sleeper pc IBM 300GL Sleeper PC

[pentotark]

 

 

I had this beautiful white with blue accents IBM case lying around for a while. It is a IBM 300GL from 1999, not that old but I just love the business, blocky design aesthetic IBM had prior the 2000's. Especially Aptiva and XT cases, these are among my favorites but they are difficult to find where I am and expensive indeed. Back to the 300GL, it still looks great, screams IBM all over the place and most importantly that is what I have available.

This machine does not turn on, psu and motherboard are probably faulty, so I thought of migrating my Skylake pc inside of it to create an IBM sleeper pc stuffed with powerful components. I will keep the exterior as close as possible to the original, while inside I will do whatever is needed to fit modern hardware. Before I dismember this pc, I'll show you whats inside:

 

Nothing too fancy here, just a Pentium 3 processor running at 450 Mhz, equipped with 256 MB of ram. Videocard is a first gen 3Dfx Voodoo graphics accelerator coupled with a S3 Trio 3D. A bit of a Frankenstein mismatch since the processor is from 1999 and the video compartment from 95/96. I have a better pc to run Win 98 games so it wont be too sad to disassemble this configuration. The only valuable object in my opinion is the Voodoo card, it still works nicely and I will save it for future builds.

There is a shiny colored Windows 98 badge on the top panel. <3



Time to migrate the new hardware inside the case to see what works and what is not. My Skylake build consists of a 6700K @ 4.3 Ghz, 16GB of DDR4 ram, an  Evga GTX 1070, a Corsair power supply with cablemod custom cables and a Noctua NH-u12s tower cooler.

 

Here is how my hardware looks inside the IBM:

 

Despite the case looking retro-ish on the outside, ti is pretty new in the inside and my ITX motherboard fits nicely in the original mounting holes, and the spacing for the IO shield looks alright. There is ample room for the gpu and the top cover of the case features some ventilation holes on the side to allow fresh air to cool the gtx 1070.

 

As you can see from the two pictures above, the 3 main challenges atm are the too tall Noctua cooler, the too large power supply and the case airflow.
Can't do much about the heatsink, I will need a shorter one. I tried to move the power supply around but I couldn't find where to place it without interfering with the 5.25 slots where I am planning to mount a blu-ray reader. The only solution I can think of is to replace my full size psu with a small form factor one. I might be able to keep my custom cables, looking at Cablemod's compatibility list, the cables I own should be compatible with the Corsair SP 600, a 600 Watts SFX power supply that should fit with the pre-existing mounting holes on the back of the case.

Last but not least is the airflow. This case wasn't obviously built with high airflow in mind so I will need to mod it allowing extra fans to be mounted in the front and the back. Here a quick sketch of what I have in mind:

 

I will need to cut out some metal and replace it with two new plates that will allow fan mounting. The 2 80 mm fans in the front should supply enough air to the gpu and motherboard area, while the 2 60mm fans will exhaust hot air on the back while keeping positive pressure inside the case. I designed the 2 plates with Inkscape and I will laser-cut them out from an acrylic panel. Here you can see a screenshot of the project, I will link it once I get the first batch shipped and tested.

That is all for now, I will update this post as soon as I have new things to mount and make fit. Hope you are enjoying this story, stay tuned for more! =)

[AskTJ]

Nice. How are you going to get the cooler and PSU small enough?

 

Make sure to cover up the external areas of the PC so you can't see inside.

[pentotark]

2 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Nice. How are you going to get the cooler and PSU small enough?

I checked measurements and seems like sfx form factor power supplies will fit nicely. As per the cooler, I was thinking about a Noctua NH-D9L. It is a 110 mm tall tower cooler, while space available is 125 mm. I could go with a flat low profile cooler but I prefer to keep a directional airflow inside.

 

2 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Make sure to cover up the external areas of the PC so you can't see inside.

Yes, that is the idea! Once everything is done, nothing should be visible from the outside. =)

 

[Crazycatman]

Wow, very nice. I think my grand parents have a Gateway 1995 White Steel behemoth. Very large. And plenty of CRTs. I replaced it with a newer PC I built.

