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Hardware

The Ultimate PC Case - Continued 193

Posted by Hemos from the always-searching dept.
chrisd writes " While surfing, I found a link to the PCMODS site which sells all kinds of cool stuff to trick out your PC. I'm talking big plexiglass windows. Neon! Aluminum cases! Lights! I see a link to thinkgeek but I guess TG doesn't carry thier stuff yet. Way cool though. But, a company called Plycon has their stuff and other cool stuff. So go accessorize that case cowboy!" Ant also sent in a story on the creation of a portable desktop - inside of an aluminum briefcase. Supercool as well.
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The Ultimate PC Case - Continued More

The Ultimate PC Case - Continued

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  • at our last lan party one of my buddies brought his pimped out case. He spent the last 3 months working on it. Neon lights, 800 fans, plexiglass window with goldfish inside, his own honda generator, etc etc. It looked really cool though. gag..i haven't gotten my electric bill yet ;) i'll stick with stickers on mine... go bush quayle 92! ;) ~V
  • "Quarter of an hour?" I can recompile 2.2.* and rebuild my object files while reheating my coffee. I guess that makes me a technology "have?" :-)

    With my current primary PC, I settled for a compromise between looks and functionality and got an Antec SOHO server case. It has two 80mm fan mounts at the anterior, two 80mm fan mounts at the posterior, a detachable, locking side panel, and a neat sliding "drive rail" system for the 5.25" bays. It's also very roomy. At $80 before shipping, it wasn't cheap, but it was definitely worth it.

    While I know it's irrational, I just love cool looking case. My next PC will likely live in a Yeong Yang YY-8201 [yeongyang.com] (miniNLX form factor) if I can find a decent mainboard for it.

    All generalizations are false.

  • Re:Style over substance? (Score:3)

    by Christopher Bibbs ( 14 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:30AM (#507070) Homepage Journal
    Style over substance list:
    • Success of General Motors over Ford Motor Company.
    • Success of Nokia 5100 series of cell phones
    • iAnything.
    • The entire fashion industry.
    • Andy Warhol
    • Boy/Girl bands
    • Wired magazine
    I could go on, but I think its clear that consumers prefer style to substance.
  • Has anyone made much progress with functional, practical PC mods, like how to keep the darn things quiet? Right now, I'm working in a room with about 4 PC's around me, and can barely hear myself think due to all the fan noise (no, I can't replace them with imacs). Here's the issues that I'm aware of:

    - Power supply fan. Probably the biggest culprit. I understand that there are several manufacturers of quiet PSU's, and that 30dB is the target for a quiet PC. Is there such a thing as a PSU whose fan only turns on when necessary (at least turn off in sleep/suspend mode)?
    - Other fans. Faster CPU's and video cards require better airflow, which require more/bigger fans, which increase noise. How do you get better airflow with less noise?
    - Hard drives. Faster RPM hard drives create tons of noise, especially when it causes case vibration. I've heard of hard drive enclosures (Silent Drive?), but I don't think they work with 7200+RPM drives (too much heat)
    - Case design. Does a bigger, heavier (metal vs. plastic?) case reduce noise? What about vibration?

    Can anyone offer any tips here?

  • Front stuff (Score:3)

    by dago ( 25724 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:05AM (#507072)
    What I'd like especially for my PC would be the stuff that you put in your bays. Hopefully, I've got 4 free so, I'll be able to put stuff like
    • Sound : FrontX [frontx.com], newQ [bigskypub.com], SoundBlaster Live Platinum (depending on my money), the newQ looks very cool
    • Fanbus [fanbus.com] just to switch on/off internal fans
    • LCD : a big matrix orbital graphic LCD screen [matrix-orbital.com]

    Eventullay a numeric keypad sticking on it to do like a house entrance / car alarm (very 'jacky').

    Some of this mods are functionnal btw.

  • If you want something that is stylish AND functional a rack case is the only way to go.

    There are several inexpensive 4 space rackmount computer cases out there that look incredibly cool (and have shockmount drive bays) add a nice QUIET 300w power supply, an skb roto-rack and an extra fan in the back and you're 10x more professional protected and portable.

  • Wow, I didn't even know they made PC cases out of plastic.
  • I own 2 custom-built PCs using Colorcase's Yuri case. This "100% aluminum" and plastic case is fabulous. No screws needed to open it up. No sharp corners inside. Looks cool, runs cool with Athlon 900MHz and Enermax dual-fan power supply. Runs very quiet. I love it.
  • wouldn't chopping a huge chunk of metal from the side of the case and replacing it with glass leave a gap for electronic emissions?

    Now if only Scotty would time warp back here and give us that damned recipe for Transparent Aluminum
    8-)
  • Let's not be daft. The point to take is "...treat the computer like a closed container such as a briefcase or file cabinet." It does not matter whether the computer is physically clear, unless you hid something illegal inside the machine's case, in which case you'd be an idiot fuly deserving of arrest. It means they can't legally access the data stored in the system unless they could also legally access the contents of your (opaque) filing cabinet (say, via a search warrant). Having a window in your case doesn't release law enforcement agents from the laws of legal search and seizure.

