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Cool Cases At QuakeCon 151

Posted by CmdrTaco from the escaping-the-beige-demons dept.
Nate Fox noted that there was a Cool Case contest over at QuakeCon. The winners included a machine built entirely in a suitcase, one with a glowing skull inside, and of course, one built from PVC pipes. Imitate at your own risk ;) I get nervous putting a Powerpuff Girls sticker on my case. *grin*
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Cool Cases At QuakeCon More

Cool Cases At QuakeCon

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  • Well said! :-)

    Dexter's Lab is almost as good though...

  • Re:PowerPuff? (Score:3)

    by gaudior ( 113467 ) <marktjohns.gmail@com> on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:26AM (#868213) Homepage
    In my neighborhood, you'd get your ass kicked for dissin' the PowerPuff Girls like that. Never underestimate the wrath of 10 year-old girls. ;-)
    --
  • The logical extension would be a water cooled system that doubled as a water pipe, no?
  • The fan is a house fan... those things aren't loud at all! :) The power supply and Golden Orb are the loudest fans inside my PVC II case.
  • >Is it really anything more than a really inconvenient laptop made out of non-miniaturized parts?

    If it has a real 3D video card like a TNT or 3dfx (which I assume it would, this is QuakeCon, afterall), then yes, it probably plays quake like no laptop can ever hope to.
  • Actually since I just got a cat the fans have proven their worth. Bitch all you want about loud computers, My cat won't go within 2 feet of the CPUs (I was worried she'd figure out the power/reset buttons since she likes the keyboard already.)
  • OTP, but this entire thread has given me a wicked case of deja-vu. I know that I have seen these posts before, in this order. I even remember seeing the spelling error in the last post.

    Maybe I'm just freaking out!
  • You can view the website in my user profile header to see more pics of my case. It's plexi'd up and is pretty much finger proof (unless you're really determined). I've zip-tied all the wires down do they don't move.

  • I also added a vibrator to it as well..


    You better not try to market that. I'm afraid it's already been patented [fufme.com].
  • GMM :
    hahahaha that was basically the point I was poking fun at. Everyone was cutting holes in their cases and saying "I have this much and this much airflow going through my case blah blah blah". So here I am with a big box fan sitting beside my computer :)

    You can see more pics of my PVC II computer case in the URL on my user profile header above.

  • For me, boxes that are more efficient, that need less fans, use less power, make less noise, are far more appealing.

    Funny, you just described an iMac.

  • Re:Luddite Cases (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.luddite.com/ [luddite.com]
  • This is illegal dissemination of Apple's trade secrets! You are not allowed to post this. By saying that the "iMac inspired cases are cool" you are divulging proprietary insider information. Apple has trademarked the iMac's appearance, please do not talk about it, or they might have to sue you.
  • Anyone else interested in this kind of think can check out some of these sites:

    http://www.2cooltek.com [2cooktek.com]

    http://www.pyramid19.com/vh [pyramid19.com]

    http://www.3dfxcool.com [3dfxcool.com]

    http://www.coldcpu.com [coldcpu.com]

    http://www.tangonet.freeserve.co. uk/casemain.html [freeserve.co.uk]

    http://www.spinn.net/~mattg/case/ [spinn.net]

    Thank you.

  • You wouldnt have to worry about over heating....but what about a splash of coffee or soda..I'd be a little nervous with THAT much internal exposure! But thats just me...the case definately will make you do a double take
  • I find my CPU fan a little loud. I can't imagine how the guy who has the house fan put in the PVC tubing case can do anything. I like the case, but the fan would be annoying. Great for coolness points, however...
  • You're right, they rock. Why did superheroes always have to be these lantern-jawed, so-sure-of-themselves, tights wearing steroid cases? I think the idea of kindergarten aged girls who can kick ass is cool. And besides, as characters go, they are pretty cool.

  • Now that's a good idea... instead of making machines look more modern, go retro!

    Now I think maybe I'll build my next box into the case of a PC-XT, or (even better) and Apple IIc!

