Project: The Box

[KidChameleon]

It's a box!






I found an old computer in the garage which I had pilfered the hard drive from ages ago. I decided to try getting Linux on it and use it as a media extender. It was originally a Packard Bell iMedia something-or-other. I was moderately happy once it was up and running (Wireless won't work but that's irrelevant) but the case looked awful. I had taken the front panel off a long time ago so it wasn't too pretty.

On an impulse today, I decided to try putting it in a wooden box. So off I went to Focus to look for some large sheets of pine. They had one which I thought was about enough but for £19 I didn't want to risk it so decided not to bother. On the way out some boxes caught my eye. So I bought one for £8 and having put all my bits in it, it's just the right size!

This is day one of my "project". I expect it should only be two or three days for it to be as finished as I can be bothered with.

The parts being transferred from the old case:

Don't laugh at how puny and old this stuff is. It does the job as a standard-definition media centre.

Gigabyte GA-8SIML; 2.53GHz P4, 512MB RAM.




250W FSP PSU, Nvidia Geforce MX440, 80GB IDE HDD, IDE CD-RW. (I took the DVD drive for my other computer)







I butchered the old case for the motherboard tray and the backplate. The tray was too big to fit the way I wanted it so I had to trim some off. I don't know about grounding the motherboard but I assumed the metal tray would help, and also give something to mount it on.



All the bits in place:



This is roughly where I'm going to put the CD drive but I can't work out how to fix it in place without putting screws right through the side.







Tomorrow I'm going to cut the holes in the back for the I/O and PSU, put some holes in for cooling, and secure everything in.

Any comments? My main concern is grounding it.

[Cistron]

Any comments? My main concern is grounding it.

I heard that peole have problems with resonance in wodden 'cases'. Silent PC reviews has a couple of articles from people who built their PC into wodden enclosures - you should have a look. They used a lot of foam to reduce the vibrations being transducted onto the case.

Looks good though

[Pob255]

Grounding should be simple enough, connect a wire from the tray to the body of the psu, that should earth it.
I'm not sure how earthed normal cases are or need to be, brass is not a great conductor of electrisity and if you use nylon washers or plastic spacers . . .
A mother is mainly earthed through the wires connecting it to the PSU (black ones are earth if I remember correctly) so it shouldn't be a problem.

That large box with thick walls might be a little echoey as Ciston said, but a pack of PAX mate should help and it's under a tenner.

How are you planning to secure the hard drive? I ask because you might find it tricky getting screws into the side of the box when very close to the corners (if you're planning to screw the cage to te side of the box.)

Good luck with it, that looks like a lot of fun

PS have you seen This? I was in PCworld the other day (just browseing) and spotted it.
Ok it might be a bit too much money to spend, but wouldn't a wood surround monitor and keyboard look great with that box?
You'd just be short some wooden speakers

[KidChameleon]

Thanks for the tips.

I realised this morning I don't have a saw that can get at where I want to cut. I have a rotary tool but the only saw blade is blunt, and it doesn't go deep enough anyway. I need one of those saws that's about 1cm thick - the name escapes me at the moment.

I didn't think of noise being worse than the old case but it's a good point. The hard drive would be the noisiest thing and I was planning on screwing it straight to the side. I'm going to have to find something rubbery like an old mousemat to put between the cage and the side.


That monitor set looks nice but it's at least £60 more than it should be. I've got a PS1 screen which I've modified with a composite cable which I could possibly put in a wooden frame. It's only about 5 inches, though.


I'm off to Tesco to see what cheap tools they've got.

[pollaxe]

I love these kind of projects! Keep us posted!

[Blackmage]

Yes, Very interesting! love to know what temps are like etc

[Pob255]

That monitor set looks nice but it's at least £60 more than it should be. I've got a PS1 screen which I've modified with a composite cable which I could possibly put in a wooden frame. It's only about 5 inches, though.

Oooo if it's good enough for you to use
I'm thinking use a video splitter or just a switching a box, so you can output to something large if you want to play video and use the little screen if you're just selecting music/mp3 files.
What's good would be to cut a hole in the box and just mount that 5" screen stright in the side or top of the box (side probably less chance of damage by being sat of or simular)

Can I just say this is inspireing me to do something simular for my kitchen

[KidChameleon]

I've got it mostly screwed down and running. I need to work out how to fix the PSU down and fit the CD drive in. It's surprisingly quiet after what you've been saying about resonance. It's not completely silent but it's nothing above a faint whir.

I installed a few temperature monitors in Ubuntu but I'm not sure I can trust it. HDD is around 30*C which I can believe as that's what it was in my other computer with no fans on it. But then CPU is 23*C and system temperature is 16*C. This is in a 19*C room. If it was Windows XP I would have used SpeedFan which I find gives believable results.

I don't think I'll bother with pictures for now as my hole cutting skills aren't great. Just imagine the one above with all the gear inside but with holes for the I/O and PSU. The HDD cradle is hooked onto some short screws in the side. The motherboard tray is screwed down at a few points. Just enough to stop it moving.


Next step is to fix the CD Drive in and make some kind of power button. After that I'll have to think about staining the wood.


Thanks for the interest, everyone. This is my first case mod and it was a complete impulse starting yesterday.

[KidChameleon]

I got my long ethernet cable in the post today, so I set it up in the lounge and streamed a DVD to it. All was fine for the two hours it was switched on. No noisier than it was in the old case.

However, the hard drive temperature got up to 36*C. Should I be worried about that? I haven't usually seen any of my hard drives over 30*C. I can't tell what the CPU temperature was because the other temps seem suspiciously low - in the low 20s.

I had a bit of a moment this morning. I had some thoughts going through my mind about how to fix the CD drive in when I glanced at the wall. I had taken a shelf down but left the brackets up. "Hmmm... Problem... wall... problem... wall... CD drive... wall... shelf brackets..."


I put a pair of screws in the case wall then hooked the brackets on after screwing them to the drive.

Without the drive to show the brackets:



Almost done:







Next up, I need to put a hole in the front to be able to actually use the CD drive. But I don't want to put an unsightly gaping big gap in there. Maybe I could put a bit of wood across with a hinge or something. I also need to make a discrete power button, make a small hole for the front USB and put a hole for a fan by the hard drive.

As with all my projects, I get far enough for things to work then lose interest. Hopefully posting here will encourage me to finish something.

[F1ZZY]

Don't hack it up. It looks good as a box.

If you want to use cd drive, open it up.

If you want to turn it on, open it up.

I think it is quite novel to have a lid and hinges on a pc case and, to be honest, 99.9% of the time it will be closed anyhow.

Looks good m8.

[KidChameleon]

I was getting SMART errors on boot up and after an hour or so the hard drive was getting up to over 40*c while the rest of the case didn't feel very warm. Then the other day it refused to boot. The hard drive is about six years old and while it was in my main computer it was showing in tests as about to fail. Oh, well. At least the only thing on it was an Ubuntu install.

So I thought I'd get a laptop hard drive because I thought they ran cooler. It came yesterday and I installed it but its temperature doesn't show up. Do laptop hard drives have temperature sensors? It doesn't matter too much because after a few hours without opening the box I put my finger on it and it felt barely above room temperature. It's also a bit quieter.



Here it is in the lounge. There isn't really anywhere to neatly put it away long term. It's about 3mm too tall to fit under the TV table. The TV is a 28" CRT, bought eight years ago. So it obviously isn't HD. (Horrible white balance on the photo, couldn't be bothered with a proper one)





I'm quite pleased with how this project has gone. I've got a media centre that cost me a box, a hard drive and a bit of time.

[pollaxe]

Nice one.