    Virg

  • Re:Style over substance? (Score:4)

    by JWhitlock ( 201845 ) <John-Whitlock&ieee,org> on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:09AM (#507078)
    Well, I'm not seeing many defending style, so I will. A disclaimer though - when I spend my computing dollars, I'll get a larger monitor, faster processor, and more memory before any stylistic considerations (and often, style doesn't make it onto the list).

    The argument "Style over substance" is valid when marketing and design is used to make a sub-standard product look better simply by improving it's physical appearance. I cringe when relatives buy a poor performing PC, simply because it looked sexier than the alternatives.

    But you don't have to sacrifice style for performance. The performance of a PC is not inversely proportional to how good it looks. Some of you have probably seen some pretty sexy looking heavy metal, and some of the highest performing notebooks also look pretty sharp.

    We've all been duped by experience to trust that ugly=value. That's from the days when the big domestic guys were making pretty and expensive boxes, while the overseas guys were making ugly and cheap boxes. If you had tech skill, you passed on the pretty hand-holding models and went straight for the foreign boxes, with questionable configurations and lots of driver disks.

    We no longer live in those times. You can buy an excellent PC over the Internet, that's fully functional. If you want to build one yourself, you can do that, but often the savings isn't worth the time (the people that know how to do it are worth quite a bit per hour).

    So, why are PC's still ugly? Because we still buy them ugly, 'cause we think ugly=value=power. That's a larger factor than other considerations, especially since a little design may even help with cooling problems.

    I much prefer my 1930's house with ivy and a little yard to a warehouse with a raised floor for easy cable access. I prefer my hardwood floors to 1/16 inch, easy to vacuum carpet. If prefer my home office, with a view of my yard and my dogs, to my cubicle at work (even though the cubicle is nice as cubicles go). I prefer my slashdot posts with nice formatting, well-thought out ideas, and most of the grammar and spelling checked to three-second post and links to naughty cx domains.

    Why don't these ascetic tastes spill over into the PC domain? Mostly because the people that make them have bought into the style vs. substance war, and you can either buy an ugly but powerful system, or a pretty but brain-dead system. Well, you can have it both ways. To think otherwise is to still live in a world where people can be either intelligent but unattractive, or beautiful but dumb. Well, I have a little more hope for the world.

    I'm slowly becoming a style convert, and my wife has helped a lot. It's not that expensive anymore, and it's becoming cheaper every day. You can still be a geek, too. Just run the wire through the walls rather than over the floors, and get some help when shopping for clothes.

    Check out an organization that's trying to bring some design into our lives. They had a contest to design a better power meter [manufacturingcenter.com], with some interesting results. (If anyone can find the slashdot article that first linked it, please tell me).
  • http://www.designcomp.com [designcomp.com] they make completely clear acrylic cases. They're a tad on the expensive side, but damn cool.

    Also, check out this galary [virtualhideout.net] of case mods to look at, I've got some very cool ideas from this site. Check out the last one on the main page.

    "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

  • And anyways, the PC case is just a pale imitation of the new mac case. Making it translucent and fruity isn't enough, there's something special about the imacs, g4s, and ibooks. Get a clue!

    But yeah, what's next? Vanity plates w/ chase lights around them, blacklight ground effects, and silkscreened gothic-font 'h4x0r' across the side?

  • Look at this site [riceboypage.com] and you can see how bad this addiction can really become

    You don't know shit about life. Go to www.thejackytouch.com [thejackytouch.com] to see real bad taste (beware, even if you can stand goatsecx you may need a barf bag before clicking)

    For the non-french readers, click the 4th link on the left ("Jacky Du Mois"), then browse the entries by month. Can't give a deep pointer, the thing uses frames.

    Cheers,

    --fred

  • Interesting car. Just one question though, do they give you the rest of it when you make your last payment?
  • like there needs to be any more proof.

    Proof or not, I was responding to the comment "it doesn't appear to be on ThinkGeek" with a statement of fact.

    I couldn't care less about /.'s, or anyone's advertising motives... thanks to Junkbuster [waldherr.org].

  • That's not a car! That's a go-cart with body panels. Yuck!
  • How is this off topic and a guy 15 comments down is 4( FUNNY )?

    Even better than that, it was modded to troll first! Howzat then? Me, the 13th Duke of Glasgow, in an internet chatroom, with my Karma?

  • That's because these mods are about *customized* cases that are used to differentiate your PC from anyone else's. Imacs are all identictal (except in fruity color), and are used as a symbol of membership in the Cult of Jobs.

    BTW, case mods and colored PC's have existed *long* before the imac came out.

  • I share your sentiments. I wish I could get a G4 that runs NT5.

