For the hard drive firmware, could you not just Ghost the drive and copy it onto your new disk? I'm not 100% sure that it will work but might be worth a try.
It was a firmware problem, but on the motherboard. I updated it and now it takes bigger drives. I've lent the lappy to a friend so I can't test it yet but I'm confident it'll work. I got to work on the design with the small hdd. Here goes the building process The bottom layer with the screws in place. Mobo in and first layer of sides. The cover (still have to do a lot of filing and sanding). There's room behind the cdrom for the hdd. All in place and closed up. Compared to a standard optical drive. Sitting upright. That's all for now. I'll do the filing and such and wait for my hard drive (probably have it back next week). Also have to mount the fans and make some holes for ventilation. I'll sketch up my options to get your opinion.
You can see in that picture 3 fans (35mm). 2 intake directly into the heatsink and the other outtakes the air near the hard drive. In order to put the fans there I'll cut the aluminium to make room. I'm not sure if I'll make some intake holes (lots of small holes) or cut some grooves. It'll be harder to do but it will also look better. As for the aluminium finish it's kind of scratched so it'll need some sanding down. If I can get a good brushed look I'll be happy, otherwise I'll keep on sanding until it's near polished. Thanks guys. 25cm wide X 26cm deep X 4.5cm tall 9.8" wide X 10.2" deep X 1.7" tall
Still awesome, although you're gonna have to be careful of cooler choice. Socket A heatsinks will fit it, you might be able to get a shroud to fit it directing air outwards. Also, where is air going to come in?
I'd think that an athlon xp stock cooler would work pretty well... you know the one with loads of tiny thin fins made of spring steel or something?
The heatsink is a socket 370 from a pentium III 1000. Most heatsinks recieve air from the top and direct it to front and back. This directed air to the sides so I think it'll cool well with air coming from one side. I posted this a long time ago but it's great to see how air will pass the heatsink.
Well done, I love this case. It would make a great HTPC if it had a bit faster CPU and a nice USB TV tuner. What are you intending to do with it?
Intake fans It'll be my web/ftp server. No keyboard, mouse or monitor, only a lan. For a htpc it would need tv out. As for speed I think you can put a celeron 1000 in it but I don't even need the 700 it has now. If you intend to make an htpc with one of these I believe the later models had tv out and were just about the same size (in balck I white). I cut the sides and middle layer to make room for the intake fans. The sides with the space for the fans. Fans in place. Here you can see the fans and the heatsink. One fan points at the heatsink directly while the other puts cool air in the case (for psu capacitors and hdd). Next step will be to make the grooves for the fans to actually get some air
nice, although i think personally i would turn the CPU heatsink by 90 degrees to give a better airflow/less air turbulance.
GuardianStorm thanks for the tip. I've considered that option since I started the project. I have 5 or five heatsinks small enough to fit in there and big enough to cool it down. I'd just have to choose one and mod it. One of the black heatsinks will go on the processor and one of the coloured will go on the hdd. Might even cut one up and fit it to the RAM. I've made the ventilation holes for the intake. Bare in mind they are NOT finished so they look very very rough. The fans are bolted to the bottom side piece. This is the way it all looks mounted. There's a lot of filing to be done on those holes. The reason everything is so rough looking is that my workbench doubles up as the legs for my desk, so in order to use power tools (dremel, drill, hammer?, ...) I need to take my desk apart. This weekend I was inspired by BaDassumption (very nice mod) so I got the workbench out and I'm hard at work. The smaller jobs (sanding, filing,...) can be done anywhere so I leave then for later. The outtake will have to wait until I get the hdd back so I can place it properly. Tomorrow I'll make the plexi piece that'll hold the cdrom down and I'll finish the back piece (its missing the hole for the LAN which is almost the most important). That will almost cover the drilling cutting phase. I also need to find a start button and a place to put it (probably the back of the case) or make my own which I'm not to convinced about just yet. Big thanks to all for your support. Stay tuned. A note for the ladies; When these people admire how small my thing is they are referring only to my computer, not any physical aspect of yours truly, got it?
bAdI, I have got to say that this is excellent work. I lost track of it when you said you were cancelling the project due to issues. I'm very glad you've come back and have put that PC in it place (in a freaking stylish case ). Keep up the good work. :edit: Instead of those fine slits on the case, would it be possible to cut out a section and put some modders mesh in there? I'm not sure how you could get it to look aesthetically pleasing, possily make it a rectangle with rounded sides... kind of hard to describe... -poor ascii attempt- Code: __________ (__________) I hope it makes sense to you.
I suppose that's almost what you mean? (except fot the rounded sides bit) Hadn't thought of it before, and I have a piece of 25x50cm of that mesh right in front of me. In a render it looks really good but how could I hold it to the sides? I don't want any screws on the sides (clean and small is the aim of the game) so all I can think of is hot glue inside. I keep it like it is now and give it some thought. If I cut the rectangles now just to see how it looks there's no going back. Any ideas on how to put the mesh and alu together? Any thoughts on which one looks better? I'm not going to start a poll but I'd like to hear opinions (z4114 on top, mine at the bottom). I personally think z4114 has had a great idea
if you can pull it off, his solution should be quiter (less restriction) and look cooler but getting the mesh on ... that wil be tougher
As far as keeping the mesh in place, couldn't you bend it to fit in the U channel, then run some smaller bolts in place on the "lips" of the U channels (and plexi)? That way, it'd stay in place but no one would see it from the outside... Just my 2 cents... Looks awesome!
OK, just a quick try at this. As I said I won't cut the sides just yet but i can use the front piece where the cdrom will stick out. I cut a piece of mesh and U shaped it. I made it a bit bigger than the inside of the aluminium so it took some pressure to get it in. Looks great. Although the original intakes aren't filed down I prefer the meshed version. It's also easier to make 4 cuts and file them than filing all those little hole to make them look the same. There's still the question on how to keep it there. With my ghetto pressure solution it's not moving for now, but as soon as I hit the power button and things start to vibrate it'll probably move. With the evidence in front of me I'm convinced, mesh it'll be. z4114, I owe you one.