[AskTJ]

9 minutes ago, pentotark said:

I checked measurements and seems like sfx form factor power supplies will fit nicely. As per the cooler, I was thinking about a Noctua NH-D9L. It is a 110 mm tall tower cooler, while space available is 125 mm. I could go with a flat low profile cooler but I prefer to keep a directional airflow inside.

Pretty beefy cooler for a small area.

 

Best of luck!

 

Followed.

[pentotark]

5 minutes ago, Crazycatman said:

Wow, very nice. I think my grand parents have a Gateway 1995 White Steel behemoth. Very large. And plenty of CRTs. I replaced it with a newer PC I built.

These were classics. Here in Europe gateway wasn't a thing, I discovered about them only later on!

[pentotark]

5 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Pretty beefy cooler for a small area.

Yeah, actually both are gonna be a really tight fit. I could always place the small psu under the 5.25m drive bay (under the bd player) and build a plate for the power cord on the back.
 

About the cooler... I want to try that one first. If it doesn't fit I will return it and get a more common low profile one such as the Cryorig C7 or the Noctua nh-l9i.

[TekRed]

Oh man this thing brings back memories, I've always wanted to do something like this. Interested to see how this turns out

[pentotark]

Thinking about the color scheme while I am waiting the parts and the custom front/back plate.

 

I would leave the exterior as it is, except for a small pink sticker on the bottom right. I was thinking of painting the inside black, most of the hardware and fans will be gray and black  while cables will have a gray and pink accent.

 

Let me know your thoughts, I am open to suggestions! =)

[pentotark]

New noctua cooler with fans arrived as well as the sfx power supply.

 

Now all clearence issues are solved! =)

 

 

Also the custom front and rear panels are ready and tested for fan mounting.

 

 

Next will be drilling and removing unnecessary part of the main case steel frame. Stay tuned! =)

[MEC-777]

SUB'D!  

[Nicnac]

sweet! Wish we hadn't thrown out that old beige IBM pc in our garage....

[pentotark]

5 minutes ago, Nicnac said:

sweet! Wish we hadn't thrown out that old beige IBM pc in our garage....

I know, I threw a few myself in the past... 

[Mattias Edeslatt]

1 hour ago, pentotark said:

I know, I threw a few myself in the past... 

 

Yea, I had two IBM AT cases that i threw away many years ago. Those bastards weight 25 kg each excluding any parts, monsters of steel....  tripped once in a stair carrying one and fell with my fingers between the case and the stair....  

 

I regret that i threw them out deeply today...

 

Remember that distinct thump when you flipped that switch 

 

 

[MEC-777]

16 minutes ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

 

We had one exactly like this. Wish I'd kept it.  

[pentotark]

Some progress!

Time to cut some steel, I used a Dremel to cut out the parts I don't need to make space for the future fans.

 

 

 

I know, they are far from perfect cuts, but be easy on me since it is my first time doing this!

Then I prepared for priming. I covered the original labels and stickers across the case with some masking tape before sanding.

 

 

 

And above you can see the case ready for paint. I will use a glossy black spray.

 

 

I gave 3 hands of paint but the result is somewhat even. Some parts are definitely more opaque than others. I tried my best at being consistent on how I painted but I geuss I am missing something. Still a fair job since most of this will be covered by hardware, not a big deal but I would like to learn something for the future.

As you can see I also painted the top and bottom covers of the floppy and blu ray drive.

Back home I mounted some Silverstone filters that just arrived.

 

And started to work on the front switch and activity leds mount since the old one just broke a few months ago:
 

 

 

The black plate will mount with M3 screws on the front plate I laser cut days ago.

And that is all for now. Very soon I will start assemble everything. All should fit nicely (I already did some tests) and once I will make sure that everything is working I will go on with the finer details.

Thank you for following guys, I really appreciate it! =)

[pentotark]

Paint is finally dry!

 

 

Time to mount the back and front plates and the hardware for a fit test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am pleased so far. There are few minor things tho, the optical drive was a really tight fit and i made some marks on the paint:

 

 

Maybe the paint is not that strong or I should have done more than 2 hands of paint, I don't know but if some of you had experience I will be happy to listen to suggestions (maybe going with automotive paint?)

 

Another issue is that I didn't take into account the hight of the pci-express power connector on the videocard that is too tall and don't allow the top cover to close properly. I'll need a L-shaped 90 degrees adapter =/

 

Thanks for following guys!

