New- First major mod/Anyone have any suggestions?

[y3k]

Hello everyone. My name's Ron. I am starting my first major mod. A pretty hard one, since I'm on a low budget. And all I have to work with is a Anaheim3 motherboard pulled from an eMachines a Celeron 1.GHz and 512 MBs of SDRAM. Old ram, old processor, old motherboard. I'm building this computer as a basic computer. Just for doing home work and listening to music and little stuff. nothing much.

I started this off by buying a nicely priced Codegen case at a near by computer store and 3x 80.mm case fans. The case has a window on the side with a intake fan that glows blue. I am using a stock heatsink, but I went and modded a larger fan for it. a 80.mm. So my cooling is done very good for the processor. The hardrive will be a 20 gig seagate. And I have a DVD drive and a CD burner to put in it with a 400 psu that came with the case. The case looks pretty nice. The metal is kind of thin, but it'll do. I got it for 60 bucks plus the 10 bucks for each fan. Here are stock pics of it.

Since I won't be doing much, no need to acquire a more powerful psu. I am not sure if my case is a good brand or has a good rep. All I want is for this to look great on the outside without anyone knowing how weak it actually is inside. The 32 MB Nvidia TNT Pro 64 card is for graphics and a brand new network card I got from a thrifty shop is for the online connection. I will be watching some shows downloaded on this computer maybe once every now 'n then, so the 512 MB old SDRAM actually works with that. I tested with some episodes of Family Guy and it didn't freeze at all. Even with Firefox running running at the same time. (not counting the times Firefox has to load)

I will have to rely on this computer for a long time. When I don't need it, I'll be able to get some new stuff to put in it. Maybe even buy a new case. But into then, I'm going to have to be poor and do with what I got. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do/? If this turns out bad I'll place the pics of the finished computer in the ghetto mods section. As I'm sure I will be using those plastic cups and ducktape I got for somethings.

 

[Moddest Mouse]

a nice cheap mod is blow holes. you could take the top part (under the handle, which is gross looking and i would remove) cut that whole oval thing out and use some modder's mesh on it. its cheap and from frozencpu.com it will run you abot 20 bucks +shipping

 

[Arcygenical]

Well, I suggest, most importantly, some good wiring.

Good internal wiring (look for our wire management thread) really helps any case look really nice.

 

[y3k]

a nice cheap mod is blow holes. you could take the top part (under the handle, which is gross looking and i would remove) cut that whole oval thing out and use some modder's mesh on it. its cheap and from frozencpu.com it will run you abot 20 bucks +shipping

Hmmm. Sounds interesting. I'll look into that. I happen to know a guy who can supply me with a free window screen, that should work.

I scrapped 3x 80mm fans off of a few psu and I'm wiring them up to keep my HDD cool. I can fit a total of 4 fans. 1Front, 1back, 1side, and 1top./ At first, I didn't notice the top holes. It allows you to put in a fan there to blow out there through the vents, but I'm gonna use a friend's dremel to cut that out. Better air flow. I made homemade rounded IDE cables using the same-old technique. luckily my box of spare parts had alot of IDE cables, I screwed up on them twice. My spare parts are old and of no use to making this computer as best I can get it. Just old graphics cards, cables, and 3.2gb hardrives.

I am thinking of putting in a cheap brand new creative labs sound card. I'll post up pics of the final machine when I get my new digital camera for x-mas.
My old one was stolen.

 

[rayra]

a nice cheap mod is blow holes. you could take the top part (under the handle, which is gross looking and i would remove) cut that whole oval thing out and use some modder's mesh on it. its cheap and from frozencpu.com it will run you abot 20 bucks +shipping

Ouch. That price markup is insane. Go to a national craft store chain like Michael's Hobbies, or a local model or hobby shop and you can find mesh for just a couple bucks. Any town over 10,000 people ought to have one or more of such stores.
Brass, copper, aluminum screen mesh, expanded-metal mesh. heck, go to a hardware store and buy an aluminum window screen repair kit for a couple bucks, or a foot or so off the bulk roll for a $1 and have all the mesh you can use.
A store specializing in model trains ought to have some mesh or cheap recommendations as train hobbiests sometimes use it as an underlayment for their train set scenery.

$20. I'm in the wrong racket.


Here's an example of the screen I'm talking about. Available at any hardware store for cheap. Used it to guard a fan on a fireplace insert I refurbished.