It wasn't finished. It was down to just needing paint, and I sold off most of the hardware to fund an upgrade to a 3200+. Well, seeing as I'm going through hardware like clean underwear, I might as well divert some old stuff into finishing this thing off.

The plan.

Strip down the PSU and the main part of the chassis and sandblast that crappy Chrome paint off it - NEVER BUY THIS CRAP, it NEVER hardens.

Re-Paint it with a normal high gloss paint in a snazzy colour that goes with the theme. Matte might be a better choice though... I'll have to experiment, maybe get it powder coated at work, that'll handle wear and tear.

Paint and polish the externals in the original colour chosen.

Purchase P5Q Deluxe to replace P5B Deluxe. If Crossfire works properly with P5Q, find snazzy looking but cheap video card. Plus cheap CPU and budget HD. If CF doesn't work, use the Red Monster in Darkside. I still have the DVD drive I modded for it, it's IDE... But it should do. 2GB of ram which went unsold. Probably need a cooler better than stock, just because. Think I sold the fans I had for it...

Originally, this was to be a small light LAN system, I'll be using it as a server, IF I ever finish it.

Which "chrome" paint did you use?
I've had terrible results with a lot of them, and its late so I can't think of the good ones off the top of my head but there are PLENTY that work very well in my experience.
I stopped painting things chrome and switched to -actual- chrome though.
Works great.

Befriend someone at a plating shop.

Duplicolor and another common brand...

It's not dead yet!

To recap:
Originally


Work Done:


Fanage



Window slice and dice


Way to much bondo, it does presently look better than this. Uber bright HD and power LED's should shine through the paint.


PSU transformation, incorporating a dual fan controller. (2 small holes to the right of the bottom fan and a knob for control)

Stealth power, reset and CD open buttons

This was work previously done, to house a 2500+ Barton no less. It did get up and running with a 2800+ Clawhammer and a 6600GT, for one weekend.

This week, sand blasted and powdercoated...




It's gonna be an Atom HTPC.

Atom 230
HD 2400Pro
2GB PC2-5300
500GD WD HD
DVD remains TBD, I've got the old POS IDE I modded to work with the stealth button, or I could tweak the Asus SATA drive I'm presently using. The PSU is also up in the air, I de-modded it when I first built my Atom, so I'd have to redo it, and it's an el-cheapo Bestpower anyway., We'll see.

I seem to have given away my fan grills, but I still have most of the crap still around.

This thread is why you should throw out your old crap. And I really wish someone would fix the damn website. The scroll goes totally fubar when you get a post this long.

Not only that, the pictures don't load properly.

I've noticed that quite a bit here, they load fine elsewhere.

now thats some nice case work. Certainly helps to have the right tools for the job.

Grabbed a new PSU, since I never really trusted the old one anyway.

Looking Sharp !!

I did however like the silver sleeving on the other over the black on that one.

Its going to make for a nice clean build.

If I hadn't given away the left over silver sleeving I probably would have stuck with it, but with nothing other than black spiral wrap to work with, I needed a colour change.

What other mods or lighting sceme (if any) are you going to go with?

When done, giver a couple coats of car wax. Helps protect and makes the case much easier to clean, not to mention giving the case a hard shine.

Lighting: External, nadda, I'll probably only be barely able to see the HD and power LED's. Internal, I'm considering putting some white, tear out your retinas, power LED's, of course these will be offset by the particular material being used for the windows, which I've just set into place.

I've got to check and see if this SATA DVD can be modded in the same way the IDE one was. The IDE drive had a SPDIF connector on it, which wasn't actually connected to ANYTHING, so I connected it to the open button which allowed me to use the steath button to open/close the drive.

Awesome - what kinda material did you use for the window? Clear? smoke?

White interior lighting sounds wicked. If the 900v2 didnt have all the blue LED's I would definately have done that from the get go.

Post further photos as you progress. nice work thus far.

Looking great Dr B! I wish I knew people around here to paint and powdercoat. Everytime I've tried modding projects the biggest setback has always been finding the right supplies around town. I have a dremel sans bits but never know what hardware to buy at central. Hell I remember having the hardest time finding a small piece of plexiglass around here for a reasonable price.

I don't think I'll reveal the window until it's done. I never seen anyone do this before.