Jenna Haze

The 780ti is discontinued. They will not market discontinued GPUs.

I will be bringing more of the build in the following week but here is how it started... 
I was inspired buy other builds but the two major projects were a NES and an ammo box turned into PCs. I love the idea of having having an interesting looking PC and ones that are not what they seem to be at first glace. I will show you the ammo box build i saw. Now i looked at buying new parts thinking that i could then sell the finished project to someone. I did not really have the money to put into it if i did not have a buyer lined up. What to do??


Well.. there is my old system left over since i built a new system.(Project Mir, if you care lol) It was only being used by my family rarely for basic internet use. So it came back home. It wouldnt be super performance but it wouldnt be horrible at all. It would still need a few things like a graphics card but that could be worked out. 


Now i had to find the object to hold the parts. I looked at lots of thrift shops till i found it. A 4 channel (my dad told me that was important...) duel turntable and cassette tape stereo system built into a wooden box. I just loved it when i saw it. Its interesting to know that in its time it was the very top of performance and now its so far gone its here in a store collecting dust and cant be sold. 
So i was going to breath new life into it. How much would remain to be seen.

For now here are the two sides of the stereo. Sorry i didnt take a pic of the whole thing before i started. But fear not! You will get a great idea of what it looked like when you see it finished. I intend for it to look almost exactly the same.

 
Now exactly what parts it uses are only partly known. I didnt build this one so cut me some slack. Also here are the new parts.
Old parts
Mobo is some kind of 775 socket gigabyte.
8GB 1333MHz DDR2 RAM
Q6600 quad core CPU
1TB HDD 7200RPM
500W PSU
120GB SSD samsung 840
 
New parts
GTX 550Ti (given by a friend after he upgraded)
Zalman Mini copper air cooler (its amazing for its size!)
Silverstone 450W SFX PSU (500W was too big to fit)
PCIE extention cable

 
I knew i was going to need all the space i could get so i took off the cover for the GTX. 

 
So the system was gutted and i did some spacing out of the parts inside the case with the top removed. Everything seemed to be just right thankfully
So here is the lay out, 

 
After checking it would all fit i got the system up and running to make sure everything worked. 

 
Next up, starting to cut to fit hardware. I started with the PSU and fitted it with screws and a wood block brace glued in place to stop it moving around. 
One sentence, hours of work. 


 
I then cut more from the turn table. I hope to use a fan motor to make the table spin by the end of the build. 

 
I had bought some nice simple looking toggle switches and fitted them to the turn table to act as the on/off and reset buttons. I think they fit nicely.


 
I had changed over some lights in the cassette deck for blue leds. The one in the radios tuning bar is the power led and some 3mm leds are in the cassette housing to light up the clear plastic. It wasnt on when i took this picture but in the upper left corner is another blue led for the HDD activity. It replaced a light that showed whether it was on stereo mode or not. So you can get a pretty good idea of how things will look onced finished here Ignore the cpu cooler in the graphics card side. It was there just to prop things up while i worked.

 
Here's a shot of the back side and IO. I bent the L shape bracket for the GTX straight so i could drill the card to the wall flat. Cut a hole for the ports. Placed a wooden block to support the other end of the card and was done with that.

 
Here I cut up a 3 speed fan to use the motor to spin the turn table when the system was powered on. I promise you it not only worked at just the right speed as to look like it was the real motor but i could also switch to the lowest power setting via switch on the back to stop it spinning if the sound was bothering me while watching a movie at night or what have you. I honestly didnt know how/if i was going to be able to make it work but sometimes things just come together for you i guess. If youre ever stuck on how to make something work, play the A Team theme. Trust me   

 
So here it is finished from a few angles and running Blood dragon. i ended up mostly using it as a HTPC. with the cables down behind the TV, you honestly couldnt see anything that told you it was a PC. I had a few friends very confused at first when using it. So the only things you could see that had changed was the original red stereo light was now a blue HDD LED. The tape deck now glowed with blue light. The plastic needle that marked the radio frequency was now a blue power LED and the two toggle switches but they went with the look so well everyone thought they were original anyway. So i had got the stealth look i was going for and with the added bonus of getting the table to spin. 
 
 
Cant tell you all how happy I was with how it turned out. It just looks so in place in a living room next to a TV. 
 
Hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think,
                                                                                Jenna

Forum ID: Jenna Haze
Build Title: Project RETROactive. $300 revival.
Thread URL: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/56629-project-retroactive-300-revival/
Description: Spent $300 to make my old system into a hidden PC. Built into an old turntable/tapedeck combo stereo.

Slick got fired about 4 times already, so I think he's picking up nickels on the ground.

Sooo all I can do is wait for some kind of angle with a magical software sollution...
Where the hell is slick when you need him?! lol

Fighter tactics and formations. Maybe you should put some of this into the manual. The black bars are helpful and all but... Always remember TopGun and perform a Split S. Saved me in War Thunder 1000 times. When im in my 315P im going to need some defensive tactics. 

http://www.combataircraft.com/en/Tactics/Air-To-Air/

Fighter tactics and formations. Maybe you should put some of this into the manual. The black bars are helpful and all but... Always remember TopGun and perform a Split S. Saved me in War Thunder 1000 times. When im in my 315P im going to need some defensive tactics. 

http://www.combataircraft.com/en/Tactics/Air-To-Air/

I will be bringing more of the build in the following week but here is how it started... 
I was inspired buy other builds but the two major projects were a NES and an ammo box turned into PCs. I love the idea of having having an interesting looking PC and ones that are not what they seem to be at first glace. I will show you the ammo box build i saw. Now i looked at buying new parts thinking that i could then sell the finished project to someone. I did not really have the money to put into it if i did not have a buyer lined up. What to do??