    All generalizations are false.

  • Slashdot could and should automatically mirror the page that the link points it, if not every page on click away as well.
    The editors wouldn't have to do any more work than they would now, the submission script could easily look through the post for links, and have them downloaded to a slashdot server, and change the link to point to it.

    Once the post is off the front page, the cached pages could be deleted, and the links changed back to the actual links.
  • for electronic emissions? I thought the idea was to create a faraday cage to restrict this

    Faraday cages only protect what's inside them from outside radiation. They don't stop radiation from inside them going out... :)

  • pcMods.com was started with one thing in mind: "The Cool Factor."

    This is exactly what I worry about at night: Does my computer look "cool" enough? Nevermind that it lacks RAM and urgently needs a current generation CPU, the coolness of looking at it is far more important. Or at least that's what the good ppl at pcmods.com seem to think. Personally I couldn't care less how my machines look. A computer case should be stable and absorb noise (if possible). Any form of electrical illumination inside the case is just an unnecessary heat source. These cases might be well suited for desktops of executives but not for the typical geek user.

    But then: Maybe I underestimate the importance of being cool. This might be a good subject for a Slashdot Poll: What do you look for in a new computer case? ... I would have to go for CowboyNeal.

  • Sgi workstations (eg 330's) have nice cases, Hard drive bays are mounted horizontally to the cdrom for easy access for example. and unlike Mac hardware, isn't Proprietary.
  • if you're in the uk and don't want to wait for/risk international shipping, you can get case mod kits (plexi-glass/flourescent lights) from www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk [theoverclo...tore.co.uk].

  • I think you are talking about the SuperMicro SC750-A [supermicro.com] case. That's what I have, and it's not very fancy but very very nice. It's got four drive bay cooler fans, two fan mounts in front, one fan mount directly over the CPU, one fan mount above the power supply, the traditional screw-in for a fan behind the CPU, and a crapload of drive bays.

    The only thing is, most of the fans you have to buy seperately.

  • Not much. Plenty of PC's these days coming out with plastic cases instead of metal.
  • I would reply to this, but I have to go take a ride in my superstrech SUV limo...

  • ...and unlike Mac hardware, isn't Proprietary

    Huh?.. How is SCSI or EIDE proprietary? I've had half a dozen PMacs over the last few years and not one of them required a proprietary HDD.. Now, Apple may not supply drivers with their hard disk tools for every drive out there, but all you need to do is grab a copy of FWB Toolkit (the personal edition ships for free with drives from a number of vendors) and you're golden..

    So if we're not talking about the HDD, you must be talking about the 72 pin SIMMS, or the 168 pin DIMMS, and more recently PC100 or 133 SDRAM.. Nope, wait those aren't ay different than the RAM shipped for PCs.. Maybe it's the processor.. Who cares, the standard MacOS supports that, and so do netBSD, AUX, mkLinux, LinuxPPC, etc..

  • to all you people who are bad mouthing and talking crap about people who mod their case, bugger off. aren't you the same people who "scream from the mountain tops" to think differently, to go your own way, to be an INDIVIDUAL? it's pathetic when people like you start talking crap about others, and then turn around and cry for freedom of expression when the roles are reversed.

    I love people that think it's always THE SAME PEOPLE saying DIFFERENT THINGS on slashdot.

    You do realize there are more than 12 people reading slashdot, right?
  • was one that a local bbs was run in back in the 80s. It was a Capt'n Crunch cereal box with an 8086 running Citadel 86. :)
  • er.. Not fulltower. Mid-Tower ..

    Maybe I should proof my posts next time!

    ---

  • Isn't one of the primary reasons to put your computer in a case because it contains the electromagnetic radiation generated by the computer? Wouldn't putting a window in your case partially defeat this purpose?

    Granted, I've never witnessed any adverse effects from this and I've run computers without cases for years but at the same time I know that it probably makes a difference in some situations.

  • If one person or a a hundred million people read slashdot, the argument is still valid. these are the smae people that were bithcing about it last time this topic came up, and these are the same people who want freedom of expresiion.
  • I believe that case mods and other aesthetic features are simply the answer to the ugly beige case that totally disrupts a room's style. PC's have become so friggin' mainstream that they just can't be left in the office anymore. They've become total entertainment centers, and entertainment is something best suited for the living room. Now think about how that ugly soulless beige case clashes with your shiny black leather couch and just stands out as an intruder in the house of style. VCR's and stereo decks usually have their own sleek little style, why not do to same with our PC's ?
  • The SuperMicro SC-760A is the best case I've seen yet. It has a redundant cooling 300w (or 400w) power supply (2 fans), 6 exposed full height bays 1 hidden full height 1 exposed half height and 2 hidden half height. There are mounts for four regular fans alongside the full size drive bays, and there are external vents next to these fans. There are 3 intake fan mounts up front. There is a large fan that gets mounted directly over the processor and a large exhaust fan above the power supply in the upper-back corner of the case. I had a few problems with vibration but they were easily cured by taping some of the "no-slip" material at a few metal-to-metal contact points... the tape is not visible. The case now has no vibration and has EIGHT FANS.

    http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc750. ht m

    They cost about 150 off pricewatch.


