Old prebuilt rebuilt and modded

[Salmiakbal]

Old prebuilt mod and rebuild

Changing a shitty build into a less shitty one

So hi everyone :D

In this thread (http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/...my-old-desktop[/url=http://linustechtips.com/main/forum/community-portal/general-discussion-offtopic/110633-what-should-i-do-with-my-old-desktop]) I asked you what to do with my old desktop. I'll tell you what the story is behind this (not particularly interesting but whatever)

I've had this prebuilt since 2008. I bought it (didn't know about PC building at the time) because our family desktop was getting pretty old (P4, 80gb PATA, 512mb ram etc..) and I wanted a personal/dedicated computer to run muh gaymes. At that time it had an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.7 GHz cpu, an MSI HD4870, 2GB of DDR2 ram and 500GB 7200RMP hdd

So I bought it and used it for a pretty long time. About one and a half years ago though games started artifacting and the GPU was at fault. At that point I bought a Sapphire HD6870 to replace the old one, I upgraded the ram to 4GB and I changed the cooler to a more silent one in the progress

So last summer I bought another computer, this time a laptop. I bought it through university for a very nice price and it was kind of necessary because we use laptops all the time at uni, and for the price I got it for I would've been mental not to take it..

Since I have this laptop I see myself sitting in the living room a lot more because generally there's other people there and it's more sociable. Because this laptop is almost equally powerful to the desktop, I don't have a reason to use the desktop up and alone in my room.

Because of this I hardly use my desktop anymore. It's been standing in my bedroom for almost a year and it has only been turned on a few times, so I figured I should do something with it, which is why I made the thread I mentioned earlier.

I gained inspiration through SingularityComputers which I've only been watching for about a month or so. I actually came up with the idea of modding because I started watching his vids :D

I'm not sure what to do with it after the mod though. I'll probably do a clean install if win 8 and dick around a bit/see if I can get used to it. In about six months I'll be living in a room in the city where I'm studying, where it'll probably be used as a dedicated entertainment center (games, movies, music etc) while using the laptop solely for uni/3d modeling etc.

So lets get started :D

Disassembly and preparation

So this is THE BEAST

As you can see it's a bit damaged on the outside because of my office chair. The guts look even worse though.

The worst thing about this build of course is the colour. As you can see the insides are bare metal which looks horrific.

Next to that, cable management is a huge no no. There's about 4mm clearance between the back of the mobo tray and the back panel so even fitting a spare molex in there makes the panel bulge, not even to mention the lack of holes to route the cables.

Another point of interest is the rad. As you see I have it mounted on the side panel because that's the only place where you can mount a 120mm fan.

Not only doesn't this look nice, but it's also in the way of the third modification, which is adding a window to the side panel. I thought it would be a nice addition, and half the purpose of this mod is to get some modding experience :)

So the complete idea is to

1.Paint the insides

2.Make cable routing holes

3.Make addition 120mm fan spot in top or bottom

4.Make a side window

But not in that order of course :D

As you can see, cable routing options are very slim. I had to route the 24pin all the way under the motherboard to the nearest hole.

There wasn't a lot of space

Trained personnel only eh? We'll see about that!

Cute little mobo got ripped out of its home

Disemboweled pc..

Pretty cramped up back there

Now this guy is gonna get a beating :D

My pc wasn't very dusty, but I had never opened up the PSU before so it looked like a dustnest in there,

All cleaned up..

For those wondering, this is what a non modular PSU looks like on the inside :D

Nasty shit

Much better :)

All the guts laying about

And finally the disassembled chassis

All this stuff is getting painted and cut.

Painting and sawing

So I decided to paint the inside matte black. I used heat resistant paint, and that's not because this system uses over 9000 watts (because believe me, it does) but because heat resistant paint is matte black, and that's what I want :D

I also got some metal cutting blades for my jigsaw. At first I wanted to use my dremel but I can assure you, a jigsaw is MUCH better.

S-s-so here g-goes..

