Mod a Case With Me......... LOTS OF PICS

[Capt Fiero]

Ok here is going to be my biggest challenge yet. Mod this Old Server Tower into something cool. I had been searching for months for the perfect candidate. I was in the area of the local computer recycling yard today so I stopped by to take a look. There she was just sitting there. I asked about it and they said it had Zero value to them and I could was more that welcome to haul it away. They had several old P2 servers they said if I wanted I could buy for 30$ I was tempted but I passed. So this is my new baby.

I have stripped it down to the bare frame so far. I am going to paint the inside probably RED and do the outside in Black. I want to add at least one window to side. Maybe more. I am going to add at least one if not two CC lights to the inside. I have a box full of fans ranging from 40mm to 120mm that I am going to be installing in it. I want to vent and direct air flow all through it. I am going to update this thread as I go through all the cuts and chops. I plan to use my Dremel, My jig saw and my new hole saw and 1/2 black and decker drill. I plan to work on it in my spare time over the next couple of weeks. This is going to be so much fun. The back panel was a tad rusty from sitting in the warhouse, but everything else looks very nice. The front panel has plugs for HDD 1- HDD7 and Fan LED 1-4 as well as the standard PWR Switch and Reset. I cant use all the HDD LEDS so I will probably just take them out. My new machine will have at least 6 hard drives in it but I am not sure how to get any use out of the LEDS to trigger them. If anyone has any cool suggestions let me know. (I was thinking water cooling because it is such a huge case, but I think this one is going to be air cooling) The case came with the wheels pre-installed so this is going to save me a bit of time as I wont own a computer anylonger without wheels. Once you have tried a wheeled machine, you cant go back.

Well enough of my chatter, here are the pics. (Well the first round at least.)

 

[daniel_dynasty]

nice.. you gonna wc that? wheres u get the case? i bet you can cut some fan holes there on the side. and add in like 10 holes. 5 down and 5 more down. thatll be nicee

 

[speed bump]

That is a insanely huge case I must have one where did you get it.

 

[daniel_dynasty]

its a server case thats like double a mid tower lol. o i dream of the modding on that case. whererd u get it and how much? what brand? i swear you can fit 2 psus in there. heck make a double compouter on that. you can fit 2 mobos lol. i am NOT being sarcastic.

 

[Capt Fiero]

WOW 2 replies even before I finished writting the write up. I wanted to post the pics first, just to see if it would allow me to post that many at one time.

I got the case for free from a local computer recycling yard.

 

[daniel_dynasty]

nice can you recycle one up for me? i bet you can find a lot of stuff there.

 

[Capt Fiero]

nice can you recycle one up for me? i bet you can find a lot of stuff there.

They must have had 50 brand new AT Cases with PSU they were about to crush several P2 ATX machines complete with Hard drives and CD Roms they were about to crush. giant bins full of slot one motherboards and stuff. I could not belive it. I am sure they save the really good stuff, but anything less than a gig machine they probably just toss. The shipping would make it really expensive to ship this kind of stuff. It is pretty big and bulky. But if you ever make it to Surrey BC Canada. 2hrs North of Seattle Washington I can show ya where this place is.

They might even have a location state side. I will see if I can find there web site again. I went there once but it was a totally useless site. The only thing I got from it was there phone number and no one answerd it.

 

[Xenocide]

oh god damn that is a hot case

 

[Capt Fiero]

Ok fan grills are cut out. I thought my drill was going to have a heart attach. That is no cheap tin, I could not belive how thick the steel was in that frame. But I have 3 80mm exhast holes and 1 120mm intake hole. I am contemplating a 120mm top blow hole, but that is where the UPS and external USB 2.0 HD sit for the case is right on top of it. I was thinking about making a 120mm simple exhaust where the 2 80mm ones are but I kinda like the look of the 2, 80mm twin fans right next to each other.





Well I started painting it and ran out of paint. It is not going nearly as well as I had hoped. I may sand out the areas I really dont like, re-primer and re-shoot them. I really like the idea of RED inside and black outside. I am not worrying about the top as when I go to paint the outside I am just going to put all the panels back on and start shooting. LOL. I even primerd right over the "Intel Inside" sticker. I am really thinking about eventully putting an AMD board and chipset in it. For now it is going to have my old P3 stuff from my old server.
I will try to work on it more tomorrow and post up some more pics. I am out of paint and out of daylight for today, and I dont want to do all this painting in my enclosed garage.