    ---
  • I've never seen cases made from nice furniture wood. I'de really love to have a walnut case or maybe an ebony case.


    blessings,

  • There are plugins for Winamp [winamp.com] that will flash your keyboard lights in time with the music for nothing.
  • Did anyone else flash on Frinks "Visible Computer" from the Simpson's?

    "Oh, no, the hard drive is crashing at an ALARMING speed!"

    --
  • I am guessing that it was a SuperMicro SC760A case. I have one & I must admit that it is very well built. Here is the link:

    http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/Chassis/sc760A .h tm?
  • Hehe, I've already got a Lian-Li PC-60 (the all aluminum case). It kicks ass. :)
  • Well, according to Poptronics Magazine (July 2000, page 29), which the cover story is how to build a Tesla Coil, a Faraday Cage is very strongly suggested so that the plentifull EM energy does not interfere with objects around the coil. Also, the Cages have long been a staple of any conspiracy theorist trying to prevent people from "Tempesting" them.

    That said, it seem that they keep stuff either inside or outside.

  • Style over substance? (Score:4)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @03:59AM (#507110)

    Maybe I'm just old-fashioned about my computers, but am I the only one who thinks that it's not what's on the outside that counts, but what's on the inside? Who honestly cares what your machine looks like as long as it can compile the latest Linux kernel in less than a quarter of an hour?

    I mean, you could spend the cash some of these cases cost on far more important things like more memory, a new hard drive or even a graphics card if you're not into so much serious stuff. But trying to turn your PC into some shrine to aesthetics is just silly.

    So much for geeks being some of the last people to appreciate substance over style. What's next, "How Flash can liven up your website!"?

  • Yeah, I was hoping someone had some insight into how Apple did it. Maybe they just have metal shielding around the boards, but I didn't think so.

  • If you count all of the places that sell colored/modded PC cases, there's at least a hundred varieties available. This means that if you buy one, there's almost no chance that you'll ever meet someone with the same case as yours (esp. since most folks just have plain, store-bought PC's anyways).

    In the imac world, there's only a few colors available (bondi blue is the most common), so nobody really ends up with a unique case.

  • Here [multimania.com]

    Also, if you're into flashing lights, there's a similar thing for screensavers, which you can download here [voxelsoft.com].
  • It does, but with the fans you really need to grommet mount them. Use thick O-rings on the screws where they come in contact with the case (i.e. not the side the fan is on) to buffer the fan's vibration from the case. A lot of the noise is from the fan(s) vibrating the case.
  • French site about case tuning: JackyPC [jackypc.free.fr].
  • but how on Earth do we keep our rooms from becoming toasty ovens? I've only got 7 PCs running in here and its a toasty 78F degrees. It's the middle of winter and I need to keep my window open. I need peltier coolers for my walls.
  • Maybe if I put my old computer in a 133 case nobody will notice how much it sucks

  • Faraday cages only protect what's inside them from outside radiation. They don't stop radiation from inside them going out...

    Really? Why? I don't understand why there should be a difference. Care to enlighten me?
  • Sure!
    Electrical charge gathers on the outside of a conductor. I can't remember the exact details (physics 1 is a very blurry memory!) but this means that you cannot induce a current on a conductor inside a hollow conductor (essentially what a faraday cage is) by means of a moving charge outside the conductor.
    A moving charge inside a hollow conductor can cause a moving charge on the surface of the conductor, however, which again can induce currents on conductors outside the hollow conductor.
    Easy peasy (i think ;) )
  • I don't know if I'd want something that can retain a static charge anywhere near my PC hardware.
  • Overclocking isn't all that hard, 1 GHz can be bought off the shelf for a low price, its technical superiority is someone else's. The only cooling system _I_ know about that actually takes real knowledge to build is the Kryotech type. To build one of those you need to know refrigeration and how build the entire cycle. Putting more fans in a case isn't hard. Even the trick liquid cooling systems only require basic metal fabrication skills and bravery to risk your computer.

    Case design is still a valid part of making the computer sell and look good in a home. Remember when companies only sold varying shades of gray? Lots of imagination there.

    IBM tried to sell an all-black PC but that didn't catch on.

    I am concerned about the excess amount of fossil fuel usage age considering that many Apple cases are layer of plastic over a layer of metal. Nice one. I like the graphite G4 towers, so it's not totally wasted, but it is using a lot more material than needed just to satisfy silly aesthetic preferences.

  • Fully Translucent Cases (Score:3)

    by DataGrok ( 81077 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @08:09AM (#507131) Homepage

    Since last I saw them mentioned on Slashdot, ColorCases [colorcases.com] has added some fully translucent all-plastic cases [colorcases.com].

