Creative X-Fi "Music Creation" Mod

A Hole New Case

Talking of new cases, here is the case in question: an old guitar practice amp which I had stripped down to the bare bones, leaving just the carcass. The actual amplifier bits were not required. I had originally planned on making the case from scratch but when I found this, I thought: “Why not save myself some time?”



I needed to cut a rectangular hole on the side of the case for the motherboard tray to fit into. To do this I used one of my favourite tools: a router.



I love using routers. They are not just precision tools but good time savers also (not to mention dangerous, so be careful!)



With the basic hole cut out, the motherboard tray was tested fitted. A few extra little cuts were needed to accommodate the rivets joining the PCI plate onto the motherboard. Also, a notch was cut out on the opposite side of the hole to allow for the screws holding in the PCI cards, namely the video card and the X-Fi Pro Elite card which was to be the star of the show. (We’ll get to that later).

Eventually, with a bit of fine tuning everything fitted to perfection - and it was time to make the panel for the back of the case.



Before making the panel, some wooden batten was cut to length…



…and glued and screwed in place to support the back panel.


The back panel is to be used to stabilise the motherboard tray and mount the power supply, so it needs to be rigid and be able to support the weight. Hence the relatively large supporting batten.


And now for something completely different…