Project PC3 - PC in a PS3!

[stonedsurd]

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Yeah, we all know how the last project ended up. Poor time management and, erm, college, left is mothballed for 3 months. While my heart bleeds for my beloved black beauty, it's really hard for these hands of mine to stay idle.

I moved to a bigger, nicer room at university this year, and of course, the ****** in me promptly began thinking of ways to screw it.

"Hey! Why not fill it with plastic dust and leave saws and screwdrivers all over the place so that my roommates can bleed all over the carpets?"

"Great!"

So I decided to hit eBay looking for some stuff to begin a SFF mod.

The idea was simple - stuff a relatively powerful PC into a console shell. I toyed with the idea of an Ion board inside an XBox 360 shell for a while but then dropped the idea for two reasons. One - it wouldn't be messy enough to cause injury to people in the room, and two, it wasn't going to be powerful enough.

Upsizing the board to a Zotac LGA775 with 9300 IGP was the next logical step, and upsizing the console had to follow. That pretty much left me with the retro look (original XBox anyone?) which I am not a particular fan of, and the PS3. So I took the plunge and began designing the rig inside a PS3 in Sketchup.

The components I've chosen are as follows, but subject to change:
E5300
Zotac GeForce 9300 HDMI Wi-Fi Mini ITX
2x1GB Patriot DDR2 RAM, or maybe even 4GB if I happen to make money playing pool this quarter
Sparkle/FSP 300W 1U server power supply
PS3 console shell
Sony/NEC Blu-ray slot-loading slim optical drive

With these in mind, I raided the excellent Sketchup Components Collection maintained by Jeremey McKean (jezmck) for the PC bits, and google's 3DWarehouse for the PS3 shell model (yes, I'm lazy). These two concepts are what I came up with:

Concept 1 - all was going well until I realized the optical drive was trying to make babies with the Intel heatsink. Can't have unprotected intercourse in a college dorm room, so I had to drop it. Still, it was a useful exercise in getting an idea of how things would fit.







So on we move to Concept 2 - juggle components around, play around with orientations (o_0) to get something like this:







This looks acceptable, so next stop - eBay, to order the console shell and the power supply. Everything else I plan on mocking up with cardboard (thanks John) before buying, just in case something goes wrong.

So yeah, here's the stuff.











I got right down to butchering it. I don't know the rules on power tools in the dorms, but I'm not risking anything. One of my roomies is on probation (for bleeding all over the carpet, I think), so I'm not making life harder for him. I'm trying to this with hand tools as far as possible. I'm hunting for a fret saw on eBay, because those look mighty useful for something like this

Anyway, more pics:

The tool of the day:


Took care of one of these little plastic posts that I think are supposed to take screws that hold the top cover in place:


Leaving me with this little nub of plastic:


Now to see if the PSU fits...
... and it does!




But does it close?


Er, sort of. Something inside is obviously pushing down on it. We'll take of that tomorrow, the Coffee Bean beckons and I need my caffeine fix


LIST OF UPDATES:

1. The PSU has a home, and after a little work, so does the motherboard

2. I tried to take apart the PSU to fix the wiring - no joy

3. Small hardware update

4. HDD mounted up!

5. Some sleeving

6. Small Wonder (that's the motherboard, not my willy)

7. Got a new heatsink!

8. Small, smaller and smaller-er. This new PSU is _TINY_!

9. Quick teaser with all the hardware

10. IT LIVES!

11. Logo brainstorming

12. IT LIVES! (again )

[Free Radical]

you've been saying it for a long time of getting that ps3 mod done, and i've been repeating it for the same time, wait for westmere

agent didn't post my news.

the clarkdale es are hitting 4.7ghz on air. they would simply rock the world baby!

[wingzero]

U got headsup so soon!!....commendable...
reps

[Free Radical]

I had posted the news day before yesterday, before it was posted on techpowerup. been following coolaler on twitter. sadly its all stale news now. its everywhere (but not on [E] )

[ShaTTeR]

Aye !
WonderMod
So what do we call it
PC3?

[ManISinJpr]

I will be following this very eagerly, this will be inspiring to see.
@ FR so till now your news wasnt okayed?

[Free Radical]

nope. but forget it. next time I'll post my stuff directly.

[stonedsurd]

Originally Posted by Free Radical you've been saying it for a long time of getting that ps3 mod done, and i've been repeating it for the same time, wait for westmere agent didn't post my news. the clarkdale es are hitting 4.7ghz on air. they would simply rock the world baby!

Waiting is useless. One never gets anything done if one waits. I'm more than happy squishing a PC into a console - the specs are only a secondary concern.

Originally Posted by wingzero U got headsup so soon!!....commendable... reps

You know what they say about idle hands Couldn't help but scratch the itch

Originally Posted by ShaTTeR Aye ! WonderMod So what do we call it PC3?

Oooh, not bad. I love this place - you folks always help me name my mods

Originally Posted by ManISinJpr I will be following this very eagerly, this will be inspiring to see. @ FR so till now your news wasnt okayed?

Thanks bro

[ViKiD]

Nice....

[MaxAxe]

Stoney ... you gotta teach me how to use sketchup ... i know its a neat tool ... but you gotta teach me how to use it sometime

[rpm19050]

so it' begun. hmm.

[SidK!!]

The Todu mod from the todu modder!!Keep up!!

And i wanna learn sketch up too!!

[stonedsurd]

Originally Posted by MaxAxe Stoney ... you gotta teach me how to use sketchup ... i know its a neat tool ... but you gotta teach me how to use it sometime

It's really not hard. I'm not making any components myself. SCC + 3DWarehouse is good enough. If I need to make something, I just make a rough outline just to check clearances and such. Just download it and start tinkering. If you really need help, google has some tutorials.

Originally Posted by rpm19050 so it' begun. hmm.

You know something? That 'hmm' scares me

Originally Posted by SidK!! The Todu mod from the todu modder!!Keep up!! And i wanna learn sketch up too!!

Same as what I said to Max. Just start messing around and it'll come to you.

EDIT: And please gents, suggest some names!

[SignOps]

Looks great so far !

[stonedsurd]

Heh, I was so busy replying, I forgot to post an update

So today I finalized the PSU location and ripped a lot of annoying plastic nubs and mounts off so that the PSU could sit nice and snug where it's supposed to. This also gave me an opportunity to mock up my motherboard and HDD from cardboard and do a test fit.

Tore out some nubs and plastic mounts on this corner:


And some near the front of the shell:


Now the PSU sits flat and stable on the base

With that out of the way, I mocked up the motherboard with a 170mmx170mm square of cardboard. First hitch of the day.

It doesn't fit! Two of these posts that are supposed to take the screws that hold the top of the shell down are in the way:


Clearer shot of the problem:


Now, since those posts are held to the casing both at the base and by a little piece of plastic on the side, I figured it wouldn't be too bad if I could somehow take off the part attached to the base and leave the post itself attached to the side of the case.

A lot swearing, sweat and sawing resulted in this:


And the board fits perfectly now!


Also, since these mods make it obvious that Sketchup I made wasn't 100% accurate, I needed to find a spot for the HDD. This is what I came up with:


Of course, it won't be taped there, I'll be screwing it onto some mounts that I have yet to make.

Oh, and here are the remains of the butchering (minus the tons of plastic dust that's now found a home in my carpet):


More soon (hopefully cleaning up the piss-poor wire management inside the PSU).