prime]

yeah they came from the thermaltake led fans... usually the ones that push crazy cfm for their size. I know that they make a 120, a 92, and an 80... i have one of each and i pulled the ones that i am using for the window from the 80 and the 92... i am thinking that i will be leaving the strip on the 120 but taking the wiring and adding a switch before the strip so that i can turn it on and off.

[SpeeDj]

Well if you are ever up for Lanning let me know I get together with some forum members that are here in Wisc alot and do some gaming. I'm in waukesha off 94 btw.

What about the fangrill idea ? ^.^

J :cool:

[evowatercooling]

Where are you in WI optimus. I live close to hudson which is close to the twincities.

[Optimus Prime]

well i now go to school in Bloomington Indiana... but i am from Green Bay w00t w00t!!!!

LoL but seriously i would love an oc.com lan party action. as for the fan grill i think i am either going to do it in aluminum or plexi. And as speedj suggested i am going to try and make it a gen 1 logo but instead of doing the entire thing i am thinking that i am just going to do the outline. Im gonna give it a shot and post the results.

[evowatercooling]

Cool cool. If your gf would like a few bucks I am willing to pay for a window. It is better then paying $130 for one. Plus I can not do it my self. Here is the pic.

edit: The pic didnt work

Where did you get the tint paint from?

[Cerberus2k7]

You could do a logo on the bottom half of the front doors and then put lexan over it. That way the fan LED would shine through and it would look pretty sweet :D

Or...

You could do like you did on the left side of the case with the half face, but do it really small on the front, then have the other half wrap around onto the right side pannel. *Shrugs* I'm cold...

[Optimus Prime]

more modding tonite. Tonite i got the ccfl switches mounted in the front of the case where the front usb/headphone jax used to be. I will eventually be putting led rocker switches in here but the ones that came with the ccfls will work for now. I also got everything in the case except the motherboard/proc/heatsink etc that hooks up the pci/agp bus. Wiring looks like it should turn out nice.

I also spent some more time on the led light strips. At one point i had them both not working and they seemed doomed. However i was able to recover most of them. I think long term i will be buying new ones. The long and short of it is that i am going to get this thing ready for the magazine thingy for the end of this weekend. And then i am going to continue working on this project and updating the project log... just more of a one update per week thing. mostly because i have an antec aria that will be taking main stage project log wise.

So on to the update:

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/k1.JPG
you can see here how i mounted the ccfl switches in the front of the case. Nothing special this is a temp fix for some led rocker switches that will be comming in next week.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/k3.JPG
There is a little trap door that leads right to the ccfl switches. there was supposed to be a usb/headphone jack here but i made short work of that.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/k2.JPG
front of the case looking all nasty and secsie!

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/k4.JPG
believe it or not that is all the power wires laid into place. The ones hanging are the 4 pin +12, the ATX connector and the Video card Connecter (which is on it's own wire/path from the powersupply) The only thing left to do wiring wise is to hook up the mobo and run all the little wires like matrix to mobo, and cpu/door fan wiring. Ive got one white ccfl along the bottom of the case, and one squeezed in there by the back exhaust fans. I had to file down the little square ccfl stand off things but it fits in there snugly.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/k5.JPG
Here is the concept art for the front fan grill... I was going to do this tonite but it got too late too fast and my screwing up on the led strips really ate up some time.

Things accomplished today:
1) mounted new ccfls.
2) mounted cd drives
3) wired 90 percent of all power wiring
4) finished led strip installation
5) drew up front fan grill

Left to do:
1) tint and attach main window
2) install board/proc
3) custom cut front fan grill
4) finish duct or air scoop for video card.

I wanted to do more tonite but i just screwed the led strips so bad i had to spend time to recover them. However the concept art for the front fan grill looks doable. Should be able to get that and the duct tomorow. I thought I would be getting the testors tinting spray today but that will be here tomorow as well. So that means tomorow is custom fan grill and tinting/mounting of main window day. That leaves thursday for installing the board and proc and finishing the duct. I will prob then spend friday afternoon finishing up all the loose ends.

