PC Case Modding

Has anyone modded their pc case?

Many years ago (Celeron days) I used to - but got tired of it. Back then if you had a window, some neon and a decent paint job your case was cool

a few LED lights, see through side panel with a channeled port directly over the cpu fan and a blow hole with fan.

All fairly basic easy mods

I did a small/easy mod on my son's case last year, plexi window with his name etched/frosted on it in ut letters with a scattering of red led's. (one really cool effect was I wrapped all of his wires in red, and when the lights were on you couldn't really see them unless you were looking, so the whole thing looked like there were no wires.)

The only mod I did was cut a hole in the top for extra fan cooling because it seemed a bit hot.

My PC was built as a Harley-Davidson 100th Anniv. tribute. It's still not complete, but I can take some pics real quick and let ya look-see.

Flak Monkey wrote:

My PC was built as a Harley-Davidson 100th Anniv. tribute. It's still not complete, but I can take some pics real quick and let ya look-see.

Please........I'm thinking of etching the window on mine with a dragon or two.

Ok, like I said, I'm not done yet and explain what is yet to do later. And now, on with the show!

The layout of the Monkey's lair.

1) A laundry rack and speaker wire holder cleverly disguised as a tread mill.

2) Small, round, flat holding surface to capture any condensation from my battle hightening refreshment (Beer coaster).

3) Stack of Maximum PC Magazines and HOG Tails magazines holding down my PC from launching off the printer stand (Printer is on her desk) Behind that is the spare bed (nobody comes over anymore) On the wall is part of christmas '06 (Star Chronicle for the star my wife bought me and 1 share of H-D stock)

4) Lots of STUFF! Couple of stuffed animals, my speakers, a CD player that didn't fit in the living room, but works fine hooked up to my external drive to my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. Misc. H-D artifacts and some ceramic skulls from truck stops from cities unknown.

5) The area under the printer stand, containin 1 On-Site case with tools, 1 guitar (not shown), lots of spare cables of all types and more stuff.

6) To the left, my next Tattoo! >

Inside the hutch, CD holder and lots of CDs from the Max PC Mag and patches I haven't sewn onto my vests yet (yes, that's plural), along with ear plugs for long rides, glass cleaner and cologne.

Now a bit closer look at the H-D 100th Anniv. Tribute PC.

First that catches your eye is the large H-D medallion on the side. Thats a Ford F-150 Supercharged fender medallion I bought off of eBay some years ago just for this project. Took a long time to descide exactly what I wanted to put on the side when I stumbled on this idea. It's mounted by the 2 posts through the wall and held in place by 2 dif. sizes of auto hose I picked up at Fleet Farm (local chain) It is also lit up using EL Wire (Blue) I removed the cover to the factory sticky backing and contoured the edge of the emblem fully and ran it through another hold in the pannel and connected it to the PSU tucked near the front held into place of the drive pays with zip tie.

Now to the front...

In the front you can see another 100th anniv emblem, this is a Dyna fender emblem, an add-on that wasn't a standard for Anniv. bikes but the Gold Key issues. There were 2 sizes, this and touring. This fit nicely on the curved surface of this unique piece of the WaveMaster case (with the assistance of create-a-gasket in a tube).

On the top bay is a vest pin from the 100th Anniv. Celebration in Milwaukee '03. Had to attend to get one, I bough 3, 1 for this project,1 for another project and 1 for the vest. ( I have lots of memorbelia from that special time in the closet worth major bucks). It too is backlit by a blue LED I installed. I currently dont remember how I ran power to it.

Below is the DVD RW from Plextor. Below that is the Aerogate II from CoolerMaster. It was a nice idea at the time but has sense been quite worthless and annoying. And yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is a 1.44MB floppy drive. In my opinion, they still have a use (usually only in emergancies and it has happened in the first year).

Now to the innards.

First off, you see......DUST! My system runs a bit warm so it has the side pannel off most of the time (part of the annoyance of the Aerogate, beeps at me when it gets too warm).

As you can see, wiring is an art form, and this is Impressionist art. Wiring is such a bare. If it's too short, its in the way and too tight. Too long, and you have to tuck the excess somewhere. And if you take the time to make it all pretty, well, you eventually will undo it next time you have to do any work inside, so in my mind, why bother. Got a Jet4 CPU cooler, 7600 GT Video and below that the Audigy 2 ZS. To the right, 2 sticks of Corsair PC3200 Dual Channel with the usage meaters on the top (more bling) 1 76MB WD Raptor running SATA and 1 40 GB WD Caviar in ATA flavor for storage. And illuminating the entire thing is a blue cold cathode tube. I had to modify the power unit for this as it had many feedback of other users saying it over heated and burned up. So I got out the trusty Dremmil and made a lot more ventilation holes and placed the unit right in front of my case fans.

Yet to be done:

I will have a laser etch of a V-Twin on the side pannel with the filter emblem replaced with a real (but smaller) one. This may hide yet another fan or not, I haven't descided. I also may put something on the hatch door on the top that hides the USB and Firewire ports. That too has yet to be decided upon.

Thank you for reading my little tribute to my love of Riding and the company that brings that joy to me and my wife. Happy Modding everyone. Drop by the Mod Shop and take a look at those who have more time and money than I do. http://www.modshop.net/ And it seems as I jjust logged on to there, someone beat me to the line with his 100th anniv. tribute.

Will have to check it out.

Neat. Flak, what do you think of replacing the Hardcano 7 currently on my pc to the Hardcano 12?

Honestly, as pretty as it looks, it probably doesn't do much more than mine and I don't use it. I did in the beginning, but with auto control for cooling that modern motherboards have these days, I really dont see the need for bay bus and fan controllers. And when something starts to get too warm (namely CPU) it beeps at you, CONSTANTLY. The P4 and new CPUs have built in thermal protection. When they get warmer that the safe opperational temps, they automatically throttle down to protect itself. They look neat, but it's usefullness is limited IMO. But if you like the ability to do all that then it seems like a good choice.

Flak Monkey wrote:

Honestly, as pretty as it looks, it probably doesn't do much more than mine and I don't use it. I did in the beginning, but with auto control for cooling that modern motherboards have these days, I really dont see the need for bay bus and fan controllers. And when something starts to get too warm (namely CPU) it beeps at you, CONSTANTLY. The P4 and new CPUs have built in thermal protection. When they get warmer that the safe opperational temps, they automatically throttle down to protect itself. They look neat, but it's usefullness is limited IMO. But if you like the ability to do all that then it seems like a good choice.

True, but I just realized that all of my front USB ports are on the "7" so no go.

That would be a big uh-oh. Good catch.

i'm having problems finding case wraps and appliques that I like...

You mean this stuff?

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/other_misc/Case_Wrap/index.html

Yep, but they're always out of stock.