Sleeper PC

[Bombastinator]

Just now, kyn1972 said:

What about adding some feet to the case long enough to add 2  thin 120mm fans  underneath but high enough to allow decent fresh air flow and and building some sort of skirt around the bottom to conceal it somewhat?

The problem is there seems to possibly be this weird oval pedestal. It might not even be there. This is why the thing needs to be unearthed from behind the apparent wall of cruft.  All the pics so far have been of other machines.  The incognito PC was so close to identical parts of it it clearly came off the same assembly line but it’s also not quite the same as well.  Means there are extremely similar boxes with different branding.  Need to see what is actually there first.

[BiotechBen]

@Bombastinator

Finally got it out and did a little digging:

pentium 2 300mhz

64mb RAM pc66

Nvidia Riva 128 graphics

The front grille also measures 160mm exactly.

The bottom parts the bigger one will hold a 92mm perfectly. And I can put little wood boosters on the bottom to help get air.

[Bombastinator]

So a third layout.  Digging it out was worth doing.  That plastic piece that contains the drive cage/?fan? Cage is one piece on yours.

 

Oooh.  Ribbon cable.  That stuff has become hard to get. It has unusual uses.  The stuff can be made any length for one thing.  Stuff used to come on a roll.  You’d cut it to length and add snap on connectors. The thing that made it handy was it can be folded.  There used to be whole books on how to fold ribbon cable so it could be made to lay totally flat against a case side and not impinge air at all.  Used to be glued or taped down often.  There used to be a lot more art to cable management.  The electrical insulation on it isn’t great so they would put layers of insulation material in the folds. Stuff was green.  Don’t know what it was called.
 

2 populated 5.25” bays.  That’s annoying.  A plate would have been handy.  Any chance they’re sata? IDE can’t even be reused.  
 

There appears to be a drive in your front fan area.  That thing will be useless.  It will have some cool magnets in it though if you like taking things apart. The old ones often had really big magnets.  Also the platters are shiney.

 

Those are some impressive dust bunnies.  I can’t tell if there’s air slots in the front panel or not.  If there are they aren’t large. Not going to be a whole lot of air coming that way.

 

moving the bottom floppy up one and swapping the blank plate could make a bit more room in the front.   if the entire bottom plastic piece could be totally emptied it might even be removed which could simplify things.
 

The steel panel behind the front fascia has holes in it but they could be made bigger.  There’s more metal there than really needed.  Won’t do much if there’s no air coming through the front plastic though.  
 

That pedestal looks like a big problem for bottom air.  There’s space in the middle but it comes down on all sides. Major cutting or flat out removal may be needed to make bottom air work. 
 

[BiotechBen]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

So a third layout.  Digging it out was worth doing.  That plastic piece that contains the drive cage/?fan? Cage is one piece on yours.

 

Oooh.  Ribbon cable.  That stuff has become hard to get. It has unusual uses.  The stuff can be made any length for one thing.  Stuff used to come on a roll.  You’d cut it to length and add snap on connectors. The thing that made it handy was it can be folded.  There used to be whole books on how to fold ribbon cable so it could be made to lay totally flat against a case side and not impinge air at all.  Used to be glued or taped down often.  There used to be a lot more art to cable management.  The electrical insulation on it isn’t great so they would put layers of insulation material in the folds. Stuff was green.  Don’t know what it was called.
 

2 populated 5.25” bays.  That’s annoying.  A plate would have been handy.  Any chance they’re sata? IDE can’t even be reused.  
 

There appears to be a drive in your front fan area.  That thing will be useless.  It will have some cool magnets in it though if you like taking things apart. The old ones often had really big magnets.  Also the platters are shiney.

 

Those are some impressive dust bunnies.  I can’t tell if there’s air slots in the front panel or not.  If there are they aren’t large. Not going to be a whole lot of air coming that way.

 

moving the bottom floppy up one and swapping the blank plate could make a bit more room in the front.   if the entire bottom plastic piece could be totally emptied it might even be removed which could simplify things.
 

The steel panel behind the front fascia has holes in it but they could be made bigger.  There’s more metal there than really needed.  Won’t do much if there’s no air coming through the front plastic though.  
 

That pedestal looks like a big problem for bottom air.  There’s space in the middle but it comes down on all sides. Major cutting or flat out removal may be needed to make bottom air work. 
 

I'm down for taking 2 holes in the bottom for airflow and booting the height of the thing and having it in a taller pedestal with feet in the bottom of the pedestal. The front has some airflow but not great, but it doesn't look hard to get it open more with a little mechanical encouragement with a spinning drill bit. The big hunk of 6.4gb spinning rust is IDE with sata power. I was considering taking out a bay slot and putting in one of these:

 https://www.newegg.com/p/27J-000G-00009

And flip the fans to a pull config. And then airbrush that the same color. It currently has far more in the bays than necessary.

