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MDD full ATX (another one

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Good work man!:headbang: Awesome paint! I have 2 of MDD already, But MDD is not easy for use DVD-Drive and M-ATX M/B both.
I've been watching inside of MDD and measure a size of MicroATX at 6 years before!

Lately, Micro ATX size had changed more short size at few years before, Very nice news for us.
I will make a MDD soon like you!
 
thank you infinity5750. i will look forward to seeing your project.
i would like to do another one of these cases when this one is finished so maybe we can do them at the same time it will make it more fun.

making a mount and cooler for hard drives today Using only parts from 2x broken g4 psu's. here are some arrangements i made whilst playing with ideas

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on the second but last picture i considered drilling out a series of parallel holes and brazing in 10 or so copper pipes. heat pipes are great. I do like the gas filled type but i always wanted to try having the copper pipes run from the bottom of the case for cold air feed then across the source and open ended out of the case along with your standard fan. if i come across any derelict buildings with the plumbing work still in within the next few weeks i might try it :lol:

also considered using the parts with my customised g4 heat sink
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Oh Boy, I missed you installed FULL-ATX mother board!!! Amazing JOB! I never seen before like that:thumbup:
I'm thinking I would like to have small case in the full ATX MB in the future.

Anyway, I tried to use G4 Heat sink before, But I can't cooling the fever. I hope it gonna be best cooler, Good luck about that. I believe your work is better than me :lol:

OK, Here is Tokyo, Very hot today. I will forward to seeing your project too.
 
Sorry haven't been on here in ages as I just got my G4 mod running and I had forgotten all the passwords to all the websites I visit:lol: I actually had to drag out my old pentium 4 system again to get them back lol!

Great work on the case, the paint looks brilliant:thumbup:
Shame about the motherboard, either it got shorted out somehow (i have done that once before:() or it could just be the capacitors, I have a board that just won't work at all (no video or even beeps) but the capacitors are bulging badly, so check your capacitors, if they have a lump or bulge or any corrosion they might be the cause, I did have the capacitors on my imac G5 replaced as it is a common problem especially with that model, they had a bad batch of capacitors or something when they manufactured them.

Also if you haven't already, try resetting BIOS by pulling out the CMOS battery, unplug the power supply from the wall and hold the start button down for about 30 seconds. What this does is clear the memory, and it has brought seemingly dead computers of mine back to life numerous times!:p

Great progress anyway:thumbup:
 
hi thanks powerg4. i was wondering where you got to :wave:
I am just about to go over now and check out your thread. There is no signs of physical damage to any piece or part of my motherboard and i think the diag card will be a waste of time as it will only power up for half a second which would suggest a short but i am just having a hard time finding it. I did have the thought that it could be something to do with the heat sensors. I will just have to keep on testing as best i can .
someone was selling a z77p d3 cheap which is the same board layout as my ds3h so my custom parts would still fit the z77p-d3 also has the ALC887 audio oppose to other d3 and d3h boards that use a via chip which is not so much fun running OSX. but for now i will just keep on trying to fix this one.

that heat sink where i said i was going to use the side intake for induction. well it made more sense to have that as a exhaust instead so i switched it around using the old PSU fans 2x 50x50mm on the back of the case for induction. will update soon
 
cut and shaped the plastics to fit on my steel backplate i made. used fibre glass resin for filling purposes on the edges. turned out pretty nice it is about 4mm thick so nice and sturdy.
Just painted it up and waiting for paint to harden before i carry on.
this backplate will fit full atx, mAtx ect
it is thinner between the pci slots so there is no conflict with whatever you want to hook up due to the thickness. around the Io shield it has i made the steel overhang so the shield can clip in .
i sorted a motherboard so should be able to reassemble soon.
Still cannot decide which way to finnish up the panels i have to many conflicting designs i would like to create
on this first picture you can see where i bonded my plastics to my sheet steel backplate. the holes in this picture for the intake vents was a initial design i made which i did not like so i filled them with fibre glass and re-did them
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*update
sold a few things so i could buy a working motherboard. I have not given up on my dead one yet i will fix that but i just do not know how long it will take. so anyway i get this brand new looking replacement second hand and straight off the bat its stuck in a restart loop. :lol: FML !!!