That is it for now.
Prime

[phrkshw]

That grill is gonna be sweet !!!!!!!!!! I had been trying to figure out how it was gonna be cut out without looking so gimp , but now i got it . gl dood !!!!!

[Daewood]

i love the switch idea that is awesome and what magazine thing are you talking about?

anywho keep up the good work and i just got my camera so in a few days i will start to post my case mods...

[em00guy]

I stand in awe. This project is amazing

[Daegon]

Beautiful case, lookin good so far. Keep up the good deeds dawg.

[Optimus Prime]

ok got some stuff done tonite. Got that fan grill cut out and installed. Got the side window tinted and installed w/door fan and the rest of the parts for the 1/2 autobot logo. Also had to move one of the ccfl's cause the ccfl extension cable would only let it light up half way. That was gay. On bad thing is i think the matrix orbital screen i have is shot. I am going have to pm the guy that i got it from and check it out.

Ne who here are the pix
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/z1.JPG
front fan grill custom made by me. It could have turned out better but those cuts were real small. still better then the wire one that i had there before imho

Here is a sneak peak of the lighting that the case will have
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/z2.JPG
w/ccfls and flash on

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/z3.JPG
w/ccfls and flash off

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/z4.JPG
w/out ccfls flash on...

I think it is looking good.... what do you guys think?

[Daewood]

I love that grill and the window it is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and i am a sucker for white ccfl's

[Vio1]

1 word: WOW

[SatanSkin]

Hard to notice the tint. Are you going to be tinting the etched window? that's the one i was interested in mainly. If not, you think you could do me a favor and do a quick etch on a scrap piece and then tint it to see if the LEDs or CCFLs will still make the etch glow? That's what I need to figure out.

Oh and damn nice looking grill. Really brings the mod together!

[-Superman]

damnnnnnnn homie !

it looks good man, white cathodes reminds me of going to the zoo and the reptile section and lookin for the snakes.

cant wait to see it with your proc and the 6800 and see what kind of oc'ing/temps you get.

but no matter how good it really does look ima have to drop you in source :p

[SpeeDj]

Just a suggestion on the CCFL's, why not mount them on the sides ? it would make a pretty even distrubution of light with not alot of bright points, and allow you to hide them better. Just my two cents.

J :cool:

[Optimus Prime]

Just a suggestion on the CCFL's, why not mount them on the sides ? it would make a pretty even distrubution of light with not alot of bright points, and allow you to hide them better. Just my two cents.

J :cool:

I am all up for lighting suggestions. I tried mounting one on the back where the removable motherboard tray was but i had to use a ccfl wire extension and one of them was only lighting up half way. I could mount them there but that might mean having my inverter out in the open. Where exactly did you have in mind speedj, im not sure if i follow 100%.

Oh and as a side note. after i got the thing built up i noticed that the front fan wasn't pulling in near as much air as it should have been. This all changed once i opened the front lower door. So moral of the story is that the front lower door is way too restrictive. So i guess I will be jumping onto mnpctech.com and ordering some modders mesh... The i will most likley cut a square grill up front there. What I would really like to do is cut the g1 autobots logo up front and put modders mesh behind it but that stuff is 1/8 alluminum and it doesnt appear that i can take the front door off. So premilinary thoughts are a square intake grill.

Any thoughts?

[SpeeDj]

Here:Current config;
---------
| |
|=========| < CCFL
| |
| |
========= <CCFL

New config;
---------
| |
|---------|
:: ::
:: ::
---------
^ ^ CCFL's mounted vertically instead of horizontally.
J :cool: Forgive my barbaric illustrations

[Optimus Prime]

i just ordered the honeycomb modders mesh.. and some rubber gromets... I also picked up some of those huge reinforced cutting discs... Figured those might help me get through the 1/8 inch thick alluminum up front. Im kinda excited about the front grill thing. At first i was ****ed cause i really liked the whole solid front thing. But I think that it is going to look good and in addition it is going to make it so that from every angle that you look at this case you will be able to see one of my mods.

