Briefcase PC mod

I needed a new PC. None of my PCs would work. It seems as if I was cursed. All I had was my iBook and I was just breaking down wanting to use Linux and play some games for a change.

My friend Ryan C. upgraded his computer and sold me his old parts for $80.

• ASUS A8V motherboard; AMD socket 939 (ATX)
• AMD Athlon 64 3200+ at 2ghz socket 939
• AOpen Aeolus Nvidia 6600 GT AGP card

Parts I already had.

• 420w PSU (ATX)
• 80gb 3.5″ HDD
• Laptop DVD/CDRW optical drive
• 512mb DDR memory at 400mhz
• Arctic Silver 5 CPU paste
• PC case
• 3 Pentium 2 processor fans for cooling
• MS Windows XP Pro SP2

And the rest I had to buy.

• 1gb DDR memory at 400mhz
• CoolerMaster CPU cooler

So I built the PC in an average “beige box.” Well there was a lan-party coming up and I wanted something special for it. Well I noticed my brother wasn’t using his old electronics briefcase. I asked if I can have it and he said I can… well actually he said use it, not destroy it but how would I know that. So I thought about it for about 3 days and made sure it all would fit. So the day before the lan I started with removing all the padding and glue. Then I altered the design to get everything right. I took my trusty Dremel tool and started cutting away trying to get it done ASAP. I worked all day till 9pm. Then started the day of the lan around 9:30am and worked on it as fast as I can to get it done by 8pm for the overnight lan-party. Made some more design changes and continued. My 10 year old Dremel was dying since I started the project but thats all I was able to use except for a handsaw that I used for the optical drive. I finally finished around 8:10pm and ran up to my room to test it. It worked! Turned it off and packed up to leave.

I arrived at the church where the lan-party was held at. My friends and the others there were amazed. Thought it was cool. I just can’t believe I did the whole thing in just 2 days. Well a power button was missing but that wasn’t the priority at the moment. Screw driver shorting the pins on the motherboard was good enough.

Flickr photosets: “Briefcase PC mod“, “New PC“, and “Lan Party 4/2-3/2007.”

And at the lan-party.

The guts.

Back.

Side.

(Installing Halo CE for the PC.)