What can you do
with a 1950's voltmeter? How about the ultimate little cube PC mod!
March 28th, 2006
So the story goes,
I had this box...
I wanted a Cube PC for cheap, but I had this box...
and cases are expensive.
SO! on with the quest
for a case and a PC to put inside it.. The BOX! OMFGZOORS!11!1!
Hmm, what board to use.. ITX? NO! those are again, expensive. Not to mention
they aren't the most powerful machines, gaming would be out of the question. On
with the quest! I have limited space... 11.5" x 8" x 5" tall. Hmm.. Little too
small for Micro-ATX.. Wait! Biostar to
the rescue! I like Biostar as well, I use
Biostar in my big PC. So, looking on Newegg
I see the little board I want!! 9.5" x 7.5", Perfect. Via chipset and socket 754
support, I can live with that. So I buy it!
YEAH LITTLE
BIOSTAR! Now for a processor. AMD of
course. I looked, and looked, and read, and reviewed, and settled on this little
one.
AMD Sempron 3100+ great performance and price. What's next? Video. I turn to
my pals at Nvidia, I love their products and
prices. PNY has a good deal,
AGP
Nvidia 6200 128mb. Not a bad card, will be plenty for this venture. Next is
memory, well, I recycled it, for now. 2 sticks of 512MB DDR400 from my old HP.
It will work for now. OH! Cooling, cant forget that. but it's such a tight
space!? Water cooling.
I used to have this Titan Water Cooler all in one thing. Took 2 drive bays,
performed very well for my old system. So I looked there. Titan's twin brother,
Kingwin, had the answers. Meet the
AWC-1 All in
one Liquid cooler. I read reviews, I know how it works, and its perfect for
this application. Now. I plan on making this box with as few holes as possible,
well, besides adding two 80x15mm fans at low speed. So, how do you expand a PC
you cant access PCI slots on? Easy, PCMCIA. Newegg again, they had this little
Syba unit, cheap, good reviews. So I got it.
PCI to PCMCIA
card. Now that I got all the parts, it's time to build...
March 31st, 2006
I got the
motherboard!! I got the motherboard!!
Yeah yeah, ok. So
I got the little Biostar
I wanted. Here's a quick pic of it laying in the box.
Not a bad fit at all!!! The best part is, work was tossing these older [P3
550MHZ] HP Vectra machines.., Inside was a Standard mini-atx MOBO. So I
snatched one! I drilled the rivets and got the IO panel and PCI card slots off
of it, to make a really professional looking back panel for my little box.
Now
that's the two most important parts! Waiting for the Processor, cooler, PSU and
other parts to show, Monday and Tuesday they should arrive. For now, A few more
pictures!
Another of the MOBO inside.
Close-up of the IO panel I will be using.
Close-up of the MOBO.
And again...
I decided to order
green CCFL lights to put inside, and some 80mm low profile low speed fans from
Sidewinder. I choose
Delta EFB0812LBfor their 15mm thickness, low speed and quiet design. I also
have always lover Sidewinder for quick shipping, good prices and support.
April 1, 2006
April fools day!!!
Okay, I hate this
day, so off to the shop!! I bought a cheap ass rivet gun, a huge box of rivets,
some metal cutting blades for my jigsaw and some new drill bits. Also had to get
a Tap for the threads of those little MOBO standoffs. So
I started to cut holes, carefully planned holes none the less. I used a new
drill bit to drill the corners, and a new saw blade to cute the holes.
I
then filed the edges as smooth as glass, nothing sharp, and all rounded so they
don't catch cords. I took that Vectra IO panel, and started to drill to mount
it.
After I was happy, I riveted it all in!
Once all that was in, I just finished the edges real nice like! Then it was time
to make holes for the MOBO standoffs. To do this, used the MOBO as a template.
Carefully holding it in place as I marked and drilled the holes. I tapped the
holes in the aluminum, and put the standoffs in. The result was a perfect fit!
I was so happy with the result! it look perfect, like it was meant to be! It
only took me 2 hours to complete this step. I will again leave you with the
leftover pictures! Cant wait for Monday [processor, video and Liquid cooler]
Another of the IO in.
Again.
April 3, 2006
Monday...
I really hate
UPS... Newegg
used to deal with FedEx, now they use
UPS, and they lost 2/3 of my packages, wont get
in till tomorrow... Always a day late, while
FedEx was a day early.
Anyways, I did get
my processor, Video and LQ, also go the 80x15mm fans from
Sidewinder. Already I have
modded the Liquid cooler to flow air the opposite way, I want hot outside the
case... So I just flipped the fan over. Also mounted one of the thin fans on the
second radiator. I got most the box planned out now, so tonight it's back
to stripping the old finish.
Later that
night...
So, I got allot
done! I got the water cooler 75% mounted and filled
I got the window in the side so you can see the PSU, CPU block and ram
Also shows off that sexy water cooler! Oh! cant forget I have the MOBO and Video
in, and a car ignition switch for power and reset.
I got my marks on the top to make the other fan hole, also on the side.
then it will breathe freely and quietly. I like the finish I got with stripping
and steel wooling the case, I think I'll leave it raw aluminum. Gives it a
antique look.