    I can see it now:
    Yeah, here's my new computer, isn't it kewl?? I overclocked an Apple IIc to 800Mhz!! And it runs Linux!!

    Any other cool old computers we should stick an Athlon Mobo in?

  • Well, I'm 5'11, 220 lbs, can lift 300+, have won trophies in heavyweight kung-fu contact sparring (e.g. not points) competitions (open tourney) and happen to have had a childhood where I was a bit of an outsider, so I've had quite a few runins with people and groups of people who don't like people who are different. Yeah I grew up hacking and watching Doctor Who and Star Trek, but I hufted weights and learned to fight, too.

    I'll put a Powerpuff sticker on whatever I want.
  • I've been trying for months to figure out how to mount a motherboard in this wondeful (free standing) porcelain toilet I have. Oh, and I need to figure out how to get the hard drives, etc. in and set up a cooling system. I figure once I get that done, I can connect the power switch to the handle, and [flush!] "Welcome to Windows!"

  • I am a compE... dont like all that EE stuff... Power--FAH gimme DIGITAL!!! Of course I am getting dumber over the summer by doing web design... doesn't help the chip design ideas all that much... heh.
  • You're right, that would look cool ... maybe some sort of motherboard 'bulb' for it would work, with a nice big air hose to put drives in.. dunno how you'd do the cards though. Sounds like a funky idea for a project anyway :D

    --
  • Funny, I was just building my own case this weekend... I read this book by william gibson called Idoru, in which the lead character has a computer called a sandbenders which is made out of stones, etc in an indian style... It inspired me to work on a case for a portable desktop... I have an old 233 board with builtin vid/sound, so I chucked it into a plastic box about the size of a mainboard (maybe 1.5 inches high) It looks good, except for the large metal power supply box sitting on top... And the hole for the processor fan... Anyone got solutions to the power supply problem? Maybe one of those cute 120 watt E-machine power supplies--but I don't trust anything that comes from E-machines...

  • we had a boatload of those at my old high school... maybe they are upgrading at some point and i can get one cheap... I will have to look into it. Thx.
  • To solve the radiation problem, couldn't you put a conductive screen around the outsides of the case, which is then connected to the ground? (next to the plexiglass in the PVC Case) Microwave ovens do that sort of thing to prevent the user from being nuked when they're looking in the window, and i'm sure that technique could be adapted to mostly transparent radiation protection.. just an idea..
  • With the case you would have to never worry about overheating agian
  • I'm with you, but it'd be cool if there was plexiglass covering the sides (except for the fan side of course)
  • I remember back in the day when my commodore computer user group had contests for the best painted case. Some of those folk probably spent more time painting their computers than using them.
  • I was thinking 'what about fingers?' .. that blade looks pretty damn sharp, you could cut yourself up if you opened it before it had stopped spinning ... and I also hope no wires drift towards it .. slice, fizzle .. there didn't seem to be a guard internally that I could see.

    As for splashes, it did look like there was clear plastic sheeting around the fan and the case to make it more of a 'case' than a 'frame'.

    --
  • Yeah, that was a great book, and makes the whole concept much more human. Why is it that we always buy cases when we could really just shove all of the components into a custom made one. Maybe I will take all of my computer's guts, and make a nice redwood case. Now, all I gotta do is cool it.

  • The "suit-case" looks very much like a desktop computer with a laptop monitor connected.. Does anybody know where I can find some information on this kind of thing? Flatscreens are neat, and a wrecked laptop is a lot cheaper than a flat VGA screen..
    --
  • how about the original COMPAQ 8086? Its got 2 FULL HEIGHT drive bays, so you can fit 4 IDE devices in it, plus the old mainboards were so huge you could probably put 2 ATX boards in there... I tried to do it to mine, but I didn't want to mess with the rather large capacitors in the power supply, hence my post above about a plastic case...
  • Most new CD-ROM drives have tabs at the edges of the disc tray to support the CD if the drive is sideways. I have my definitely-not-intended-for-it IBM workstation at work on its side under my desk, and the drive works fine. Just look for little tabs.

