Woodbox Mk II: Steelbox
Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 4:20 pm
A few years back, I built a wooden PC case that was just large enough for a microATX motherboard with a PicoPSU. It only stayed in the case for a few months before I ended up just screwing the wooden backplate to the wall, and having an open-air machine.
The wooden backplate was recently upgraded to steel to allow expansion cards to seat more happily in the system. I harvested an ATX backplate from a very old PC case. It's easy to drill the rivets out and take the parts you need. A bandsaw is the ideal tool for cutting it down to size, but I used a sawzall and tinsips here.
I recently retired my energy-hungry gaming rig, and upgraded the Woodbox from a Sempron to a dual core A64 X2 @ 2.1GHz. I have a 32MB OCZ SSD, which is plenty of space when carefully managed. There's also a 0.5TB Samsung Spinpoint that stays unplugged unless I need to store/retrieve something. 3GB RAM, PicoPSU, and a Scythe Ninja that I've had for a long time now.
Here's a picture of the computer posing with a GeForce 6800 GT, which is where I'm storing my interesting GPU heatsink.
I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 5670, onto which I could swap that interesting GPU heatsink. But the Radeon adds 10W to my system's idle, so as long as I can play StarCraft on my onboard graphics, I don't need the graphics card.
The system idles at 22W, exceeding my expectations. There are no fans, and no moving parts when the hard drive's not plugged in. I undervolted to the threshold of instability, then bumped up the voltage two notches.
The wooden backplate was recently upgraded to steel to allow expansion cards to seat more happily in the system. I harvested an ATX backplate from a very old PC case. It's easy to drill the rivets out and take the parts you need. A bandsaw is the ideal tool for cutting it down to size, but I used a sawzall and tinsips here.
I recently retired my energy-hungry gaming rig, and upgraded the Woodbox from a Sempron to a dual core A64 X2 @ 2.1GHz. I have a 32MB OCZ SSD, which is plenty of space when carefully managed. There's also a 0.5TB Samsung Spinpoint that stays unplugged unless I need to store/retrieve something. 3GB RAM, PicoPSU, and a Scythe Ninja that I've had for a long time now.
Here's a picture of the computer posing with a GeForce 6800 GT, which is where I'm storing my interesting GPU heatsink.
I have a Sapphire Radeon HD 5670, onto which I could swap that interesting GPU heatsink. But the Radeon adds 10W to my system's idle, so as long as I can play StarCraft on my onboard graphics, I don't need the graphics card.
The system idles at 22W, exceeding my expectations. There are no fans, and no moving parts when the hard drive's not plugged in. I undervolted to the threshold of instability, then bumped up the voltage two notches.