    • $99 "Millennium" - clearish and blueish
    • $99 "Matrix" - Yellowish

    They also have some other new designs, for example the $99 shiny "USB Stainless Blue."

    But please, somebody tell them that their new site design blows.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Cool! (Score:2)

    by sconeu ( 64226 )

    Stupid thing... I hit Enter to tab to this field by mistake. Sorry about the double post...

    Anyways...

    Now we can have computers that have


    literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and neeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!


    (Thank you William Shatner!)

  • Bicycles for fish! (Score:3)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:59AM (#507139) Homepage
    Coming soon, from the same company:

    • "Chaser light"-style hard drive bay covers!
    • Tinted computer windows!
    • Silver shilouette nekkid-leaning-back-chick stick-ons!
    • System speaker replacements that play the first bar of "Dixie" at startup!
    • Chrome-plated boards!
    • Power/HDD-light light covers!
    ...is your computer case...cool?

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • Re:Style over substance? (Score:4)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @05:01AM (#507140)

    Do you happen to own a lava lamp? What do you use it for?

    Generating random numbers for cryptographic purposes to fuel my paranoid fantasies. What else would you use one for?

  • A rearview mirror on the monitor? A 12" Subwoofer? A "Piss on Microsoft" Decal?

  • Note... this is not the original poster you're replying to, but I had to say this. And yes, it's offtopic, but you'll have to use a few points to get it down there.

    --anyway--

    Actually, this is what makes it most amusing... nothing is funnier than when these things try to race me. Nothing sucks worse for these folks than being beaten by a 5000 lb. full-size 4x4 pickup :)

    The amusing point about the "rice boy" phenomenon is that they spend $20,000 in mods on a $20,000 car and it doesn't do anything, because they chose the wrong car to modify and poorly invested their money. Any $40,000 sports car or $25-30k sports car with $10-15k in mods done by anyone with an IQ above 100 will put their car to shame.

    By the way, just so everyone knows, the term "rice boy" isn't intended to be racist. There's plenty of white guys with V6 Camaros with Z28 emblems and gold spoked 13" wheels that are rice-boy cars.
    ---
  • Sorry, dude, I chose my 5160 because it had a 7-day battery life (ready mode). Everything else the AT&T store had was 2 days. The changeable faceplate was just an extra.
  • Some of my favorite case designs are sold by
    http://www.colorcase.com/
    They have some really nice looking cases. Next
    time I build a system, I plan on purchasing one
    of their cases, unless something else really
    nice comes along.
  • Most people I know with the 5100 series phone choose it for the availability of flashy faceplates. Compared to other phones at the same price point, the Nokias are heavier, have fewer features, and are more power hungry.

    On a side note, I strongly believe that if car makers made it easier to change the plastic body panels, people would love to own a few different sets so if they got tired of the current color, they could switch.

  • Case modding is soooo choice. (Score:3)

    by Catlord ( 305320 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @05:54AM (#507158) Homepage
    After building so many PCs, for myself (not that I really need them, but what else am I gonna spend my money on besides hookers and crack?), I was so sick of conventional beige boxes. As a weekend hobby, I started crunking out some case designs I've had swimming in the back of my head. If I invested so much time tricking out the insides of my PC, why should I neglect the asthetics? I bought the neon lights and thumbscrews I use from pcmods.com, they are a great company and ship your stuff out fast. Here are a couple of my modded cases I've designed:

    Niteshade [poorvin.com]
    This is a clear case design with plenty of fans, plenty of lights, and a silver crystal sculpture. Today I'm upgrading this one to a Thunderbird 1.3G.

    Ryoko [poorvin.com]
    Modeled after my favorite Tenchi Muyo anime character, this Linux server is probably going dual-processor in a week. Most of the hard work on this was using a steel jigsaw to cut out the window in the side panel. Printing and laquering some 60+ photos was the fun part!

  • Hydraulic Lifter and Shock Absorber Kit (Score:3)

    by tokra ( 302892 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @05:15AM (#507159)
    OK if you have the lights and the windows, then of course you must put in the hydraulic lifter and shock absorber kit with modified shortened springs so you can post it as "low-rider"! :-)
  • Whilst some of these mods (like fans apertures) are an essential item, some are not (windows etc) and both can lead to radiation of interference from within the box and also violate the CE testing for EMC. The fix for fans is to cover the big aperture with a gauze or metal grid having holes not larger than 6mm square or round. The same can be done for the window but would spoil the visual effect. I don't know of a screening material that would be invisible. This radiation isn't trivial - I lose all colour on ITV when my case cover is off!
  • I like to see what's going on in my computer,

    Anyone remember the old Wyse or (pre-Dell) PC's Limited computers that had an LCD panel on the front?
  • Didn't PackardHell make one several years back that was trapezoidal and designed to fit into a corner?
  • The problem with stylish cases is that they often limit your ability to upgrade. HP and Compaq often have proprietary motherboards, riser cards or power supplies that put a halt to any thought of upgrading in the future. The companies become the only place for upgrade parts, they know it and charge accordingly. I much prefer to stick with generic parts and retain the pleasure of being able to shop around for upgrades.

