What's the worst computer chassis hack you've done?
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Holding everything inside with cotton string :-D At the time I couldn't afford a mobile chassis for my work computer (literally a PC I take to work) so I asked in my school for any chassis that they had for recycling. They gave me an old one that was not ATX compatible so I put some rubber feet on the back of the motherboard to avoid shorts, strapped it to the chassis using cotton string, put a smaller heatsink on the CPU (the chassis was thin), strapped the fan to the heatsink with more cotton string, drilled holes in four old CDs to mount the four laptop HDDs (using screws) and strapped that set with some more cotton string to the chassis. Then, because this computer would suffer some vibrations from the travels, I strapped everything with even more cotton string forming a sort of web over the motherboard to prevent anything from moving. To finalize the build, I wanted to add a "No cats allowed" sticker but couldn't get it to stick. The chassis was slippery :doh:
You just reminded me that the HDDs in my MicroVAX are kinda/sorta/vaguely held in place with cable ties, because it didn't include the proper brackets. :wtf:
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Got a desk with drawers on one side, and a box (closet?) on the other one. Box is four drawers high. Mounted a mini-PC motherboard in it. Passive cooling, very silent. The current PC doesn't fit; a monster of a machine built by a gamer. I still miss that old mini-PC though. In terms of performance, it outran many full sized desktops. Remember I said passive cooling? It burnt in a summer three years ago, scorched the desk. I was proud of it, and consider it my "best" machine. The worst, could have burnt down the house.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Back when I was in high school, I had a woodworking class and had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about designing a desk where the desk itself would be the chassis. I never went through with it however (which is probably for the best). The idea I had was that both front legs would essentially be enclosed cabinets with enough room to fit a motherboard and a bunch of peripherals; the back legs would've had power outlets running the full vertical length, essentially acting as extra-long power strips. Holes for fans, sliders for hot-swappable drives with front access...let your imagination run wild. I figured it would've been a heat trap, so it would've had a ton of fans. Which of course means the whole thing would've been noisy. Again...probably a good thing it never progressed any farther than a thought in my mind...
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I once took apart my box and re-arranged the parts inside my table drawer... It gave me more space and a pinch of satisfaction when realized didn't blew up nothing...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
I did similar, but chose a closet. More space to vent heat. A mini-PC with "passive" cooling. It didn't cool enough. Still, I like your idea. I'm gonna try that with my next one.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Back when I was in high school, I had a woodworking class and had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about designing a desk where the desk itself would be the chassis. I never went through with it however (which is probably for the best). The idea I had was that both front legs would essentially be enclosed cabinets with enough room to fit a motherboard and a bunch of peripherals; the back legs would've had power outlets running the full vertical length, essentially acting as extra-long power strips. Holes for fans, sliders for hot-swappable drives with front access...let your imagination run wild. I figured it would've been a heat trap, so it would've had a ton of fans. Which of course means the whole thing would've been noisy. Again...probably a good thing it never progressed any farther than a thought in my mind...
Yeah, I made that mistake and got scorchmarks in my desk to prove it. You need ventilation and it'll work. No passive cooling if you use anything wood. My worst idea ever :D
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Just the other day I was told of a friend's mishap: the power supply in his chassis was a bit bigger than expected and the motherboard wouldn't fit. He cut a corner of the motherboard to make it fit.
Quote:
Don't force it, get a bigger hammer. Arthur Bloch
Mircea
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You just reminded me that the HDDs in my MicroVAX are kinda/sorta/vaguely held in place with cable ties, because it didn't include the proper brackets. :wtf:
I prefer the cotton string because it does not propagate vibrations as much as cable ties if the HDD is hanging in the air. The down side is that it deteriorates a lot faster. Vibrations were the reason I used four laptop HDDs in RAID instead of a single desktop HDD. Obviously, the situation I described was temporary and after some time I bought a proper chassis. But, if it works in your case and the HDDs are not shutting down/parking heads/becoming corrupted you can let it be. Anyway, I would recommend that you buy the brackets if you can and, if they are made of metal, they will help dissipate the heat from the HDDs. The HDDs will be healthier and live longer.
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That is a little awkward to turn into a computer chassis :doh: . And looks oversized. I bet they would charge me an extra ticket to carry that on a public transport :sigh: . If instead you are referring to trashing the computer, it was brand new. I just could not afford a mobile chassis. The cheapest one at the time was a few thousand euros. Looking at your signature, if your are just reacting to my cat sticker, it was just a joke because of all the string inside the chassis :laugh: . I love cats :-D .
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws.
I put a Commodore PET in a wooden box once. Not sure why, it was rather flimsy. Also, I used to work on various ROM "extensions" for the PET, so I had this PCB where I plugged in the ROM's and wired up two external multi-position switches for the $A000 and $B000 (or something like that) ROM select lines.
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Got a desk with drawers on one side, and a box (closet?) on the other one. Box is four drawers high. Mounted a mini-PC motherboard in it. Passive cooling, very silent. The current PC doesn't fit; a monster of a machine built by a gamer. I still miss that old mini-PC though. In terms of performance, it outran many full sized desktops. Remember I said passive cooling? It burnt in a summer three years ago, scorched the desk. I was proud of it, and consider it my "best" machine. The worst, could have burnt down the house.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
There are desks like that although most have the computer under a glass on the top and are made of metal. Search "computer desk case" and you may find something. Passive cooling anything needs to be in a place that is naturally well ventilated, preferably with a very small draft (imperceptible by humans). That is the little information that manufacturers held back or most people would not buy them. If it is not in a naturally well ventilated place, it will eventually burn. In the best case scenario it just stops working.
