Case Mod - In Progress NES 3.0 -nintendo pc build (Finished Build)

Woah, nice! I thought you might end up needing to get a bigger PSU. Still, nice to know that there are 250W DC-DC PSUs out there. I'll keep it in mind for my next build.

 

Its been awhile a lot of progress has been made will post updates tomorrow!

 

Horray! The project lives on

 

ok I left you guys off with needing a better psu.

I did get my HDplex 250w and it kicks but,no more random shut downs what so ever.This has been a great psu so far, the only down side was it is big and has a 24pin cable. The 24pin cable took a little brain storming to get it tucked away good.

After my psu was installed I kinda just enjoyed the nes for a little bit testing thermals and games and things. I was unable to do much modding any way with the 5 feet of snow in the backyard and needing to use my saws outside.

Now some pretty big news "i5 4670k"

I some how manage to snag a i5 for next to nothing and this chip is binned pretty decent for this build . (I have it OCed to 4.2ghz at 1.09v and able to keep my temps under 80c! currently)

ok on to my cpu cooler. found out quickly once my top lid was installed the IS-40 was to tall to do the job . The thing keep just grabbing hot air from the top of the case . So I installed the intel cpu cooler back in there and it helped a little bit.

will continue my story tomorrow

until then here is some pictures

The HDplex 250



this is the layout I came out with with my new psu


playing games and testing new psu



i5

stock voltage with prime running

 

Awesome work! Can't wait to see it finished.

 

Looks a great build and I am impressed that you fit it all in the small NES casing, look forward to the finished product.

 

I've been following this for a while. Awesome retro SFF build.

 

Great idea, nice work subbed

 

Looking great! A lot of hardware in such a small case!

 

Thanks all !

going to start typing out my next update today,I was really busy yesterday .

 

after looking around I end up taking another gamble on ID-cooling again this time with there IS-25i this cooler was 20mm shorter than the IS-40. It end up being on par with the intel stock cooler temp wise which was Ok for being nearly half the height and all most silent.I thought the intel cooler was way to loud.

with some more testing with the new cooler my idle temps were still out of hand with them slowly climbing up to around 50c. Problem was my exhaust fan did not have enough static pressure to pull the air in from the other side of the case.I ordered 6 new fans to test ,the first one to come in is still the best one I got so far (still waiting on the one I really want to try). Once installing this delta pwm fan,I can get in system nice and toasty and with in one minute off load cpu temps are back to 35c. Also my overall system ambient temps never go above 33c now.

on to my gpu ,
I was board one day and decided to void my warranty and redid the thermal paste to hopefully improve temps. First I started with so AC5 as this is all I had on hand and my temps dropped 9c .Once my GC-extreme came in I redid the TIM again and holy cow my temps drop 16c from stock thermal paste.all testing is done with one round of valley bench basic. This left my with a massive overhead for OCing right now I have my gpu OCed to 1200mhz and it boost clocks stay right around 1350mhz with temps never exceeding 75c.On a side note the stock TIM job was very ugly.

that's all I have time for now going to need one more update ,to get you guys up to date.

stock thermal paste job on the gpu


all cleaned up


the delta fan and my new single fan mount( not that loud only keep it at 2000rpm)


had to add a new fan header to it the original one was only 4 inches

 

well after a couple hard months of winter I was able to get some pieces made for my build ,one nice day a week ago .I don't have a workshop so the weather dictates my times I can use my saws.

first up I was able to make some sides for my exhaust fan,so the air can be detected outside the case and seal the gaps so it can only pull air into the case from my intake vents.

next up is the I/O panel this pieces was really a pain to make. still in a rough form but will be very worth it in the end. I like the look of not seeing the motherboards I/O panel and only seeing the ports that are needed.

had time to make my hard drive mount ,this was pretty much the key thing I needed to get the case fully shut.

so this is as my project stands as of now

fully functional with good temps and low noise,GPU and CPU are both OCed, all hardware is in the case and all the pieces back installed on the case, 95% fabricated .

Just waiting on one more fan to come in the mail before I make my choice on what one I am going to use. After that I will begin the last of the fabrication and start smoothing out the rough edges then painting .

some lexan pieces I made ,fan sides ,4 I/O panels (took 3 to get it right)


HDD mount



HDD mount in the case

fan installed and fan sides

I/O panel


for the first time every piece of hardware installed

and me enjoying Transistor(Awesome game) after a long weekend on the NES!!

 

Nice! Are you calling this done or was this a test to see if it was cooling well enough under gaming conditions?

 

Not done yet , still in a testing phase. I want to have the cooling systems as good as I can get them. Then I will start working on smoothing everything out then paint.

 

boy I have some catching up to do here.

ok first order of business, I had to do something with the multicolored psu cables.
I dyed them in a bath of black dye for 3 days, I used dye so there was no cracking or peeling as it physically change the colors of the cables to black.

also decided to do some even more scarier stuff than this
painted the blue on the motherboard to black, I never was digging the blue.



since I was in the risk taking mood I felt like it was a good time for this


I also lapped the IHS not shown in the pic


will post some more updates today or tomorrow.

 

primed the inside of the case

after that I wanted to see what the cables and motherboard looked like in the nes

I was not really digging the brown fan so I fixed that

and after seeing the console with this color scheme ,I decided that I like it and was going to roll with it!

some pieces I made to hide wires and a new fan shroud

 

Looks nice but it's a little bit of a shame that you've edited the case so much. It's not really an NES case if you cut it up and such.

But, it's still a great compact build.

 

stay tuned ,I really think you might like what I did with it

I just don't want to jump ahead on my updates (think I need 3 more to catch you guys up)

 

at this point now I was ready to start the paint process
first I did my door lid for practice and see how I like the white,I decided to go with a embossed look for the door logo, very subtle look.

I think this pic was the primer only

primed the top shell,now every peice of the case is primed and ready for the final paint process

also picked up a noctua nh-l9i ,had to fix the color of the fan. I should of just bought this cooler in the first place as this is a very nice cooler and able to keep temps on par for my build