That went better than expected :D

The back panel looks a bit stripey bit it's hard to notice irl. Also you can't even see it because it's the back panel so zero cares were given :D

The finish is a bit greyish as you can see in the last pic, but I don't mind it.

In this pic I roughly drew where the holes are supposed to go

Also I printed a 120mm fan template so I can make an accurate hole in the bottom :)

So yeah, I'm going to fit the rad in the bottom.

SUDDENLY HOLE

Honestly a jigsaw is a must have for case modding and metal cutting in general :D It works wonders

The holes are so so. The edges are a little bit too jagged but I didn't have a proper metal file so I couldn't really clean up the cut.

Also notice the cheeky 6870 in the background..

This pic is a bit blurry for no reason.. Anyway this is where the cutting drilling and painting took place :D

Now that looks a lot better :D

I had JUST enough to finish the case. The finish is pretty good overall though it has a few places where the paint is thinner but it's hard to notice.

Like here

I didn't care though, time to assemble this thing :D

Putting it back together

Now that looks proper :D

Improved cable management holes

I'm very satisfied with the result :) The next chapter is the side panel, but firstly I'll need to score some plexiglass so that will be in the next update :D

[ERSCreeper]

This is awesome! I have subbed :) Oh one thing that is killing me is that your ram is not in then right dimms. Far right and 2nd from the left :D

[Salmiakbal]

This is awesome! I have subbed :) Oh one thing that is killing me is that your ram is not in then right dimms. Far right and 2nd from the left :D

I knew someone was going to say that, but this is the way it's supposed to be :D I read the manual and for proper dual channel support the sticks must be either in the 1st and 2nd or 3rd and 4th slot. A lot of mobo's are colourcoded, but this one isn't (well it's colour coded, but not properly) :p

http://www.ger-pol.nazwa.pl/pliki/soft/ms7501/7501v1.0%28G52-75011X1%29.pdf

Page 20 :p

[unidentical]

Is.... is the cpu cooler exhausting out the bottom of the case?

From what I can see this is going to be a pretty significant negative pressure environment between the PSU fan and the cpu cooler.

I would suggest either switching the CPU cooler to intake or putting a couple intake fans to balance it out... otherwise you're going to be seeing a lot of dust.

[Parkway Drive]

Is.... is the cpu cooler exhausting out the bottom of the case?

From what I can see this is going to be a pretty significant negative pressure environment between the PSU fan and the cpu cooler.

I would suggest either switching the CPU cooler to intake or putting a couple intake fans to balance it out... otherwise you're going to be seeing a lot of dust.

Just about to say the same thing. I was wondering if he has an intake somewhere there.

I'd recommend turning that bottom fan to intake and slapping on a dust filter. Also probably don't want to be putting this case on the floor or atleast where there's carpet

[Salmiakbal]

Is.... is the cpu cooler exhausting out the bottom of the case?

From what I can see this is going to be a pretty significant negative pressure environment between the PSU fan and the cpu cooler.

I would suggest either switching the CPU cooler to intake or putting a couple intake fans to balance it out... otherwise you're going to be seeing a lot of dust.

Yes. The cooler is exhausting out of the case. I did this because I have noticed that the exhausted air is pretty warm when the CPU is on load, and I don't want that stuff to crowd the GPU.

I don't even have filtered intakes so it doesn't matter one bit whether there is a ''negative'' pressure or not. Also I have one 80mm intake fan in the bottom front that's blowing quite a bit of fresh air over the rad/GPU. If I were to change the rad fan to intake I would see even more dust because dust tends to settle on the floor..

It's not gonna be standing on a carpet of course :p Putting it on the floor is gonna be just fine.

Also have I mentioned I rebuilt this thing entirely on a carpet while wearing a synthetic shirt and not taking any ESD precautions? Fuck the police, YOLO etc etc..

[Salmiakbal]

UPDAET TIEM

So I've gathered some time to destroy the side panel

All I need to do now is finish up the cuts with sandpaper, paint the back of the side panel and find some plexi and see how I'm going to mate it with the panel :)