Project Retro - 15+ year old PC case (best case ever made!)

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Don
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My trusty CM210 case was looking a bit unloved hidden away under my desk. My once pride and joy was looking in a very sorry state. My forays into water-cooling nearly 20 years ago are but a memory, but I always wanted to get back into it, for the benefits of performance and noise, but also because I just have always loved the way a PC with Water running through it freaked so many people out :D

So with all this in mind, bearing in mind that this ancient case still houses my main system, and has done since the day it landed into my sweaty, grimy teenage hands all those years ago. It was purchased for the princely sum of £240, but has proved it's worth over and over again. Its simple presence today is a reminder to me that if you buy right the first time, you never have to buy again!

The very first thing I did once the courier turned up nearly 5 days after ordering with EXPRESS delivery (kids today, you have no idea how much of a lottery early online ordering was from enthusiast type stores!) was to take the side panel off, and drive it down (in my modified 1981 mini-van) to the nearest industrial estate to ask a chap if he would cut a large hole into the pristine aluminum side panel. Initially he accepted, although was very confused. Perhaps he thought I was a bit special, but once he found out the cost of the item, he refused to take responsibility. He then lobbed me the massively dangerous bit of equipment, a metal ruler, and essentially just said "Crack on son".

A few seconds of rapid fire explanation of how said equipment worked, and I put a cut in the middle of the panel as a test, it worked.. It was a bit wavey as the ruler was thin, and the smelly, sweaty, stained gloves he whipped off his own gorilla hands only moments before were far from helpful in deftly holding such a dainty guide. Not to mention the Parkinsons like shake that was now emanating from my body caused by picturing the face of my parents when I would have to pretend the side panel from my quarter of a thousand pound PC case was an optional extra after I had obliterated the original.

Still, I held it together, marked out the shape of the desired window, and powered through, the precipitation from my brow steaming away from the metal as the arc passed through premium alloy like a cheesewire.

It was done. There was a little splatter, but the large rubber window trim covered it up perfectly, and fear of cutting the perspex with a hacksaw blade to fit the hole seemed pure childsplay in comparison.

I was out of there before any management could throw a fit, and the chap asked for a fiver, which i duly paid! I think i actually did a bit of a wheelspin on my way out there, so eager was I to get myself home to begin the build of the only thing that really mattered in my life. My CS rig!

Thus began my love affair with my PC case.

When it came with me to uni around 2003, it looked like this, and I was, frankly, the coolest person on the planet:

CM210uni1.JPG


(Notice the retro MatrixOrbital mini-LCD in the CD-bay :D - more on this later!)

CM210uni2.jpg


CM210uni3.jpg


So, basically after all the years, many systems, many LAN events, god knows how many different configurations, the case looked like this:

CM210before1.jpg


CM210before2.jpg


CM210before3.jpg


CM210before4.jpg


CM210before5.jpg




A shadow of it's former self, as you will surely agree.

However, seeing this sorry sight got me thinking. It's nearly Christmas, and I might have some free time to sort all the niggles and get it looking like new.

I unplugged the case, removed noth side panels, and got to work looking at all the things that needed to be sorted. I thought, start with something simple, just to get cracking.

The CPU heat-sink fan cable was long enough to snare local wildlife, as seen here (if I am too lazy to correct this picture, it will be on it's side):

CM210before6.jpg


I figured "yeah, I can handle this" and took the first step. Originally, I had planned to pull the pins out from the 3 pin connector, snip the cables, and reuse the original pins. To cut a long story short, it failed. The pins fell apart, and my fingers were nowhere near as nimble as they had been 20 years ago. So, i snipped a connector of an old CPU fan, and soldered it to the now shorted fan cables, and then heat-shrink treated my ball bearing type solder blobs.

CM210cpuFAN2.jpg


It looked proper, like someone clever had done it! Now I really had a taste for it again. Emboldened by this success, I drew out a line diagram on notepad (a real one...) to plan my next escapades. Some of which would surely contain cable-wrap!

The goal here is to firstly tidy it all up, get it looking nice and clean up the case to make it look more like brand new. Then once it is all sorted I will look to plan and hopefully recreate a proper open loop type cooling system from parts as cheaply as possible :D

TO BE CONTINUED!
 
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And

And

Associate
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Very nice, but not quite the best case they made :D (IMO)

That would be the ATC110 with aluminium front panel and no side window. Mine got through a few builds but now sits silent in the spare room.
 
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Don
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Next phase :D
Looked at the top of the case, and the papst ngml fan was looking a bit dirty.
grill1.jpg


So, I removed the top panel, and set about cleaning the area up:

grill2.jpg


Was showing it's age a little! That fan had been in there since around 2002 iirc?

On the subject of history, some people will recognise these stickers around the other fan I cleaned :D :
history.jpg


PCI blanking plates are on order, and trying to find a mobo specific IO backing plate to tidy that up a bit too!

Next is cabling/moving drives, and sorting out the lights.
 
