THE SUPERCOMPUTER MOD
Ok, there's a lot of stuff to know about this. Originally, this computer was a Micron 120Mhz server tower from about 1994. Dad ran his business out of it for many many years, and he got a 2 gig upgrade which made this completely obsolete. I wanted a full tower to be completely unified in my design, and it was perfect for what I wanted. The design and construction took almost a year, but the result is worth it.
Weighing in at a pristine 78 lbs, this thing turned out to be everything I wanted. When I started, I knew I wanted to cut the clam shell and make doors, which was a new thing. I wanted windows in those doors, and I wanted everything self contained. I had to work when at my parent's house, which is hard when I only go back every so often. Wiring the cables was rough, making new cables of course part of the process, making everything working off the power I had, learning both metal and body and paint work. There's tons of fans all over, lights, internal speakers for the motherboard, internal USB, connections for everything everywhere, and a killer paint job that screams out about my style. It has a DVD burner, a CD burner, a DVD-ROM, an 80 gig HDD, and a 300 gig HDD. There's 3 stage lighting, including 1 sound sensitive light that throbs to my bass! I had to dramatically reshape the holes in the front and back, turn an AT case into an ATX compatible machine, and figure out how to make 2 power supplies work together. I'm sorry I didn't take in progress pics, but it was such a long process it didn't make sense.
The only pic I can find of the original case, notice the white clamshell ugliness. So much better now.
Here's the whole front, from top to bottom there's the Disc drives, then the hard drives, the live drive, the card slot, the USB ports, the switch panels, the internal 10/100 hub, the vents, the base, then the block at the bottom.
The back side, notice the cool paint and the base which has the wheels, you can see the back of the power strip down there.
The back. Notice 2 power supplies, that's kind of original, the original case had a HDD chassy up there. The fan panel is below that which helps outline the motherboard area, it's artistically sanded aluminum. The original case had all serial and parallel ports as they did back in the day, and that panel covered it up nicely. Below that is the cards, notice how full it is down there. Card list, with updates since the pictures: Vid Card, Sound Card, Ethernet Card (second wired one), Wireless Ethernet card (making 3 internet connections! Yay RIP listener!), the game port for the sound card, the internal USB connector card, and a partridge in a pear tree. Notice the plug in the back, the single plug for the power strip.
The top, simply an integrated ipod dock/charger and palm pilot dock and charger and extra battery charger.
The switch area. At the top on the right, the power button to the top power supply which powers the 5 port hub, the Disc drives, and the lights. Those need to be on before the other switch, but can be on independently. Below that, there's the fan speed switch on the far left, hi, med, and low. In the middle there's the card reader and USB ports, then the power, reset, HDD LED and PW LED for the main power supply which is hooked to the motherboard, cards, and HDD's. Under that, there's the switch to the 2 stable lights and the one for the sound sensitive light, plus the mic. The dimmer controls the sound sensitivity. The micron logo is kind of a cool touch, since it connects it to it's past life. You know what the hub does, connected to the second wired ethernet card.
The fun to look at side. Notice it's a door and not that stupid clamshell. Much prettier and more convenient. You can also see how chaotic it is in there, don't worry, I know intimately.
Kind of the boring window, any computer person knows this is the power supplies and the drive backs. NEED TONS OF ROOM!
OK, ::takes deep breath:: This is the soyo dragon ULTRA 640+ motherboard with a 2.4 P4 CPU and 1 gig of RAM. The video card in there then was the ATI All in Wonder 8500 DV but since have moved to an ATI ALl in Wonder X800 and it rules. There's the creative Audigy with the Live Drive so my comp is now the full A/V machine, with all HD optical, midi, and composite ins and outs. HOT. The Volcano 7 fan on the CPU is visible and loud. Now, off to the right, you can see some fun stuff. I put 4 USB ports on the inside of the case to plug in the remote receiver for the AIW, the card reader, the palm pilot dock, and the wireless keyboard and mouse receiver. SEE, NO MORE CARRYING ACCESSORIES AROUND. The USB ports on the back of the motherboard, plus the connectors on the card, and the ones for the front panel, that's 10 total plus 3 firewire. WOW.
Ok, here's the blue sound sensitive light, it flashes when there's noise.
The big bright blue light.
The string light in the front that shows through the vent slots. AWESOME.
Under the comp in the base, here's the little power strip. So convenient!
Ok, I LAN and move a lot, so I was smart enough to put wheels on this thing. Here they are, painted as well.
To pull this thing, I have a string with a handle in the front. It sits on a block in the front so it doesn't roll on it's own, you just pull it up a little and it rides on the wheels.