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The 840 to 928 Project


oldman

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Sideline: I am puzzled. After seeing that Enigma8750 copied/posted a photo of the modified 928 and a link to a site, I clicked it. It was to a Sheryl Crow song entitled My Favorite Mistake! I wonder what Enigma is trying to say, I guess the answer may remain an enigma!!!???

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Work-in-progress report #17: Adding some door bumpers and drilling some holes. A couple of days ago, it was trash day. I was driving out of my neighborhood and saw a thrown away PC. As I was passing by, slowly, the Muse hit me, I could use a couple of things from that case. So, I stopped and cannibalized the old case. The items I removed, shown in the photo would serve in a practical way. Since my case is basically flat on the sides, I could scratch the 840's "doors" (side panels), specially the windows if they were to run against the wall/furniture when rolling the case. The solution was to install something that will serve as a bumper or spacer (sort of like the car door protectors that they sell in automotive stores).

-In addition, I need to start preparing to route the wiring--meaning, drilling some holes.

-For materials, I will use the parts of that old PC and some rubber/plastic grommets (to protect the wiring when going through holes with possibly sharp edges).

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Work-in-progress report #18: Wiring, touches of color and what to do with left over parts. Here we are on the last stretch. I have routed all cables and managed to preserve a basically unhampered funnel area from the fan grill at the case bottom to the top big fan. Most cables are hidden; a few are still visible but we will see what we can do about these without making them cumbersome to remove later on. Remember, my goal includes practicality.

-As you know, once you setup you PC, you end up with leftover parts from the MoBo, graphic cards, etc boxes. You even end up with leftover parts from your case. What I have done with these is store them inside the case itself (I like to keep related things together so, if one thing gets lost, everything gets lost!). If you have followed up on these reports, you remember that I have used up some 5.25" bays only partially insofar depth is concerned. There is free space behind the flip-out turbo control panel that can serve as storage area. I put the extra stuff there. That area of the 5.25" bay cage is accessible from the rear of the cage. To prevent the stuff I stick in there from falling all over the inside of the PC, that rear section of the 5.25" cage needs to be covered. Here is where I put to good use most of the bay covers removed to install dvd, etc.

-My wife said that grey and black are not "colors" (who am I to argue with her?) and that I should add a touch of color to the inside of the case. Since the graphic cards have red, I went for red and because I accepted my wife's opinion, she sort of gracefully provided the red material.

-For material, we will be using a red food cutting mat from my wife's kitchen and a perforated bay cover from another trashed computer case that I saw when driving out of my neighborhood.

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Work-in-progress report #19a: More wiring hiding. As indicated before some cables were still visible (the video cards wiring, the MoBo power cable, etc.). We are going to address that now and, to accomplish hiding the wiring, we will need to create some parts from scratch. Basically, I am doing some cover plates.

For material, we will keep on using the left-over portion of the aluminum kick plate used for doors. Remember, my goal calls for as little waste as possible as well as using easy to find materials.

Note: At one point, I did not consider installing a fan at the bottom of the case; however, to keep the components cool once I covered the power connector and others cables, I added that fan.

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Back from work.

Work-in-progress report #19b: More wiring hiding. Picking up where we left in the previous report. We have created the part that will cover the graphic cards cables. Let's now do another to cover the power cables and miscellaneous cables nearby.

-As stated before, we are using a door's aluminum kick plate material. After this, there isn't much left of those plates.

Note: I just edited this post to include a "before" photo.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Final report: The project has come to an end! Not for lack of ideas but because it has reached my self-imposed limits. It was supposed to be something that someone with limited skills, tools, budget and time could do. It had to improve on the original in looks and function (of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder). We incorporated solid lifting handles, added wheels for mobility, repositioned the PSU air filter, added the flexibility of ATX/ATB conversion, improved ventilation and cable routing, added windows, incorporated storage area for keyboard and mouse, added built-in speakers, added a lifting top panel and did some minor aesthetic details or touches to the case. While attempting to follow the 928 theme, everything was done with practicality in mind.

