Right, where to start. Long time lurker and odd poster here and there. I've been meaning to put up the logs of my other mods but sort of lost track of which photos went with which date... but enough about that... Montana: A Home Theatre Excursion As my little splash image mentions, the Silverstone LC-02 case is a known problem causer. Of all the reviews I read, every single one said that although you can use a standard ATX board in there, that when combined with anything other than a Pentium M based chip and the bugger will overheat. I'm stubborn though and I'm also a sucker for appearances, this case I think looks awesome in that it doesn't really look like a computer at all. Thus I figured sod the problems I'll MAKE IT WORK. Montana, for those that didn't get the reference from the splash image, comes from Tony Montana, otherwise known as Scarface. This is one of my favourite movies and figured that since this is a home theatre PC it might as well be named after one of my favourite films. Square plug... Round hole... The goal here is to get the case to work and be stable and as neat as possible. It should look like it came outta the factory this way. Now, say hello to my little friend... (click for bigness!) As you can see... Nice and A/V component looking. But herein lies the issue with this case. "You're damaged goods, biatch!". I've already mentioned the overheating thing, but since it's so short everything has to sit on risers. Also you can only use slim-line CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs. The back i/o panel is the only thing that really gives it away as a PC, you can see the tail end of the M-Audio card too... Now, here's where it starts to get nasty. Beneath the facade of niceness... bursts forth, CABLES, COMPENENTS and NO SPACE! You'll also notice the distinct lack of fans. The PSU is supposed to do all the active exhausting for the case, does anyone else see an issue with this? Enough wordy things... more pictures!
I am setting myself around a month to complete this, since I really want to get my cinema room all setup and running and this box is a crucial part of this. So this is the list of tasks ahead of me: 1) Add in a 120mm exhaust fan in the top of the unit 1.5) Fabricate a vent for the top of the unit 2) Cut inlet vents in the base of the unit c) Fabricate mesh covers for the vents d) Integrate the wireless bridge into the case V) Integrate a USB TV tuner into the case 6) Shorten all the cables that are to be used and remove all non-essential cables That's the main jobs but undoubtedly there will be a lot of little jobs in there that I haven't thought of just yet. So hopefully I'll keep your attention for a little while and end up with a quiet, stable and versatile compy!
Now, I must admit, I cheated a little bit. When I first got the case... I couldn't even get the motherboard into the case as the Zalman heatsink interfered with the PSU. So the shots you see in the first post have actually already had some modding done on them... the process is shown below. Basically I needed to trim a bunch of fins off the Zalman to make it fit... I will need to do further mods to the heatsink but that will be later after the 120mm fan is fitted. So without further ado... Montana: Heatsink Trimmage Here is how the heatsink was originally sitting in the case I used the ruler to roughly mark out how much I needed to trim off the edge of the sink, bit coarse but in this case it didn't need to be an exact science... The heatsink all ready for surgery, since my housemate had recently moved out I figured I'd make use of this fact and turned my kitchen bench into a dremel bench. Nice idea at the time, though I don't think that copper should really be ingested... I'm sure that it's a good source of fibre though... or essential minerals? Now I just basically started hacking into the fins with the dremel, trying to take as much care as I could to not a) hit the fan or b) damaged the surrounding fins... as you can see... I was umm sort of successful. THE HORROR! Now onto the shots of the heatsink back in the case, I think all in all it came up pretty well. I tried to make it look like it came with the shortened fins. If it wasn't for the small scores and scratches on the fins I have left it would look pretty dandy. I still have to clean up the edges a bit more but as I mentioned at the top I need to modify this sink further when I install the 120mm fan. So... here are the final shots
