Technically this is my second mod. My first mod was completed about 3.5 years ago consisted of throwing all the best equipment I could afford into the largest case and souping it up with the most outlandish lights and UV active materials. Liberace would have been very proud of me.

Tech specs are:
-Asus A7N8X-e deluxe motherboard (socket A, aka 462)
-AMD 3200+ barton cpu
-Volcano 7 CPU cooling fan (as loud as a hair dryer, I’m not kidding, I just now replaced it with a 30db fan)
-1 gig of Crucial RAM (fewest errors, 3D games never quit on me)
-ATI Radeon 9700 pro (AGP 8x card) with I believe 128 MB of memory
-80 gig SATA Seagate hard drive, then later added a 250gig of the same type
-Currently a Plextor dual-layer dvd burner (previously a burner and separate reader)
-Two intake and two exhaust fans.
-Aluminum Lian Li case.

-Fan controller has since been dumped, and the cold cathode lights are gone.

But this isn't about that "mod;" it's about "this" mod:

So after a year of drooling over the mini-ITX boards and all the cool things people were putting them into, I decided I wanted to go from big and garish to small and nifty. I’m a big fan of Slippery Skip's humidor PCs, and since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I began looking for a nice wooden box (I did warn you that I'm not very original).

"The internets" turned out a lot of great sources for cheap (and not so cheap) humidors, but I had already found some truly cheap components so size had to be exact (and you can’t get good measurements off the internet).

I eventually found (by accident) a Humidor at the Things Remembered store. It was on clearance for $42, but apparently they restocked them now at $65, so I was lucky.

It is a nice box. I have no idea if it is a nice humidor, but it is sturdy, has a key, is the right size and is quite pretty. So let’s rip it up!

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First thing I did was lose the tray and remove the extraneous wooden supports for the tray and the hygrometer etc. Then I decided to start with the PSU placement. I figured something like that would go in the corner. Corners are good. Always need corners.

The PSU is a 200-Watt Sparkle Power thingy. As I'm sure everyone who's not me will be sure to point out, 200W is more than I need for the configuration I'll reveal as worklog proceeds. I got the smallest, highest watt PSU in case I wanted to overclock the system. Better to be safe than smart, I always say.

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So I do a little measuring, a little guestimation, and say a prayer before the first cut for the PSU exhaust fan. Not too shabby. The Dial-A-Saw adjustable saw blade is the most wonderful tool. Get one if you can find one. I got this one from my father and it is probably older than the combined ages of all the member of Pink Floyd (yes, including Sid).

A little more measuring and I start routing the hole for the power plug. Pretty good routing job, eh? Well, don't get used to it.

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Boy howdy. That router job is mighty honcho. At least the hole for the exhaust fan was easy to cut.

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Time to do something a little easier to make myself feel better. Time to make a hole in front for the power switch. I chose the Bulgin Vandal-resistant (gotta keep those Vandals from borking your compy) switch with red LED light. I double checked to make sure I put the switch low enough as to not interfere with the lock.

Too bad I didn't double check the size of the switch.

Scheisse.

Not to worry. The Chinese word (Mandarin or Cantonese, I could not tell you) for crisis is the same as their word for opportunity.

So I found a washer, spent 20 min enlarging it a wee, and painted it. Problem solved.

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Speaking of painting things...

This pic shows the two fans (intake and exhaust), the I/O panel, the two fan guards, and my solution to the oversized power switch hole (the steel washer). The parts were sanded, primed, and painted with “bronze” spray-paint. Gold may have been closer to the existing hardware, but I stand by my decision.

I painted only one side of each fan, but when I wanted to paint the exhaust fan I had two choices: paint the easy side and switch the red and black wires to have to run in reverse, or paint the other side of the fan and run the risk of getting paint on the printed circuit board. Well, I tried reversing the pins and the fan simply got really hot and remained stationary rather than running in reverse. So the solution was to cram puddy in the fan to cover the exposed PCB and remove it after painting.

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While the paint dried I finished drilling holes for the vid card ports and the wifi adapter. In hindsight I probably should have made a hole for just the D-sub connector as it is the only port I’m using currently. I don’t have a DVI cable anywhere so I can’t be certain how big the hole needs to be, and if I ever have to use it, I would have to remove everything and redrill anyway.

My vicious drill-bits do a real number on the humidor’s finish as it is, but I miss-measured a couple holes so the back of the box looks pretty amateur. Well, now that I have all the holes I need (and then some), time for hardware and placement.

-PCChips A33G motherboard. Has a PCIe slot and up to 1000MHz front side bus.
-AMD Sempron 64 3000+ 1.6GHz with 256K L2 cache CPU. $30 (as low as $22 before it disappeared from Newegg).
-Zogis Geforce 7300LE 256meg (512 TuboCache) low-profile vid card. Plays games quite well.
-One gig of A-Data DDR2 800 SDRAM. Glowing reviews on Newegg even though I am weary of anything not from Crucial.
-2.5inch 40-gig Fujitsu SATA drive. Small.
-And one of four Zyxel G-302 U3 54Mbps wifi adapters that I got from Woot! for $45 total.

Miscellany:

-Red Bulgin Vandal switch from FrozenCPU (with cables).
-Two 60mm fans.
-Fan guards.
-20- to 24-pin adapter for the power supply.
-Molex to sata power adapter.
-Some Velcro.
-OEM copy of WinXP with service pack 2.
-Copy of Dark Age of Camelot (for testing purposes).

