Project : XcOM

[XcOM]

Project: XcOM
Ranamed project: An Old Project
By XcOM

And i do mean old, I have ordered parts, should be here in a few days, all of this is with thanks to Crazy B, which without his generosity would not be possible. So a big thanks to you mate.

But onto my big plan, I have a laptop, which doesn't really lack in the CPU power of things, it runs everything I want it to, but the GPU on the other hand leaves somewhat to be desired! being an integrated it can't even play 'Need for Speed Underground' THAT'S THE FIRST ONE!

So I managed to score a CPU, PSU and memory from the local dump, I know its only an AMD K7 2600+ but it was free, Crazy kindly sent me a motherboard which he bought with his own money, the board is fine, the CPU is fine, but the cooling system can't cope, its a bit old and keeps giving up the ghost, the fan is making a funny noise and it keeps over heating,

My plan is to turn this into a gaming machine, nothing to compete with the likes of meny on here that can play crisis at 5000000000x3000000000 everything set to max and get 4000000FPS, but something that can play upto a few years old games,

Now onto the parts I have ordered:

I got one of these:

One of these:

One of these:

One of these:

Last but not least, one of these:

Now, can you guess what I'm going to do, come on, it shouldn't be that hard! Crazy B you already know.

[SXRguyinMA]

I know exactly what you're going to do lol

[TheGreatSatan]

And I don't

[FuzzyPlushroom]

If it can compete with the 120mm 115v air-hockey-table fan I had hanging off a 70mm copper 'sink on my socket-A Sempron 2800+ a couple years ago, I'll be very, very pleased.

[Zephik]

Increase the airflow from your fan without buying a new fan?

[XcOM]

well i treated myself to one of these yesterday:

An Ati Radeon 3650 AGP Pro, i know its agp, and its an ati-3650, but, it is the saffire pro varient, which means its an exact copy of the pci-e varient, so it runs at the same speeds, unlike other agp versions which are clocked slower due to rubbish about the agp bus not being able to handle the data.

I can say i can run bioshock, NFS carbon, Flat out 2 all flawlessly at 1280x1024 all set to medium or better!

More later

[Datech]

Still not sure what is happening here, but I like the ambition. BTW, I still owe you two sixers of lager, and considering it's kinda hard to deliver alcohol internationally you can gladly trade it in for any other part you may need. Send me a PM and I'll hook you up.

[Crazy Buddhist]

Yup .. I know what yr doing .... and the generosity (as you know) was in return for that of your own ...

+rep for where this thing is going now

[XcOM]

well i have the machine running nice now, with a stripped down windows xp, with everything install, AV, steam, and firefox open, 22 processes using 153mb ram!

i do plan on uploading pics but haven't gotten round to plugging my phone in yet, but that aside i am really pleased with this machine, the fact it has hardware about 8 years old and its running recent games without a flaw.

I do have a plan, which crazy you know about, i have modified it slightly it incorperate your suggestions, Expect plans later tonight,

[XcOM]

ok, basic plan is as follows, i am wanting your comments and ideas to help me make this the best mod i have ever done.

ok, An Old Project is an idea that came to me through finding parts and others being generious and giving me parts, i also spent a little money on it buying some stuff (Namly the ati 3650Pro),

The idea is to show that old hardware can still be used in todays day and age, sofar i think it is working perfectly, i admit that a quad core super dooper machine with a gtx295 will kick this machines ass, but im not trying to take them on.

The general idea for this machine came about when i was thinking how can i replace all the drive bays with something, they are all missing barr one, the rest are filled with one black drive (Which works), one black drive which dosen't work, and an old white drive which dosen't work and dosen't have a front fasia, and it just came to me, why not fill the drive bays in with plexi, like you did datch? then i thought, what about the black drive, it would look odd, so STEALTH IT!

I am also thinking of heat, at the moment the temps are acceptable but i do want them just a little lower, the CPU is running at 51 under load (AMD Athlon XP 2800+) and the gpu is at about 44 under load.

Since i will have to add a blow hole this means relocating the power button to make space, thats no problem, i can use the old floppy bay thats not in use.

I'm not one for blow holes, in some ways they do work, there functional, but i've never been a big fan of them, then crazyB gave me an idea, stealth that also, his Deskpooter has a similar concept, except i will hide mine behind a piece of plexi, SiSkyline then said why not make it square to make the stealth look sleeker.

Onto the side panel:

I fancied cutting my name "XcOM" out of the side panel and then fitting a window, as for the letter "O" i will keep the cut out and file it down a but, add trim to everything and fit it back onto the plexi as to make the effect of the letter O rather than a big circle.

The entire case will be black, maybe matt, and the plextfront to be gloss opaque white and the side plexi clear, maybe even frosted with LED's, not decided yet.

Here is a quick pic i made in GIMP to show you what i mean:

Any and all comments welcome, suggestions welcomed even more,
I know this is going to be a slow project but with my new job i don't get alot of time off, but this will be competed in a few months, i need to buy/borrow some tools to do this, and the help of you guys and your expertese will be the best tool i can use.

XcOM