    Be careful though-- if they aren't there and the disc slides off the tray, it can jam the mechanism closed. I did this once to an old 486!
  • Here's a challenge: Hot-air balloons use gasoline-powered inflator fans for initial inflation with cold air. These typically have something like a 5hp motor, and can fill 70,000 cubic feet in a few minutes.

    (If you use one of these to cool your computer, please use it in a well-ventilated area.)

    If that's not enough for you, Moffett Field has the world's largest wind tunnel right in Silicon Valley. Somebody with NASA connections ought to put an open PC in there just to take a few pictures.

  • Heh.. Slashdot doesn't like target=_blank, I guess.
    Try this [slashdot.org] instead.

    -- Sig (120 chars) --
    Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
  • Powerpuff Girls is a cheesy rip-off of the Sailor Moon concept.

    So there.


    --

  • Funny, it works beautifully on my standards-compliant web browser.

    What are you running? Opera? iCab?


    --

  • Re:Strange cases (Score:3)

    by Azog ( 20907 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @08:51AM (#868249) Homepage
    Put the power supply off in the corner somewhere, and just run a wire bundle up to the computer.

    Cut the power cables, one at a time so you don't confuse them and splice in a nice 8-foot set of wires of at least the same gauge (thickness). As an added advantage, you get the noise of the cooling fan further away.

    Whatever you do, never go with an gutless power supply. That will doom you to a flakey computer, especially with today's power-hungry chips. Use at least a 250 watt supply.

    My machine is 256 MB, two 7200 rpm hard drives, and CD ROM + CDR. With a 250 watt power supply I had occasional spontaneous reboots, especially if both the CDR and the CD were spinning up at the same time. Upgrading to a 300 watt power supply fixed the problem.


    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
  • Yeah, but turning on the wind tunnel doesn't sound like such a hot idea. Perhaps put some sensors on the computer's boards to see when they're about to bust, and bolt the sucker down the the floor. Hehe =)

  • Have a look at http://www.applefritter.com for some interesting case hacks...
  • I don't think any of the cases on the QuakeCon page, or any PC cases that I've seen, are a work of art. The mushroom lego case noted above might be. The Apple Cube might be. Some of the Sun and SGI workstations, too... but none of the regular modifications that I've seen.

    Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths

  • Re:The PVC case (Score:3)

    by gmm ( 218993 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:46AM (#868253)

    Why are so many people seemingly obsessed with having the biggest/most fans in their boxen?

    I've noticed this mentality before on /. in one of the polls. Most people seemed to be blatantly showing off about how inefficient their machines were "I have 30 fans in my box, and I'm getting 10 more tomorrow!"

    I know Intel's processors, for example, run a little on the hot side - but surely you'll get to a point when adding another fan is a complete waste of money/space/energy.

    For me, boxes that are more efficient, that need less fans, use less power, make less noise, are far more appealing.
  • Well and truly off topic, but Emmit started it so...

    The Power Puff Girls is an ironic work of post modern genius. If you think its juts for kids, then you've missed the point.

    Thad

  • Magnetic Noise from Giant Fan (Score:3)

    by raygundan ( 16760 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:49AM (#868255) Homepage
    How do you avoid the drastically increased magnetic noise that a fan like the one in the PVC case must generate? I would expect that a motor like the one in most of our window fans (about the size of a large sandwich) could probably throw off enough interference to erase your hard drive! Is the fan shielded, or is it a low-noise motor, or what? This would be truly awesome, but I'm hesitant to try it because of the noise issue.
  • OK, from what I hear from those who've researched it, PCB can take an extreme thermal change about once fairly reliably. Also, CMOS can go twice as fast (ALL of it) if you chill it to liquid nitrogen temperatures (I think that's 70K, anyone know for sure?). SO, if I want to win this next year, can I just bring in my liquid nitro vat with computer in it? Is there any survivability requirement? I mean, I put it together, double the clock speed (need to think about this here... what can I OC? CPU, yes. graphics, yes. memory, yes. FSB, maybe. HDD, probly not... seems tough.) and produce out-of-this world frame rates. Of course, it costs $2000 for the computer, which dies as soon as I decide I can't afford the liquid nitro it needs. Also, liquid nitro is great because it doesn't conduct electricity but conducts heat quite well. Also, if we are just doing it for the contest, we can let it boil off, which provides VERY efficient heat dissipation...