I also dug out a molex 4-pin to 3-pin fan power adapter because I didn’t feel comfortable putting a splitter on the case fan port to run two 12-volt fans off it.

I chose a microATX over a mini-ITX for two reasons: the microATX was cheaper and it had a PCIe slot. The PCIe slot allowed me to put in a pretty decent video card. The GeForce 7300LE isn’t the best, but it runs games quite well. And I chose that Sempron CPU for price, low power consumption, and possible over-clocking ability.

You may be asking “Where’s the optical drive?” The option for a slot-loading optical drive exists (in the lid next to the hard drive), but I decided for forego it for now because they are expensive, and I can just load up the operating system on a drive I have laying around, then remove it. Anything else can be downloaded off the intarwebs

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Now the motherboard has a 24-pin power socket and the PSU has a 20-pin plug so I used a 24-20-pin adapter even though I probably don't need to. But it works.

The PSU is held in with two screws, but the motherboard was tricky. For securing the motherboard I had to cut the threads off a few mobo socket screws (because the bottom of the box was too thin to drill into) then hot glue them to the bottom of the box. This allowed me to raise the motherboard up a little off the wood, and have something to which to secure the motherboard.

The optical drive is for loading up the operating system and some software and is then removed.

The fans are temporarily held on with Velcro (until I decide on permanent placement at which time they will be secured with hot glue). The hard drive, on the other hand, is attached with Velcro for the long run rather than glue in case I ever need to replace it easily.

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And there you have it. My foray into trying to be cool (at least I got another compy out of it). It's still a bit of a rat's nest inside, but I do think the effort to make it a little prettier by painting some of the parts was a nice touch.

One thing I decided against was hooking the HDD activity lead to the Bulgin switch light. It didn't light up very brightly, so I hooked the light into the power indicator.

The computer runs older games pretty well, but it generates a fair amount of heat. It could be that wood just isn't good enough at heat dissipation for this system. At least I can heat my office with it.

I haven't measured ALL the power specs, but it idles at about 80 watts of power consumption (as measured with the Kill-a-Watt device). Next would be to measure power consumption while playing a 3D game, then KW hours.

Next time I think I'll try to make a mod of my own. Maybe something with pink paint and flowers for my daughter.

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Is it me or did you just build that in a couple of hours flat? Much respects if you did, but you could have ended up with a peice of art if you had taken a bit more time over it. Just for instance, if you had masked around the points of entry then cut and removed the tape drawing gently towards the cut, it might not have taken chunks of varnish off as well. After all that though it does look a nice finish on that box.

Actually, I built it over a few days a couple of months ago. I just never got around to posting it until now.

Yup. I need some work on my routing skills. That's why I come here.

Well, i have to say it must have taken some courage to chop that box up. It does look nice from the front. Are you going to expand on the original plan at all? Like putting in an optical drive?

looks pretty nice! it would be cool if you could do a shelf or something over it.. maybe even like plexi or something... i dunno, it would be cool to still keep stuff in it haha.

you might want to cut the dvi port hole a little bigger, doesn't look like a plug could fit...
otherwise, looks pretty sweet!

Quote: Originally Posted by Dragutin_ you might want to cut the dvi port hole a little bigger, doesn't look like a plug could fit... otherwise, looks pretty sweet!

Quote: Originally Posted by Jux_Zeil Well, i have to say it must have taken some courage to chop that box up. It does look nice from the front. Are you going to expand on the original plan at all? Like putting in an optical drive?

As soon as my ship comes in I will find a slot-loading DVD drive, velcro it to the inside of the lid and make the DVI port a wee bit bigger.

I think the 200W power supply should be able to handle the optical drive on this system, right?

I think my next mod will be chopping up a small travel case and fitting the exact same system in it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Merkwurdigliebe I think the 200W power supply should be able to handle the optical drive on this system, right?

Ya, no worries.

Quote: Originally Posted by Merkwurdigliebe I think my next mod will be chopping up a small travel case and fitting the exact same system in it.

Brings a whole new meaning to PC............ Portable Computer. Go for it.

This is quite nice, Mark. And despite your self-abasement for lack of originality, you did the work and have a successfully running machine, so there's no shame in that at all. Props to you for doing it.

Got a suggestion for you to keep in mind for future work:

Quote: Originally Posted by Merkwurdigliebe The computer runs older games pretty well, but it generates a fair amount of heat. It could be that wood just isn't good enough at heat dissipation for this system. At least I can heat my office with it.

Look at your intake fan and exhaust fan ... there's no clear line of air flow. Not only does that rats-nest of wiring cause a bit of a problem, but you've got 2 cards completely blocking the intake!

I realize you probably don't want to muck with the front of the humidor for aesthetic reasons, and you're probably not willing to make any additional changes at this point in time .... but you could consider an additional intake fan -- even a HDD cooling design like this one -- at the front for positive air pressure on the inside as well as a better flow of air from intake to exhaust.

You could even go so far as to "stealth" that fan intake by drilling some very small, hard to see holes in the front, and mounting the fans inside the case so as not to see spinning blades and whatnot. Or paint some modders mesh the same color as the humidor's finish ... there are lots of ways to make the fan less intrusive.

Anyway ... good job, and think about that for the next one.

-godling