A friend of mine asked me a couple of months back if I could build a new computer for him. I said sure, being the nice guy I am. After some debating on what components were needed, what could be salvaged and whatnot, the idea of using an small form factor was born. Now, since the guy is actually an carpenter this soon got out of hand completely. The final specs were an miniITX-based computer running a single 2.5" drive, no optical stuff, efficient cooling and a wooden case, in walnut.
In order to have something to mount the motherboard and HDD on, we salvaged an old computer, cut it into pieces and took (a part) of the motherboard mounting sheet.
All the cables were sleeved, the power were split just after the 5.5mm barrel connector into two 2x2 ATX12V. One provides power directly to the Pico-PSU, and the other to the 2x2 CPU power on the motherboard. The reason for this is that I wanted to keep the amount of current flowing through the Pico-PSU at a minimum to get lower temperatures.
(Click on the pics to get full size!)
After a cardboard mock up was done, a cheap MDF prototype was constructed.
This was used to measure more exact dimensions, the building of the final product was done with the corrected dimensions.
It's possible to mount any type of low-profile pci-e card in the case. It didn't require any extra space to have this functionality, so we thought we keep the possibility if better GPU-performance (or a TV-tuner) is needed in the future.
What's left to do now is another coat of oil (especially in the fan grill), and a wooden back plate to cover the IO-ports on the back side. This back plate will also hold the power button.
It might look dirty on some of the pictures... and that's because it is dirty.
It was covered in wood dust. Specs:
Zotac GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi
Core 2 Duo E6420 (2.13GHz, 4MiB L2)
4GiB RAM @ 667MHz CL4
250GB Seagate Momentus 5400.6
12V 150W PicoPSU-150-XT
FSP 12V 150W Brick
Temps & power:
Idle:
CPU: 45°C
GPU: 55°C
Full load (both cpu cores and GPU)
CPU: 55°C
GPU: 70°C
Power: 89W (measured at wall socket)
The fan on the Big Shuriken is running at a constant speed; the lowest possible setting in bios, ~780rpm.
I'll post some more pictures when the two crucial final parts (wooden back plate and power button) are finished and assembled.
