Project IBM Resurrection: 20/06/07 - Putting it all together [PIC. 168!!!]

This project is about bringing a old pc(case) back to life. It's the IBM PS/2, which I played my first games upon when I was a kid . Good old memories ^_^.



We had two of those PC's, with one which wasn't working at all. My dad said that it would be nice if I would take the thing apart and build a modern server from it (mainly for storing data). Cause I'm not new to the hole casemodding scene, I have some modding stuff lying around. An old pc case with a slideable motherboardtray came in handy.

This is a summerholiday project, so i want to finish it (mainly) before the end of the holiday . I started a bit earlyer than when I started this topic on bittech, so this worklog would be a bit more interesting, instead of seeing just a small modification each time.

When this project is finished, it will have the following specs:

Hardware:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice s939
Mobo: Asrock 939NF6G-VISTA
Mem: TwinMos Memory 2x512 MB, PC3200 Dual Channel
PSU: Be Quiet BQT-P6-PRO-53 Dark Power Pro, 530 Watt

Storage:
- 4x Western Digital Caviar RAID Edition 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB, SATA300
- 1x Western Digital 120GB IDE

----------------
Updates:
----------------
I will make a new post for each update.
05/05/06 - Taking the Beast apart
13/07/06 - Prepairing the Mobotray
02/08/06 - Cutout + attatching the Mobotray
06/08/06 - Building the Harddrive Bay
11/08/06 - Halfway through Harddrive Bay assembly
28/08/06 - The Harddrive Bay finally assembled
04/01/07 - Project Resurrection after a long break...
11/01/07 - The Stuff Arrived
12/01/07 - Fixing the harddrive Cooling
14/01/07 - Constructing the Powersupply Bay -> PART 1

break

01/06/07 - Status Update!
02/06/07 - Teh painting has begun
04/06/07 - Reassembly + Lighting
20/06/07 - Putting it all together

Feel free to post things like thoughts, comments, ideas etc...

 

Update 1 - Taking the beast apart


This is the case It really is a nice one.

The front and back. As you can see there isn't much resemblence between this the motherboard space and a atx one . It's more like AT but actually it's to long. There also aren't much ventilation hole/spaces, so I have to take care of that.

The Handle to carry the case. It's really the only way to transport it.

OMG! ATLEAST A WOPPING 18KG! We have to mesure that to see if it's correct.

And yes it is: 18,0 KG. The other IBM PS/2 is filled with even more hardware. So that one must be atleast 20KG LOL


Taking the hood of, to begin with taking the beast apart.

As you can see there isn't much resemblence with an modern (ATX) motherboard.

Back in the old days those CPU's appearently didn't need a CPU Cooler

As you can see the Harddrive in this thing is huge.

The Powersupply.

 

This harddisk only stores about 600MB. Enough for OS/2 As you can see the harddisk is fed with an ordenairy molex .



The Case without the harddrive. Next up is the Power Supply.


And there it is This powersupply can deliver a maximum of 225 Watts .

An truly huge powerconnector for the motherboard.

Powersupply removed. Next up is to remove the iron tray where you can slide your 2(!) harddrives and 2 floppydrives in.


One of the last things left to remove is the motherboard. The thing is immence.

The memory modules.

And an empty case. I only have to takeout that motherbord support and the case is ready to be mod.

 

Update 2 - Prepairing the Mobotray
This update I've taken the old donor case and I've takenout the attachmentrails and I've cut the mobotray to the right size.


The motherboard tray was to long to fit in the case, because then it would sit against the harddrive's. So I had to cut a piece off. Here I marked my cutting line.

I also made a drawing about how to fix a lot of harddrives in the case. Thanx to the brilliant modder Phat Ass, I came up with an harddrive dock construction, where I can at least fit 12 harddrives in so there is place for 11x320 GB that's 3520 = 3,5 TB of storage (1 place free for the Linux 120GB Harddrive)

And then the mobotray is cut to the right size Now it fits perfectly and there is still enough room for the motherboard (it's not sticking out).

Here I've cut mobotrayrail, so I can mount that in the PS/2 case, so we can slide the mobotray in and out.

The bottom mobotrayrails wasn't part of the case, so I could take that one out without a dremel. Eventhough I did cut it to size, so it also would sit against the harddrives.

Sideshot.

That's all for now

 

Update 3 - Cutout + attatching the Mobotray
And then the time has come. Now I've set my dremel in this beatyfull peace of history LOL



I layed the mobotray in the case, so I could see where to set the cuttinglines for the dremel. Then I taped the inside and drewed the cuttinglines.

Some cutting action


Now I've cutout enough space to make the mobotray fit into the case, from the back.


Like that. Now we just need to attach the mobotrayrails.


First I also made some space availeble for the Harddisk tray to fit in later.

As you can see I've fitted the bottom mobotrayrail to the bottom of the case with two little screws.

The other rail turned out to be to wide to slide the motherboardtray correctly/straight into the case. So I had to cut it up to size.






It still was a little bit to wide, so I decided to bend the last stroke. I layed the upper mobotrayrail down wrongly on the bottom mobotrayrail and made a mark. Now i could see the edge which is to long.


Then I took a woodenblock and you tape along the side of it, until it is bend under an angle of 90 degrees.


And there you have it. The upper mobotrayrail is short enough to slide the motherboardtray correctly/straight into the case. Only the bend edge of the rail is to short to attach it to the case. So we have to come up with a sollution for that.