    ---
  • I don't remember what processor it was, but years ago a SUN admin I know used the box for his SPARC as the case. Pretty cool.


    -----
    My karma is still less than my age.
  • For that real retro PC look I've taken an Original IBM PC Case and with a little modification (a few mins. with a hacksaw) squeezed in a K6-3 mobo and dvd drive etc. No floppy required (- but windoze does not seem to recognize this fact). Sprayed the whole lot black and it sits under the telly ready for watching DVD's.

    A little noisy, but what can you expect from a PSU that must be 16 years old!

  • Re:PVC piping (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The surgeon general does not recommend smoking through PVC.
  • The cases from 3dcool.com come with a sticker that says "Freezing computers world wide"

    Sounds like it should be Microsoft's slogan...

  • If you like the industrial look, nothing beats aluminum thread plate!

  • well, I have an abit bp6 board with two overclocked celeron 333 that run at 500 mhz... and I have 2 really big fans... the sound of a starting jumbo jet is nothing against the sound those fans make... :) somehow I have gotten quite used to it and sometimes at nite, when the box is shutdown, I wonder how quiet it can be in my room....
  • cool idea. if you have lego mindstorms you can even build a little cd-jukebox thingie. then you could just have a little roboter arm that can take out cds and put them in a little box, take outr a new one and put it in the drive... or hand you a beer from the nearby fridge... the possibilities are endless... I need to go and buy some bulk lego bags :)
  • Sounds like a great idea, go for it! Just make sure to use a well shock-protected HD or you'll have head touchdowns aplenty. Not a very good thing just before the big match. Oh, and if you can find a compressor small enough to fit inside the case without overheating it, you can even power those hydraulics!

    (yes, I know it was a joke.)

  • Let's see--cell phones might cause brain cancer. Unshielded cases are generally located under the desk, so that means... I don't think I want to risk getting cancer THERE. :-O

    I wouldn't sweat it - the radiation is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. So while the cell phone pressed against your head - about an inch from your brain - might be a worry, an unshielded PC is dozens of inches away from your 'nads.

    For equal signal strengths at the source, twenty-four inches away is 1/576th the strength of one inch away.

    If you're still worried, get some tin-foil underpants...

  • as the builder of this madness, my standard reply to "why not just get a laptop?" is "have you ever seen a SMP/192MB laptop that runs linux? Neither have I.. so I built my own." (actually, its not finished yet)
  • The defunct Cray 3 used this approach, except for the part about the ATX. The making of the Cray 3 has some pretty cool pictures. And Seymour Cray wasn't afraid of pouring big bucks into cool case design.
  • You are indeed correct, the innards of that case are simply a dual lx board and all standard form factor parts; that was a major design goal. btw, I was the builder of that particular entry. The display is a 12.1" hitachi i got off ebay for $79. After much searching, I finally gave in and bought a controller from earth tech (www.flat-panel.com) for 260. I bought the naked kit, which included the backlight inverter and appropriate interface cable. Definitely recommended. any other questions can be directed to grant2@home.com Teucer
  • The Cray 3 dissipates 88 kilowatts of energy with the help of flourinert. The ultimate cooling solution [ucar.edu]:
  • I dunno, there was a big fan on that case... Cute idea, but does it run? If it does.

    MAGNETIC OUTPUT!
    and HEAT FROM IT'S MOTOR!

  • Oh heck, I wish I hadn't.

