Readers Drives - Project Violet

Posted at: Monday 30th March 2009 by Ben Lipscombe

Ben Lipscombe needed to update his PC to play the latest games, but what started as a simple graphics card upgrade became a much bigger project.

I'm no expert at overclocking, so I enlisted the help of my cousin, who had greater experience with the BIOS settings on Intel motherboards. We were able to run the CPU at 3GHz with little effort, and after many more hours of tinkering, blue-screens and resets, it was stable at 3.47GHz. I learned a great deal about how overclocking works during this process, helped by advice from the members of the OCZ forums. I knew the chip could run faster, but I decided that this frequency was a good point for everyday use, as I gained plenty of additional performance without the required high voltages and additional heat output becoming a problem.

A few weeks later my thumb had finally healed. As the overclocked PC had proven to be stable and I'd installed Windows, I set about finishing the modifications to the PC's appearance. I purchased more CCFLs, mirrored styrene and a bag of primers, paints and lacquer.

With the CCFLs illuminating the case, it almost had the glowing effect I'd hoped for, although some areas weren't as well lit as others. I added a few small 3mm UV LEDs to fill in the dark spots, and positioned some mirrors to reflect the light and make the case look roomier than it is. After this, I needed to clear up the messy cabling. I drilled extra holes through which to feed wires in the case and, where possible, routed cables under the motherboard tray to the other side of the case, either wrapping them with insulation tape or UV-reactive sleeves to bunch them neatly together.

I hadn't yet decided which colour to spray the outside of the chassis. Although many PC mods typically use blacks, reds and blues, I wanted a colour that would complement the UV theme I'd created on the inside of the case. I was inspired by the shade of purple available for the new Ford Fiesta; not only would this be a perfect match for the UV lighting, but it was also an unusual choice of colour for a PC case. The black finish on the aluminium case was powder-coated, which needed sanding down to remove the bumps and grooves.

I was further inspired by a design used in a pre-built PC that had just come on to the market, which squeezed two radiators into the case, one at the top and the other at the bottom. I loved this PC's appearance, and wanted to achieve a similar effect with my own PC. I set about creating more space at the top of the case with a hacksaw, removing the single radiator and replacing it with a twin fan model, as I'd seen in the pre-built PC. I still needed the single radiator, but I had to figure out where I would position it.

I decided to mount the radiator on the back of the case, so I removed the standard 12cm fan and enlarged the mounting holes to fit the radiator. I wasn't keen on the appearance of the mesh surrounding the radiator, so I replaced it with mirrored styrene for a tidier effect. With this final customisation, the PC modification was complete.

Not long after Project Violet was finished, my cousin invited me to a LAN party, which would be the perfect place to receive feedback on my modded PC. Transporting it proved difficult, as the sheer volume of components made it extremely heavy. Two of us had to lift it into the car. It was worth the effort, however, as other LAN-goers were impressed with my design, which was exactly the reaction I'd wanted.