What do you think of this case? (project)

[Pob255]

After seeing Mishima's case project, I've thinking of haveing a go at this case in a simular way.

The story so far . . .
We were chucking out a load of old stuff at work and I came across an old server a Server1200 by Digatal to be exact
I had a idea that I could pinch it and set it up at home as a web/file server, however I could get it open as a key is needed to remove the side pannel.
So I just pulged it in to see what would happen . . .
Answer a hidious grinding sound and it booted up (still grinding) I used cpu-z to findout the specs Pentium2 266mhz, 256mb 66mhz ram, 2 SCSI hard disks 15.4gb and 1.5gb

Yep pritty much junk, but I had a look around and found the key and got it open, the hidious grind noise was fron two 120mm fans, at the time I took one out cleaned it, re-oiled it and atempted to resurect it. it spins well without grinding now but it's pritty loud and doesn't push much air.
The server was left in tempery storage while we had our room redone.

Now the time has come, my boss has asked me to scrap it and after reading Mish's thread I asked if I could keep the case, answer was yes

Now I'm not fully sure what to do with it, short of getting some new 120mm fans.
Here are some pic, sorry about the quality, only had a web cam to hand



I ran into a promlem when I tried to open it the key had got snaped off in the lock
But I managed to get the front pannel off and figure out how to release the catch with a screwdriver.

Behind the front pannel


Finally open


I've stripped out the insides


And for thoes intrested

That's a server motherboard, a slot 1 266mhz P2, 4x64mb 33mhz ram sticks and that other card above the slot1 cpu is a L1 cache expansion. (the whole thing was cooled by a 120mm fan just infront of it.

[MrP]

sweet

i found a huge dell server case in a skip years ago, was huge monster on wheels (was about 18" high, 18" long and 12" wide)

i tried to get 3 motherboards, 2 psu's and all the other gubbins in it, but never finsihed it

[Steve B]

gah, spray it black, black i tell thee!

[mycarsavw]

My old neighbour threw out three of those boxes a few years ago. I watched him put them in a skip and pound two of them with a sledgehammer before I realised what he was doing.

[Pob255]

well the case it's self isn't that massive
190mm wide x 480mm tall x 450mm deep
Which is why I sort of like it.

That and haveing something to do over the summer hols will stop the GF complaneing that I spending all my time playing computer games

[Funkstar]

Looks like there is potential for a lot of drives in that thing. Add another cage bellow the existing one and you should get up to a dozen 3.5" drives in there

[Pob255]

Well the white block of plastic below the 3.5" cage is actually a 120mm fan houseing, the other 120mm fan cliped onto the side of that cage.

One problem I'm going to have is that it's a runner design (ie plastic runners are screwed onto the drives for easy access, however I only have the 4 runners that came off the 2 HDs.

Mine you I was only planning on 2 or 3 HD's in it anyway.


I do have another porblem, The PSU shelf.
While you cannot see it clearly in thoes pic's the shelf the PSU sits on is solid and my current PSU is one with a 120mm fan on the bottom
I think my options will be
1- flip the PSU over, simple but may cause problems,
2- Cut a hole in the shelf, might be more complex than first glance as I don't think the is a way to remove the other side or top of the case I'm pritty sure that the top, side and bottom are all one sheet of metal and the front and back are just rivited to it, with no inteanal frame work except that shelf
3- Raise the PSU, there's about two inchs of clearence above PSU, but it would mean having to cut out the back section and replaceing it.


I've had an idea for this case, (I'll talk to my dad about it as he knows a heck of a lot more about electronics than me)
Basically make or canablise things to make, a front display with the following
Tempture
dB level
Voltages


Oh and I'm thinking of moveing away from the basic black cube and going more intresting

[Pob255]

My plans so far:

I got myself a cheap drimmel type tool from Woolworths and Ordered some 120mm fans and a cathode tube from Scan
2x Xcilo, clear blades with blue led
2x Sharkoon high rpm
1x coolermaster purple 12" tube (boob on my part, picked the wrong one, should of got a pair )

My idea was to mount 1 xcilo at the front and one on the side below the graphics card, cutting out a hole for it in the side panne (I already have a 120mm fan gril rescued off one of the fans that was it this case originally)
The Sharkoon's are there for real cooling one at the back and one in the mount on the side of the hard drive cage.
Here's my rough plan


Athough I must admit I'm not full sure about the whole glowy light Bling, my rough idea is this

For final colour I'm thinking a black hammer finish paint
E.G.


