Aopen HX45 doesn't suck enough ...
 

Voilà, the Aopen HX45.
A cheap case that will do the trick without ANY fancy stuff.

I’m housing my backup system in it. This is : it hasn’t any function at all, it just sits there … waiting for another PC to crash. For a long time I was thinking about modding it. I made several plans, but due to other plans it was never worked out.
But now I’m going to this LAN party … I’m a game – n00b, I don’t know which buttons to press, I don’t know the games, … I’m going to make a complete *** of myself … Need something to draw the attention AWAY from my gaming inaptitude … like a modded PC. Here it goes :

Rules :
1. It must be a cheap mod (no expensive components, no expensive tools needed to make the mod)
2. It must be efficient
3. It must not take months to finish, maximum = 2 or 3 days
4. It should be easy (like in : everyone could do it)
5. Once finished, the box should be easy to work in … easy to change components
6. I hate it when cables are hanging around, it should look neat inside.
7. I hate noisy boxes and I will try to avoid it as much as possible
8. I must have front USB ports

whatdoineed ?
 

WHATDOINEED ?

- Plexi : 100x50x0,5 : 2 boards
- Hinges, 2 pcs
- 2 x 120 mm fan + 2 grills
- 2 x 80 mm fan + 2 grills
- 1 fan, 80 or 60mm, but only 15mm thick and silent + grill
- 1 x 60 mm fan + 1 grill
- IDE + Floppy cables (color ?)
- Black spiral wrap
- 2 adaptors 5,25 -> 3,5
- Metal primer
- Plastic primer
- 2 Spray paint cans of bordeaux – red for plexi
- 2 Spray paint cans of bordeaux – red (but slightly different from previous) for caseframe, PSU, CDROM and floppy
- Vernice / Lacquer
- Rubbing compound (wax)
- Sanding paper, very fine
- Power + reset – buttons
- 12V lamp + socket for logo illumination + button
- 1 case handle
- Lock + key
- Fan screws
- Plexi screws (iron screws)
- Protection pads, transparant
- Metal filler (fill up holes)
- Plastic flexible “current” strips (protection of plexi + easy of construction)

I won’t be needing any special tools. A drill, some saws, hammer, screwdriver, file, …

Modifications
 

I will put in several fans :
Fan 1 : 120 mm
Fan 2 : 80 mm in 3.5 inch bay (will be pointed to RAM and CPU)
Fan 3 : 80 mm silent fan
Fan 4 : 60 or 80 mm silent & thin fan (cooling back of CPU / mobo)
Fan 5 : 120 mm
Fan 6 : 60 mm silent (draw air away of AGP card)

I will remove the housing completely. I’ll only keep the frame, paint it … and use plexi to close it up again. I even have to put plexi to the back to attach the back-fans on. May sound dumb but I’ll paint all but one side of the plexi, … the sides of the Aopen are just too ugly to NOT cover them. Besides, I have to cover all the holes and cables … the backplate will be terrorized heavily as I’ll drill/saw holes to hide USB cables and case connectors, furthermore I’ll cut out a big piece of backplate behind te 3.5 rack to make it easier to hide the IDE – cables.
Only annoying thing is the placement of the 5.25 rack, I has to be “pulled back” 26 mm in the direction of the PSU so the CDROM won’ stick out.
One side-panel will be transparent and easy to open using hinges and a lock. That way changing a setup will be easy.
Over fan 3 I’ll place a handle to make transport easy.

I wanted to have all the hardware components in red. I have a red MSI K7T 2 but it’s in my working machine and I don’t want to change it for now. It’s a lousy time to buy something … so I’ll wait for a better moment to complete the case with red components.
For now I’ll fill the case with a MSI K7T Turbo-R, XP1700+, Artic Alumina, copper shim, TR AX7, Pabst 8412NG, 256MB Cas 2 SDRAM, GeForce GTS, Seagate Barracuda IV – 40 GB and a 10/100 NIC ... should be enough to be slaughtered with high fps

looking to be a Noisy case though, too many fans :)

you can have a pre-modded HQ45, complete with 2x 90mm papst fans who blow the hair of your head :-)

;)

Do not underestimate teh power of silicone - silencing :^)

Pabst4412FGL 55CFM 12V 26db (= 120mm)
I have several 80mm Pabst casefans lying around that move around 20 to 30 CFM and are under 30db.
I will only choose a "louder" 80mm for fan2 (blowing on ram & cpu), .. but as it sits in the 3.5 bay i can easily "muffle" the sound.
So i'll have around 80CFM going through the case.

Only problem i cannot solve for the moment is fan4 in the backplate, it must be 15mm thin ... and the only fan i can find is a Sunon 60mm with around 5.000 rpm ... and that will be too loud.

do you really consider it necessary to cool the back of your motherboard?

Back - cooling works ... according to overclockers.com
Had a discussion with Gorgh about that some time ago on shrimpforum.
But ... it's very simple, if i can't find a 15mm thick fan then i won't use it

sunon@lower voltage? default voltage gives about 31dba, and 18cfm

nice thread. continue :-)