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Basement PC with 3.5 to 5.25 conversion

Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 5:14 pm
by speedkar9
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:
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After deriveting, drilling new holes and repositioning the drive walls:
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A 120mm PWM fan and WD 500GB soft mounted in the new 5.25" bays using my brother's old underwear elastic :lol:
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The case doesn't have much place for wiring, but rest assured, most of it is inobstrusive to airflow:
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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

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 3:42 am
by Vicotnik
Very nice. :) I also like the ghetto style cable management, that's the speaker right?

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:25 am
by speedkar9
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,
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The case re-riveted together with mobo/ PSU flipped,
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Inside shot of mobo tray,
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Top 120mm fan hole, lined with 3/16" tube slit down the middle. Check out the water droplet effect with the airbrushing,
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Lightening design on the side panel,
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Front panel 3.5" floppy bays opened for more air, with a piece of acrylic as a sound baffle,
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Left side, all the cable gammy,
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Back of the system, assembled,
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Interior shot,
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Front side,
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System assembled,
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And I was about to go out and buy an Antec 300 for this PC..... :oops:

Feedback is appreciated.

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:43 am
by roastmeat
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.

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 8:58 am
by frenchie
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.

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:25 pm
by mentawl
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?

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:52 pm
by speedkar9
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

Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:47 pm
by Fayd
speedkar9 wrote: And I was about to go out and buy an Antec 300 for this PC..... :oops:

Feedback is appreciated.
you still should.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:41 am
by Fat_bloater_dave
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.

Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:31 am
by Lyonall
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€

Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:36 am
by speedkar9
[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€

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:49 am
by Lyonall
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).

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:56 pm
by bonestonne
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.

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 6:04 pm
by speedkar9
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