What do people think?

[Pob255]

Day 1

I first hit a major snag, motherboard tray It's not designed for an ATX board, so it's got risers in the wrong places, some solid, some with threaded hole for screws to hold the motherboard in place.
I couldn't shift the buggers at all and the tray was held in place by 4 soldiered depressions.
after a bit of prodding and head scratching I thought to heck with it I'll cut the git out.
(sorry no pic)
It was damb damb stubborn, but so am I
It took out one grinding bit, blunted a drill bit silly tool only came with wood dirll bits, must get some metal bits but after some gental persuasion with a claw hammer it came out, although it's not quite straight anymore.

What I discovered about it was, the raisers have hexagonal heads and where also soildered in, which explanes why my attempts to get them out failed.
The methord of holding the tray on to the case was very intresting, 4 deppressions each with a small hole in the bottom, must of had a small bit of soilder in each then mealted them.
On thinking about it a blowtourch would of probably been the eaisest way of getting it out.

On to the problem of the rear case fan.
While the back section is large enough to fit a 120mm fan (130mm betweem the IO plate hole and the case side) there is a problem that it's not flat, as it is I could only mount some 60mm fans to the grill without changeing anything.
So I got out my rootery tool and got cutting

Quick side note about the tool: http://www.woolworths.co.uk/web/jsp/...p?pid=50711686 currently on half price sale for £20
The tool seems quite good, however the bits and cutting disks are not so great I'm not sure how this would compair to a real drimmel as I've never used one.
Might see if I can get some decent cutting disks seperately.

I went through quite a few disks cutting it all out, as well as one grindeing bit, one sanding strip and one pollishing pad smoothing it all off so there's not rough/sharp edges.


And here's how it should look with the fan in place

As you can see I made a couple of boobs I cut too far down on the lower grill and due to my none too stright cutting I had the trim the other grill a bit to much.
This was down to an angled section which I had to cut away, so the bottom screw isn't going to go through a hole in the grill. But a washer should sort this out
the left edge of the fan while not screwed to anything does rest on a lip on the IO plate hole, I plan to use a glue gun to secrue that edge when I finally put it all together.

[Pob255]

Here's a quick question:
Replacement Motherboard Tray?

Any sugestions?
The case side is very solid (seems to be 1.5mm steel) and as the original was soildered stright to the case side I was thinking I could drill some holes in it and screw a new try to it.
But what to use for a tray? or where to get a replacement?

Would a chunk of MDF work? the motherboard would be lifted off with normal brass raisers so al long as it doesn't get wet and expand it should be ok?

[Pob255]

I solved the motherboard tray problem, with the application of a hammer.

A few "gental" taps got the risers out, next I used the hammer again to flattern the tray out again.
Well it's pritty flat, i used a flat wooden board under it (I checked that was flat with a metal rule)
I got hold of a drill bit for cutting metal from work and used my old Epox slot A motherboard to work out the alignment of a new set of holes and drill them.

A quick sand and this is the resualt.


I sanded it to show up uneven areas But after testing it with the epox motherboard it's flat enough.
The large holes are from the original risers, granted not the best of pics's but the slots and knobbles on the top left edge actually slot into place below the IO shield hole and hold the tray pritty scurely on there own. When I finish it I plan to glue gun the 5 depressions to hold it tightly. (don't actually have a solidering iron to resolider it in.)

Speaking of the IO plate I've found another potentially major set back on the horision. The original IO plate was smaller than a standard ATX plate
It will probably mean cutting up an IO plate to fit.
Also the deep lip it has gets in the way of a triple onbaord audio socket, so I'll have to trim that down a bit as well (leaveing it for now untill I get around to measureing it up against my ASRock mother board.)

However I have cut a hole in the front mesh for the lower fan, I'm not going to use the plastic mount as it's offset.
I've also cut out a Hole in the side pannel for the final 120mm fan to go in.