tried the obvious stuff like clearing cmos and the usual sort of routines taking all the ram out, reseating the cpu, tried other psu's ect ect. no joy ..... was really careful fitting it it appears unused and my other hardware seems to not have a problem
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Oh no:(
Such as shame, especially since you've done such a cool paint job:thumbup:

Only thing I can think of is test your start button wiring and make sure the start/reset aren't shorted, also double check they are plugged into the motherboard right (should be able to find that in the installation manual.) Other thing is try starting with the bare essentials connected and then slowly add things back in until you find the problem component. Hopefully it's just that one component is at fault.

I went to start mine the other night and blasted thing wouldn't go past splash screen, couldn't even get it into BIOS:banghead: Took all the RAM everything out and now I can only make it work with one stick RAM on the motherboard, I think the dust might have gotten into the other slots:lol: I reckon it's because my apple case doesn't like all the PC parts lol:p
Good luck, I'll be around these forums to see what's happening:thumbup:
 
oh man sorry to hear you case has rejected your parts g4. i am having gremlins to. infact! there seems to be loads of gremlins around here
i am going to lay down some mouse traps around the computer and see if i can catch one tonight :mrgreen:jioe95GbT.jpg
i did something a bit drastic after having a brain fart. i bought a cheap 1155 cpu to see if it is my cpu at fault and not the new motherboard because that is one of the conclusions i came to.

I am angry at myself over it because i know with more thought and effort i could of devised ways to answer that question without spending any money that i do not have. And not only that but for me when i mod and hack the less money spent the better it is. So the fact i have upped the overall cost makes my finished mod devalued in my eyes.
on the up hand the cpu is a very slight upgrade to the g620 it is in the same range tho so i am not expecting it to be noticeable. (second hand of course)

while waiting for that cpu to arrive i made another case mod today it's up and running . from a old Matx msi 775 board i fixed with a pentium D (£3 :D) and i used a dell gx280 case. it was pretty fun it almost made itself i did not even need to get the tape measure out once due to it having coincidently perfect visual markings that mapped out the new components placements where i needed to drill or cut. its for me old folks as a back up for them. they are tech blind and i am moving out of there area soon so i wont be able to fix there comp for em when they try to stick crumpets in the drive bay :p or pour tea in it to cool it down
 
Haha yeah! bring out the mouse traps:p Mine's running ok now, computers sure can be pretty random at times:lol:
And hey you never know the cpu might be the problem, if not you can always put it to use in another machine and sell it once your'e done with the project, pretty frustrating problem your'e facing but it seems odd that the new one doesn't work either:think: maybe as your'e saying it's something else. CPU failure seems unlikely but you never know, maybe it overheated or something:(

I'll never forget the time when I was new to messing around with computers and I tried starting up some old computer without the heatsink/fan on the processor:confused: got a bit of a burn to say the least lol:lol: So I do know for sure they do get pretty hot and they can overheat (especially those old pentium 4s:p)
 
tomorrow the new cpu arrives Hopefully the board and the cpu both work :shh:
well i got bored so i made another computer
its a very basic little mod that has turned out to be a lot of fun
parts.
motherboard. msi 7301 / n1996 / cuda
cpu . pentium D
2 gig kingston ram DDR2
nvidia 7300gs silent

all that is left to do is put the plastics back on and mount a drive

First things first stripped the plastics off and flatted off any protrusions in the bottom of the case.
the dell gx280 motherboard does not use standoffs.
Instead the case has raised metal slides that allow the original motherboard to slide into place and clip in
next i took the msi board and dropped it in just to sight things up
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As you can see in the above picture the back panel has some very distinct markings thanks to that Multi coloured sticky label. the case actually has no Io shield cut out it is instead purpose machined to fit the specific board used.
but thanks to those very distinct markings there was no need to use a tape measure once.
the only thing that made it slightly tricky to cut the io shield was only having a angle grinder at my disposal as i swapped my dremel for boxing gloves
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in this photo it is still a bit messy nothing is finalised but it is up and running .
the GX280 uses a a drum fan on top of a heat sink with No induction ....... as u can see in the picture below
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this original setup is no good for me needs for several reasons but first and foremost the heat sink is made for a bracket that would never fit the msi board i will be using. But more of that later

