A friend of mine is out of town a lot and wanted a full pc he could take to his motel room and still be able to do some decent gaming. He had considered a gaming laptop, but didn't want to spend the money for one. This is what I ended up making for him:
First, we found two aluminum covered cases. The cases were cheap at only $20 a piece. In hindsight it would have been better to build a case from scratch as these had to be reinforced.
I stripped the hardware off of both cases and fitted the two deep ends together.
I scavenged a Motherboard tray from an ATX case and made the area large enough to support a 9.5" by 9.5" mini ATX board. All supports and framework were pop riveted and used flat aluminum strap and angle. This is what the case looked like on the inside.
The bottom, the top and the hinges needed to be reinforced considering I used a 19" Widescreen LCD The monitor is cooled by 2 X 40mm fans on the bottom (intakes), and 2 X 40 mm vents at the top.
Here is what the side cutouts look like with the DVD burner and powersupply installed.
Here is what the motherboard area looks like with the board installed. I used a 120mm smart fan to cool the entire system, as well as one 60mm fan exhausting near the video card vent. There is also a 60mm intake near the video card intake. So far the system doesn't even get warm and is rather quiet.
I mounted the lights, USB jack, and power switch on the front. It uses a miniature USB keyboard and a standard optical mouse. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room for the mouse.
Here is a picture of the lower case are with the keyboard and wireless antenna in the stoyed position. The DVD drive and hard drive sit on the lower right hand side, the power supply is on the right hand side and the motherboard tray takes up the entire area under the 120mm fan.
A few more pics:
60mm venting on the side
Monitor ventilation from the inside
The final specs were:
Acer 19" Widescreen LCD monitor
Athlon X2 4200
Acer Nvidia 6200 based PCIe motherboard
ATI X1950GT PCIe video card
1 GB DDR Ram
Seagate 320 GB SATA Hard drive
DVD Burner
FSP 480Watt ATX PS
MSI Wireless G card with an movable antennae
WIN XP home edition
However almost any mini-ATX motherboard and / or video card could be used.
First, we found two aluminum covered cases. The cases were cheap at only $20 a piece. In hindsight it would have been better to build a case from scratch as these had to be reinforced.
I stripped the hardware off of both cases and fitted the two deep ends together.
I scavenged a Motherboard tray from an ATX case and made the area large enough to support a 9.5" by 9.5" mini ATX board. All supports and framework were pop riveted and used flat aluminum strap and angle. This is what the case looked like on the inside.
The bottom, the top and the hinges needed to be reinforced considering I used a 19" Widescreen LCD The monitor is cooled by 2 X 40mm fans on the bottom (intakes), and 2 X 40 mm vents at the top.
Here is what the side cutouts look like with the DVD burner and powersupply installed.
Here is what the motherboard area looks like with the board installed. I used a 120mm smart fan to cool the entire system, as well as one 60mm fan exhausting near the video card vent. There is also a 60mm intake near the video card intake. So far the system doesn't even get warm and is rather quiet.
I mounted the lights, USB jack, and power switch on the front. It uses a miniature USB keyboard and a standard optical mouse. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room for the mouse.
Here is a picture of the lower case are with the keyboard and wireless antenna in the stoyed position. The DVD drive and hard drive sit on the lower right hand side, the power supply is on the right hand side and the motherboard tray takes up the entire area under the 120mm fan.
A few more pics:
60mm venting on the side
Monitor ventilation from the inside
The final specs were:
Acer 19" Widescreen LCD monitor
Athlon X2 4200
Acer Nvidia 6200 based PCIe motherboard
ATI X1950GT PCIe video card
1 GB DDR Ram
Seagate 320 GB SATA Hard drive
DVD Burner
FSP 480Watt ATX PS
MSI Wireless G card with an movable antennae
WIN XP home edition
However almost any mini-ATX motherboard and / or video card could be used.