 

Update 4 - Building the Harddrive Bay
Yesterday I went to the local hardwareshop and I bought the following:

- 2x 2m 20mmx20mm Aluminium L-Angled profile
- 1x 1m 20mmx20mm Aluminium L-Angled profile
- 1x 1m 5mmx5mm Aluminium U-Angled profile
- 1x 2m 20mmx2mm Aluminium stroke

Together it costed me almost 20 euro's. This also means I have to cut a lot of profiles, before assembling the Harddrive Bay.


The case with the amount of profiles.

Then I mesured the profile and I started cutting it with a "mitre box"? to make nice straight cuts.

Like that

I didn't finish all the cutting so tomorrow I will continue with it. Pictures will follow ofcourse

 

noice case a good lot of space in that

 

Must... Watch...

I'm hoping you keep the external look autherntic. I've also always wanted to see someone stealth a slot-load CD-ROM drive under a 5.25" floppy bezel.

 

My main point is to keep the Case as original as possible. But some mods, like ventilation mods, are unavoidable. Anyhow, I want to keep the front brezel original. So maybe I can mod an slot-it DVD-ROM player behind te front, with the insert slot falling behind the verticle line of the case (under the two floppy drives and right above the IBM logo on the front).

Thanx for the tip Cpt. Slug

 

You should see if you could use the old hard drive with you new system

 

It looks like the hard drive used that huge control board right below the HD cage. I also looks like the controler had a PCI interface so I guess it would be possible to use the orginal HD with the right drivers(if you can find any)

 

That case is a piece of IBM history, back when they made consumer PCs and before the sold it of to a Chinese firm.... Though, it's beyond me how you can cut up and tear apart a piece of HISTORY, how dare you, how dare you sir...
Though you certaintly know what your doing and with some precise dremel action you've been able to mod the inside of the case to fit the tray while still keeping the outside look of the case and the "feel" of the case, great mod...

 

Love the idea of the mod. Classic definitely has its appeal. The idea reminds me of a “sleeper” racing car: looks like trash on the outside but has an outrageously powerful motor on the inside. I’m not sure what your budget is, but I thought that it could be really wicked to keep it looking completely stock, but paint it a pearlescent, metal flake white, sort of like the Escalade or 7 series BMW white. Maybe see if you could scrape up some old IBM badges to give it that stock feeling back. That way would still have the classic styling, no massively huge blow-holes, neon lights, etc… but with the icy white paint job, you still get the idea that there’s a modern beast lurking within. And if you do go with 3.5 TB of storage…. !!!!! …. It would be a shame to just be a plain IBM white-box. This should be a good one, good luck!

 

You could get the 750gb hd's and have 7tb of storage or 5.5tb plus a 300gb raid setup with rapotors!!! OR a 60gb setup with some 15k scsi hd's

 

hij blijft leuk thijs!
Denk je dat je hem afkrijgt voordat school en lowlands enzo beginnen?

 

I know it's a beautifull piece of IBM history . In fact, we actually can begin a IBM historic museum with the IBM stuff we've got here. My dad also has a very old IBM XT (you know, black screen with green letters OLD SCHOOL! ). The whole idea behind the mod is to make the IBM PS/2 fit into the modern PC society. With this I mean the INNER stuff -> the hardware and not the outside. Ofcourse the case should become a nice mod, but it should still be recognisable as the original IBM PS/2 Thanx for the compliment

Using the original IBM harddrive is not an option because the thing is way to large. It might be possible, cause it indeed fits in a regular PCI slot, but then the next problem would be the drivers.

I wanted to do something with the paintjob on the outside. Maybe I'll visit a carpainter in the end, to give it a nice paintjob Ofcourse I would stick to white

Thanx for the tip

I could buy a lot of Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 of 750GB, but it would become almost inaffordable it would cost me 419.-x11= 4609 euro's only for the data storage. That's way to much. It's the best to start off with the 320GB harddisk, because they have the best GB/euro ratio. Lateron I can allways change a harddisk for a new 750 GB, when they will be affordable ofcourse

Now you say so, I've still got an 1,2GB SCSI harddisk laying around, maybe I could use it as Linux disk The Linux partition wouldn't take so much room to fill the hole disk (proberbly only 600MB, like our current server)

I think I will have the project mainly finished before LowLands, so we can use it allready. It proberbly won't be finished 100%, because I don't want to rush the project. I want to build a nice quality mod, such things you shouldn't rush

[Dutchmode]En uiteraard bedankt Den-nis! [/Dutchmode]

 

I've just finished cutting up the aluminium profiles



Tomorrow I can put the harddrive bay together and then I will be able to give a new update on this project

 

Good work so far dude, excellent Project Log as well, very good intro & info

I dig old cases bought back to life, hope you get to finish it over the summer holidays

 

Ah memorys my first pc was a 486 although I did install a heatsink as it ran a little warm. I got some decent speed out of that pc when I got a 120mhz "586" chip made by IBM. The only problem was it messed up my VESA local bus slot and made my Diamnond stealth graphics card only capable of 40hz! and gave me migranes

good look with your mod, you have inspired me. I think I shall make my next pc a "sleeper" in an old compaq desktop case.

 

Hmmm, you know modding a slot load CD-ROM into a 5-1/4" drive would be drop dead gorgeous.