GeekLlama

With remote working, I got to bring my work computer home (3950x, 64gb of ram and a 2060 super (it might seem unbalance, but for what I do it's perfect)), and my personnal computer was sitting in a corner (ryzen 2600, 16gb of ram and a 2060) for 6 monts. So I decided to make a mini-itx HTPC/Vr gaming rig for my living room with parts from my personnal computer. My old Thermaltake Armor being HUGE, I choose to shrink down a lot. I just needed to buy a new motherboard (I chose the Asus A320i-k, just because it was the cheapest one and I didn't need more) and a new PSU (I chose the Corsair SF450). I wanted to use wood, make the computer less "computery" in the room. I chose red oak and maple (sentimental thing). I decided to make the internal out of sheet metal (and by cutting the pannel of an old Lenovo). But first I made a prototype out of cardboard.. Afterward, it was "only" a question of glueing the wood, cutting, sanding, and putting a coat of Teak oil. It took me waayyy more time to do all of this than I anticipated (and I'm way over budget). The end result is far from perfect, it isn't perfectly even, the cutting isnt perfectly straight, the mounting holes for the fans aren't perfectly aligned... But. I love how it looks. My internal AC cable being too shot, I had to flip it and cut a hole in the middle metal sheet so the PSU could breathe. Last thing was to put something to seal the panels (so I wouldn't get cat hair everywhere on the computer). And do some cable management. And here are pictures from the final product

I should try to make it work honestly, but the cables are pretty ketchup and mustard, so I don't know As Vishera said, it's really a big case. Without any parts, it weights around 16kg. With everything inside it must be over 20kg. It's yuge and heavy. I sold it to get the NZXT one because it's prettier

Sooo.... After many year, I decided to build up a new computer, but wanted to re-use my old case: the huge and heavy Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS. I just thought it would be a cool project. Here is a picture of it when I got it in May of 2006 (ft. floppy disks): Pentium D 950 (I don't know why I didn't go AMD...and the Core 2 Duo was launched 2 months later...) 2gb of DDR2 667mhz Radeon X1900XT I upgraded the video card (to a Geforce 8800GT) and the ram (to 4gb) over the years, but the computer was unused since 2012, when the CPU fan broke. So, in september I made a list the parts I wanted with a budget of around 1000$ canadian dollars: Ryzen 2600 RTX 2060 16gb of ram I spare the details, because it's about the mod and not the build. I assembled the system without any mods: The black parts already helped. The next step was to get an AIO, because I like the look. I got the Corsair H100i Pro because it was the best deal when I was looking for it, but I ended up to sell it to a friend of mine shortly after (switching to NZXT). I mounted the AIO on the back of the hard disk cage I already had, the case having so much available space I was able to macgyver something and fix it. Cable management is always an issue, the cases back in those days didn't offer any good solution. I ended up mounting the rad in a push-pull config and hiding the cables mostly behind it. After that, I wanted to vertically mount the video card. I guess it would have been cheaper to buy the riser cable + vertical bracket combo on amazon... But I wanted to buy a Dremmel, sooo... I went to the mechanic shop next door and ask for a piece of metal I could use. All that to... undo everything, remove the rivet and put the case to parts. It's painting time! I put everything back together and I think it makes a big difference it the look. I hooked up the Kraken X52, added some RGB light strips (of course) and voila! I think it looks pretty good considering that the case is over 13 years old.. I might tweak the cable management again, I just didn't have enough zip ties. A comparison: Any ideas where I could go next? What do you think I could have done better? PS I know, it's sad that it sit on the ground like that... I just don't have any place else I might rise it a but the thing is huge and is already pretty close to the desk. PPS Yes, I kept the floppy disk reader (although it's unplugged because... floppy disk in 2019)

I know it's really random, but I had a similar problem and it was that I set my Windows wallpaper to change every minutes. It took me 3 reinstall to figure out what it was...