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

@Lord_A - thanx dude

@Kipman725 - We also first started with an 486 CPU. It was good enough to run my commander keen and snoopy games Later on we upgraded with an IBM Cyrix CPU to 120mh It was goodenough to run Win 95 on

@731|\|37 - The floppydrive space in the front is an standard 3.5 floppy drivebay. But I've got plans to mod an slotload dvdplayer under the handel of the case on top. So you can't see the slotload unless you will pull up the handel thanx voor your idea

 

Old servers are just plain ridiculous I modified one to accept ATX-hardware, only difference was that it weighted 30kg!

 

Mine was a 486 too, at 133MHz, using an Am5x86 chip...started off on amd, and for desktops, still not changed*..ran windows 98 like a beauty...

anyway, retro 486 upgrades aside...this is a interesting mod...one thing that comes to mind, is how are you going to turn the classic IBM power switch into a momentary one? I sincerly hope your not planning to butcher it, although I doubt that, seeing as this is a high quality mod.


*Actually my first PC was a IBM XT in a desktop case...and my fileserver is a pentium II, but i'm talking bout main computers...

 

Won't be using THAT hard drive

The card is not PCI, its MCA (Micro Channel Architecture.) and probably, what, 20MB. My cell phone has more storage that that

I have the same case upsatirs and I'd thought about doing the same thing...glad someone beat me to it.

I only got as far as measuring a slot load drive to use behind the 5.25 face plate and I had decided that I'd probably need to go with a slimline notebook slot load to get the slots to line up easy.

Looks good.

 

Update 5 - Halfway through harddrivebay assembly

Because I've finished the theorie-part of my drivingcourse (yeah! I've passed my theorie-exam ) I now have got more time to spend on this project . This afternoon I continued the harddrivebay assembly and now it is time for an update


I've bought some rivets for putting the harddrivebay together.


I borrowed a riveting ?plier? from my mate Powerflux thanx dude


And then I started on with the assembly


This tool came in handy for making a perfectly 90 degrees corner




I also had to modify the profile for the upper mobotrayrail to fit into.


Then I riveted the two things together...


...and screwed it into place



Result: a perfectly fine working slideable mobotray


In the mean time it was raining cats and dogs. Allthough it didn't held me from casemodding

 

After the drill was recharged, I finished the harddrive bay


CiP: Casemod In Progress


After dinner I went on with attatching the first side of the harddrive bay into the case. This was more work than I thought. Because we will use this system as server, I wanted the harddrives to be mounted perfectly straight. This was quite a pain in the *youknowwhat * due to the not perfectly straight/flat bottom/top of the IBM case.


But I've manedged to attatch the first side correctly. As you can see the airbubble is between the lines, so it's straight. Also vertical and the harddrives are also fully horizontal stored


The result after one afternoon and evening work. Sorry for the poor lighting quality, but our camera is blinding the picture when it flashes (because of the poor amount of light availible), because of the reflection of the alu. I hope to attach the other side tomorrow, so the server is starting to get shape . See you guys tomorrow.

 

This is exactly what a good computer case should look like!
Not those new plastic craps with round edges and stuff.
This is... truly beautiful.
I want one too :'<
Looking forward seeing this one not being modded
Keep up the good work :]

 

You say the bottom/sides of the case weren't level when you were measuring with a spirit level. Was the surface the case was sitting on level? Yes I know it's silly but sometimes we all miss the painfully obvious (me especially )

EDIT: Re-read your post. You meant the bottom was warped.

 

The floor/bottom of the case isn't level at all. Inside, on the back of the case, the space between the floor/bottom and the top(vertically) is like 56,6cm long as the the same space from outside, where I can fit the panel on, is 57,0cm long.

 

Hey Thijs, looks good!
The idea is still great, i hope you can finish it before the 4th of september
See you on Tuesday, for the engraving,

 

please don't throw the electronics away, but nice mod

my oldest pc:
20 mhz
ram: none (did that exist at that time)
vga: ehmmmmm nothing
to bad it crashed should get it back working (maybe ill open thread about how to fix it)

 

@Dennis - That will be tuesday after lowlands

@gideon - I've stashed all the electronics in a box and stored it in our little computer attic. We've also got things like ancient tokering switches and stuff lying around . My dad will go and search the attic for the old IBM PS/2 folder, so I can get an overview of the style in those days.