Also, the Georgia Power Company asset tag cleaned up real nice like! Can't wait
to get the PSU and lights in!
April 4-5, 2006
God, I hate being
sick...
I got allot done
despite having the worst food poisoning ever. I feel like shit. I still managed
to finish the box though, decided not to install a DVD-ROM.
I go the lid stripped, the handle back on, PSU mounted.. All except those little
green CCFL lights I am waiting on still, but they are easy.
I took my time to route all the wires all nice like, filed the edges and steel
wooled the entire box to give it the semi-shiny finish it has.
Got the other 80mm fan in the side, and she has great airflow. The PSU blows
out, the water coolers have been modded to be exit fans, and the one 80mm fan
blowing in runs at full speed to keep up.
I am proud of how well the lid turned out, the fans and water cooler fit
perfectly!
So it's fairly quiet, runs cool as all get out, and I can't wait to load Halo. I
will post the benchmarks as soon as I can! Here's the leftover pix!
Anyways, not the
highest performer, but she averages 55 FPS in Halo when I played with Fraps
running. Over clocked the processor to 2.1 GHZ [1.8 GHZ stock] and the video too
390 MHZ on GPU and 730 MHZ on Mem. [350 and 500 stock] I am diggin' the
portability and power of this box, and still debating installing the DVD-rom
combo drive. It barely hits 30 degrees Celsius while playing Halo on high
settings too. Here's the total specs in an
Everest Report.
Also, I took some
pictures on it in the booth... These are HUGE shots, full res...
It's a bit tough
to OC the cube, she only allows for +.15 volt to the CPU. That's why I can only
get 10% out of it. But that puts it over 2.6GHZ, and she performs great.
The video is a 300 MHz / 400 MHz stock clock, so I got good numbers out of it.
Of course, she is still liquid cooled.
FPS in Halo stays
over 90 all the time now, Oblivion plays well, as well as Battlefield 2. I like
where it's performance is now, she's ready for the future!
Boys will be Boys
08/17/06
Okay, so my RAM
went bad, and I returned it for a refund... Shopping time!
Playing Hitman
blood money runs about 60 FPS on medium settings. Plenty good for this box!
08/31/06
More pictures!
Got bored, so I
took these:
All taken right
here, at work :op
2/1/07
Fun?
So I broke all the
rules. I went to an Intel. Been needing more performance, and where else but
dual core to get it?
There are no
current AMD motherboards to fit inside this tiny case, so I grabbed a Socket T
Intel board, and a Pentium D 940. That's 3.4 GHZ Dual core with 2MB cache each
core.
Here's the new
pictures. Including the crazy mod I had to do to keep the waterblock fitting.
6/22/07
FUN YOU LITTLE
B*ST*RDS!
Now... that old
Intel dual core did OK... But I grabbed a Core2duo E6420 2.13GHZ 4MB Cache and
now it really flies. Overclocked to just 2.25, running a Nvidia 7900GT/KO, the
little cube is truely a powerhouse now! Expect pictures real soon!
3/25/2008
It's been a
while...
A long while, but it's back, all
new, and very improved, here's the breakdown:
I wanted a Cube PC for cheap, but I had this box...
and cases are expensive.
SO! on with the quest
for a case and a PC to put inside it.. The BOX! OMFGZOORS!11!1!
Hmm, what board to use.. ITX? NO! those are again, expensive. Not to mention
they aren't the most powerful machines, gaming would be out of the question. On
with the quest! I have limited space... 11.5" x 8" x 5" tall. Hmm.. Little too
small for Micro-ATX.. Wait! Biostar to
the rescue! I like Biostar as well, I use
Biostar in my big PC. So, looking on Newegg
I see the little board I want!! 9.5" x 7.5", Perfect. Via chipset and socket 754
support, I can live with that. So I buy it!
YEAH LITTLE
BIOSTAR! Now for a processor. AMD of
course. I looked, and looked, and read, and reviewed, and settled on this little
one.
AMD Sempron 3100+ great performance and price. What's next? Video. I turn to
my pals at Nvidia, I love their products and
prices. PNY has a good deal,
AGP
Nvidia 6200 128mb. Not a bad card, will be plenty for this venture. Next is
memory, well, I recycled it, for now. 2 sticks of 512MB DDR400 from my old HP.
It will work for now. OH! Cooling, cant forget that. but it's such a tight
space!? Water cooling. 
I used to have this Titan Water Cooler all in one thing. Took 2 drive bays,
performed very well for my old system. So I looked there. Titan's twin brother,
Kingwin, had the answers. Meet the
AWC-1 All in
one Liquid cooler. I read reviews, I know how it works, and its perfect for
this application. Now. I plan on making this box with as few holes as possible,
well, besides adding two 80x15mm fans at low speed. So, how do you expand a PC
you cant access PCI slots on? Easy, PCMCIA.
Newegg again, they had this little
Syba unit, cheap, good reviews. So I got it.
PCI to PCMCIA
card. Now that I got all the parts, it's time to build...
