Another rebuild?! - The Dolch

[SilicateWielder]

To preface I just refer to this as the dolch because the original system has a unique enough name as is, and I have no other names for it despite daily driving it quite happily since building it.  I'm hoping to eventually take this far enough that I can fabricate some custom parts or an entirely new chassis with modern IO but it'll be at least a few years unless I can find sponsors to provide me with tools and/or hardware. If anyone has connections to companies that could provide tools or fabricate a custom chassis please send me a message. Granted I don't think I can afford to immediately build a new system as I need to move first.

Also, I didn't post a buildlog for the original process of building this due to being on a time crunch and couldn't document everything. I figured it was time to fix the mistakes from the first attempt and prepare the system for an eventual upgrade to RTX 3000.

Here are the specs:

1. CPU: Intel i5-9600k @ Stock (Temps need retesting)
2. GPU: PNY XLR8 GTX 1080 using aftermarket air cooler (returned to air from water and my screws were lost )
3. PCIE Riser: Linkup 35CM (One of their Left-angle products)
4. RAM: 16GB T-Force DDR4 3000Mhz
5. PSU: 700 FSP 80+ Platinum Flex-ATX power supply (actually pretty quiet )
6. Blower Fan: EverCool FOX-2 PCIE blower fan
7. Display: A Shelled SunFounder's Portable monitor (13.3" 1080p, boasting a supposed 5ms response time)
8. Boot Drive: 250GB Inland Sata SSD in a PCI-slot hotswap bay
9. Mass Storage: 1TB Intel SSD 6 NVME drive

The case is from a Dolch FXPAC-PIII-600 IIRC, these were manufactured by Dolch Computer Systems from around the 80s to very early 2000s as industrial machines. Some of their products even saw military use. From what I gather my original unit was used as a network sniffer which is apparent when you look at the original Gigabit fiber card that was built to slot into ISA ports.Now if you plan to do a conversion to a sleeper, It's important to note that Wifi will not work on this unless you can run some sort of antenna to the exterior of the aluminum frame the computer is built around, as the entire case acts as a faraday cage. The keyboards on (at least some) of these systems are mechanical though not with full-distances switches. They actually use Cherry-ML variants and while I can find new switches I cannot find any stabilizer brackets. 

Here's a picture of the system back when I still had an aluminum plate covering the empty portion of the LCD cutout.


Additional views:
 

Spoiler

And here is how the interals looked prior to this rebuild:

 

As you can see it was very much just thrown togethe half-hazardly. There are also physical blemishes in the plastic but I can't do much to fix those as the plastic has reached an age where it's beginning to deteriorate


When I first started this I actually recieved two broken units. One which powered on but was unresponsive to input (and was wrecked in shipping) and another which would not boot at all. So I had a spare aluminum frame I could work on without leaving myself without a system to use. As I stated above I have no tools outside of a hacksaw, and a power drill though I did get a keyhole saw (which prior to this project I didn't know existed)

I forgot to take a picture of before I started cutting but this is what I was able to do on the first day, I didn't have my keyhole saw yet and was merely working with a mini-hacksaw which broke several times. I got frustrated and almost drilled the rest of the way but stopped myself.

 

The site is limiting my image count so I'll continue this in a reply tomorrow night when I have more time to write

[SilicateWielder]

I ended up getting around to this later than expected.

Upon getting a keyhole saw I proceeded to cut out the remainder of the area I wanted to open up between the top and bottom compartments in the case. As stated before having the proper tool for the job speeds things up considerably. 

While at it I also drilled and tapped holes into the aluminum, being a novice I messed up two holes but was easily able to correct the mistakes and add on nuts to hold the standoffs in place. 

 

And a couples test fits later...

 

 

[SilicateWielder]

And a final update for the night, the system is technically working now but nowhere near complete

 

I've decided to upgrade to an rtx 3080 fe once supply normalizes, today my 12-pin molex set arrived and now im just waiting on the crimping tool to arrive (pay day to the rescue) ill be shortening my power supply cables and rewiring both the 

 

I'm also ordering fans, likely noctua's A6-25's 

 

As a final note, should I throw these onto some ram?