 

[bizhar]

Capt Fiero you have to water cool that BEAST!
That is case is cool.
Maybe dual water cooled loops??
Powder Coat that heavy duty metal. (after you cut that is)
Install Wheels on the case somewhere is ease movement??
Plexi Side Window? Top Window?
NIce Modding Case you have there
Methinks I saw an old server case at work the other day

 

[w00p]

Are you actually going to make this into a server, or a big PC case?

Anyway, it may be just the pic, but I don't entirely like the colour you used, Its too purple-ish. Try bright, pure red. Stands out very nicely when the outside of the case is black and theres a window+red lights.

Try and get ahold of some:
A) Orange UV reactive fans with UV LEDs
B) Red quad LED fans

I can forsee a wee much amount of beauty in this beast. (pun intended )

 

[CheeZeTM]

I have a ssimilar case over here, it's a AT case though, i am donateing it to my friend(show should be takeing it off my hands today) he's going to mod it, he still has no idea what he's gonna do with it but i'm just glad to get ride of it, man, i would be best friends with that guy who is scraping PCs, just for rebuilding it would be fun, u can make alot on Ebay if the P2 bokes had working ram and mobo's, pc133 is high price wiase rght now (or was last time i checked)

 

[RevelatorHarmon]

I just have one word, potential.

I see alot happening with this case, it is large enough to accomadiate any number of intresting MOD's, you have a duty to this case to come up with something orignal and creative for this one, keep us posted

 

[RangerJoe]

Dang. If it were my case. I would get another small sheet of steel, and make a new back panel for my power supply, and place it all the way at the top, and then you could put a slow speed 120 in or something. You need more intake though. I say since you have wheels on it, you should cut a hole in the bottom of the case, or two, and maybe build a duct in order to face them diagonally up.

Like this...

haha. Thats a bunch of fans. anyway. Id invest in a sunbeam rheobus or two, if you go with anything close to this design. svc has them for like 15 dollars.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Dang. If it were my case. I would get another small sheet of steel, and make a new back panel for my power supply, and place it all the way at the top, and then you could put a slow speed 120 in or something. You need more intake though. I say since you have wheels on it, you should cut a hole in the bottom of the case, or two, and maybe build a duct in order to face them diagonally up.

Like this...

haha. Thats a bunch of fans. anyway. Id invest in a sunbeam rheobus or two, if you go with anything close to this design. svc has them for like 15 dollars.

Well my Ranger, I really like your pic and you did show me that I do need more intake. That is when a lightbulb flicked on inside my head. In my personal machine, I removed the floppy drive and put an 80mm fan where the 2 floppy holes are. This new CASE has so many 5 1/4 and they go so low in the case that I can mount a 120mm fan in the bottom 2 or 3 slots and then put hard drives in the actulle bays. This will double my intake and ensure that the drives stay cool and live a long healthy life. It is also going to move a bunch of the wiring higher up in the case so that it will be more managable. I am going to try and Save and edit your pic. I will post back in a few min.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Here is what I am thinking.

P.S. take a look at my current server http://www.captfiero.com/120mm it has most of the fans I will be using, plus a 420w PSU and a Nexus Fan controller in it. The pics of the other machine will give ya an idea of what I am working with for parts and tools as well. I think there is a thread someplace on here. I will see if I can dig up the old thread or at least re-post the pics.

 

[Demonghast]

Damn! That's going to be a cool case when you are done. I went to a computer junkyard here in Calgary, but they wanted $50 for big cases like that

How far a drive would it be for me to get to Surrey BC? I haven't been to BC yet. Closest was a few trips into K-Country. If it's not that long a drive I might be talking a friend into a road trip. Course it would depend when the recycling place was opened too I suppose.

 

[Capt Fiero]

Well the place seems to be open 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday.

I don't know how much use this link is going to be, I gave up on it and just went down to there place.

http://www.electronics-recycling.com/

They are in Surrey BC about 30km from Vancouver BC.

 

[Capt Fiero]

3 more pics. I think the interior painting is done.

 

[Aphex_Tom_9]

hah, that's not a big case or anything looks good so far