Since I'm so stuck for space... and there is only space for ONE hard drive, I really don't need an IDE cable with 3 plugs. So with the idea of "Less is more" well and truly cemented in my grey matter... I present: Montana: Trim the fat (IDE cable that is) Start with a rounded cable. Funny story with this one though, I run an Abit Fatal1ty SLi board in my main workstation. This board comes with inbuilt red LEDs so you get this glow from under the board, completely wasted on my workstation since it a) doesn't have a window and b) my workstation sits under my desk in a little space only wide enough for the compy itself. I bought this board purely cos it's aimed at overclocking, thus when running at un-overclocked speeds it's stable as heck, but enough about that... my point is that the motherboard is RED... the LEDs in the motherboard are RED.. everything is RED! so what colour rounded IDE cable do they include? BLUE! Of course! Natural choice there... nice work guys... So since I use SATA in my workstation and my DVD-ROM and DVD-RW are already sorted I had this BLUE IDE cable spare... the cable in it's untampered with glory: No real reason behind this photo other than I love how bright the orange is particularly with that little bit of green in there... yeeee... my eyes! (mmm complimentary colours, though technically it's red and green but still!) Started the job with a pair of surgical scissors, these things are great. Super sharp and reasonably small so you can get in pretty close to the connector. Now you can just leave it like that if you really like but since I'm pedantic I wanted this as schmick as I could get it. So... out with the razor blade. Basically just sit the blade on the connector and trim off the excess. Try not to push too hard against the connector or you'll end up gouging out the connector too, which looks crappy. Awwwww... ain't it cute! The finished product: I know this is a pretty short and uninteresting update, but I figure this is for all those people wondering if you can just lop off the ends of an IDE cable and still have it work. The simple answer... YES! Til next time...
I have a sorta offtopic question, but I had read somewhere that an AGP riser will limit your agp to 4x mode? any report on that, is it working 8x mode, because i considered getting a case like that due to its lower height... Cheers, WarriorRocker
Right, back again with another quick and dirty mod. Though this one is slightly more interesting than the last purely because it involves destroying things. Well when I say "destroying" I mean taking apart, but DESTROYING is much more dramatic now innit? So, to keep things quiet I am using a Zalman fanmate2, only issue I have with this thingy is that it's UGGGGLEEEEEEEE. Who on earth decided that poo-brown was a clever colour? Probably the same person that realised that no-one would ever see the poo-brown since it was in a nice little black plastic case... they should consider the modding community! BLING dammit! BLING!... sorry... /rant. My plan is, desolder all the components off the little titchy PCB, save all of them and then take the PCB over to my mates place. There I will spray said PCB a more desirable colour and then wait for the paint to cure. Safety 101, hot soldering iron + not cured spray paint = noxious fumes = head spins & head aches... not to mention problems in later life... but that aside onto the actual mod bit! Montana: PCB Prettification (part 1) First things first, here are some shots of the fanmate before I started the attack. It is sooo unassuming... soo innocent... sooo... unprepared for DESTRUCTION (see! more dramatic... if I'd just written "and then I desoldered the bits... it would've put you to sleep, well at least that's how I justify this stupidity) I made sure to mark the pieces, as you can see in these two pictures. For the most part it's kinda redundant since they won't fit back on the board any other way but at least it makes me feel like I'm doing things correctly. Delusion is great. I also discovered that pencil wipes off plastic and metal very easily, thus defeating the purpose of my marking, damn you fingers! Now, this is an important thing to note: when desoldering components, make sure you have desoldered ALL of the contact points... ALL OF THEM! I desolder the two big tabs on the variable resistor... pull with pliers, damn thing won't come off. Desolder them some more... YANK YANK YANK... nup. DESOLDER THEM TO DEATH... YANK! nup. *looks at PCB* "Hang on a mo... AAAAAAHHHH... those ones are attached to this two... dur!" *Desolders two more points* ... YANK YOINK... nup... *looks at PCB again* "oh... whoops... so's that one too..." *Desolders final contact* ... YOINK YEFT YARRRRR! Arrrr! SUCCESS! Booty! if by "booty" I mean... variable resistor... I embark on a desoldering epic... well by epic... I mean... desoldered the other THREE components... THREE! not two! THREE! and here are those three that so valiantly laid down their lives for the sake of... ummm... desoldering... or something. I don't actually have the painting pics just yet as they are still on my friend’s camera... so I will endeavour to retrieve these on the morrow and hence the (part 1) in the title bit. Since it is now coming up to 12:30am here I think I will call it a night and put an end to this silliness, I think that the sleep dep is starting to kick in... CARROTS! "Get that donkey Frederick, before he gets away!!" Adieu readers, I hope I have amused you a little.