[Mattias Edeslatt]

Awesome build 

[pentotark]

Update!

I ordered a hot swap bay for my 2 SSDs. I was hiding them under the Blu-Ray drive where they are hard to reach and to service. It is a Silverstone unit and I will mount it on a 2.5 to 5.25" bay adapter.

 

Now my drives are easily accessible and concealed behind some beige 90's plastic.
 

As last thing I did put some black sleeving to the rainbow cables of the custom front panel switch and leds I made previously.

That's it for now, coming soon there will be a mod to make the floppy drive work with modern motherboards! Stay tuned. =)

[PlayStation 2]

Holy shit I'm in love with it.

I've always loved the business-class sleeper aesthetic, if I were to be honest. 

[ERM64bit]

On 7/30/2018 at 8:41 AM, pentotark said:

Another issue is that I didn't take into account the height of the pci-express power connector on the videocard that is too tall and don't allow the top cover to close properly. I'll need a L-shaped 90 degrees adapter =/

 

Thanks for following guys!

https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=600-PL-2816-LR This is exactly what you need. I had one come with my 1070 Ti. It will still make a slight bump (not sure by how much) but it won't put pressure on your cables. Hope this helps, and 100% digging the build, looks amazing so far!

[pentotark]

On 8/14/2018 at 6:54 PM, ERM64bit said:

https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=600-PL-2816-LR This is exactly what you need. I had one come with my 1070 Ti. It will still make a slight bump (not sure by how much) but it won't put pressure on your cables. Hope this helps, and 100% digging the build, looks amazing so far!

That is a great suggestion in fact! I checked on that and it seems it is too tall. My available clearence is 11mm. I ordered a custom cable online, I am not sure if that will work! I definitely didn't expect this to be so tricky.
 

Thank you, I really appreciate inputs!

[pentotark]

I am back with some interesting updates:

I glued two empty pin headers together and arranged all the different pins coming from the front panel. This way, connecting the front panel to the motherboard will be much easier:

 

 

The low profile PCI Express adapter arrived, and finally I will be able to close the top panel:

Also the custom board for connecting the Floppy Drive to the usb has arrived!

 

 

I used a floppy IDE extension to attach the board on the bottom of the Floppy Drive with some velcro:

 

The mustard and ketchup cable is still visible but I can always put a sleeve on it and paint the IDE cable later on.

 

Windows 10 shows the drive correctly and I can browse every disk I tried:

 

 

Now the case can finally close without any clearance issue:

 

Thermal performance was really bad at first, about 80C for the videocard and 85C for the cpu. I changed thermal paste and the situation got better but still close to 80C. Somehow I had the feeling that the two 60mm fans on the back were too close to the other components inside so I decided to mount them outside the custom bracket I made:



Now temperatures are fine, around 65/75C for both cpu and gpu during intense gaming:

 

The system is quiet when browsing and a bit louder under load but it is not distracting.
To achieve this tho, I made lots of compromises, The GPU is running at 50% power limit and as I said the CPU is set to stock speeds (boosts at 4200MHz) with the XMP profile enabled.

Hardware-wise the build is basically done, only left thing is to paint the small scratches I made inside, cable braiding for a cable and decide if to go with a custom Cablemod set of cables for the PSU.

Hope you are enjoying the log! =)

EDIT:

Only now I realize that the gpu was working at 100% power limit all the time. I only changed the card behaviour in 2D mode, but every time a game is launched, it automatically switch profile to 3D mode with a different profile. So, actually the temperatures and noise levels are not bad at all!
Below, a screenshot of Firestrike Ultra (1080p) with temperatures after 3 consecutive runs. Room temperatures was steadily at 26C:

[pentotark]

I locked the videocard at 50% power limit, these are the results:

 

System runs much quieter under load, temperatures dropped from 76C to 70C, and videocard from 68C to 51C.
I've lost 21% graphics performance for 9% temperature drop on the CPU and 25% drop for the GPU.

Tho I have the feeling 3D mark is not a good choice for testing thermals in gaming scenarios.

[Sousuke]

Looks really good man! I got to love sleeper builds especially with old IBM Cases! I am really really tempted to do a PowerMac G4 Sleeper build but I'm going to be in education for the next 3 years  so I will most probs be broke .