    I'm feeling very, very afraid. :-)
  • we had like a 20 minute discussion on this one night. and we came to the conclusion that the coolest case would be one that was made entirely out of legos........


    Youll miss me when im dead....
  • Have you read this [slashdot.org] slashdot by any chance?
  • So... I have this old, dull gray looking laptop. I was thinking of jazzing it up somehow, but can find precious little information on the net on what I could do to it. The closest thing I found was some Mac website that showed pictures of some Mac laptops from Japan that had been painted. Of course, these sites were in Japanese, so I can;t get much information out of them.

    I suppose I could disassemble and paint the thing... except I don't have access to a well-ventilated place to do painting (apartment life, ya know). I heard, somewhere, that in Japan they have some sort of vinyl covering that you can apply with a heat gun. Has anyone run across something like that here? Seems to me that applying this sort of finish is A) easier and B) faster than painting. I suppose some other sort of covering (wood veneer?) would be cool.

    Anyhow, anyone tried this?

  • Back To Luggable? (Score:3)

    by GeekLife.com ( 84577 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @05:09AM (#868275) Homepage
    Does that Suitcase-system remind anyone else of the Osborne 1 [dg.com]?

    Is it really anything more than a really inconvenient laptop made out of non-miniaturized parts?
    -----

  • The Osborne was good, but what it really reminded me of was the old Tempest-Shielded machines I had to lug around when I was in the service. Six cubic foot case for a 14in monitor...

    Now that was a nightmare.

    The Midnight Watch - All the news that's fit to ridicule:
  • Granite is a terrible heat sink. Heat sinks are designed to conduct heat and take it away from the critical component. Granite make a nice insulator which would hold the heat to the critical component.

  • Re:Luddite Cases (Score:3)

    by gi_wrighty ( 152031 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @05:51AM (#868278) Homepage
    Your right that the granite wouldn't get hot. If it was used as a heatsink (daft idea I know) as the parent poster said then it would be the same as packing loft insulation into your case.

    Now that's a proper pissing contest. Forget about over-clocking, how hot can you get your box?

    "Well Bruce, I've recently added a three bar electric fire to mine, it now runs at a toasty 90 degrees C. Oh and I've had to underclock the processor by 90%."

    Or maybe I've been given some moderators crack by mistake...

    wrighty.

  • Not exactly. Craig McCracken created the Powerpuff Girls, and does extensive art stuff for Dexter's Laboratory. They're both hillarious shows.
  • All that static-collecting plastic with PVC pipes and Lexan plexiglass? I don't think so.

    1) Your 900MHz phone would sound funny if you got a nice 900MHz Athlon/P3 due to all the radiated crap.
    2) Without the conductive metal case, the static charge built up on the plastic while moving your case could easily remove the "magic smoke" from ICs on the motherboard, etc if you were to grab one, then touch the other... Bzzzt!

  • Do a search here on /. There was an article a few months back on a guy who made a suitcase into a PC case that he could take to LAN parties and the like. You can find it at http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/29/016213.shtml [slashdot.org]
  • If you kept your CPU boards in liquid bath it would be pretty cool (pun intended).

    I remember in an industrial tooling shop I was in, they had to make something in a nonconductive bath - which if memory serves me right, was kerosene.....

    which would be pretty good looking, (maybe combine it with that email security from earlier - aerate it and give it a spark......

  • Such an open case can be extremely annoying - for you and your neighbour.

    A computer produces an huge amount of electromagnetical radiation and an open unshielded case can't stop it. You can have quite a lot of fun watching TV close to such a computer.

    But also any other device that produces electromagnectic ration (e.g. a cell phone) may cause trouble.
    I've even heared reports that HDDs were making funny noises when a mobile phone was lying on the top of the case (a proper one)...

    CU,
    Maori

  • I have to give it to that PVC guy and the luggable guy deserves his props, but this guy [rr.com] is on a level all his own. He's got an end table looking deal with a sliding drawer for his components. Real slick.

