Milk crate XP
In category Geebin on 09 Jul 2006 @ 10:09 pm
Yesterday I was bored and as I was sitting in my room admiring my nerdy stockpile of pc parts, I realised I had enough parts for a whole pc except for the case. I did however have a surplus of staples and computer cables. The end result is a milk crate / tv stand / dvd player that runs windows XP quite well.
Installation procedure was pretty straight forward. First you sit the motherboard on the bottom of the case, having all the connectors facing the front, and staple through the mounting holes to hold it firm. Next, staple one end of the 3 metre headphone extension cable to the crate. Now tightly bind the PSU to the top corner of the crate, making sure to leave access to the main switch and the plug. Staple the cable tightly in place but leave the end loose still. Continue weaving the cable through the holes in the crate and around the dvd-rom. NB: the dvd drive needs to be positioned near the front of the case so it's easily accessible. By now you would nearly be out of cable so staple it tight and tie the end off.
Installing the FDD and HDD are almost identical procedures so I'll just explain it once. Find a spare IDE or FDD cable and staple one end to the crate. Thead the other end into the crate and wrap the drive as tight as possible, (you don't want the HDD escaping), then pull the end back out and staple down. Tuck any excess back inside or staple yourself a second 3.5 inch bay. Connect all the cables to where they should be and push them as much as possible, into the back of the box.
To install the PCI and AGP cards you'll need to remove the mounting plates. Unscrew these and then slip the cards into their slots as usual. Finally, connect a power switch and optionally some HDD and power LED's. Tada!
The final specs are:
- P3 667MHz
- 256Mb SD-ram
- GeForce FX5600 256mb
- 15gb Quantum Fireball
- 16x DVD-rom
- Sound Blaster Live 16-bit sound card
- Realtek 10/100 mbit/sec NIC
- 400W PSU
- FDD
This system runs windows XP quite reasonably and with a little more ram, I might be able to put on Office 12 and use it as a workstation.
Cheerio!
Installation procedure was pretty straight forward. First you sit the motherboard on the bottom of the case, having all the connectors facing the front, and staple through the mounting holes to hold it firm. Next, staple one end of the 3 metre headphone extension cable to the crate. Now tightly bind the PSU to the top corner of the crate, making sure to leave access to the main switch and the plug. Staple the cable tightly in place but leave the end loose still. Continue weaving the cable through the holes in the crate and around the dvd-rom. NB: the dvd drive needs to be positioned near the front of the case so it's easily accessible. By now you would nearly be out of cable so staple it tight and tie the end off.
Installing the FDD and HDD are almost identical procedures so I'll just explain it once. Find a spare IDE or FDD cable and staple one end to the crate. Thead the other end into the crate and wrap the drive as tight as possible, (you don't want the HDD escaping), then pull the end back out and staple down. Tuck any excess back inside or staple yourself a second 3.5 inch bay. Connect all the cables to where they should be and push them as much as possible, into the back of the box.
To install the PCI and AGP cards you'll need to remove the mounting plates. Unscrew these and then slip the cards into their slots as usual. Finally, connect a power switch and optionally some HDD and power LED's. Tada!
The final specs are:
- P3 667MHz
- 256Mb SD-ram
- GeForce FX5600 256mb
- 15gb Quantum Fireball
- 16x DVD-rom
- Sound Blaster Live 16-bit sound card
- Realtek 10/100 mbit/sec NIC
- 400W PSU
- FDD
This system runs windows XP quite reasonably and with a little more ram, I might be able to put on Office 12 and use it as a workstation.
Cheerio!
Gold.
# Comment by sef on 10 Jul 2006 @ 10:14 pm
# Comment by sef on 10 Jul 2006 @ 10:14 pm
It successfully runs Quake 3 and worms world party. I consider it a roaring success. Office 12 is cool too.
# Comment by Maz on 11 Jul 2006 @ 09:28 am
# Comment by Maz on 11 Jul 2006 @ 09:28 am
It runs the old Unreal Tournament at the highest graphics settings too. I still think its best use would be as a DVD player. Does anyone know about how one would go about connecting an old thinkpad screen up to the VGA out?
# Comment by Maz on 11 Jul 2006 @ 02:44 pm
# Comment by Maz on 11 Jul 2006 @ 02:44 pm
Yeah of course it runs XP fine. ;-)
My holiday box consists of a CELERONG 466 with 192MB SDRAM running XP Pro so obviously your setup would fly. :-p
# Comment by io on 22 Jul 2006 @ 01:06 am
http://protiotype.net
My holiday box consists of a CELERONG 466 with 192MB SDRAM running XP Pro so obviously your setup would fly. :-p
# Comment by io on 22 Jul 2006 @ 01:06 am
http://protiotype.net
# Comment by thei on 10 Jul 2006 @ 05:29 pm
http://the-i.org/