[Scratch Build][Low Budget] Media PC / Steambox in Wooden Case

[Nergale]

As I really like seeing scratch builds myself I decided to post one of mine builds.

 

The reasons this thing even exists is mostly me having parts lying around and the fact that I wanted to play 4 player coop games on my TV.

It had to be exactly 30x50x21 centimeters to fit into my TV-rack.

 

Coming to the speccs:

I7 860@ 3,8 GHz - 29€ from "german craigslist" (ebay-kleinanzeigen)

Asus P7D55D - 40€ from ebay

Crucial BallistX Sport 8Gb Kit - 29€ offer on Otto.de

Corsair CS 430W - 30€ on mindfactory.de (If I recall correctly)

Sandisk SSD 240 GB for 49€ on Conrad.de

Palit Geforce 770 GTX Jetstream for 69€ on ebay.de

Fans ~ 30€ Caseking.de

Fan Controller 15€ Caseking.de

And about 20€ for some wood

________________________

That's about 310€ 

 

Here is a concept:

Which didn't work out entirely, but it was a good point to start at.

 

Front / Backside, holes for the fans.

 

My patented drill connection kit, which was super ghetto and super dangerous. (It's a miracle I didn't cut myself doing this. The drillhead could actually fall out as it didn't have any connection to the drill itself.)

The connector is by the way a part of a screwdriver connector with a dull bit hammered in. 

 

There is a testfit. I'm sorry I could not provide any more pictures of mounting the sides and the fans. Though if you're interested:

The fans were mounted directly to the wood by drilling a large hole that could fit the screwhead. The hole wasn't drilled all the way through, the last part was done with a smaller drill that just fit the actual screw itself.

 

Some people might notice that the parts for the testfit arent the ones described above. I had these lying around and mATX is mATX right?! (Yeah that did not work out in the end)

 

Realizing I managed to put one fan in the wrong way. 

 

Drilling holes into the top because the CPU cooler was too large to fit into the case.

 

And testfit.

 

After some sanding and the first coat of paint. If you're wondering why the inside did not get painted is because I wanted the LEDs to get a better reflection surface. 

 

More or less finished painting, mounted the fans.

 

Now with most of the parts installed.

 

This is what it looked like from the inside before remounting all the hardware as the other mainboard was slightly larger and therefore needed to be turned around.

And yes I needed to redo the holes in the top. 

 

Another perspective. The shelfspace in the back is where this needed to fit by the way.

 

This is the PC today sitting there doing its buisness. I need to repaint the shelf though as it is a tight fight and I damaged the finish a bit :(.

 

The finished product playing some DS3!

 

I hope you liked my kind of low budget wooden PC box. I myself had a lot of fun building it.

 

If you didn't manage to spot the "On-Switch": There is none.

It starts via Wake on LAN. Though that once went horribly wrong as Windows 10 decided that my LAN driver was outdated and installed a new one that did not support WoL. Yay.

 

By the way I got better over time working with wood, I made a case for my NAS which now looks like this:

 

[TommyW2061]

i really like when people take matter to their own hand and build stuff themselves for their pc. +1 kudo

[The Sloth]

looks really cool, awsome job. 

[Moeplazz]

I really liked the fact that you were creative with the Wooden Case but doesn't it give too much noise and unprofessional? I am not trying to offend you but you should get an actual case, a small case would do.

The thing that stood out on the images was the green LED on the fans, which I really liked. Does the fans give too much noise or not?

[TommyW2061]

3 minutes ago, Moeplazz said:

I really liked the fact that you were creative with the Wooden Case but doesn't it give too much noise and unprofessional? I am not trying to offend you but you should get an actual case, a small case would do.

The thing that stood out on the images was the green LED on the fans, which I really liked. Does the fans give too much noise or not?

you do know that projects like this are also to save money on all parts, also the housing or case where the hardware will end up in

[Moeplazz]

Just now, TommyW2061 said:

you do know that projects like this are also to save money on all parts, also the housing or case where the hardware will end up in

 

I agree.

[JoaoPRSousa]

I was going to say it was a bit too big for the components it's holding, until I saw where you were going to put the PC.

 

Doesn't the green light from the front fans bother you when the lights are out?

[Nergale]

@Moeplazz

I can't really judge whether you find it unprofessional or not that is probably for you to decide.

Speaking of noise, the thing is almost silent. You can't really hear it even under load. That is what the fan controller is for. 

 

@JoaoPRSousa

The green lights don't really bother me, the entire shelf has LED lighting, I actually enjoy having atleast a bit of backlight behind the TV screen. 

There are even studies that suggest that some backlight is good for your eyes:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/258703/how_to_eliminate_eyestrain_from_your_big_beautiful_pc.html