Tweakers - PC Turnes 25
Another thing not to forget: The PC turned 25 yesterday. Ofcourse the first ((almost) affordable) PC was from IBM I've posted a news article from Tweakers. It's a shame it's dutch, but maybe you can understand a few lines

 

nice work done so-far thijs!

good luck for what still has to come, I'll just mind my own business, and start my own modding thread

Like the concept, hope the original look doesn't change too much good luck

 

I won't be updating this weekend, because I be at lowlands until monday Then I will continue modding and make an update again

 

Looks like you could put a few hard drives in there, but how many are you planning to install, and what cooling methods as you going to use? How many can the case hold maximum btw?

 

I'm back from lowlands. I've had a good time with my powerflux/school friends. Nice to see bands like CKY, Ministry, Opeth, Muse and Mastodon preform.

Now back to modding again...

@olly_lewis - There can be 12 harddrive's stored in this configuration. I will install several 120mm fans in front of the harddrive bay for good cooling without much noise I have to discuss with my dad about the amount of harddrives's which we will start with. Proberbly it will be around 4, cause it will be for homeuse (right now we're only using a 120GB ).

The upcoming days I will finish the harddrive bay and try to come up with an mountingsolution for the Powersupply.

 

Update 6 - The harddrivebay finally assembled

I've finally completed the harddrive assembly. Cause it was raining outside I worked in my garage, so I didn't have to move my tools as much as when I mod outside. But enough with the chit chat, here are some pictures:


Horizontal as well as vertical fully straight. It was a lot of work, but now it's realllyy straight


With a few test harddrives installed.


As you can see it's a tight fit. That's because then I've got more space in front of the harddrivebay so the fan's won't hit the front panel and make a lot of noise.

Next plan is to make a mount for the powersupply and order the hardware After that we can install the server and begin a new fase: fine tuning. That's the part were plexiglass and other stuff kick in

Bye bye for now

 

Update 7 - Project Resurrection after a long break...

A long awaited *bump* of this project. Unfortunaty the whole project came to a hold because my school started and I started with driving lessons . Therefor their wasn't enough time to continue in a active sort of speaking. Sorry to all you fans of this project. All that I could do is figure out the Hardware which I needed for the project:

Hardware Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice s939
Mobo: Asus A8V-VM SE s939
Mem: TwinMos Memory 2x512 MB, PC3200 Dual Channel
HDD: Western Digital Caviar RAID Edition 320 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB, SATA300 4x
PSU: Be Quiet BQT-P6-PRO-53 Dark Power Pro, 530 Watt

I got myself a sponsor for the project:

www.azerty.nl

All the time the case was stationed in the garage:



One of the things that still had to be fixed was that enormous gap above the motherboard tray...


So I decided to get some bondo and fix it


I taped the surrounding stuff, zo the bondo wouldn't end all over the case


Since I never ever worked with bondo, it was quite hard for me to get the bondo to spread nicely without creating bubbles...
As you can see, it was smart to put some tape around the gap


I also tried to smoothen the gap for the motherboardtray, cause it came out to be a bit to big.


Then it was time to sand the bondo schtuff... I first used a chisel to remove the spikes and smoothen the surface. Then I used sandingpaper and several files.


The firsttime wasn't quite like I wanted it... So I had to redo the whole proces again...


Allthough it wasn't smooth the first time, it did fill the gap completely


not smooth


Second try


This time I overdid it slightly, with the thought that i would sand it away later


hmm... it's so smooooth


Finished

The only big thing I have to do before I can get the hardware in, is building the Powersupply tray. I allready made a design (link) , but it proberbly is impossible to find info about the size of my new powersupply.. Therefor I have to wait untill my powersupply is being delivered... (which will be next week)

That's all for now. Next week a big update with all hardware and the powersupply tray mounted...

 

how are you fitting the psu in the case, will you have to cut a big hole in the back?. the case looks too narrow for a standard type of mounting

 

the psu will be mounted on it's side, else it won't fit in the case I will mod an fan against the standard PSU outtake, so it will suck out the hot PSU air through the existing fanhole. So I don't have to drill a hole in the back of the case and it will still look authentic

You can check out the PSU mounting here

The upper design is viewed from the side of the case and the bottom design is viewed from the back of the case.