Revival Well the project never really died but it went into deep deep hibernation. I've been back at it for the past few months and I'm now posting from the machine itself. The case is still unfinished but I have the PC up and running well. I'll be posting pics of how far I've got soon. The bits are currently spread out over an area twice the width of the case This month I will be installing the second tier on the inside of the case (for the hdd) and deciding on how I'm going to do the back plate and situate the USB ports. All hardware is running well, including bluetooth peripherals.
Box is in a pretty hacked up state. I've removed as much as I could from the insides, including the four posts as I've decided I can work without them. The back of the box where I'll have access to the ports. Of course this will be cleaned up with a nice backplate so it looks more natural. Two post will hold the 3 next two levels for hdd and dvd drive. I'll see about bracing it against the top cover for more support. The innards. Input It actually works!
Thanks, I think it'll fit well with the friendly vibe I want people to get from this project. Yes, actually the AC adapter I have is much bigger than the motherboard. I'd like to change it for a smaller one but cash is very tight at the moment, so I don't want to replace things that are working fine.
posting here to give you a free bump, congratulate you on your work, and spam my own thread too! hehe! http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1761715#post1761715 wikid work man, very inspiring. glad to see that someone else has taken the courage to rip apart ol' faithful cube! any chance you might be able to make a list of all the things you've used to mod this? including things like the screw driver you mentioned and components? also....do you have any idea of how games run on the pico itx boards? the main purpose of my rig is to make a portable pc for civ 4 at lan parties but i don't think the pico can handle that sorta challenge... great work again mate, looks like i shall be following your footsteps! great touch on the cube controller modding btw, very nice touch!
Thanks, nothing wrong with a bit of cross pollination between similar threads. The screwdriver is known as a gamebit screwdriver. As for other components, do you mean hardware? I've actually dropped the idea of using the GC controller ports for the keyboard in favour of going Bluetooth for all peripherals. It would be cool if you followed through on the idea though. If I can think of something else to use them for, then I'll give it another go. The processor isn't a great one, I must say. I'd be surprised if it could run Civ 4 well. It doesn't really like showing webpages with a lot of Flash. I hacked up one of the USB ports as I need them separate to fit into the memory card slots. I reckon it's going to be a right royal pain to pull this part of the mod off well as everything need to line up properly and be secured well. I scrounged together some bits to make a nice low profile switch that seems to work a treat. There's hardly any room between the DVD drive and the top of the case with the buttons. I really want to avoid spend much more money on the final stages. I need to get this done and dusted in the next 2 months.
thanks for the tip on the scredriver. yeh,what components do you have inside? i'm thinking maybe cut holes into the panel underneath the flip lid and use that as a usb port/card reader. i generally prefer wired stuff myself, so i think i'll carry on with the usb/cube ports idea i'd still like to use the flip lid as a optical drive but i think it's beyond me!
Yeah, having a functional flip lid is way more hassle than it is worth, IMO. It would mean getting a replacement shell so you could fit full size CD's in it. I have 1GB of RAM, a 100GB SATA hard drive, a Panasonic slot load DVD drive, PicoPSU 120.
Finished! @ pksjaveed I bought both quite while ago here in Japan. I got the Pico-ITX soon after it was available and I think it cost about 30,000YEN. Pico PSU was maybe 8,000YEN. Well, with the new term approaching and a busy summer with no time to work on the mod, I found myself with a week in which to complete everything. That turned into only 3 full days. A whole lot of sawing and filing and gnashing of teeth saw PicoCube finished last Wednesday. DVD drive had to be removed due to things getting a little hot inside such a small space. A shame but no big deal as it isn't really essential. I bought another dead Gamecube so I can swap out the lid and controller port area later if I want to. No pics of things in progress or under the hood as I was so intent on getting it done. Here are some final shots of the system sitting on my desk in the staff room. More details if you click the pics or go to blog post.
Fantastic work mate, turned out great. Love the log in and the Mario wallpaper. May I ask what OS you are using? I am looking to do a PICO download box mod soon and am tied between XP Home or Linux. Also on the desktop you have system resource specs, is that part of the OS, skin or did you make an app?
Thanks, mate. Well I didn't really have any problems setting up Ubuntu 8.04 on it at all. If you're going for a download box then you might do fine with something more lightweight. It'll cost you nothing but time to check it out, right? The stats are courtesy of a cool little app called Conky It's very customizable and if you have a few days to spare the thread on the Ubunutu forums is one of the best on the Net on Conky. It can do just about anything, but it is very addictive once you start messing with it!
Thanks. It aint too pretty on the inside . I'll take pics of the internals when I go to work tomorrow.
wow.. this is... really cool i have a gamecube myself but never thought of putting a whole pc into it xD
Please do, if your Cube is broken of course. I don't want to encourage senseless slaughter of Gamecubes.