Warrior_Rocker: To my knowledge it should be running at 8x but I couldn't find confirmation anywhere. Since it's only purpose is watching movies I'm not really that concerned either ways. Looking at the actual connectors though would seem to indicate that it stays as 8x assuming your motherboard supports that. PowerPackedPC: Umm... I basically trimmed off maybe 6-8 fins in total. And i didn't even really trim the whole fin off. If this adversely affects the HSF's performance I will be unbelieveably surprised. So to answer your question. No. I don't believe that it will have affected the HSF's performance at all.
It probably would, you probably removed a % of the copper, and that would affect the tempreatures, but i doubt it would be by much (like 1% or somthing)
so then no, it wont afect the temps noticably. Nice idea, i look forward to seeing the finished product.
Bbq.of.DooM: I'm in Australia. Southern Hemisphere. It's Winter here now... and last time I looked at the calender it was also 2006 yahooadam: Yep, you are correct, I should've kept an eye on my wording. The difference will be negligible though I believe, particularly since I'm not overclocking or anything like that.
I have the same HSF unit, and it barely gets warm to the touch, so im sure that it wont affect temps.
I did some quick research into the AGP riser cards. Everything I have read has said that assuming that the riser card is designed for 8x then it will BE 8x. I went through SilverStone's FAQs and knowledge base and this seems to corroborate this. The only thing I can find so far in regard to riser cards stuffing anything up is via a quick note on the SilverStone Q&A section, which states that some video cards cannot handle having AGP Fast Write enabled when they are on a riser card. I realise that this is not for the LC-02 case but I figure it will be much the same http://www.silverstonetek.com/QA-LC11M.htm So based on that I also followed up by finding out exactly what AGP Fast Write does. And from the sounds of it, it doesn't really do that much as you can see on the following link http://www.rojakpot.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?Lang=0&bogno=39 Here are some close-up shots of the AGP Riser Card. If you look closely and do some mental gymnastics you can see that basically every single contact point is simple a pass through. There is no circuitry on the riser nor is there any major added resistance in the paths Below, I have highlighted the only few big wiggly bits I could see (and from what I understand this is really, really negligible too: I'm no electronics expert, but on the surface it just looks like an extension cord for an AGP card that happens to be on a PCB. So endeth Amateur Electronics Hour... (On a side note, I have started to scale the bigger images on my site to 800x600 instead of 640x480. I figure if you are really that interested in looking that you've clicked that I might as well give you some decent detail. The thumbnails have obviously stayed the same)
what is on the bit that extends the AGP slot - you have the riser board, and then there is somthing else attached to that It looks like it has capacitors on it or somthing ...
Umm... they are just big plastic spacers. As you can see in the photos, there are no traces leading to either of these things anyways. Also, just to clarify in case anyone else asks. There is the AGP riser and then in the 90 degree slot at the top of the riser there is another AGP socket plugged in. This serves to put the graphics card level with the PCI card... and that in turn makes the pair of cards line up properly with the slots in the back of the case. I managed to make a little bit of progress today but I will post up everything on the morrow. I will complete my PCB prettification and also show my pedantic side. So I will leave you with a completely undiscernible photo (well not completely... sort partly... well maybe... ummm LOOK! ELVIS! *runs off*)
Interesting log and more interesting kind of logging, keep it up The speeddifference between agp4 and 8 are neglible...and those lines u have circled have the use to lengthen the way of the lanes...so the signals have the same way...and no one will reach it's 'target' before another one...
Nice case. Great read. Subscribing. Here's an idea, make a separate box with watercooling kit and drive the tubing to the Montana. You could hide the box away from eyesight and keep the Montana's hi-fi look. The 5200 would surely appreciate it.