Which means all the Major cutting is now done hopefully (apart from trimming the IO shield), I tested it out with the Epox motherboard fans and an old QTec PSU and it's all looking good.

So I've sanded the outside of the case and will start to prime it tomorrow.

[Pob255]

Front fan hole (not exactly round but it'll be covered by the front pannel)


Side fan hole with grill attached. The hole is actually octaganal as it's far eaiser to cut neatly than a circle

[Pob255]

Latest up date:

I've trimmed the IO shield slot, and now I've put it all together roughly with miniimum components, mother board, cpu, memory, graphics card, 1 Hard drive, fan controller and the 4 120mm case fans.

Here's how it's looking.
Case open


Case closed


In the slot in my desk


The hidious red brown colour is the first rough coat of undercoat.
Why yes that is duct tape holding the front on.
And the wire trailling out of the bottom left corner of the case is the current power switch, the original power switch isn't long enough I'll have to get the soildering iron out and extend the wire, well ok I'll ask my dad, as I don't have a soildering iron and he's far better at it than me

Also just realised that I've forgotten that there's no front USB ports on this case, so I'll have to take them off my old case and cut a hole in the plastic front pannel.

Just running a quick test, speedfan is reporting the following temps at idel with all fan s on full
36c = CPU
34c = Motherboard
30c = Hard drive
50c = graphics card (from nvidia control pannel)

Idel All fans at minimum
41c = CPU
36c = Motherboard
30c = Harddrive
52c = graphics card (from nvidia control pannel)

[Andaho]

Thanks, I'm enjoying watching your updates - you going to do anything to the front of the case though?

[Pob255]

Thanks, I was begining to wonder if anyone was

Well atm, I'm thinking of painting it all black leaveing the front door thing clear, as it is currently. (minus the Pentium 2 sticker)

Although I'm still unsure as to final finish, matt or gloss? Also thinging of getting some copper coloured paint and adding copper details.

Will have to cut in a hole someware for the USB ports. Also thinking of trimming the plastic grill, it's angled behind the flat front, so I should be able to cut away the angled section to allow the blue light Xcilo fan to show more.
Only problem is that they are only lit by 1 led on one side.

Still considering stickiing a couple of the light tube things in there as they will shine through better.
However not sure over the whole glowy case bling look.

[Pob255]

Update:

Xcilo fans
Yep I've been haveing problems with these cheapo fans, I think it was on a thread in scan@hexuscare where I said after inital tests, they were quiter at full wack than the sharkoons I have at full wack although they put out less air than the sharkoons.
This is true provideing the following, 1- you are holding the fan in your hand or 2- they are sitting on something soft/non-vribartion conductive.

The Xcilo fans are createing a really annoying humming noise, I thought at first it miight be the fan guard that was causeing the problem as the side fan is far worse than the front one.
But after a bit of playing around I've found that the frame of these Xcilo fans are vibrateing and create a really annoying humming noise when in contact with a hard surface (found it out when I had one pluged in while just sitting on my laminate floor)

I've tried a trick I used on my old case to reduce this type of fan buzz, foam rubber pads.

Sorry not a great pic
They come from speaker sets we get at work which are all wall mounted on brackets so the foam rubber feet for free standing are not needed so I've got a big stack of them
Unfortuneatly it didn't work, reduced the buzzing very slightly but not enough I think this is down to the holes I made in the case not being exactly in the right place and slightly too small (I don't have a large enough drill bit or a drill which would fit a lrager bit) the reason I think this is because I've used them before quite sussfully in my old case in standard pre cut holes which is far less of a struggle to fit fans in.
I did notice that if the fan is just standing on these pads they work and the buzzing totally goes away, so as a temp test I've now got the side fan held inplace on it's foam feet with rolls of duct tape (cannot find my double sided atm) and the buzzing has gone away


PS resaults of my testing show, that at minimum setting on all the fans the PSU fan is now the lowest thing in my case, just
Unless the graphics card fan shifts into high speed (ie when I start up a game)

I'm going to have a look over all the fans now, to see if I can reduce the sound when on higher settings.