-My goal was to spent no more than 40 hrs on the project including the time to get the necessary materials, take photos and post the work-in-progress reports (as you could see, I had my problems with the postings and my picture taking abilities have not improved much). Moneywise, in addition to the cost of the case and components (which you can see are solid performers but are far from being latest generation), I set a $150 limit in materials and accessories of which the luxury was the fan/temp controller because it looked so much like an automobile gauge.

- It was a fun project to do, but it was hard to get the time to do it because, in addition to the little free time I have, last month I had to deal with the unexpected: fixing the refrigerator, finding and fixing a short in the house wiring, fixing a problem with the house AC and, last but not least, fixing my daughter’s old Ford Focus transmission!

-One thing I deeply regret is not having the time to see the work of all competitors. Those I have seen are awesome, be it that they did it all by themselves or not. This brings me to a comment I had posted under the Cooler Master 2012 Case & Cooler Mod Contest Begins NOW!!! forum which I am re-posting here for Cooler Master:

Re: Cooler Master 2012 Case & Cooler Mod Contest Begins NOW!!!

by oldman on Sun Sep 30, 2012 11:57 am

-Last night (9-29-12), after adding some stuff to my work-in-progress case mod, I saw this thread with over 3000 hits and thought,†WOW, that must be quite a project â€. I went in and realized that this was some sort of forum for people, I guess mostly competitors, to air doubts/critiques/comments. The issue at hand that day, as I understood it to be, was the potential conflict with the rules and the propriety of competitors having the work done on their mods rather than doing it themselves and/or their being sponsored, which presumably entails having above average support in resources (money/advice/tooling?). “What should I be expecting?†Some of you may cynically say. Yes, I lived long enough to have seen how the original soap box derby competition was corrupted to the point where the only thing that some kids do is to drive it and tighten a screw so the rules are complied with and to have seen the rules grow lax, too. I have had children so -I also know that when their school projects competed, they were competing against a lot of projects mostly done by the kids’ parents. Anyway, after giving it some thought, I felt that the issue deserved comment.

-As I stated under my project, I am a newbie at this but, I am probably older than the majority of the competitors. I entered this competition thinking that I would pit my skills against others. I saw some of the work being done and was awed by it. Still, I went ahead even though I knew that, in what I thought to be a “mano-a-mano†contest, I had no chance of winning but, the way I saw it, it would help stimulate my mind and manual dexterity and give me some measure of pride in that I’d done a decent job in what I had set to accomplish.

-On one hand, I think about a sculpture competition where some are themselves going at it with a hammer and chisel while other competitors are delegating the sculpting of their “masterpiece†to others. Is that fair? And let’s complicate the issue, in this modern age there may be a computer driven machine that would sculpt based on a design. Does it make a difference if the competitor owns the machine, in which case he is technically doing the work him/herself?

-On the other hand, what if you come up with a fantastic design, a design that could win, but cannot built it yourself because of physical disability and/or a complete lack of manual/mechanical talent and/or even laziness? Should your concept not be able to compete?

-While trying to avoid joining the cynical crowd, I do not want to miss seeing the work being done by those who “contract outâ€. Really, some of that work is just amazing. One thing that occurs to me to address the fairness, moral and ethical conflict is that different subdivisions be created for each CM category. One subdivision would be for the DIY that does the design, cutting, drilling, painting, etc. him/herself; the other would be for those who do the design and have part of the work or all of the work done by others. Just saying. . .

Having said all that, here are some pictures of the finished project and to those who followed my project, and particularly those who offered comments, thank you!

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Some final words: I had thought that no further entries could be made after the 12-7-12 deadline. Since I have now found out that I can, I wish to take the opportunity to thank those who have voted for my project at the CM Facebook poll link. I don't do Facebook, so I expected no votes and to my surprise, some of you have given me a vote. Thank you again and may the new year bring you and yours the best!

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