    This doesn't mean that you can't make a cool generic case, it just means that a no-name biege case guarantees an open upgrade path.

  • Ok, so it's not custom, but your post reminded me...

    At work, we've got an Austin 486/33 EISA from 1992, before they got bought out by some Taiwanese outfit (it was top-of-the-line when it came out). It's been running continuously since 1992 (except for hardware upgrades -- more disk).

    But the killer is the case. The fscker has a solid steel case and is built like a tank. It'll probably still be running when the sun goes red giant and swallows the earth!
  • People do sell 100% transparent cases. Tom's Hardware has an article here [tomshardware.com].

    I wouldn't suggest buying one, though. The plastic shells tend to generate more static electricity than their metal counterparts and we all know that's bad for PC components. Also, the metal provides shielding from electromagnetic and radio interference.

  • Here are links to the casemods on thinkgeek.

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/3735.html
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/3738.html
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/373b.html

  • PCMods.com=lame......and some other stuff (Score:3)

    by BoySetsFire ( 178757 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @05:25AM (#507186)
    the best place to get case modification gear is CaseETC at http://www.caseetc.com . CaseETC will soon be the only supplier for what wil be the most awesome case on the planet, within the budget of most of us anyway. it is/has all aluminum, 13 drive bays, dual PSU mounts, 6 120mm fan mounts, WTX certified, and friggen huge. 14 inches wide by 26 inches high, and 18 or 20 inches deep. and the whole thing will only cost about $300 shipped, with a 300w Sparkle PSU included. those were the last specs listed that i remember, but there is an FAQ on CaseETC. Did I mention that the case will have each part of it anodized in the color of your choice, for free no less. the best forum for case mods is at: http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid= 13 to all you people who are bad mouthing and talking crap about people who mod their case, bugger off. aren't you the same people who "scream from the mountain tops" to think differently, to go your own way, to be an INDIVIDUAL? it's pathetic when people like you start talking crap about others, and then turn around and cry for freedom of expression when the roles are reversed.
  • Hey, actually that's a good idea...getting a calvin/hobbes thing going with pissing on a brand you don't want.

    Personally, I'd want mine pissing on an Apple logo, but YMMV.

    Although your one line message was probably a bite, you actually really identified exactly where some of these accessories are heading! Thinkgeek already sells a rearview mirror (it's actually a small concave mirror called the CHIMP, that allows you to know when someone is behind you while at your cubicle...) There are a lot of Audio-3D games out there, and having a surround sound for games is a great experience. Having a bass is nothing new for Unreal explosions, or playing Mp3's...even movies. (Divx/DVD) since sound cards have 5.1 outputs, and computer speakers to go with it. I suppose some people hook up their sound to their home-theater system, so they might indeed has 12" subs. And if 1/2 the trucks I see out there have a piss-on-ford, or piss-on-dodge sticker, the same mentality can be said for anyone wanting one for their computer? Maybe. I just wonder how mud-flaps could be used...

    Rader

  • I have yet to see such a car (I'm not denying its existance, it just hasn't made it to Detroit or the North American Internationl Auto Show yet).

    I would help if it wasn't fugly to start with.

  • I don't want it to light up, I want it GONE! (Score:3)

    by robocord ( 15497 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @06:13AM (#507190)
    I've been searching all over for good ways to make my computers essentially invisible. I finally ended up just sticking them in a closet (with a really badly hung door so they ventilate just fine) and running cables out to the monitor and keyboard.

    I just don't get the deal with making the thing more obvious, I guess. I'd like a system where the monitor and keyboard disappeared when I wasn't using them. I've looked at armoires and such but they're so huge. Maybe someday laptops will come with video cards that don't suck ass.

  • Oh god, the rice-boy mentality on your PC! (Score:5)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @05:30AM (#507191)

    The people who buy this crap are probably the same people who cut the springs on their Honda, bolt on an angry-beehive exhaust, slap on some stickers, light up their dash with neon, put on big shiny chrome wheels that weight 30lbs a piece and then try to drag race me from every damn traffic light!

    JUST SAY NO!

    Before anyone buys any of this stuff, think about the terrible habit you're starting. Take up crack or heroin, or extacy. There are rehab centers to help you get off of that, but nothing can cure bad taste! Look at this site [riceboypage.com] and you can see how bad this addiction can really become! A five inch tailpipe can't make your car faster or look better, and a hole in your computer case won't either!

    I think Jon Katz needs to write a series on it, Stories from the World of No Taste.

  • In my personal opinion, "stylish" cases are a waste of money.