the original power supply i have but is faulty and also would not fit due to inconsistencies with the msi board . It is also a low powered psu and i wanted something with a bit more kick so i took one from my other MDD mod and started to think about how to get this in .
Below you can see the original DELL supply insides i thought it was worth showing as it is nice looking inside
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it also yielded a fan with a nice blade design but no good for re-use in its current state. I have intentions for this old psu and its bits to go into a custom made amp .
the Case However i have used
on choosing where to put the new psu i got to work.
the original DELL motherboard has its ram slots set quite far back to allow for the drive bays
The msi board does not.
So to avoid all other components it needed to sit in the front left corner of the case on the top side

This is how the case is setup standard in its original form (borrowed this pic from google)
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now i had fit my new purpose 500w PSU i needed to port the power socket and switch to the back.
Which as you know is just a simple case of extending the leads usually.
On looking at the sockets of the dell psu and my one i decided to do something the easy way for once
seeing as i had gave myself a 1 day limit to complete this mod .
below you can see the two sockets
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well here's the thing... if i use the 3 pin socket from the dell PSU i already have a back panel piece to fit instead of making one. But more than that i can make utilize the original slide tray system to make it easy to remove. The case on its rail slide is to large to acustom the new motherboard and all that space used would be redundant . so i cut away what was not needed
the only other thing to do was cut a hole for the power switch on the already existing back panel
a load of soldering and then insulate the wires. so i came up with this below
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u can see the double strand power feed in the second picture i only did this as i felt the gage they had used from the manufacturer was wrong
. that white u can see is a thick insulated plastic i used to prevent the risk of any shorting.
the first time i soldered the power switch on i did it on the wrong side of the case:lol:
the socket i needed to mod a bit concerning its earthing circuit but after that is was just a simple extension and solder and fitting it all in place. slides in and out now :thumbup:

next i wanted to add induction which is something this case was never blessed with from day 1 .
I played with various arrangements and set ups and decided on 2x 50mm fans they are actually the two side intakes from the G4 MDD'S which will be great once i have added a voltage regulator to the fan set up. they work well at the moment but i would like to turn them down a bit
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i cut a section out of the front to give these two fans more room to breathe as they will be covered once again by the plastics .
In the third picture you can see a mok up and the psu through the old drive bays ( now intake vents )
the intake vents will be covered by a shield i will make later
The reason i placed the fans on the inside was to avoid re-shaping or having to mod the plastics in order to stick to my one day project deadline.
Because of this i had to move my psu back 3mm to allow the extra space for the fans that sit directly infront of it
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and finally with the board in and up and running
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i did not make my self set deadline of 1 day as i realised i did not have a drive to use :lol:.
i will sacrifice a IDE raid drive from a p35 build. Also i forgot to rewire the front panel switch and started watching Excalibur
Hopefully i can get snow leopard running on this 945 chipset and pentiumD we will see how it goes
i might even do something fancy to the cosmetics at some point.
i will defo make a cooler for it .
what i call a slingshot cooler of my own devise mwuahahaha :evil:.

well this took up a bit of waiting time anyway and was a fun project .
i would recommend these old dell cases for a bit of fun you can get them for peanuts. dell package things well in terms of structure from what i have seen in some of there other works

OH I MUST ADD THIS !!!! the metal inner case is made by foxcon the plastics are made in china ...
somewhere out there is a man who designed the most elaborate over complicated integral fittings for that little silver button that says dell on it
i take my hat off to you uknown man. it is a piece of art you thought no one would ever see :thumbup:

i really want some nice black paint for my main MDD project i think black with metal flake sprayed on the inside of the panels would look great with the chrome trim this case has or may have.
To be honest the g4 case has already been 3 fully functional different set ups i did previously and i have experimented with it so much at times it became more of a salvage job rather than a straight forward mod.
there are only so many times you can sharpen the same pencil:lol:
But it has not finished evolving yet. I have a new vision for it so it is about to all change again
 
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