Ghetto fabulous Mods

[halcyonforever]

Ok, so this is inspired by some of my own issues and instant solutions but the idea is post your Ghetto fabulous mods. I'll give some examples of my own.

The 310mm Case fan.
My computer was over-heating during WoW raids and shutting off. I took the case apart, removed a case window and mounted a oscilating floor fan (with the base removed) directly over the CPU. I ended up burning out several of the internal fans due to the increased air pressure on their blades, but was able to keep the PC comfortably cool.

Phase change conductive cooling:
Overheating laptop had a metal plate on the bottom that conducted heat from the cpu. After having my leg burt repeatedly by the panel (hot enough it burned the paint off of the case) I began operating the laptop ontop of several ice-packs. The heat would be conducted right into the icepack which melted, and was replaced with a fresh ice pack every hour or so.

[armadilloben]

i love the ideas man but shoulndt this relle be in the your mods section?
but also when you move it,

[Airbozo]

I'll have to post up some pics later, but my recent mod was a drive holder made from simpson ties...

[FuzzyPlushroom]

I've hung a 24v 172mm fan (at 12v) from the 5.25" bay cage (two bolts, two nuts). That was a good time.

I've punched side-panel holes with an awl and hammer (trace out an 80mm circle, hammer the awl through every 1/4 inch around the perimeter, twist it back and forth until the steel gives way... leaves a lovely jagged edge) as well... oh, man.

And my Mac-In-The-Box - a Power Macintosh 7600 in a cardboard box, with the motherboard held in with a screw and nut (with a spacer so it didn't short anything out), a 5.25" cage from an old HP, and a 3.5" HDD cage held inside of the 5.25" cage with baling wire... The 5.25" bays and the PSU were held in entirely with packing tape, the clear stuff.

I've melted front-panel fan holes (and removed the Sleep button on my old Logitech keyboard) with a wood burner... not the safest thing to do without a respirator; at the very least, you need a well-ventilated area and a fan to blow the smoke away. This particular trick isn't one I'd recommend. No, seriously, don't. Thank you. (It worked, though; once the hole was filed down it was quite nice.)

Then, of course, there's my PCI fan quick-mod...

I think that's most of the significant "ghetto" stuff I've done so far, unless you count my habit of stripping fan wires with my teeth and twisting them together, then wrapping the exposed wire with electrical (or duct) tape... I'll report back if I think of anything else.

(EDIT: On the subject of "smoke that makes you feel funny", this is Post #420.)

[BerticusPryme]

hahaha these are great. The worst I have every done was I had a antec lanboy case. cood case. bad airflow. it kept overheating and dying so I did something similar with the oscilating fan but I took it a step further and took off both side panels and used bungee cords to hold two box fans on each side of the case. ran super smootha dn got a athlon xp 2600 oced up to a athlon xp 3k. it was cool and all shy of the loud whirring racket it produced and the random eating of paper and things left unattended on the deck.

Another time we ran outta screws or lost them one so the pws was held in with ducttape.

and my favorite was a old compaq case. it only had room for 2 hdds in it btu thei giant gap in the bottom. so we took a peice of carboard bent it into a shape around 2 more hdds that were going in there and then attached it to the bottom of the hdd cage with the aluminum duct work tape. if I can find anymore I will let you guys know.

[halcyonforever]

I didn't put it in the mod forum because it was more conversation that show-case or how to. It just struck me as general banter.

I'll see if I can make some picks. The mods I mentioned have since been dismantled but the parts are all lying around. (eg the laptop is now just a large paperweight but I can rig it back up)