Well.. there is my old system left over since i built a new system.(Project Mir, if you care lol) It was only being used by my family rarely for basic internet use. So it came back home. It wouldnt be super performance but it wouldnt be horrible at all. It would still need a few things like a graphics card but that could be worked out. 


Now i had to find the object to hold the parts. I looked at lots of thrift shops till i found it. A 4 channel (my dad told me that was important...) duel turntable and cassette tape stereo system built into a wooden box. I just loved it when i saw it. Its interesting to know that in its time it was the very top of performance and now its so far gone its here in a store collecting dust and cant be sold. 
So i was going to breath new life into it. How much would remain to be seen.

For now here are the two sides of the stereo. Sorry i didnt take a pic of the whole thing before i started. But fear not! You will get a great idea of what it looked like when you see it finished. I intend for it to look almost exactly the same.

 
Now exactly what parts it uses are only partly known. I didnt build this one so cut me some slack. Also here are the new parts.
Old parts
Mobo is some kind of 775 socket gigabyte.
8GB 1333MHz DDR2 RAM
Q6600 quad core CPU
1TB HDD 7200RPM
500W PSU
120GB SSD samsung 840
 
New parts
GTX 550Ti (given by a friend after he upgraded)
Zalman Mini copper air cooler (its amazing for its size!)
Silverstone 450W SFX PSU (500W was too big to fit)
PCIE extention cable

 
I knew i was going to need all the space i could get so i took off the cover for the GTX. 

 
So the system was gutted and i did some spacing out of the parts inside the case with the top removed. Everything seemed to be just right thankfully
So here is the lay out, 

 
After checking it would all fit i got the system up and running to make sure everything worked. 

 
Next up, starting to cut to fit hardware. I started with the PSU and fitted it with screws and a wood block brace glued in place to stop it moving around. 
One sentence, hours of work. 


 
I then cut more from the turn table. I hope to use a fan motor to make the table spin by the end of the build. 

 
I had bought some nice simple looking toggle switches and fitted them to the turn table to act as the on/off and reset buttons. I think they fit nicely.


 
I had changed over some lights in the cassette deck for blue leds. The one in the radios tuning bar is the power led and some 3mm leds are in the cassette housing to light up the clear plastic. It wasnt on when i took this picture but in the upper left corner is another blue led for the HDD activity. It replaced a light that showed whether it was on stereo mode or not. So you can get a pretty good idea of how things will look onced finished here Ignore the cpu cooler in the graphics card side. It was there just to prop things up while i worked.

 
Here's a shot of the back side and IO. I bent the L shape bracket for the GTX straight so i could drill the card to the wall flat. Cut a hole for the ports. Placed a wooden block to support the other end of the card and was done with that.

 
Here I cut up a 3 speed fan to use the motor to spin the turn table when the system was powered on. I promise you it not only worked at just the right speed as to look like it was the real motor but i could also switch to the lowest power setting via switch on the back to stop it spinning if the sound was bothering me while watching a movie at night or what have you. I honestly didnt know how/if i was going to be able to make it work but sometimes things just come together for you i guess. If youre ever stuck on how to make something work, play the A Team theme. Trust me   

 
So here it is finished from a few angles and running Blood dragon. i ended up mostly using it as a HTPC. with the cables down behind the TV, you honestly couldnt see anything that told you it was a PC. I had a few friends very confused at first when using it. So the only things you could see that had changed was the original red stereo light was now a blue HDD LED. The tape deck now glowed with blue light. The plastic needle that marked the radio frequency was now a blue power LED and the two toggle switches but they went with the look so well everyone thought they were original anyway. So i had got the stealth look i was going for and with the added bonus of getting the table to spin. 
 
 
Cant tell you all how happy I was with how it turned out. It just looks so in place in a living room next to a TV. 
 
Hope you all enjoy and let me know what you think,
                                                                                Jenna

"closed cell foam". Linus just came...

Here's my second one :D

Thought of this while watching an old LTT video
 
One question though, is it allowed to post more than one meme because i have more ideas?
 

Livestream disaster

Slick, what are you doing?

** If You can't see the image above, my webserver is down. Chances are if you give it a minuite or two it will be back up..  (F5..F5..F5..F5..)

** If You can't see the image above, my webserver is down. Chances are if you give it a minuite or two it will be back up..  (F5..F5..F5..F5..)

Babies: how do they work
 

Think i'm gonna need a jacket
 

This is brilliant. Just don't let his wife see it.

What about this one?
 
I also made one with a black border, not sure which one looks the best/is more correct

Just one I made for the lulz.  :D All from the latest live stream and after party.
 

  Livestream and Afterparty link:
https://youtu.be/unQk6zpicKo
https://youtu.be/xGVLClO1kCE?t=1h7m38s
 

Here are some that I made a while ago.
 

 

"EA"

THIS IS A MILESTONE IN MY LIFE!