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There are desks like that although most have the computer under a glass on the top and are made of metal. Search "computer desk case" and you may find something. Passive cooling anything needs to be in a place that is naturally well ventilated, preferably with a very small draft (imperceptible by humans). That is the little information that manufacturers held back or most people would not buy them. If it is not in a naturally well ventilated place, it will eventually burn. In the best case scenario it just stops working.
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I prefer the cotton string because it does not propagate vibrations as much as cable ties if the HDD is hanging in the air. The down side is that it deteriorates a lot faster. Vibrations were the reason I used four laptop HDDs in RAID instead of a single desktop HDD. Obviously, the situation I described was temporary and after some time I bought a proper chassis. But, if it works in your case and the HDDs are not shutting down/parking heads/becoming corrupted you can let it be. Anyway, I would recommend that you buy the brackets if you can and, if they are made of metal, they will help dissipate the heat from the HDDs. The HDDs will be healthier and live longer.
ElectronProgrammer wrote:
buy the brackets
Yeah, I'll get right on that. :-D This is an early-80s system, getting drives (narrow SCSI?) is difficult enough. I did check Ebay a few years ago. I should check a again, but I would likely need to buy another entire system. https://www.codeproject.com/Uploads/Membership/Uploads/2587207/ermine.png[^]
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ElectronProgrammer wrote:
buy the brackets
Yeah, I'll get right on that. :-D This is an early-80s system, getting drives (narrow SCSI?) is difficult enough. I did check Ebay a few years ago. I should check a again, but I would likely need to buy another entire system. https://www.codeproject.com/Uploads/Membership/Uploads/2587207/ermine.png[^]
I know the felling. My favorite computer that I have is a Compaq Contura Aero 4/25 and I used it so much the display melted (4bit gray scale 640x480). Can not find a compatible replacement anywhere :(( Only once I saw a used display from a dead Contura but they wanted 400€ :wtf: Nice computer you got there, by the way :-D
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
OK, not a computer chassis, but a hack nonetheless... Way back in the mid 80's, I bought a new Korg synthesizer. It had inputs for 3 pedals: 0: Naturally, a sustain pedal 1: A switch to advance to the next programmed sound 2: A volume pedal I couldn't afford the factory pedals, so I made my own with parts from Radio Shack, a few old pieces of wood, springs, some string, and a few girders and pulleys from my old childhood Erector set! The sustain and program advance switches were easy, but the volume pedal took some engineering so that it would rotate a rheostat using the string. :) It worked until I could afford better equipment!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Not computer hack, but nevertheless worth mentioning: A fellow student of mine bought a used car really cheap. One problem was that while driving, the shift box frequently slipped from the selected gear into neutral, disengaged, loosing all power. So my friend bought a couple of neodymium magnets, gluing one to his shift stick, the other one to the dashboard. This was enough to keep the speed stick in position, keeping it from flipping back to neutral.
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Not computer hack, but nevertheless worth mentioning: A fellow student of mine bought a used car really cheap. One problem was that while driving, the shift box frequently slipped from the selected gear into neutral, disengaged, loosing all power. So my friend bought a couple of neodymium magnets, gluing one to his shift stick, the other one to the dashboard. This was enough to keep the speed stick in position, keeping it from flipping back to neutral.
:laugh:
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Another car hack (referring to the above one) from the student days: One of my fellow students broke the multi-function handle of his car - the handle only, none of the switches. The handle itself couldn't be bought separately, you had to buy the entire box with all the switches, at a cost that was a fortune on a student budget. So he rather bought a tube of super-glue, gluing an old toothbrush to the remains of the old handle. For years, we saw him flipping his old toothbrush up and down, forwards and backwards, and twisting it around, serving all the functions that the old handle did before he broke it.
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I've seen a computer run out of a pizza box (on the Internet anyway) - just the mobo and drive and stuff sitting in a greasy box. When I was young I put a 286 mobo and MFM HDD (remember those?) inside a cabinet with wood screws. Soon I will be propping my PC up on 4 soup cans to give my 1000 watt PSU's fan some clearance to see if that solves my overheat problem when I use 4k rendering. Gotta wait for some adapters for my 2 remaining fans though before I try that. Life goals are the setup from the movie Pi.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Windows for Workgroups 3.1 came pre loaded with networkable Hearts, the card game for up to four players. We took a left over chassis that had dual floppies. Hacked enough of the OS and game across the 2 floppies (total of 2.4 Mb) to be able to boot it and join the game. Never bothered to put the case back on in case we wanted to scavenge serial port cards or the monochrome monitor card.
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Windows for Workgroups 3.1 came pre loaded with networkable Hearts, the card game for up to four players. We took a left over chassis that had dual floppies. Hacked enough of the OS and game across the 2 floppies (total of 2.4 Mb) to be able to boot it and join the game. Never bothered to put the case back on in case we wanted to scavenge serial port cards or the monochrome monitor card.
I approve of this. :)
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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ElectronProgrammer wrote:
buy the brackets
Yeah, I'll get right on that. :-D This is an early-80s system, getting drives (narrow SCSI?) is difficult enough. I did check Ebay a few years ago. I should check a again, but I would likely need to buy another entire system. https://www.codeproject.com/Uploads/Membership/Uploads/2587207/ermine.png[^]
That keyboard brings back memories. Back in the day when I worked on a microVAX-II with a VT220 I had a little program that would set the "Do" key to emit a string. Very useful when doing an edit/compile/debug cycle.
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