|  | April 09, 2013
Installing NAS4Free February 28, 2013
Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC January 25, 2011
XBMC Guide updated to version 10.0 August 06, 2010
Building a Green PC February 15, 2010
Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC October 10, 2008
The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008" September 12, 2008
"Florian", the DVD burning robot September 05, 2008
The "i-EPIA" May 22, 2008
The "GTA-PC" April 14, 2007
The "Digg" Case |
| | | | January 19, 2007
The "ITX-Laptop" December 07, 2006
The "Tortoise Beetle" October 02, 2006
The "DOS Head Unit" August 31, 2006
The "Janus Project" August 05, 2006
The "Leela PC" June 26, 2006
Nano-ITX in a Football May 17, 2006
The "EPIA Alloy Mod" April 11, 2006
Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods February 18, 2006
The "Rundfunker" October 24, 2005
The "ITX TV" October 06, 2005
The K'nex-ITX August 05, 2005
The "Waffle Iron PC" July 21, 2005
The "Supra-Server" July 18, 2005
The "Mega-ITX" July 07, 2005
The "Encyclomedia" May 25, 2005
The "Accordion ITX" May 16, 2005
The "FileServerRouterSwitch" May 15, 2005
The "Mini Falcon" May 13, 2005
The "Bender PC" May 11, 2005
The "BBC ITX B" |
| | | | May 10, 2005
The "Frame" April 20, 2005
The "Jeannie" March 09, 2005
The "Cool Cube" January 30, 2005
First Nano-ITX Project? January 17, 2005
The "iGrill" January 15, 2005
The "Gumball PC" December 15, 2004
The "Deco Box" December 03, 2004
The "TERA-ITX" October 06, 2004
The "Coealacanth-PC" September 17, 2004
The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD" August 26, 2004
The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX" August 25, 2004
The "SEGA-ITX" August 13, 2004
The "Quiet Cubid" August 06, 2004
The "BMWPC" July 14, 2004
The "Moo Cow Moo" July 02, 2004
The "Mini Mesh Box" June 17, 2004
Jukebox ITX May 24, 2004
The "ERN005PC" (KANA) March 13, 2004
The "Underwood No. 5" February 04, 2004
The "Humidor CL" Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page... |
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The "GTA-PC"
Introduction
Normally I don't see the point in buying limited/special editions of computer games as they come with items that you will find yourself throwing away after a while.
But not pre-ordering my GTA IV early enough meant I had to order the special edition. I'm glad that I did. It came delivered in a normal cardboard sleeve but inside all the
extras were packaged inside a safety deposit type box.
During a quiet period at work, with no stealing cars or gunning down innocent folks because they gave me a dodgy look, I had been playing with different operating systems on a Mini-ITX system.
As one does, I took it apart and admired the size of it, or lack of. During a conversation about the versatility of the Mini-ITX breed and how they could perform as a HTPC yet look
ugly in the off the shelf cases, the following dawned on me.
Enter The Box
This time around I would not be throwing the specials away or searching for the best selling price on e-bay. The box measures 18cms wide and the motherboard measures 1cm less.
It was a match made in gangster heaven..
The Idea
I'm not a very creative person and would rather fix a problem with some VB Code then a drill but this just seemed like a great idea. The box was just wide enough and it was long which meant
that I should easily be able to fit the rest of the 'bits' inside.
The donor PC. As you can see - apart from the fans - there are no moving parts with this PC so noise isn't a concern. The OS (so far I have chosen Slax) runs straight from the 1GB CF card connected to the IDE controller with a Compact Flash Adapter. Having no internal hard drive meant that I could be generous with the spacing of components.
Enlisting
As I am useless with a drill and precision measuring I enlisted the help of a man with great skill and buckets of tools. To whom I do thank. Who cut out the back of the box to mount the
motherboard plate (amongst other bits). This meant that the motherboard could be upgraded as and when required.
With the motherboard in place and fitting so comfortably I wondered if this box had been engineered for this purpose.
The motherboard was secured with risers that were screwed in from underneath.
The Rest
To arrange the rest of the components into the box it was a case of suck it and see, and drilling a couple more holes to mount the power circuit board. The front headers I was a bit wary to include but as a friend pointed out to me they were part of the original system so I had to include them.
I went back to the man with the 'skills n drills' and we found a good place to mount it (as of cable length) and also decided to cut out an exhaust hole for the fan. The fans are next to silent and as the case doesn't really have any ventilation I thought it best to mount one on the CPU heat sink and the other as an exhaust fan.
Switches & Power
A power switch would be a good idea (also was almost forgotten about) and as the PC uses an external power supply connector we mounted them both on the back above the motherboard plate.
Frontal Assault
One of the more awkward things in this project was fitting the front ports for USB and such like. This turned out to be a side mount as I didn't really want to destroy the front of the case (and the cables didn't reach without an unwanted stretch).
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