And you're saying that a 92 in the bottom isn't going to be enough? what would be the cfm needed for it to be sufficient? The other space at the bottom can hold an 80mm with only light modification. I don't need the case to be idling at 45°C, if it hums along at 65°C it's gonna be in a cooled room all the time. I also am not dead set in it being silent, so if a high cfm fan is whirring away at 30db it adds to the experience and brings back memories of the loud hard drive seek noises.

[Bombastinator]

Re: bay

My concern with the bay fan thin is 2 fold:

1 its black.  Kind of kills the sleeper thing

2 there’s a good chance it will produce a lot of noise without a lot of actual airflow

 

re:pedastal

that pedestal looks like a pita.  It wants to support at all points. Looks like it would crush easy.  Feet would have to support from the bottom of the case not the bottom of the pedestal.

 

re 92mm.
I don’t know what will be enough.  That’s the problem with things like this.  One has to build and test and see if more cooling is needed.

[BiotechBen]

40 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Re: bay

My concern with the bay fan thin is 2 fold:

1 its black.  Kind of kills the sleeper thing

2 there’s a good chance it will produce a lot of noise without a lot of actual airflow

 

re:pedastal

that pedestal looks like a pita.  It wants to support at all points. Looks like it would crush easy.  Feet would have to support from the bottom of the case not the bottom of the pedestal.

 

re 92mm.
I don’t know what will be enough.  That’s the problem with things like this.  One has to build and test and see if more cooling is needed.

I'm down for a louder high airflow 92 at the bottom, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 cfm, not gonna go full blowie, but some wood along the sides to elevate it 2-3in should provide plenty of space. I'm not going to be any closer than about 5 ft at any given time so if the fans churn up 35db it shouldn't be that bad. And that "plastic" pedestal is about the same strength as a football helmet. Idk what plastic it is made of, but I'm sure it's linked to like 7 different cancers with how good it is... And maybe a duct would help with channeling the airflow, a little PVC and some elbows to get it up into the case might do the trick.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, BiotechBen said:

I'm down for a louder high airflow 92 at the bottom, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 cfm, not gonna go full blowie, but some wood along the sides to elevate it 2-3in should provide plenty of space. I'm not going to be any closer than about 5 ft at any given time so if the fans churn up 35db it shouldn't be that bad. And that "plastic" pedestal is about the same strength as a football helmet. Idk what plastic it is made of, but I'm sure it's linked to like 7 different cancers with how good it is... And maybe a duct would help with channeling the airflow, a little PVC and some elbows to get it up into the case might do the trick.

A 1/2” would be more than enough.  You don’t need 2-3 unless the thing sits on shag carpet. 
 

plastic:  the common materials of the period were high density styrene, ABS, and PVC.  They each behave differently, cut differently, and require different glues.  Styrene was cheapest and therefore is most common.  It’s brittle and it both fatigues and sublimates. It’s the classic “model airplane” plastic. PVC is less brittle but can still be shattered especially if cold.  ABS won’t break at all.  It just bends.  MRE spoons are ABS.  It’s the most expensive though.  All of them produce wildly poisonous smoke when burned.

[BiotechBen]

On 10/26/2020 at 3:50 PM, Bombastinator said:

A 1/2” would be more than enough.  You don’t need 2-3 unless the thing sits on shag carpet. 
 

plastic:  the common materials of the period were high density styrene, ABS, and PVC.  They each behave differently, cut differently, and require different glues.  Styrene was cheapest and therefore is most common.  It’s brittle and it both fatigues and sublimates. It’s the classic “model airplane” plastic. PVC is less brittle but can still be shattered especially if cold.  ABS won’t break at all.  It just bends.  MRE spoons are ABS.  It’s the most expensive though.  All of them produce wildly poisonous smoke when burned.

This plastic base was able to support the entire girth of the system being on the very edge and being moved across a concrete slab without breaking a sweat. I'm thinking a PVC or ABS elbow surrounding the fan with silicone caulk or rubber cement as the sealant around it. And if it only needs to be 1/2" off the ground, dowels or little blocks should work to elevate it. For the fan on the bottom, I was thinking a 45° elbow pvc joint to direct the air toward the upper front of the case. And with a fan on the bottom pushing 40ish cfm that should probably be good, right? 

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

This plastic base was able to support the entire girth of the system being on the very edge and being moved across a concrete slab without breaking a sweat. I'm thinking a PVC or ABS elbow surrounding the fan with silicone caulk or rubber cement as the sealant around it. And if it only needs to be 1/2" off the ground, dowels or little blocks should work to elevate it. For the fan on the bottom, I was thinking a 45° elbow pvc joint to direct the air toward the upper front of the case. And with a fan on the bottom pushing 40ish cfm that should probably be good, right? 