    This is a case that wouldn't look too out of place at my mother's house. Maybe not not the coolest case, but definitly one of the classier custom cases.

  • Yup, I'm with you. I've been assembling a computer during the past 2 weeks... the power supply fan cannot be turned off during sleep but that's not a very big problem because it's not loud... the new hdd is very quiet, but the fan on the processor is loud. I'll need to rewire my old fan that's really quiet so that it can be plugged in in its place. It's an Athlon though, and those generate more heat than any of the Intel's new processors. But I hope to make my computer run pretty darn quiet.

    Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths

  • One more thing: don't forget Cartoon Network's seven hour PPG marathon Saturday 8/12/00. Check your listings.
  • I have been looking for that company for ages now! I recall one of their products was a LCD display supported by an antique-esque metal (brass?) figurine. Another was an LCD display on the end of an arm attached to a floor lamp. They had really nifty designs, and if anyone knows what happened to them, please let us know!

  • Re:Since they seem to like cooling... (Score:3)

    by scott@b ( 124781 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @05:13AM (#868294)
    Actually while boiling liquid nitrogen removes heat from the LN2 well, it's not so good at cooling what's making the heat. The N2 gas forms an insulating layer around the heat source, greatly reducing the heat transfer. There's several LN2 tricks based on this, such as pouring the LN2 onto your slightly inclined hand where it runs off in a spray of small drops trailing clouds. Our, for the brave, "drinking" some LN2 - the gas generated keeps the liquid away from your mouth if you do it just right.

    The folks doing freezing prep of bio samples run into this. They sometimes use a slush of propane and a little LN2 (-190C); the propane boils high enough (-42C) that it stays liquid when the sample is dumped into it, giving much faster cooling rates. Propane is a poor solvent, nonconductive, and otherwise resonalbel inert, so it would work well unless you got a flame or spark too near. Then the cooling system would sort'a reverse. But that's give you an excuse to do a hardware upgrade.

  • Sure, but the box is massive and has a high specific heat. As long as it isn't up 24/7, the heat from a PC will never appreciably heat the granite..
  • Wood veneer is easy to apply, and can usually be accomplished with a hair dryer.. (Real wood veneer, that is.. The fake stuff suxors)

    Problem is, it tends to be rather pricey..

  • Re:Magnetic Noise from Giant Fan (Score:5)

    by Jose ( 15075 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @06:23AM (#868301) Homepage
    from Jimmy's website:
    Q: Is it Loud?
    A: No. In fact, the Power supplies and Orb are the loudest in the case.

    Q: Electro-Magnetic Interference?
    A: Haven't noticed anything so far. Not even while turning the fan off/on high/low - update 08/01/00 Still haven't had any problems with electromagnetic interference.

    down at the bottom is the FAQ..also there is a bunch more pics on this site: [envador.com]
  • Of course when you mention it on slashdot, you know someone's going to come forward and say that they did it already.

    I did this a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I didn't have enough lego to make the case solid (some gaps) or all one colour. When I left to go to university my parents took it apart. Oh well. I'll finish it someday.

    Other ideas I had were sheet metal, hardwood (wouldn't an oak cdrom drive just look cool?), nerf...

    But lego would definately be the best option. How can you beat ultimate expandibility?
  • I think this is a finger in the eye of all those who claim that geeks are overly left-brained linear thinkers who lack creativity. Wasn't it Voltaire who said that art is not confined to its medium?

    For geeks, the computer case is a ubiquitous unnoticed presence. Turning the everyday mundane into the dramatic was a technique popularized by Warhol (remember the Campbell's Soup Can?). It indicates an artistic maturity unrealized by many who claim to be serious artists. Of course, these so-called serious artists continue to toil with the limited tools of paint and brush. The paint and brush is what makes them feel serious.

    Here we have artistic expression coming from an unexpected outlet. That makes it all the more exciting and effective.