Ne who this part will be done next week. Like I said before the board and proc get here today... I sure hope my abit has a pci/agp lock on it. From what i have heard they are great as long as they have that. Well i guess we will see.

As for window tint I tried the spray tint that i was waiting for. i guess it isnt the same as i remembered... but then again i used to have an airbrush and this was just spray can. I bet it would look pimp with an air-brush.

I am going to try and reorganize the white ccfls tonite when i put the board in so that i can get better light distribution as was suggested by some (particularly j). Also i do not think I am going to be painting this bad boy at least not yet. but if i do you can bet that it will be a blue/red/black paintjob with some silver accents... to mirror the color scheme of... who else but el primo. I really wish i were good at painting cause it would look tough. I might just bite the bullet and have it proffesionaly painted. Also last night I noticed that when i have the custom made fan grill installed the front 120 makes this loud whining noise. I would bet money on the fact that it is because the grill is right up against the fan and that is creating turbulance. So i am going to get some washers and maybe stack 2 under each screw between the fan grill and the fan so that the turbulance is at least decreased.

Stay tuned we are getting close.

[SpeeDj]

i just ordered the honeycomb modders mesh.. and some rubber gromets... I also picked up some of those huge reinforced cutting discs... Figured those might help me get through the 1/8 inch thick alluminum up front. Im kinda excited about the front grill thing. At first i was ****ed cause i really liked the whole solid front thing. But I think that it is going to look good and in addition it is going to make it so that from every angle that you look at this case you will be able to see one of my mods.
If you have access to a drill press you may want to try something a bit different first Before you completely hack the whole thing up. Let me try another poor illustration.Front lower door;
-------------
| | O O O O | |
| | O O O | |
| | O O O O | |
| | O O O | |
| | O O O O | |
| | .---. | |
-------------
Might allow you to keep the look you like without having to hack it all up, flow might be the greatest but by drilling holes at set intervals (think of the pattern of the nozzles in Storm from Cather) you will come up with a nice pleasing solution to a bad air flow problem. Using a drill press will ensure accuracy as well.

J :cool:

[Optimus Prime]

look at all your 733t ascii drawings j.... you amaze me lol.
I am going to dig around and see if i can find some one to exploit with a drill press. That would be worth trying first for sure cause if i screw it up or i dont like it then i can just cut out the square or circle hole that I was orignally going to do.

[Daewood]

that is why i love having a grandpa with a 20' by 20' shed and my dad with a 14' by 14' shed both full of tools... MODDERS HEAVEN!!!!

[Optimus Prime]

Welli am posting this from the new rig... A64 and everything. The good news is the lcd screen was fine all it needed was a driver running behind it.

So everything seems alright running at stock speeds. I got a rev 1.1 so supposedly this thing has a pci/agp lock but i guess i will find out this weekend as i started clocking the crap out of it. On a side note this board acted all wierd at first when i got it. It kept acting possesed and stuff. but now it seems to be cool. Not quite sure if i will be keeping it or returning it for the msi. I think i am going to push it a little and break it in first before i make that decision.

Sad thing is one of my ccfl randomly died tonite while i was working on it. Really I have no idea how it happened. I will have to contact frozen cpu about it. It looks like the bulk of the work on this thing is done. However I will be continuing this project into next week. I want to cut the front lower door so that I can get some more airflow up there. I would still like to airscoop the vid card. And I need to do some serious overclocking and some design work in lcdc so the lcd screen does neet things that match with my mod. And i need to wait for some more sleaving to come in so i can sleeve some random wires that are hear and there, that stupid vantec kit had just under the amount that i needed.

Well I wish i had some pix for tou but my camera batteries died. I will get some more tomorow and get some pix up for all to see.I am also going to be taking pix for that magazine article... so then that preassure will be over and i get get the real nit picky stuff done. Expect this to go until next week or so with updates about every other day. There is still going to be some neat stuff comming so stick around.

OH AND BTW... DO NOT BUY A 90NM 939 PIN CHIP RIGHT NOW. The only reason that I was able to get this working is i had a friend that worx at a pc shop, and they had a 130nm chip sitting around that i could use for a second so i could flash my bios. My recomendation is to wait at least 2 more weeks to let the motherboard situation chill out a bit. ;)

[Gongo56]

hey opti, did you actually sleve the ribbon cable for your 2z plat? what did you sleeve it with?

