tips? Recommendations on a unique build

[YorkCabbit]

Hi there! I could use some recommendations on how to go about building a PC from a 1980’s IBM Acrylic Monitor Stand.
 

This stand used to be my grandfather’s when he was an IBM Executive from ‘69 to ‘03. He passed in Jan. Of ‘23, so I want to build essentially “The Last New IBM PC” in his memory but am not sure how to go about it. Its intended purpose is to handle like a mid-tier gaming PC of today’s standards with IBM blue-and-white LEDs. 

 

I know most of the hardware will need to be laid flat unlike a modern case, as well as the whole thing will need to be grounded to the power supply individually. I believe air cooling can be pretty well done with fans lining the sides, but I could be wrong. Drilling holes is required no matter which way you look at it. The dimensions are 16 in. X 16 in. X 3 in. Inside height. 
 

Please, do share some ideas so that I may start planning out this build. 

[YorkCabbit]

Also, for anyone curious about the chipset I intend to use, IBM’s computer division was purchased by Lenovo. Lenovo now uses both MSI and AMD chipsets, so anything on the modern market is open for consideration. 

[YorkCabbit]

Thank you for replying so quickly!!
 

I do like your thought process with the aluminum sheet! I’ve still got quite a lot of saving up to do at this time, but I’ve written down every product and idea that you’ve put down here. 
 

Regarding the lighting portion, I do see where you’re coming from when it comes to the original engineers. That, and in hindsight, with the stand having a smoked glass finish, I realize that the blue would definitely not look right coming through the acrylic. I still would like to do something to showcase the internals though, so continuing forward, I’ll re-examine some options and decide later on whether lighting is necessary. 

[PDifolco]

46 minutes ago, YorkCabbit said:

Hi there! I could use some recommendations on how to go about building a PC from a 1980’s IBM Acrylic Monitor Stand.
 

This stand used to be my grandfather’s when he was an IBM Executive from ‘69 to ‘03. He passed in Jan. Of ‘23, so I want to build essentially “The Last New IBM PC” in his memory but am not sure how to go about it. Its intended purpose is to handle like a mid-tier gaming PC of today’s standards with IBM blue-and-white LEDs. 

 

I know most of the hardware will need to be laid flat unlike a modern case, as well as the whole thing will need to be grounded to the power supply individually. I believe air cooling can be pretty well done with fans lining the sides, but I could be wrong. Drilling holes is required no matter which way you look at it. The dimensions are 16 in. X 16 in. X 3 in. Inside height. 
 

Please, do share some ideas so that I may start planning out this build. 

Looks cool

What are the exact dimensions ? If you can fit an ITX board with a "flat top" cooler (NH-L12 or such), an SFX PSU and a small GPU (with a riser cable) it looks possible, but you'll defo need to drill holes for airflow 

Else it'll be compromised, you can't really build in a box not high anough for any board...

[YorkCabbit]

3 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

No problem, always happy to help! Though, being 100% honest, I just saw your post in the feed of new topics and clicked on it out of curiosity lol. It's already a lot more exciting than I thought it'd be!

 

If you want to go extra-special with the aluminum sheet, you could first sandblast, then anodize it! That would give it a durable finish that looks absolutely sick. If you want to go all the way, I think you might even be able to use one of those sliding-rail roller bearing systems they have for kitchen drawers for an ultra-slick sliding mechanism. I've had my hands on many IBM Thinkpads. Overengineering is their motto. So if you can do it, do it lol. Ideally, you'd want something that's super maintainable and is good for multiple builds over a span of many years.

 

And with the lighting...yeah, the stand is a shade of brown, so you'd want to stick with warmer colors in this build instead of something like blue or rainbow vomit. I'm thinking that if you do want to show off the insides, using some warm white LED strips with plenty of diffusing would be a good idea, so you can't see the individual points of light.

 

For this build, I would highly recommend Noctua fans. Their color scheme would work very nicely for this build, and they're reliable and dead-silent.

 

One more thing--I feel like making some sort of black-anodized/painted, perforated sheet metal that wraps around the open edges would be a nice addition. It'd provide additional mounting points, and it'd also close up the PC and make it feel more durable (you don't have to worry about stray objects getting in).

You know, on the subject of enclosing the case, I had a very similar thought for the sides. My initial plan was to enclose it with a section of acrylic that matched the rest of it, but I realized shortly after that it would be so thick that heat dispersion would be far more difficult. However, I believe you have the image of where I would like to go with this build nearly perfect at this point! I think going with a black shade for the perforated sides would be excellent!

 

Regarding the over engineering portion, I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head with that, especially since he was in charge of the Boeing project management in the mid-80’s! I’ll try to do as much as I can with what I can afford. 

