What was your first mod?
Posted on 29th Jul 2009 at 10:36 by Antony Leather with 21 comments
Bit-tech is full of modding. In fact our forums are brimming with countless different types of mods using an even greater number of different materials. Some are simple, with modifications to improve cooling or allow installation of hardware that otherwise might not fit, while others completely transform the look of an entire case or are even built from the ground up.
I bet there are many different reasons people take to modding. Personally, my modding experience began ten years ago with a high end system in a Chieftec Dragon. It's a poor case in terms of airflow compared to modern cases like the Antec Twelve Hundred, and I was finding the temperature inside the case was nearly hot enough for hydrogen atoms to start fusing together. I decided to cut a hole in the roof and mount an 80mm fan which actually worked really well.
The original Chieftec Dragon - one of the first cases designed for enthusiasts - unfortunately, cooling wasn't particularly potent
Things have progressed from there of course and fan holes, side windows and radiator vents as well as half-decent paint jobs are nearly second nature. That first mod always sticks in my head as a great achievement for me, not only because Chieftec used such thick steel it took over an hour to cut through with a power drill, but because I had done it and it actually looked good and made a difference to my case temperatures.
So what was your first mod? Why did you do it and was it for looks or some kind of performance enhancement? And if you’ve never modded a case and have good reasons for not doing so, feel free to speak up as well!
I bet there are many different reasons people take to modding. Personally, my modding experience began ten years ago with a high end system in a Chieftec Dragon. It's a poor case in terms of airflow compared to modern cases like the Antec Twelve Hundred, and I was finding the temperature inside the case was nearly hot enough for hydrogen atoms to start fusing together. I decided to cut a hole in the roof and mount an 80mm fan which actually worked really well.
The original Chieftec Dragon - one of the first cases designed for enthusiasts - unfortunately, cooling wasn't particularly potent
Things have progressed from there of course and fan holes, side windows and radiator vents as well as half-decent paint jobs are nearly second nature. That first mod always sticks in my head as a great achievement for me, not only because Chieftec used such thick steel it took over an hour to cut through with a power drill, but because I had done it and it actually looked good and made a difference to my case temperatures.
So what was your first mod? Why did you do it and was it for looks or some kind of performance enhancement? And if you’ve never modded a case and have good reasons for not doing so, feel free to speak up as well!
21 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyA week after all that cutting i made a bay bus with a bank of funky switches mounted to a blanking panel to switch the fans on/off individually. That was before i realised this was a common occurrence on the web, i felt really pleased with my ingenuity, this was in '01 ish
The best bit about all that was it proved an excellent hand warmer for the winter in my student flat with virtually no heating and cold fingers try to bash out a dissertation. If only i'd had a P4 back then i could have heated the whole house.
Thats what i used. Thanks
That sounds like the very definition of big pimpin :p
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a137/ryanggg/pc%20case%20project%20R/stealth5.jpg
My first mod back when I first joined this forum, I was only 13/14 at the time but I was so happy with the end result. I look back now and its quite garish to look at :D
Mods included a huge window, 3x120mm blow holes, 2x80mm holes, underglow green lighting, a volt meter from a car, car bonnet vent on the top and a switch panel to control the blue, green and UV cathodes.
You'd better sit down for this..
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=299&pictureid=4144
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=299&pictureid=4145
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=299&pictureid=4146
The last mods I did were to change all the leds on the front to bloo. I then used two vandal resistant switches with bloo leds in - one was for power and lit up when it was powered on. The other was used as a reset button and the led showed hdd activity.
As far as I know, that PC ended up in a member of the clergy's office at the back of a church.
Pictures:
http://www.wayne.sebbens.com/v3/pc_imgs/Phto0002.jpg
http://www.wayne.sebbens.com/v3/pc_imgs/Phto0003.jpg
http://www.wayne.sebbens.com/v3/pc_imgs/Pic_0704_010.jpg
http://www.wayne.sebbens.com/v3/pc_imgs/Pic_0817_012.jpg
Sadly, i don't have photos showing the front lighting effect, the closest i have is a header image i designed for my site at one point, intended to achieve the same look (and is quite an accurate representation of the effect)
http://www.wayne.sebbens.com/v3/header.png
Whaaaat!
The computer consisted - if memory serves me - of an AMD K6-2 350Mhz, a Voodoo3 card, SCSI RAID on two 6.4Gb SCSI HDDs and a bunch of other harddrives (this was what made the PSU upgrade necessary). Can't remember how much RAM it had, but I think it was in the region of 128 to 256Mb.
http://forums.bit-tech.net/picture.php?albumid=15&pictureid=4179
The first mod I did on my own was to add some led's to the underside of an xbox badge on the top of the xbox, and paint the case with dark green base, and a crackled bright neon green topcoat. My friend still has the xbox to this day.
As to the commadore's, well, they went to a friend of the family after my father died. I so wish I didn't give em away, We had so many great games that didn't rely on graphics to sell them.
oh yes I remember those decals !
This is the only photo I found from my Pc back in january of 2002
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/812/monpc.jpg
It was basically just a window made of real glass and not plastic, which made the thing heavy but the panel was still as rigid as before it was cut. The whole thing is strong as it's still holding today and is my sister's PC
The neon was home made and I used different color plastic tubes to change ambiance. Thinking back, that was quite cool. I could switch between green , pink, red, orange,yellow and my favorite; purple.
the whole thing was very basic during the day but looked quite nice at night
Like everyone else, it was one of the reasons why I registered to BT. I didn't visit the forum much however because my english was quite bad and because I was more involved in french forums
Just used a metal saw held in those handheld plastic supports.
Great result, although could be even more perfected.
Added some metal studs (and removed the previous ones) to affix the MB to the retention plate.
Wanted to add SATA backplanes/brackets but didn't find individual ones.
Also, replacing thermal paste on my laptop (put some artic silver 5) in my dell Inspiron 1505.
http://jadedgamerblog.com/files/page0_blog_entry13-416005565_dd851a2af3.jpg
into a garbage can.... it's heavy, ugly, and a pain in the ass to empty, but it's all it would be good for :P
Not near as loud and just as cool.
And yes, only half the fan actually covers the heatsink, the rest blows towards a grille at the back :D