    I'd rather get a "bland and boring" beige case that sports the following features:

    1. At least a 300W power supply.
    2. Lots of drive bay expansion capabilities.
    3. MUST be ATX form factor.
    4. Have at least one secondary internal cooling fan in addition to the cooling fan on the power supply. If the cooling fan is directed towards the CPU, the better.

  • Re:Style over substance? (Score:5)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:12AM (#507201) Homepage Journal
    I think part of the urge to mod-up cases and the like is the inevitable reaction to the sheer cheapness of hardware today. Once upon a time (up to a year or so ago!), the way to show off your "cool hardware-god-ness" was to trick out your PC with an overclocked processor, state-of-the-art cooling, an overdriven chipset, video card, etc. An overclocked box was a way to make a statement about your skills and save money, too (for some).

    Nowadays a 1GHz Athlon processor costs less than $250 - and that RAM that would help kickstart a machine's performance costs about $60 for 128MB worth. Disk storage is cheap, too. When a killer machine costs well under $1000, about the only thing left to differentiate yourself is the case mod. Sure, you and I both have a 1 GHz Athlon, but I have a cool neon-lit window on my case - how about you? (for the record - I haven't done any case mods other than adding fans, and they don't count)

    People laughed at Steve Jobs when he started selling iMacs (who'd ever want a fruity-looking computer?), but the success of Apple's line of systems makes the point: when all things are relatively equal (as they were until the latest Wintel price plunges re-opened the gap), people will go for style. If a cool-looking iMac is selling for about the same money a good consumer PC sells for, a lot of people will choose the iMac because of looks.

    Case Modding is really just a variation on this theme.

    - -Josh Turiel

  • Emissions? (Score:5)

    by Psiren ( 6145 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:12AM (#507203)
    While I think the window looks cool, esepcially with the light, wouldn't chopping a huge chunk of metal from the side of the case and replacing it with glass leave a gap for electronic emissions? I thought the idea was to create a faraday cage to restrict this? Anyone know what affect this would have?
  • This site seems to sell pcMods stuff, and offers some additional opinions and uses: http://www.dansdata.com/neon.htm [dansdata.com]
  • ...over here [thinkgeek.com]. Sure, it seems a little silly, but I wouldn't dismiss anyone who uses one. There are plenty of people who have hot-rod cars in sleeper exteriors because they like to suprise people at light-races, and there are plenty of people who dress up their cars because they like to show off.

    Now, if you put a lame PC in a cool case, that's a different story. That's like putting ground effects on your Yugo [stlnet.com].

  • So... what's next? are people gonig to be saws-all-ing their cases in half to make low rider pc cases?

    How about ridiculous spoilers on p133's (like the spoiler will help the pc run SETI@home units any faster! ha!

    I better rush to register a www.beaterz.com [beaterz.com] like address www.beaterzpc.com hmmm.... now if I could only find my bookmark to www.networksolutions.com I could register it...

    E.
    www.randomdrivel.com [randomdrivel.com] -- All that is NOT fit to link to
  • The phone is still too heavy to carry comfortably in my shirt pocket and too bulky to wear strapped to my wrist. Yes, these things get to me. I also want a laptop that weighs less than 2lbs with battery and is about as thick as a notepad.

  • Re:Style over substance? (Score:3)

    by mmom ( 3294 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:20AM (#507214) Homepage
    Life is full with this "style over substance" stuff. Do you happen to own a lava lamp? What do you use it for? And what do you use for that wedding ring you are wearing? Or your hair? Why don't use shave it, what's more important is the inside of your head, not the outside, hair is totally useless.

    Me, personally, I find the cases incredibly cool (almost as cool as lava lamps), but given that price tag.... hmmm... I don't think so

  • Good grief some of this is ugly. I like black cases, but what's with the people who put beige periphs (e.g. CDROM, floppy) in a black case? The fashion police need to pay these folks a call.


    ---
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Here at work, we have piles of network cards for PCs, some going back almost 20 years. The older network cards have lihts for PWR, TX, RX, LINK, COLLISION. Some newer ones have LINK, ACT, 100. The newest ones have a single LED, LINK/ACT.

    The same thing has happened with modems, too.

    What's with the skimping on lights? I like to see what's going on in my computer, (without wasting desktop space). I wish internal modems came with a 5.25" faceplate filled with the traditional lights an external modem has. Ditto for ethernet cards. LED VU meters for sound cards. Lights for EACH separate IDE and SCSI chain and for the FLOPPY.

    Ah well.

    At least there's the racks of network switches. (The previous sysadmin was a moron and had 25 racks of 16-port HUBS linked with a backplane, all in one massive star configuration. Yeeeeesh. The company balked when I requisitioned funds for racks of switches to replace the hubs, but were amazed at network speed increases afterwards.)

  • Some people think buying intel is a waste of money.