[YorkCabbit]

3 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Looks cool

What are the exact dimensions ? If you can fit an ITX board with a "flat top" cooler (NH-L12 or such), an SFX PSU and a small GPU (with a riser cable) it looks possible, but you'll defo need to drill holes for airflow 

Else it'll be compromised, you can't really build in a box not high anough for any board...

The exact dimensions are 16 in. X 16 in. X 3 in. The support posts inside are 1 in. Around and sit about 3 inches from the back of the stand and 1.5 inches from the sides. However, if the case is supported from the sides, those supports can be trimmed or cut without risking the integrity of the case should that be necessary. 
 

as far as airflow goes, drilling holes will definitely be necessary for most of it, but I’m definitely hoping I don’t need to make them too visible. 

[PDifolco]

21 minutes ago, YorkCabbit said:

The exact dimensions are 16 in. X 16 in. X 3 in. The support posts inside are 1 in. Around and sit about 3 inches from the back of the stand and 1.5 inches from the sides. However, if the case is supported from the sides, those supports can be trimmed or cut without risking the integrity of the case should that be necessary. 
 

as far as airflow goes, drilling holes will definitely be necessary for most of it, but I’m definitely hoping I don’t need to make them too visible. 

Then I think you're good size wise, 16" is even enough for ATX (12"x9.6") !

Height should be ok for a NH-L9 or L12 cooler that are max 50mm high - but that's above the board and socket

The most difficult thing imo will be to secure/hold the board and especially the GPU (that will have to be put horizontally) somewhere, and I have no experience in this...

 

[DANK_AS_gay]

You could get a 4060 sff card, or an rx 6400 if you don't want to worry about external power. That'd be far more powerful than integrated graphics, and then you could go for a 5600 (non-x). A bit more expensive overall, but you end up with a faster CPU and GPU.

The AMD stock cooler is already pretty small, so you may not need a low profile cooler. That'll save you another few bucks

[DANK_AS_gay]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YRvTMV

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YRvTMV

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($134.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M K Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($41.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P3 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($43.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: PowerColor Low Profile Radeon RX 6400 4 GB Video Card  ($159.00 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic SSP-300SUG 300 W 80+ Gold Certified Flex ATX Power Supply  ($84.37 @ Amazon) 
Total: $553.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-10-30 10:36 EDT-0400

The PSU can be swapped for the one they recommended for size constraints

[DANK_AS_gay]

@YorkCabbit

If you remove the AMD shroud from the fan on the stock cooler you could fit the stock AMD cooler in there. No need for an AIO depending on how well things fit and where the air holes would be situated.

[RevGAM]

22 hours ago, PDifolco said:

Height should be ok for a NH-L9 or L12 cooler that are max 50mm high - but that's above the board and socket

 

22 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YRvTMV

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/YRvTMV

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($134.00 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M K Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($89.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($41.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial P3 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($43.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: PowerColor Low Profile Radeon RX 6400 4 GB Video Card  ($159.00 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic SSP-300SUG 300 W 80+ Gold Certified Flex ATX Power Supply  ($84.37 @ Amazon) 
Total: $553.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-10-30 10:36 EDT-0400

The PSU can be swapped for the one they recommended for size constraints

76.2mm is pretty short. I'm concerned that an air cooler won't have enough space to vent away the heat, especially if the sides are enclosed. It seems like the safest bet would be an AIO, but I've never built an SFF PC, so I'm probably just ignorant.  

[DANK_AS_gay]

4 hours ago, RevGAM said:

 

76.2mm is pretty short. I'm concerned that an air cooler won't have enough space to vent away the heat, especially if the sides are enclosed. It seems like the safest bet would be an AIO, but I've never built an SFF PC, so I'm probably just ignorant.  

The CPU cooler comes with the cpu, so it doesn't hurt to try. 

[RevGAM]

15 hours ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

The CPU cooler comes with the cpu, so it doesn't hurt to try. 

True,  as long as there's clearance.

[YorkCabbit]

So to update everyone that’s following this build, I sent the monitor stand to my friend that builds PCs professionally as well as the link to this forum. He assured me that it had plenty of clearance and building it should be a piece of cake!

 

we haven’t discussed budgeting yet or pricing for labor, but since I helped another friend with his PC by “donating” my old PC in its entirety since his old case had no airflow and cooked his graphics card, I’ve been told that we’ll figure it out.

 

In other words, because the friend that’s redoing his own build is grateful for the assist, and he can’t take free things… (Yes, I know you’re reading this. Yes, I know your plan.) I believe that budgeting is no longer my concern.