[Optimus Prime]

vantec sleaving kit. i used one of the bigger parts of the sleaving. i will post a pic when i get home tonite for ya.

[Optimus Prime]

alright folks it has been a busy weekend. I was lucky enough to have both nforce-3 and k8t800pro chipset motherboards in front of me for testing this whole last weekend. All i have to say is the nforce3 is far superior for overclocking purposes.

So i am now running the 3000+ at 2.4GHZ... so that is a 600mhz overclock from stock. I am quite happy with that and I think this is where I will stop. I don't need to break any speed barriers or speed records. But this is good i think. So i basically got an fx for about 200 bux. which works great imho. So I will post some benchies and whatnot later tonite along with some pix of the case 90% finished. I have to take pictures for the chinese modding magazine that wants to publish this case in their mag. And then i am going to tear it apart and do some more work on it.

There are just some nit picky things that i need to do like sound dampening some more lighting and things like that. I have to put the airscoop thing on hold for now but that is one of the things i get to later.

Check back for some updated picuters tonite.

[Gongo56]

can you get me that pic of your moded cable for the audigy?

[Optimus Prime]

can you get me that pic of your moded cable for the audigy?

i definatly will gongo check back around 7cst

[Gongo56]

ty.. good job on this btw

[Daewood]

wow good job on the whole thing and i am glad that you got your mobo and cpu although i am not an amd fan i do think they got some good stuff going for them...

[-Superman]

i definatly will gongo check back around 7cst

quit beeing stingy with the pics bro ! :mad:

[Optimus Prime]

for my man gongo... there you can see my sleeved audigy cable... all i did was cut the cable with an exacto knife and then tore it with my hands leaving the insulation intact.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l10.JPG

[Optimus Prime]

Ok Ok update time just as i promised... I cut the front lower door to allow more airflow cause with the door closed it was horrible. The front alluminum is 1/8 inch thick so it was a ton of fun to cut as you could imagine. A word to the wise.... get a comfortable chair. One thing that made it easier is that I had some of the enlarged cutting discs from mnpctech.com... they worked great. Some how I only used one disc cutting the front door.

Before I get to the pictures I want to show off my firends car. He will be jumping up and down when he sees this. I think he's kinda pumped about the car... and he should be for a ricer, and being under 16g's it is flossin!
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l01.JPG

On to the really important stuff...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l08.JPG
I cut the hole with a dremel... and it wasnt easy. the thing got super hot while cutting. I attached the mesh on the door again with my best friend through this mod, two sided foam servo tape. I put some rubber grommets down where the fan grill attaches to the case to stop the air reverberation. It didnt quite help so i think i will be cleaning this up and ataching it to the mesh.

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l07.JPG
finished product... I think it looks great and it really helps the airflow situation.

[Optimus Prime]

Aight these shots are just to show off a little. There are the kinda shots that I will be sending to the magazine guy. Again I will still be doing some work to the case after today... just slowing it down a little

Motherboard...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l11.JPG

Etching...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l09.JPG

Exterior...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l12.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l06.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l04.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l05.JPG

Pictures speak for themselves.

[Optimus Prime]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Shotz!!!!! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Workstation...
http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l13.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l03.JPG

http://burrowww.cs.indiana.edu:11410/l02.JPG

[Daewood]

man that kicks @%%!!!

it is so sweet, i cant beleive how it turned out...but as for the pics i would take one of the right side with the etching from straight on all lit up that would be better than the one that you currently have.

[Vio1]

Are you done??? IF so, gezz... im jealous.. finished it so quickly, and it looks drop dead gorgeous. Awesome.... just awesome.

[Optimus Prime]

well i am at about 80% or so... I still have some stuff to do but it will be more 1 or 2 updates per week for a while.

[dj_2004]

damn thats clean, came out better than i expected. the tinted window is great how you can see the inside when the fans/ccfl are on.