As far as feet go you could just get some furniture feet at a hardware store. You could even get some wheels if you wanted.  They would have the extra tall thing going on too.

 

the deal with airflow:

In general, airflow is fluid dynamics and is therefore wildly difficult to predict. It can be done with hardcore computer modeling, but the old school method was repeated testing.  Civil and aircraft engineers would build models and test them.  You’ve got the actual thing.  Maybe do basic stuff, and test to see what you’re actually having a problem with.  That’s what they did in the video and were actually pleasantly surprised.  One thing that may be useful is paper directs air just as well as plastic, is much cheaper, goes one with tape, and can be cut with scissors.

[BiotechBen]

I've got a pvc elbow around somewhere so I'll use that with some paper to make an adapter. As long as I can direct the air toward the CPU I should be fine. The GPU can take swirly air in the middle and being lower than the CPU it'll always get slightly cooler air. Or maybe strap a small one at the back and have one in the bottom slightly elevated to push air up. I think the second is gonna probably work the best.

[BiotechBen]

53 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I've got a pvc elbow around somewhere so I'll use that with some paper to make an adapter. As long as I can direct the air toward the CPU I should be fine. The GPU can take swirly air in the middle and being lower than the CPU it'll always get slightly cooler air. Or maybe strap a small one at the back and have one in the bottom slightly elevated to push air up. I think the second is gonna probably work the best.

What do you think of that @Bombastinator

[kyn1972]

Well if you want to keep the look as close as possible to its current look how about simply modding the plastic base underneath say by removing the center plastic as well as that curved bump out in the corner?

Then put some feet on in the corners to both provide support as well as to raise it up a bit to provide good airflow kind of like

 

 

[BiotechBen]

@Bombastinatorgot to cleaning out the case and the top fan is actually a 92mm, which is good for airflow, and @kyn1972 I was thinking like 4 little chiseled out wood feet that'd fit right into empty spots. So with a 92 at the top and bottom, and maybe the original stock 92 helping air blow up to the top I think I should be fine. The bottom 92 is going to be a high airflow at around 40cfm and with about 1ish cu. ft volume of the case, the case air will be exchanged roughly once every 1.5sec. and I can cheese grater the bottom front metal base part to get some airflow up through the stock front intake grille.

[BiotechBen]

Also, how would I adapt this to work for the front power button and reset and corresponding other indicator lights.

[Bombastinator]

20 hours ago, BiotechBen said:

What do you think of that @Bombastinator

Free is free.  Low effort is low effort.  You might wind up making multiple changes with testing though.  Your toy your job your solution.

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Also, how would I adapt this to work for the front power button and reset and corresponding other indicator lights.

That’s a hard one.  A ribbon cable is a bunch of single wires and can be easily split.  I suspect it is higher up that cable with the single wires going to the various systems.  Most modern boards use separate cables for each function.  You might have to identify which pin outs go to which function and adapt modern wiring to fit it.  Not a fun job.  A multimeter would be useful.  Also perhaps needed is knowing what voltages are passed by the mobo.  Most of what you mentioned are simple two wire systems, but with proprietary stuff like that weirdness can occur.  Others may have better specific advice.  

Edited October 29, 2020 by Bombastinator

[BiotechBen]

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Free is free.  Low effort is low effort.  You might wind up making multiple changes with testing though.  Your toy your job your solution.

Very true. I tend to be a clever solutions person so I'm comfortable with testing and testing to see what works best.

[BiotechBen]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

That’s a hard one.  A ribbon cable is a bunch of single wires and can be easily split.  I suspect it is higher up that cable with the single wires going to the various systems.  Most modern boards use separate cables for each function.  You might have to identify which pin outs go to which function and adapt modern wiring to fit it.  Not a fun job.  A multimeter or at least a continuity light would be useful.

I traced it back and if I can get this drive harness off I can probably figure out the pin-out relatively easily as the whole board and traces are visible and mounted on that cage/harness. From that whole year down, the one thing. I was able to salvage cable-wise was a single molex splitter. Every single thing in there was powered by molex. And in regards to the power working and reset working, they should just be simple switches right? If the bulbs don't light up exactlylike they did when it was built that's okay. I'm cool with them being dimmer or brighter.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

I traced it back and if I can get this drive harness off I can probably figure out the pin-out relatively easily as the whole board and traces are visible and mounted on that cage/harness. From that whole year down, the one thing. I was able to salvage cable-wise was a single molex splitter. Every single thing in there was powered by molex.