    I think this is proof that geeks are far more artistic and dynamic than most people believe. It's unfortunate that mediums such as source code don't get displayed in public museums. Perhaps they should. Maybe these cases are a step closer to the day when the Linux kernal source is framed and on display in the Louvre.
  • My friend up at school and I were going to paint our cases. If this website I am working on takes off, maybe I'll come up with a really cool case design. A lot of the iMac inspired cases are cool... The G3&4 cases are cool, but not the iMac ones (ICK!). I dislike that one penguin case, looks like a kids toy. Gotta love the iMac fishbowl though.

  • Not the best page by far... (Score:5)

    by tinla ( 120858 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:00AM (#868311) Homepage Journal
    http://www.virtualhideout.net/ [virtualhideout.net] is a good starting point for Case Mod ideas.

    The Cool Case Gallery [virtualhideout.net] has pictures of 161 mods (to date).

    I think we have to give credit to gamers for driving the cool case idea a while ago (like the unreal case [thetechzone.com]) but they've been left behind now by hardware nuts who don't care what runs on the computer, just how fast, how cool and how it looks.

  • i don't think i've had the case on my computer since the day i built it.

    Erian


    -
  • I don't think this realm of activity is extraneous at all. Having a... um... a non-orthodox case can be pretty useful (and a liability/hassle, also). For a couple of years I have had a mb mounted on a pine board. There is a small amount of metal (from old curtain rods) fashioned into a card cage; everything else is screwed or stapled in, including the power supply, drives, speakers, and even a power strip. While aesthetically laughable, it is pretty convenient for adding/removing core components because everything is so accessible. You can also integrate oddball items (e.g. external devices you don't feel like tearing apart and finding the right cables for) without a lot of fuss and clutter. It works fine... if you don't mind dusting every so often. One of the downsides is that it has to be placed somewhere out of the way.

  • Sure these look neat, but most of them will have serious problems complying with FCC regs on electromagnetic interference. Moreover, the EM generated by these things has got to be scary and generally not a Good Thing for one's person. Let's see--cell phones might cause brain cancer. Unshielded cases are generally located under the desk, so that means... I don't think I want to risk getting cancer THERE. :-O

    Hell, I get nervous hanging around in the server room too long, and that stuff is all properly shielded... I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but has anyone thought of this?
  • I was disappointed when i saw the "Entirely PVC" box. I thought it would be some cool Fank Lloyd Wright-looking computer contained in a bunch of PVC pipes of various widths. Keeping this sort of thing cool would be a breeze with a couple of fans. Too bad I'd need a ten-inch pipe to hold my MoBo.
  • OK, so I haven't done all my research recently :P

    I think the better (read: less flamable) way to do is to use forced flow systems. Essentially, put pumps in the tub to circulate the LN2 so that stuff stays cool enough. Of course, this means that everything needs to stay well below boiling point, and so you need refrigeration. But I bet it could be made to work for the duration of the competition:)

    ---

  • There's a company that does this. I saw it on CNN . . .
    Looking at google [google.com], I did a quick search and came up with this [isfnet.ad.jp] press release. The real site is here [isfnet.ad.jp], actually, that's not true, because the "real" site is in Japanese. That is the English version.
    They have notebooks, desktops, etc. in your choice of dead tree flavors.

    As for Legos, I did that, with a 486-66, but I figured, why bother with a standard case design when you have legos? Mine looked vaguely like a mushroom (power supply on bottom, moboard on top).
    Of course, people looked at me funny when I went up to the check-out of Wal-Mart with 2 boxes of 1000 peice sets of lego.

  • Pictures of my PVC Case (Score:4)

    by EnVaDoR ( 220720 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @07:05AM (#868336) Homepage
    Hi Everyone, You can see detailed pics of my PVC II Case at QuakeCon 2000 at:

    http://www.envador.com/Photos/PVCII [envador.com]

    Some Q&A is also at the bottom of that page. Thanks for your comments :)

    I'm looking for a tiny tiny motherboard (preferably by abit or asus) - maybe MicroATX, Flex ATX or NLX but must also have an AGP slot. Any suggestions? I'm designing PVC Jr. and it's going to focus on size this time.

