Basement PC with 3.5 to 5.25 conversion

Show off your quiet rig.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
speedkar9
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:39 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Basement PC with 3.5 to 5.25 conversion

Post by speedkar9 » Thu Jun 17, 2010 5:14 pm

I always wondered if there were a way to properly suspend 3.5" drives in cases like the Antec 300. Typical SPCR users resort to soft mounting their drives vertically, or in the 5.25 bays. The way I saw it was that the right drive rail/wall needed to be unriveted and repositioned outward to give enough room to suspend the drive. So I decided to try this on an old generic case before building into the basement PC...

The original 3.5" hard drive bays:
Image

After deriveting, drilling new holes and repositioning the drive walls:
Image

A 120mm PWM fan and WD 500GB soft mounted in the new 5.25" bays using my brother's old underwear elastic :lol:
Image

The case doesn't have much place for wiring, but rest assured, most of it is inobstrusive to airflow:
Image

Specs:
AMD Athlon II 435 OC 3.55GHz
4GB DDR2 800
WD 500GB Blue
Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H
ATi Sapphire 5670 w/ Arctic cooler
Enermax 300W PSU

Now someone try this with their 300 ... :P

Vicotnik
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 6:53 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Vicotnik » Fri Jun 18, 2010 3:42 am

Very nice. :) I also like the ghetto style cable management, that's the speaker right?

speedkar9
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:39 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Post by speedkar9 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:25 am

Update: I did a few mods:
-Deriveted, sanded, painted and airbrushed a lightening theme on the case, clear coat
-Made holes for cable management
-Flipped motherboard/ PSU
-Top blow hole 120mm Blue LED fan
-Created a small air intake with sound baffle in front
-Suspended HD in 3.5 to 5.25 converted HD bay
-Upgraded to AMD heatpipe cooler from an X6 1055T

The case panels, after painting,
Image

The case re-riveted together with mobo/ PSU flipped,
Image

Inside shot of mobo tray,
Image

Top 120mm fan hole, lined with 3/16" tube slit down the middle. Check out the water droplet effect with the airbrushing,
Image

Lightening design on the side panel,
Image

Front panel 3.5" floppy bays opened for more air, with a piece of acrylic as a sound baffle,
Image

Left side, all the cable gammy,
Image

Back of the system, assembled,
Image

Interior shot,
Image

Front side,
Image

System assembled,
Image

Image

Image

And I was about to go out and buy an Antec 300 for this PC..... :oops:

Feedback is appreciated.
Last edited by speedkar9 on Fri Sep 17, 2010 6:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

roastmeat
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:37 am
Location: Washroom

Post by roastmeat » Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:43 am

That looks pretty slick.
Must of taken a while

Although I have to comment that the lightning doesn't look like lightning (lol)
Plus lightning comes from the sky, not ground.

Front panel wires seem a bit out of place, they should go in a smaller hole via front panel.

would be nice if theres a see-through side panel since the inside is painted black

How's the temps?

Other than that, awesome upgrade dude.

frenchie
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 1346
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:53 am
Location: CT

Post by frenchie » Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:58 am

Nice mods ! 8) and nice paint job too !!! It's quite a change from what we are used to seeing around here :D

Just one thing I would have done differently : I would have cut out the PCI slots and added a fan there instead of cutting a whole at the top of the case.

mentawl
Posts: 285
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:29 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

Post by mentawl » Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:25 pm

roastmeat wrote:Plus lightning comes from the sky, not ground.
Actually it can do both :).

Really neat paintjob - how did you get the waterdroplet effect?

speedkar9
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:39 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Post by speedkar9 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:52 pm

mentawl wrote:Really neat paintjob - how did you get the waterdroplet effect?
Lightning and waterdropletsare the two easiest airbrushing techniques, which is why I chose to try them first :) .

Thanks

Fayd
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 2:19 pm
Location: San Diego

Post by Fayd » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:47 pm

speedkar9 wrote: And I was about to go out and buy an Antec 300 for this PC..... :oops:

Feedback is appreciated.
you still should.

Fat_bloater_dave
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 288
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:39 am

Post by Fat_bloater_dave » Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:41 am

roastmeat wrote: Although I have to comment that the lightning doesn't look like lightning (lol)
Plus lightning comes from the sky, not ground.
.
It's true lighting can do both, come from the ground to the cloud and from the cloud to the sky. Also it can go from cloud to cloud.

Lyonall
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2010 8:33 am
Location: EU, Belgium

Post by Lyonall » Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:31 am

The airbrushed panels look very nice indeed. I guess most of us are stuck with sticking vinyls.

But, what happened to the black drive wall? I can see silver spots. And it's mounted crooked too; on your pictures I see this is because of the case-foot. You could maybe have cut out a piece of the drive-wall “footâ€

speedkar9
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:39 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Post by speedkar9 » Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:36 am

[quote="Lyonall"]... And it's mounted crooked too; on your pictures I see this is because of the case-foot...
I would also rather have seen perfectly cut out, not “sunkenâ€

Lyonall
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Sep 10, 2010 8:33 am
Location: EU, Belgium

Post by Lyonall » Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:49 am

speedkar9 wrote:Go easy on me buddy, this is my first try at painting/ modding. lol
If you don't say, you can't expect me to know, can you? My comment was based on the assumption of you having "pro" skills. Besides, I don't think I was too harsh as I started off with a positive notice.

speedkar9 wrote:Maybe I shouldn't have posted such high res photos so you wouldn't see the imperfections.
I would not recommend hiding or falsifying things; it won't do your reputation any good. Besides, for the sake of your personal development, you should embrace criticism, not fear it.


Anyways, I have another suggestion:

For the holes you cut in your Antec 300, you used tubes that match color-wise with the respective panels. I suggest doing the same with this build (blue tube for holes on blue panels, black tube for holes on black panels).

bonestonne
Posts: 1839
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:10 pm
Location: Northern New Jersey
Contact:

Post by bonestonne » Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:56 pm

Just looked a little closer, your RAM should be in either the Yellow or the Red slots, not one in each, those yellow slots are Channels A&B, the Red ones are C&D...for Dual channel.

Just a thought...

I do like the airbrushing though. Only change I would have made would be to make the lightning bolts thinner, more of a sharp image, but for a first shot, it's not bad at all.

speedkar9
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:39 pm
Location: Toronto, Canada

Post by speedkar9 » Fri Sep 17, 2010 6:04 pm

Lyonall wrote:If you don't say, you can't expect me to know, can you? My comment was based on the assumption of you having "pro" skills.
Fayd wrote:
speedkar9 wrote: And I was about to go out and buy an Antec 300 for this PC..... :oops:

Feedback is appreciated.
you still should.
LOL originally the 300 was supposed to replace this case... at least that was my intent. This was just a generic box I wanted to play around with, I agree its not as pro, but I gained alot of experience doing it.

Now I don't know if to choose between the 300 and my SOLO for this PC... the SOLO is sitting in a box atm.... ha!

The stuff I used to line the 300's edges is door edge molding- a bit thick for this application- used for automotive door edges. I don't think I should invest in this case anymore though IMO...
If I had to redo a similar project it would be much better.

Thanks for the suggestions. :D

Post Reply