-= N a r a y a n =- (AT to ATX) - [ Dec. 23rd ]

This project is about a case for the PC that I'm building for my GF, the woman that I love. <3
It's an old AT full tower case that I got from a local auction site for 13US$.
Nobody here knows that they can mod these AT cases into ATX, that's why they sell it cheap.

Front
The case came with all the bay covers, only a 3 1/2 bay cover is missing.
It has 3 buttons, Power, Turbo and Reset, which I'll have to mod.
It also has 3 LEDs, you can barely see them below each button.
There's a small grill at the bottom.
There's also a badge and under it there's a MHz display, I will take it away, I already have another circuit with a 7 segment display that connects to LPT and it's going to show CPU's temp. http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/209/1


The buttons and on the right side of the LEDs there are emossed letters, which I'll take away by sanding them down, I'll take a pic later whenever I start working with the front panel.


Back
As you can see there's a place to put an 80mm fan.
Below that, where the PSU goes.
It has some prepunched things to hold DB25 and DB9 connectors, some of them have already been opened, and some where "filled" just with stickers by the previous owner of this case.
And of course, no I/O panel, it's an AT.


There it is, the mobo and the PSU inside of it, my room is very small, so I had to throw everything to build up that PC inside the case.
The mobo tray and some other parts are riveted, I'll get those rivets away and I'll use Allen screws with bolts to make it look more pro.


Inside
There it is my old Creative Infra 48x, dyed to match MY case, not my gf's case.
There are six 5 1/4 slots and four 3 1/2 slots.
The HDD cage is removable, all I have to do is take away 3 screws and slide the cage back.
At the bottom there's a piece of metal that holds the speaker that it's facing towars the mobo.
Nothing to put an intake fan.


The old style to hold AT mobos, I'll just use 2 standoffs for each of those "holes" and a screw to secure the mobo to the mobo tray.




Starting Plan & Mod
I put the mobo with the standoffs, I've secured it with screws and there's a missing hole that I've marked using a paper clip, I just scratched the mobo tray.
I've also marked where I have to cut to be able to access the I/O panel of the ATX mobo.
As you can see, I'll also have to cut some part of the PCI slot.
Don't worry about my marks, it's just to have an idea of where to cut.


Weeeee!

 

holy s*it that case is BIG!
g00d luck

 

Do you have more plans than just modding it to an ATX standard?

 

There are more plans, but instead of saying everythin I'm going to do, I'll post them while I'm doing them.

Anyway, if any of you have any sugestion, do it.

 

Time to get away this piece of metal riveted to the case.
It doesn't even have the shape to put a fan on it, so this is no good, I'm taking it away.
I'll get a small speaker for the mobo and I'll put it somewhere else.


This is how it looks from the other side.
I wonder what are those plastic thingies for.


I removed the rivets using a drill, now the area is clean to put a fan, but I haven't decided which size it's gonna be.
That is because I don't know what to do to the front panel and I'll also have to meassure the free space between the mobo and that part of the case, my plan is to put the drive cage at the bottom of the case, just in front of an intake fan.


Now time to rip that foot away, it's nasty, tall, and takes up more space than what is really needed.


The foot has just 4 rivets so taking it away was a breeze.
I might use this foot for something else.


No more BIGfoot
The idea is to put 4 acrilic feet, just about 5mm tall and each of them lighted with LEDs.


My GF got home, no more modding for today.

 

looking good bro good luck with it...

 

Cool, I have done this myself.

Those black plastic things on the front of the case are used to hold old school isa cards that where so long that they extended the full length of the case.

 

Mouse
I got an used mouse, and it has a clear scroll wheel, of course it called my attention and I wondered if it had a burnt LED inside, something missing, or just a coincidence. I was sure of something, I was going to light up that scroll, I couldn't resist to mod it, it was screaming "mod me!", and so I did.
When I opened the mouse, I saw that on the PCB there were 2 holes and the shape of a LED, so I soldered an ultra bright blue LED that I got, but nothing happened. I started looking around the PCB and I saw that there was a missing resistor, so I got my multimeter and bam! 5V, and the other end to one of the LED's leads. I soldered a resistor that I had in my "electronics stuff box".
The resistor I've soldered is the one on the left side of the LED.


Testing it, everything works.
Sorry for the blury pic, I had to take my digi cam's flash off.


This is how it looks during the day.


In the dark.



Keyboard
About the keyboard, that is going to be used, it had the old AT plug, so I grabed a useless keyboard, I took away the cable that was soldered to its PCB and then I soldered that cable to the "new" keyboard's PCB.
So now the keyboard has a long cable and a PS/2 conector.

 

ohhh the mouse looks really good also the other stuff
what is the siZe of that case

 

taliban_raider: thx for the info.

Narayan
Height 62cm
Width 19cm
Depth 42cm

 

hey man...nice mod on the mouse!

That case is frigging huge! Check out Project Monolith(see sig) for my thoughts on old at server cases! My case is a bit smaller than that one though

 

Dude, I see dual 120's in the front, both done up turbine style

That would be nice, tha amount of air you could get movin through that thing? Straight 120 mm everywhere lol.

 

cogitoergosum: I've already posted in your thread.

One thing is for sure, I won't put two 120mm intake fans at front, I might just put a 120mm x 38mm fan (120CFM @ 41dBA).
I have two problems, first to see if there's enough empty space to put that fan and the drive cage screwed to the case's floor, and the other problem is the shape of my front panel.
I just want to use vinyl die for the front, and I don't think that will work on bondo.
I think that those little steps won't look good if I make a 120mm blowhole, but not problems with a 92mm blowhole.

 

oooooo soo much potential. i would agree 120s would be really cool.

 

I agree with mr burrito man, this case definately has a lot of potential and 120mm LED fans would look sweet!

 

I think you should keep the "bigfoot". Everyone's doing acrylic feet these days, so it would be a nice change. Just my $0.02
What about making it an acrylic bigfoot? Make a sheet of plexi under it, a couple of leds, and you'll have a nice glowing ring under the case

 

Broots may actually be onto something there, are you talking about one of these (but not a premod obviously)?

http://reviews.pimprig.com/modding/icute_x-stand.php

 

Never seen those before, but it sure looks cool.
But it was not what I meant..
I'll try to explain as good as I can..
You remember G-gnome's mod, right? With the green-glowing plexi sheet in the middle of the junction-box (if I remember correctly?). Well my thought was a sheet of plexi under the foot, with a couple of leds in it, to make the outer edge glow. Uhm, yeah.
..|......|..
..|......|..
./........\.
======= <-plexi

 

Yea I get what you're suggesting, you could just have LEDs coming down through a hole in the bottom of the case, so it would be pretty simply to rig up.

 

That really really REALLY looks like it's leaning backwards