Project Log update 2

Project: Wife's Despair

Created by: Steelyglint
Country: Ireland
Worklog

Steelyglint is a big fan of the CMStacker cases, which we all know aren't exactly the smallest machines in the world. When his wife remarked sarcastically 'Couldn't you buy a bigger case?', an idea occurred to him - why not?

As Steely himself puts it, "A challenge was made! A few phone calls and posts on a 'Wanted' forum and I was the proud owner of an empty Dell 4100 server case... for free!" Double-wide server case mods are becoming more and more popular - we covered the Guild Wars case mod a few weeks back, and that made good use of the amount of room inside these cases. The Dell seems pretty similar - loads of room for redundant PSUs, hard drives galore - and plenty of dirty and grime to get cleaning.

What's the plan of attack? Well, to rip it apart and get rid of all the old stuff, obviously - leaving barely the frame left to rebuild from the ground up. Steelyglint tells us, "My thoughts are to pretty much strip out the whole interior so as to flip the mainboard to the opposite side (and upside down). It will be watercooled with a triple 120mm radiator in the front with a pair of visible tube-type resevoirs in the front panel. The rad, pump and PSU will be in the left side section while the rest of the gear goes in the right side. This will effectively separate the heat from the rad from the mainboard."

However, heed his warning: "Lots more cutting and the whole rear of the case is liberated. My ears are still ringing from the noise of the jigsaw. I will wear ear defenders next time." Always wear proper modding gear!

The next stage is to fabricate an ATX backplate to allow the mounting of a standard motherboard, rather than proprietary server stuff. A tray was pinched from another case, and a sheet of metal snipped into shape and used for the rest of the back.

With all the room to spare, the obvious choice to fill in is watercooling. Using dual cylinder radiators and a pump mounted to the front, the mod is now clearly beginning to take shape. "I want to mount the res tubes so they are just outside of the front of the case... will look sweet with some UV dye and a cold cathode or two."

No mod would be complete without a window, and here you can see a window shape marked out and then set about with a jigsaw.

There are some dents and scratches in the front, so a bit of filler is needed to smooth over the whole thing before painting. Much of the work is taking place in Steely's kitchen: "I think perhaps I should clean up the kitchen before my wife returns.... in about 15 minutes!"

There's a lot more work already done and plenty more to come too - check out the worklog for some cool painting and wiring, as well as lots more detail on the watercooling. This is one to keep an eye on!