[SpeeDj]

Definate thumbs up on the cold cathode mounted on the side, doesn't overwhelm the center anymore being where it's at, I assume you haven't gotten the other one to do the right side yet ? The front looks pretty good, still think holes would've been smooooooth ;) But your mod and you need to be the one happy with it :)

Keep up the awesome work :)

J :cool:

[-Superman]

man that kicks @%%!!!

it is so sweet, i cant beleive how it turned out...but as for the pics i would take one of the right side with the etching from straight on all lit up that would be better than the one that you currently have.

did I NOT say that Prime ?!?!

show the etching maaaan! quit beeing stingy! :temper:

[Optimus Prime]

yeah for sure... i wont be sending him these pix... I am going to have to have it set up with a black background and stuff so you can see my ghetto as workstation setup and so i can show off the etching some more...

Just to put some context here... i met the one that is -Superman playing sof2 in cal... well we soon found out that we have the same last name... which is wierd.... and well we have been talking trash constantly since then... and as you can see by his avatar he is retarded. o_0

[-Superman]

<--- Made him good at SOF2 at that, he wouldnt buy me a 6800. He told me to get a job, actually probly the best thing to happen to me , hahah. Omg. I owe him like a thanks or something dont I ? :bang head

I know hes related to me to, its scary .

But back to that case !!! Whats the back panel loook like, do some more transformers grills on the back side !

[Optimus Prime]

well it would look t4mr dawg but i dont want to restrict airflow... overclocking is the first and primary concern and looks is second. so I prob wont do too much back there.

And speedj yeah I really wanted to do the hole idea up front... but i could not find anyone with a drill press to save my life. So this really was my only option unless i wanted to ship it out.

[Optimus Prime]

To those of you that just got here... there is an update on the previous page

I just started reading up on monitor painting... that big white crt is really cramping my style... i think it needs some blackening. any one have any tips for masking the front screen or for just monitor painting in general?

[SpeeDj]

To those of you that just got here... there is an update on the previous page

I just started reading up on monitor painting... that big white crt is really cramping my style... i think it needs some blackening. any one have any tips for masking the front screen or for just monitor painting in general?
More like starting at #113, Not all of us run with the forums in less then 50 Replies a page or whatever setting that is.

J :cool:

[Optimus Prime]

sorry for the lack of updates latley... i had to go the doctor today and have an alluminum sliver removed from my eye. ;) < so now i look like that... It sucked I was even wearing eye protection for the entire time i cut the case... but figures the last thing i cut puts metal in my eye. oh well feeling better now. I have a lengthy paper due monday so i am gonna finish that and then get on to modding some more next week.

Also I will post a link to my newest project, Project: B4S1L1SK (A total system Antec Aria mod)

Budget on this one will be high as well. ive got an a64 system lined up for it and a 6800gt. getting the cooling down should be interesting. hehe

[9mmCensor]

Nice job. Turned out awesome.

[phrkshw]

29 and still collecting ..... cant wit for my Predaking re-release to arrive :attn: :attn:

[phrkshw]

Ya know I'm glad the Transformers are still around and all , but if they want to put out cartoons I wish they would go OLD SCHOOL . Maybe all the original guys with new graphics . And before anyone says it , G1 and Energon/RID/whatever , not the same . lol .
Now ......... Lets see some more updates . :D:D

[Alexia]

I love the side panel! :D Very good, clean work Optimus! Sorry to hear about your eye! :eek: (Done that a few times.)

Alright so there is the intro to the project. This one will mostly be super simple. MY DISCLAIMER: THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT I WILL NOT BE DOING NE THING GROUND BREAKING WITH THIS MOD. I JUST GOT LOOT FOR NEW COMPONENTS AND SINCE THIS PLACE IS SUCH A FREEKING GHOST TOWN LATLEY I FIGURED THAT I WOULD JOIN VIO1 (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=316937) :thup: IN TRYING TO KEEP IT GOING.

I just looked, threads from the beginning of the last month on the first page! AH! I need to get another case to mod! :o Haven't done anything special lately, but my previous discontinued project is almost finished.