Twofold, a dual ITX system.

[Lord Pantaloons]

 

 

 

Do I have your attention?

 

Good.

 

 

Before I begin I want to get something out of the way, I am by no means an expert case modder. This is my first venture into case modding so you shouldn't expect the kind of fit and finish that is common with casemods that are posted on LTT. My goal first and foremost is to get this thing done and functioning, aesthetics will not enter the equation at any point in this build for the time being so with that in mind please refrain from commenting on how something might resemble fecal matter.


As I said above this will be my first casemod, I originally planned for this to be a simple mod where I cut up the front of a cheap Rosewill mATX case to accommodate a 240mm AIO that would cool an overclocked APU system. However while I was finishing up my final cut marks I had the idea to try to fit a full sized ATX motherboard into the case as well, after about an hour of rough fitting and measurements I realized that it just wasn't going to work. As I went back to my original plan however I realized that the simple casemod I had planned would not satisfy me after thinking of the ATX conversion that wouldn't quite fit. After brooding for a bit I somehow got the idea in my head to put two ITX motherboards in one case(this all occurred at 4AM). After seeing that two ITX boards would fit(just) in the Rosewill case but not the power supplies I jumped onto Amazon to find a cheap ATX case, right after I did that however I remembered that I had an ancient Aopen ATX case in my closet that once housed a Pentium 4 rig that I rescued from a thrift store and after fixing it lovingly dubbed it "The Trashcan" (no relation to the Mac, my reasoning was that I planned on cutting a hole in the top of the case to literally use the PC as a trashcan for my room). It the motherboard crapped out a few weeks prior and I had stripped it and tossed the case in my closet, after retrieving it and removing the drive cages I realized that the case was pretty much perfect for my needs. It was free(as in I already bought it), it was big enough, and I didn't give any f**ks about it so if I ruined it I wouldn't care.

The parts I've chosen are nothing special, my goal in ordering them was to stay as close to the budget I had set for my original casemod plan as possible. I was moderately successful and in the end I bought two Celeron G1610's, two AsRock H61MV-ITX motherboards, two Rosewill TFX 300w PSU's, and two 2GB sticks of RAM. I will also be using several parts that I already had lying around, they are a 120GB WD HDD, a 160GB Segate HDD, two 2GB sticks of RAM and two PNY GTS 250 1GB GPU's(one of which I bought on the LTT classifieds from @ONOTech). There is no real intended use for these systems beyond something to tinker with when I'm bored, so most of the time they will be set to fold when I'm not using them (hence the name because I couldn't think of anything better). I know they won't really accomplish much but every little bit helps.

So here's where I'm at so far.

 

I've removed the drive cages and trimmed a section of the case that acted as a rail of sorts to hold the PSU(top mounted) in place. The ledge thingy was about an inch tall and would interfere with my plan to have the motherboards placed vertically so I cut it pretty much in half. I'm planning on removing the I/O and PCI brackets as well to give me a bit more room to work with but I've not yet done it.

 

Anyways I'll update this as I go, Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures.

[Damikiller37]

This should be interesting Subbed!

[edschofield15]

This looks cool

[Worth]

Following this.

[TheSLSAMG]

Yes, I have been waiting for this

[TheMikeyG]

Following. Looks really cool.

[SammyG145]

This looks like it could be interesting, followed!

[Jack.EXE]

this could be really cool.

 

I'm following this.

[Commander_Z]

subbed, looking forward to seeing how this turns out

[nsyedhasan]

More than 8x as powerful as my system....

[EpicGeekonFire]

Very Kewl Indeed.

[Logan2012]

Awesome. 

[Damikiller37]

Looks interesting! Hopefully I wasn't the only one that noticed the case is from 2002 haha

I think that's exactly one of the main factors that make this build unique and interesting :}

[Lord Pantaloons]

I'm going to try to work on the case a bit tomorrow, no promises on any progress though because I haven't been feeling well. The only thing I'm waiting on now is the RAM I ordered, it's supposed to get here on the 28th.

 

On a side note here are some more pictures of the case.

 

 

 

[legopc]

i saw someone else do this to but then kindof extreme i think he had like 5 m-itx boards in one case 

[Karumu]

interesting....

[BRiteBak]

i saw someone else do this to but then kindof extreme i think he had like 5 m-itx boards in one case

Link please?

[legopc]

Link please?

i dunno i have been trying to look for it but cant seem to find it 

[Lord Pantaloons]

i dunno i have been trying to look for it but cant seem to find it 

If you manage to find it provide some links but please don't post any pictures of it on this thread.

[Raboo]

Looks Cool

subbed

[legopc]

If you manage to find it provide some links but please don't post any pictures of it on this thread.

this vid is german but this is what i mean 

[Lord Pantaloons]

Update:

 

I was able to remove the built in standoff's in addition to the I/O bracket(at the cost of several attachments for my dremel). I've also begun to cut away at the metal that surrounded the I/O bracket but I had to stop due to the fact that my dremel got so hot that I couldn't hold it even with gloves on so I'm taking a break while it cools down. My back is also killing me so I was going to stop soon anyways. I'm hoping that I can get the cutting done today, if I do I'll post some more pictures today.

[sperkowsky]

Subbed excited to see what The Lord pantaloons brings me

[miyabwah]

[ENDED] live progress feed : http://tinychat.com/theslsamg

[TheSLSAMG]

Oh Lord Pantaloons The Third of Douche Canoe, Dildonia, shower us with more of your pure and utter amazement.