This is the dude I’d turn down any 1v1 Starcraft matches against at the lan party.
I have enough money for an angle grinder and a new used graphics card. But not a fancy new case.
With prebuilds like this a lot of times you can’t just change the case without also changing the motherboard. Also they could have an angle grinder just laying around. They may even have done it on purpose for the lulz.
I actually just upgraded my Dell Optiplex 990 SFF to a new full ATX case and had to get a new motherboard. Dell does some funky stuff to their motherboard to get it to fit into their custom cases. For instance the CPU cooler clipped into the case through the motherboard This was one of the ways the motherboard was secured into the case. The other mount points were entirely non-standard so no other case would fit. I did consider making some modifications to the case with a hacksaw before deciding to just get a new case and motherboard. The new Motherboard was pretty cheap because I was using a 4th-gen intel i3. Not great specs but good enough for a homebrew NAS.
Yes, from experience, yes. But I used a pair of tin snips.
Done something similar when my CPU cooler didn’t fit the HP case
Like a hotrod?
That probably worked way better than having it in a thermally constrained environment.
It’s also way more quiet than those damn pesky 1U fans and I had the space available in my rack
So … you have to remove your CPU cooler to open the case? That does not look very convenient.
Is that some kind of blade server? Doesn’t that make it like not rack with other blades?
No it’s just a 1U server. It does mean that the next 3U over the server can’t be fully used (switches would probably clear). That server pretty much replaced my whole stack except for my NAS so I had space available.
I don’t know why but this has me rolling. Genuinely had to catch my breath.
Happy to know my redneck engineering made you laugh! It was either that or a custom water loop.
If it’s stupid, but it works, it’s not stupid.
i mean there are things that work and that are stupid, and will stay stupid. using toothpaste for example as thermal paste is doable and you can get usable temps with it. but the con is that toothpaste dries up very quickly, requiring you to need to constantly reapply it.
it works, but its still a stupid idea.
Yup, the back plate for my CPU cooler wouldn’t fit because of some weird struts my case has, so I cut open the case, just enough to fit it.
The hole in the side is a speed-hole. It makes the computer go faster.
Literally thinking outside the box.
Reminds me of when I made a pc as a media center for my roommates out of old spare pc parts and the box that their xbox360 came in.
Had to turn it on by using a paper clip to short the right two pins, lol.
You know, you could have run down to the electronics store and bought an actual button for those pins. Still, that sounds like a fun build.
to short the right two pins
That’s the core principle of how switches work. You have done everything right.
Legit badass. “Hotwire the PC so we can watch a movie!”
I test-“built” my first gaming pc with all the parts laying on my bed.
The only computer parts store within cycling distance just put returned parts back on the shelf, so there was about an 80% chance at least one part you bought was dead out of the box.Later I remembered that that’s possible, and built a gaming rig with all parts mounted openly on the wall behind my desk.
This looks like a Basic Bitch® office workstation. Surely you could put the same graphics card in a price-comparable gaming rig without having to resort to this…
A basic bitch office workstation is like $20 at a garage sale to $150 from a refurb shop with a Windows license. Cutting the case is twenty minutes for template and cut.
Nothing fiscally competes with these.
I did this a number of years back with a GTX 750ti… because that was the last good card that ran without a dedicated power supply connection.
Even if you rigged a power connector, it’s be damn hard trying to keep a modern card stable with the 250w-325w power supply in the Optiplix
If you’re on a budget and it works…
It was such a good deal bro I had to buy it! 😂
If it’s stupid and it works…
“Tech hack”
So it isn’t stupid anymore, but they could just find a random full size pc case somewhere and use it instead of this.
It’s an OEM motherboard and it may not be a normal standard. The PSU isn’t normal either so it wouldn’t fit most *ATX cases. Plus, free is free.
I thought dells aren’t as shitty as the competition, as I have a great experience with a Latitude 5290. I guess I was wrong.
They’re not shitty. HP, Lenovo do the same shit - proprietary motherboards, limited feature sets, and minimal upgrade paths are typical of OEMs… It’s also why a lot of people recommend building to anyone.
OEM mobos suck. Boards from this era of Optiplex are pretty standard, but newer ones have motherboards that go all the way from one side of the chassis to the other, and mount the power button and front panel I/O on the mobo. I don’t even know if they have internal USB headers.
Imagine if the graphics card’s PCB component legs, as well as the soldering, accidentally touches the metal case if something or someone abruptly moves the PC case while it’s turned on… With the case directly grounded/going to neutral or, even worse, plugged in US power outlets with reversed pins (so 110 volts now runs through the metal case, ready to find circuit with the secondary voltages running through the graphics card’s PBC trails).
Best case scenario is the user’s fingers discharging accumulated amounts of static energy when they touch the case while also touching some card’s circuitry.
plugged in US power outlets with reversed pins (so 110 volts now runs through the metal case
PC power supplies don’t work the way you think they do.
Where exactly do you think the middle pin from power outlet goes?
If not to ground the metallic husk, then the third pin is useless there. It’s there with a purpose: it’s meant to ground, generally (present at the best of electrical house infrastructures) going all the way to a buried copper rod that creates a short circuit with the ground present when someone is touching the metallic husk. Also, in US, IIRC (I’m from Brazil so I don’t know the US electric system so well, although old Brazilian outlets are inspired by US outlets) they have GFCI (Ground fault circuit interrupter): if GFCI detects flowing energy at the ground, the outlet shuts off, protecting people from electrical shock.
However, on many houses, neither GFCI nor proper ground is present. Some houses (it’s common in Brazil with older outlets inspired by the US outlet) route ground wire to the “neutral”, be it on the outlet, be it on a DIY extension cord. The latter will allow for neutral to be plugged into phase, so ground will be phase as well. From there, I guess I don’t need to detail what happens if someone touches a phased ground. Zap!
In Brazil we have a different kind of outlet, one with a specific shape (inspired by the Swiss power outlet) that won’t let us plug reversely. With these outlets, phase goes to phase, ground to ground and neutral to neutral. Old houses still have the US-based outlet, tho.
Modern US plugs have a wide blade for “neutral” or “return path” and a narrow blade for “live” or “hot” (plus the round ground pin). In my part of the US, we only have GFCI near water (restrooms and kitchen) but always proper circuit breakers and ground to water pipes where the mains AC enters. There still exist many 2-prong appliances, but those will never have the case connected electrically!
If you don’t have a proper earth ground, then tying anything together is bad news. You could have one appliance shorting out and damaging others on the same circuit, or burning your wires in the wall. Regarding the PC switch-mode supply, AC in goes to a transformer which doesn’t care if hot and neutral are swapped.
Sorry if I sounded like a jerk. I’ve been working on PCs and appliances for decades and only once ever had an energized case; not a PC. Touching two machines each plugged into a seperate circuit, got a metallic taste in my mouth, pulled out the meter and measured ~80VAC! Verified my vending machine and outlet were wired correctly and recommended getting their popcorn machine and outlet checked out.
I think OC has a case of the Kruger peak…
ATX power supplies are literally some of the safest power supplies to exist, and a GFCI breaker would prevent this scenario from even happening IMO lol
The Ryzen 7 5700G can get hot.
I call it DeskMiniMax.
Slightly related: You remember back when cases would have little grommets for water cooling lines because the reservoir and/or the tank would be external to the PC case?
I admit to doing stuff like this to Dells and no-name cases. 😂 It’s usually to fit a more common standard PSU though. One time, I put the power supply in the 5 1/4" bay and flipped the rear fans.
I know a guy who spent hundreds of extra dollars on his build to make sure everything was white. I think maybe I prefer this?