  • Heck, you could go to Hobby Lobby [hobbylobby.com] and pick up some cool stuff to decorate a computer case with.

    They have this stuff the you can paint anything with to make it look like granite. They also have a spray on stone-like finish. I just wish I could remember brand names.

    So, you could build a cool case from scratch, or you could modify an existing one. Personally, I kind of have this idea to make a computer case out of flat stones and PVC that would also be an indoor fountain...

    Well, okay, maybe that's pushing it a little.

  • painting (Score:4)

    by The Queen ( 56621 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:07AM (#868340) Homepage
    if you're talking about a regular putty-colored PC case, let me give you some tips. (I painted one for my then sys-admin a couple years ago.)

    1) Rough up the finish first. Sandpaper, rock tumbler grit, etc. ;-)
    2) Wash it off with water and dry it thoroughly.
    3) Spray paint, fabric paint, whatever you use, it needs to dry completely between coats, especially if you're going to be painting over the same area 2 or 3 times.
    4) When you're done give it a coat of spray sealant.
    5) And for crying out loud, if you paint the front, detatch ALL the buttons and lights first. (Boy what a mess I made...)
    Have fun!

    The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

  • PowerPuff? (Score:5)

    by djweis ( 4792 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:09AM (#868341) Homepage
    I get nervous putting a powerpuff girls sticker on my case *grin*
    In my neighborhood, you'd better be real nervous to be putting powerpuff stickers on anything.
  • This hits a nerve with me, I've often thought of hacking a "non computer" computer case together..

    So what would be the ultimate cool cases , 'coz lets face it, grey or beige boxes are just _so_ dull
    • Wooden box, or hollowed out tree stump
    • Old black and white TV with the innards removed, and monitor substituted. Finished? just close the doors.
    • Hand carved granite case (good heat sink as well)
    • Or just cover your existing case in fur, or feathers, or bamboo, carpet or other ludicrous covering
    Great fun. Anyone wants to start carving I'll have one in pink and black Shap granite please, imagine, a machine made from this [londonuniversal.com]
  • I want an old TI-994/A PEB box. It already has the slots, 2 5 1/4 drive bays (can you use a CD-ROM drive sidewys?) and a cooling fan. ONly downside is that it just weighs a TON, but it would be SOO retro.

    A friend of mine made a case from scratch with transparent plastic. Works nicely, but he's going to paint it a rust color.
  • Though I enjoyed seeing what others did to their computers, I am rather annoyed by the models uniformity.
    I don't mean the look itself but rather the fact that they all seemed to share the same dimensions.
    This would have been cool to see an exagerously flat (carputer = carpet + computer) or small (Liliputter = Liliputt + computer) or huge (roomputter because biuggest than a room, I wouldn't dare) computer box, no ?
    Hope this will give ideas to someone...
    --
  • I haven't seen them for a while, but at one time there was a company selling 'strange and exotic' computer cases. One was a fancy cherry wood case in a dark stain (that you could place components into and pull them out of with ease). Another was an arm-chair/recliner with a built in keyboard (split between the arms) and a LCD monitor that you could swing in front of you when you sat down and pivoted to match whatever level you set the recliner at. I think the components in that one fit in the side of the chair, or the base, or something. I always wished I'd had the money for one of those, but couldn't afford it. Now I can't find them! I hope they didn't go out of business.

  • PVC piping (Score:5)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:21AM (#868359)
    you knew someone was gonna say it

    it's a computer...

    AND a 6 foot electric bong.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

  • Re:Idea for a cooler (pun intended) case (Score:3)

    by Quietust ( 205670 ) on Wednesday August 09, 2000 @04:22AM (#868360) Homepage
    Something similar has already been done here [octools.com], albeit with a rather expensive non-conducting liquid and liquid nitrogen for a heat pump :)


    -- Sig (120 chars) --
    Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.

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