Hey!
My project changes again, but it's actually going back towards its roots. Originally when I contacted Josh about the S4 mini, I pitched my idea of a "Dreamcast 2" theme for my build to him. Of course--being the passionate guy he is--he was enthusiastic about the idea. The plan was to powder coat an S4 mini and try to make a custom top panel for it with a logo cut out over the CPU to allow airflow. Fast forward about a year from then and here we are, I still have both a Logic Supply MC600 and a S4 Mini, and I'm still afraid to mod that beautiful S4 Mini where as Logic Supply literally sent me this MC600 (for free) to see what kind of mod I would do to it... It's really long overdue I do something with that MC600.
I've never modded a case. I've always been interested but a lot of barriers kept me from being able to. I've been in a rut and really need to start focusing on doing projects rather than thinking about them, so I've committed to getting the ball rolling on this one. (and a few others!)
The basic rundown on this system is that I'm migrating my old gaming computer with an i7-4790K and a GTX 980 into an ITX chassis, and even after I upgrade the system (probably next year), I'll keep this one around for taking with me to LANs at friends houses, and when it's at home it'll be in our utilities closet, available for Steam In-Home Streaming to my roommates/our company.
The 980 was too big to fit in any of the cooler, newer ITX systems, so I needed to get an ITX card. (Also I sold it to a friend like two weeks ago. lol) A while back I pulled the trigger on the Galax 1070 Mini. I don't love that its fans idle at 30%, but they're not the loudest thing in the world--maybe I'll figure out some kind of hack to get around that. Whether it's using different fans on CPU headers or whatever else.
I've taken two baby steps in the process of modding this case so far. I cut away enough material to fit the power connector of my G-Unique power supply from guryhwa through one of the serial ports on the case, and this morning I started work on the cutout for my video card's fans/intake.
The current roadblock I'm facing with this system is that the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac motherboard I bought (used on /r/hardwareswap) does not support PCI-e risers (???), this is what ASRock themselves have told me, though the representative I've been dealing with has said they will ask "HQ" about it. Right now, I'm eyeing an ASUS Z97I-Plus, I asked the seller about their return policy and if they can confirm the board works with PCI-e risers. (A user on the forums here has said theirs works without any issue, so I'm pretty confident.) I also asked ASUS's support about it.
Anyways, I took a few pictures of my work which I'll probably end up uploading tomorrow after I get some more work done. Cutting with a "Dremel"/rotary cutting tool is harder than I thought, but so far I'm cutting pretty straight (just not very cleanly), I can see why Josh said he prefers an angle grinder. For this cutting on the underside, I think it'll be fine, and I can probably clean it up well enough.
I'll also end up dressing this post up more nicely at some point in the future.
Thanks!