Yeah.  Molex (actually a connector manufacturing company that makes a bunch of different kinds of connectors) used to be the only 5 or 12v power connector.  SATA connectors have more or less replaced it.  That connector on the ribbon cable you need to trace was possibly made by molex. One of the cooler things about most molex made connectors is they’re removable.  You stick a pin in a slot or something and the wires can be removed.

[BiotechBen]

Yeah, I noticed that, I mentioned molex because I found a connector that said molex right on it and was like, dude that's cool, a brand name "molex" connector. I think the floppy bay is what's keeping it in place so if I can get that out, it should all just come right out.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Yeah, I noticed that, I mentioned molex because I found a connector that said molex right on it and was like, dude that's cool, a brand name "molex" connector. I think the floppy bay is what's keeping it in place so if I can get that out, it should all just come right out.

My memory is floppies had a molex connection and a specialized serial data connection.  I remember reading that win10 can still deal with floppy drive data.  The connection to the motherboard may be non trivial though.  
 

AFAIK molex the company is still a going concern.  They make a lot of different connectors.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Bombastinator

[BiotechBen]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

My memory is floppies had a molex connection and a specialized serial data connection.  I remember reading that win10 can still deal with floppy drive data.  The connection to the motherboard may be non trivial though.  
 

AFAIK molex the company is still a going concern.  They make a lot of different connectors.

If I can follow the wires and get the two or maybe 3? That connect to the different parts. There was another connector that 5 pins-2pin vertical bridge- then 2 more pins in the right that was connected to the IDE hard drive. So if I'm able to separate the wires for each part and get them in the correct orientation, is there a special connector to the motherboard or is it just a matter of soldering leads together and using a stock mobo connector for it. I can solder no problem so not afraid of that.

[Bombastinator]

54 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

If I can follow the wires and get the two or maybe 3? That connect to the different parts. There was another connector that 5 pins-2pin vertical bridge- then 2 more pins in the right that was connected to the IDE hard drive. So if I'm able to separate the wires for each part and get them in the correct orientation, is there a special connector to the motherboard or is it just a matter of soldering leads together and using a stock mobo connector for it. I can solder no problem so not afraid of that.

You said ports which worries me.  I don’t remember there being any front ports. The ide ones are the drive light.  I don’t even know if they do those anymore.  I don’t remember seeing a drive light on a case in a long time.  A lot of people found them annoying as they would flicker as the drive got accessed or not.  Things like power on and reset are separate cables that go to marked points on the motherboard but I think aren’t in this situation.  I’m assuming here that what you found was some sort of proprietary connector of case stuff that prebuilts by big companies sometimes have. They’re worth doing for big companies because they reduce assembly cost. The buttons and lights generally do pretty much the same things they always did. The danger is sometimes when a prebuilt gets a proprietary connector engineers feel free to break other conventions like a momentary on switch being a momentary off switch, or running unusual voltages (which likely won’t matter)  This is why the multimeter.  If they’re going to USB ports if you got any those will be for a USB1 connector, but I don’t remember ther being any front ports on that case at all. It should just be power, reset, and drive light.

[BiotechBen]

Its a prebuilt DELL from '97 and it's got the drive indicator light which I don't really care too much if it works or not, the power button has a tube that is illuminated by a bulb on the little board at the front, and the button is an arm that pushes a momentary button, same with the reset. All the traces are the type that could be repaired with a steady hand and all the solder points are visible. No usb 1.0 on the front, both the usb were on the back. The front is pretty bare of I/O apart from drive bays and 3.5mm jack. If it has to be replaced, steampunk flip switch like on an old switchboard?

[Bombastinator]

16 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Its a prebuilt DELL from '97 and it's got the drive indicator light which I don't really care too much if it works or not, the power button has a tube that is illuminated by a bulb on the little board at the front, and the button is an arm that pushes a momentary button, same with the reset. All the traces are the type that could be repaired with a steady hand and all the solder points are visible. No usb 1.0 on the front, both the usb were on the back. The front is pretty bare of I/O apart from drive bays and 3.5mm jack. If it has to be replaced, steampunk flip switch like on an old switchboard?

3.5mm jack wires could very well be in that connector.  I’m pretty sure just stereo, no mic if it’s that old. I remember power on as being two wires and reset as being two wires. One of the “I dunno”s voltage wise would be the power light.  That might need to be looked up.  You never know with old prebuilts. The easy thing to do would be just identify them and get a set of modern front panel wires as you’ll need one end of them to connect to your new motherboard anyway.   The internet may have good data on what’s what’s what.  Might save some time. 
 

That connector can I think be converted.  but it’s a good chunk of time.  Maybe more than you want to spend along with working out the airflow.  Could be time for a return on cost assessment.  How bad do you want it to be that particular case?  How much do you like messing with this stuff? 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Bombastinator