    Anyway, your 4 points that you just made...WTF?
    I made those my requirements a year and a half ago. Some people already have this kind of stuff. I see other posts here bitching that you should spend the money on more RAM or something. I have more RAM already. My computer has what I need---and if I don't, it's something really expensive that I can't justify getting yet. But playing around with your computer for a small amount of money...who cares! Sounds like a good idea. One thing I like about these ideas, are they're not going to become obsolete or something. It's something you can re-use, even after upgrading video cards, m/b, or CPU, etc.

    If you're a 14 yr-old snot that only gets $1 allowance, then yes, this is a waste of money. But some of us have a little money to waste.

    Rader

  • I mean, you could spend the cash some of these cases cost on far more important things like more memory, a new hard drive or even a graphics card if you're not into so much serious stuff. But trying to turn your PC into some shrine to aesthetics is just silly.

    So much for geeks being some of the last people to appreciate substance over style. What's next, "How Flash can liven up your website!"?

    Who says that that "geeks" don't appreciate style over substance [thinkgeek.com]? I assure you that you can find far less expensive and better made T-shirts, beer glasses, desk calendars, coffee mugs, and hats than the ones you find at the above site. Yet somehow, this site makes a killing marketing almost exclusively style-oriented items to people supposedly immune to such folly.

    While substance is undeniably important, we are creatures of senses and feelings, and our world would be an exceedingly dull place to live without style. Thus, whether or not case windows and internal neon lights suit your personal taste (an entirely different question, on which I think we would probably share the same opinion,) to say that trying to inject some style into one's computer case is "just silly" strikes me as a little over-utilitarian. Why shouldn't a geek have a fast computer that looks nice, too?

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • It depends... if, for example, your PC is located in a room full of designer stuff, a computer case which just fits perfectly to your furniture is really cool. Several years ago, there was a brand of PC which had a pyramid-shaped case made of black brushed aluminum. The monitor was one of the first TFT screens (IIRC, I'm not 100% sure), also in black brushed aluminum, and the whole setup not only looked damn cool, it also cost about three times as much as a standard machine with the same interior. Unfortunately, I've forgotten tha name of the manufacturer (who probably went out of business some time ago...)

    I don't think I would spend several hundred dollars (or whatever these cases cost, order page is /.ed) on a computer case, though. It's much more fun to build a cool plexi glass case yourself (including some old sawed-open hard drives where you can see the heads move...:-)


    --

  • All is useless... (Score:3)

    by psergiu ( 67614 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:22AM (#507238)
    ... as they don's sell HAL9000 cases. You know: Dark Gray with an Black-blue HAL9000 logo and the red eye. (to connect to a lot of small monitors will display big three letter signs on different collored backgrounds and vectorial animations.)

    The only thing i say close to that was a series of HP Vectra pc which had a round HAL-like power button wich will glow red (HDD led).


    --

  • Re:Oh god, the rice-boy mentality on your PC! (Score:3)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @10:05AM (#507244)
    Still offtopic, but you're absolutely right. You want to see a worse look, in my demure four door sedan, I can wipe the pavement with just about anything shy of a 911TT.

    The day I spanked a C5 corvette from a light with two passengers, the guy looked like he wanted to cry!

    The thing that amazes me with ricers though is that they can't admit to themselves that they're still driving a 130hp Honda...

  • PC Cases. (Score:3)

    by Matt2000 ( 29624 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @07:03AM (#507252) Homepage

    Would somebody PLEASE make a good looking PC case, and not just one that's just a goddamn beige box with some coloured plastic stuck on the outside, or a face painted on the front.

    Let's get some cubes in there, maybe a wall hanging thing, a flat case that screws into the bottom of your desk, SOMETHING NEW.

    That's all, except I'd be the first in line to buy one.

  • If you thought these cases were cool... (Score:5)

    by protactin ( 206817 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:25AM (#507256) Homepage
    .. then take a look at the cool case gallery over at virtual hideout..
    More neon lights and bizarre cases than you're ever likely to see ;)

    http://www.virtualhideout.net/cool_case/ [virtualhideout.net]

  • power mac cases (Score:3)

    by Mr. Wray ( 265186 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:26AM (#507258)
    i use this really old power mac 7500/100 at work, and opened it up a few weeks back to put some more ram in it. i must admit, i really do hate using a mac a lot, but, opening the case up and working inside it was great. i have never seen a case with so much thought gone into it. everything is so well laid out and easily accessible, and there are even little arms to prop bits up on. nice one apple, shame about the software.



    wray
  • I hate it when this happens -- someone posts something that I'm both in favor of and against, and I get the urge to post a reply...:)

    Personally, style does matter, but not as much as the practicality of the case. That's why I'm building my next computer in a file server case. I've seen several that actually look pretty cool, but, at the same time, are very practical -- I can start off with a simple system, but build up a quad Xeon and massive RAID...

  • Wow! I disagree!

    Overclocking and 1GHz and state of the art cooling is about technical superiority. Case design is about art.

    -- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

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