Micro ATX to fit ATX... (Did a junkyard/budget pc build)

[Altazink]

Situation: GF came to me and wanted to know if her sons computer could be upgraded to add a graphics card for his bday. He is 14 and plays an fps game (not sure which one)

 

Step 1: Analyse the situation. Pulled up his taskmanager and he is running a i7-6800 with 32gb ram and then see it.....UHD graphics. This poor kid!! But it gets worse when i opened up his tower only to find...optiplex 5060 has dedicated power supply without extra connectors, no space to put a better psu in and room for maybe a 1 fan GPu. 

So I talk to my GF(his mother) and ask what kind of budget for this are we working with....she tells me 500 maximum. Being the long time LTT fanboy, Im like, woot woot time for budget pc challenge.

 

I figure his board,cpu,and ram can be reused as they are decent enough.

 

So i hit up fb market place and find a cute atx tower 40 bucks, then next is GPU and then PSU and maybe a nice notua cpu cooler for some flair. I get to haggling and most 3060 and 3050 even a 4050 were sitting at close to $400 to $500.... but lets negotiate and turn one of those fancy paperweights into cash in their pocket and put it back to work for my GFs son for some fps fps's. 

 

Finally a deal agreement just has to drive an hour and a half to pick it up. Calgary, AB to just outside Red Deer. Scoring a 3070ti zotag with bracket for $280 . Next came $85 for a new in box Corsair CM 850x with all the cables. Should be enough to power the beast. I wanted to stay away from used AIO as ive had them before, even have a corsair 2 fan size one in my saskatchewan house, but the pumps can fail and used is a risk. Then i saw a so sweet holy grail Noctua NH-D15 with Covers...listed $250...Negotiated for this doorstop in the rough and picked it up for $85. 

 

All good right? I mean sure gotta test it etc....my cost so far only sitting a $450....Damn I forgot to knock on wood. 

 

Cooler too tall to close side panel, and its a zotag 3070 and not founders so the cooler doesnt fit. 

Rookie mistake. 

 

But then i remembered ...I have Frankenstein. Its a pc i made for my kids that started as a slim think center bought cheap as IBM refurb till i put a graphics card it by cutting the shell then had an external additional psu. They could play minecraft and as i upgraded my PC it got my old parts over the years. They even played World of Tanks with me.  Kids are grown and gone and  i have an atx case for my pc and its running a Ryzen 5, 5600 and MSI Radeon RX 580 8gb 240mm card in a full deep atx case but its side tempered glass long broken and gone and swept away. I can still run playably Star Citizen and use it to dual box so should be enough for GF's son.

 

SO i can solve one issue and swapped the GPU cards.  Then i went on fb marketplace and said yeah Frankenstien time for a new case and picked up a thermaltake level 20VT for a smokin deal for $40 ...but that was also before i check my motherboard size and its full ATX and the case is Linus sized mATX.

 

[I actually only realized while typing this that the sons board is mATX. SMH and on with the story...]

 

Rookie mistake #2... but lets Bob Ross this into a happy accident. 

 

So i remove the bottom pannel and see where the board doesnt fit.... and its only really at the bottom back beneath the case PCI slots. Well Frankie-Steino aint afraid of no grinder work and BOOM i have a ATX mobo-effer inside a mATX case....as long as its upside down no problemo. Now for the gpu 3070ti...it hits the inside fan...so I take off the fan and it fits under the front plate on the other side of the grill....#WINNING. 

 

Next i crack the case for GFs son and see that I can oring the glass for 1/8" more and push in the mobo post stands enough for the cooler to fit. There may be some frame bending on the plate the MOBO attaches too but its small and only needes 1/8". Thats Not what she said. 

 

But GFs sons build is set to work.

 

Now back to Frankensteins upside down issue. I get on sketchup and make some case extenders, chop em up cause 3d printer is small and attach em to the frame. Had to use my soldering iron to channel a grove for the MOBO to sit in but "I love the smell of burnt plastic in the morning!"

Bob Ross shows up again and the bottom pannel of the case fits perfectly other than a small gap and also holds the feet of the case. I heat the pannel and it melts in for a perfect fit and a strip of black electical tape covers the small gaps.

Frankenstien is ready to get married in his fancy custom valuevillage suit!

Pics are attached. Gfs sons bday isnt for a week so will add more pics of that once assembled.

In case anyone is curious I daily drive this playing World of tanks, Diablo IV (multi account powerlevelling and item farming) but use all three and multibox 3 StarCitizen accounts and multicrew ships solo. Mining in the mole, Character rescues, pilot, and gunners in ships like carrak and polaris etc. Frankenstein is now a Ryzen 5 5600 with 64gb ram and zotag 3070 ti. Sitting on top of Frankenstein is my newest Daily driver a Lenovo Legion 16" Ryzen 9 7945HX GeForce RTX 4080 32GB, and Center Stage laptop on the desk is my old daily driver since 2016 a Eurocom Sky X9 E2 i7 6800 4.2 Ghz (overclocked to 4.6) 64GB and Dual SLI GTX 980M 8GB for total 16GB of Graphics...and it still rocks most of todays top game titles.

[emosun]

one recommendation i'd make , crop your photos.

50% of the post is just the black bars on the images. otherwise neat build.

[Altazink]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

one recommendation i'd make , crop your photos.

50% of the post is just the black bars on the images. otherwise neat build.

Yeah i know. I had to screenshot the photos to upload them and it created the black bars. Was in a rush cause already had story typed in and we all know how famous forum posts are for making you start again.

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, Altazink said:

Yeah i know. I had to screenshot the photos to upload them and it created the black bars. Was in a rush cause already had story typed in and we all know how famous forum posts are for making you start again.

ah , i keep forgetting some people post with their telephone