Associate
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Popular, cheap and blooming heavy the Chieftec Dragon was the best case ... ;);):p

Seriously though good luck with the build, that case does look awesome :cool:
 
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Don
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Did some tidying up of the cables. Re-installed the drives (sort of correctly)
tidying1.jpg


However, the drives worked, and I managed to get the cables routed under the first drive, and up to the correct places, but it was annoying me, off centre, and looked ghetto:

drivesbodge.jpg


So, i ordered some 2.5 to 3.5 adaptors, and would fit them when they turned up.

Already looking a lot neater.

Next up, more tidying, and getting three matching sata cables. You can also see some of the cheapy cable wrap I was using to keep things tidy. Lots more to do though.
 
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Don
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More tidying up, and did some cable creation to make a 7v fan connector, and a 5v one too. Just wanted to keep the fans spinning as slow as possible at this stage. Wanted to keep this thing a bit quieter!
Here are the ugly hidden cables!
tidying3.jpg


Not too worried, I can neaten it up later, but its nicely behind the mobo. Fan speeds are perfect too.

cathodes1.jpg


Woo hoo, they are in! Drive adapters too. Cable wrap mostly done. Used double sided 3m tape, and its solid :)

quickconnect.jpg


Here you can see the quick connector (used an RC battery connector. Massive overkill, but should last a long time, many disconnections, and means the side panel can be moved away for access without having to poke around the back of the mobo.


Next up, ordered some spangly shiny PCI blanking plates, and not yet got hold of the IO blanking plate for the mobo. Just trying to find one cheap!

Then sorting out the side panel fan, making it look pretty, and ensuring the powe cable is as hidden as possible.
 
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Don
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Thanks guys :)

Some more progress - Needed to fill these gaps:

missingpci.jpg


Decided to get some of these to do the job:
p.s. SHINEY

shinypci1.jpg


Looks much better:

filledpci.jpg


I also then decided to split the various thumb-screw types I have in the PC to each section, so it looks a bit neater, as you can see above.

That's most of phase 1 completed. The machine is rebuilt, and looking a lot more presentable (just the IO plate to find yet!)

almostdone.jpg


windowlights1.jpg


I stuck on the fan grill from an old Ultra PSU, figure it looks a bit nicer than leaving it open or using a standard metal grill.

Next up is going to be investigating a half decent looking open loop water cooling system. I want it to look a little bit retro where possible, and want to see if I can get most parts second-hand, and cheap :D Don't really need to, but it makes it more challenging keeping to a tight budget!

*EDIT* Are you guys seeing my photos on their side? They are upright on my hosting, and when viewed directly in my browser, is the forum doing something odd?
 
Soldato
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Came in here expecting to see a Juno XP case. (metal, frosted plastic and bright green front.) Wasn't dissapointed though, still got hit in the face with nostalgia. :D I miss that case. :( You could build your whole system in it and then camp out in one of the opposite vacant corners in a 4 man tent. :cool:
 
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Don
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The project has resumed!
I wanted to start watercooling again, but keep it looking retro, so went and bought an old used kit from ebay:
CM210Project001.jpg


Then I needed to try and clean it up a bit.

The radiator was the first thing, and most important bit that I really wanted to re-use:

CM210Project002.jpg


Was looking a little mucky, so got the covers off:

CM210Project003.jpg


CM210Project004.jpg


CM210Project005.jpg


CM210Project006.jpg


So, i used a toothbrush, and some wide end tweezers to tease it all back into mostly straight.

This was a good example:

CM210Project007.jpg


Turned into this:

CM210Project008.jpg


So, i was left with something that was mostly straight:

CM210Project010.jpg


Then I moved over to the other side!

Also, the covers needed a little cleaning up:

CM210Project011.jpg


A quick mock up with a new block, as the old one was warped, and leaking!

CM210Project013.jpg


Testing was all done with water for the start, but I will be using the following:

CM210Project014.jpg


Mocking up the kit in the case was going to be tough (its not big in there!), and I tried a few different options:

CM210Project015.jpg

CM210Project016.jpg


Whilst this worked, it did start to leak... it turned out the pump outlet was cracked, and I did try to repair it with Epoxy, but could not get it working well enough, so I decided to bin the reservoir (which was refusing to mount nicely) and move to an all in one type:

CM210Project019.jpg


With that, i could sort out the install again.

CM210Project017.jpg


Much happier with this as a concept, and it seemed like the way to go. This meant I needed a couple of things.. Bulkhead adaptors and a way to get power to the outside of the case nicely.

Bulkhead fittings:

First I made some 16mm holes:

CM210Project022.jpg

CM210Project023.jpg


Threaded in the shiney new fittings:

CM210Project024.jpg

CM210Project025.jpg


Sorted:
CM210Project027.jpg


Power outlet:

I made a hole in a PCI blanking plate, and epoxied a Molex pass through connector to it.

CM210Project020.jpg

CM210Project021.jpg

CM210Project031.jpg

CM210Project032.jpg


I was not happy with the fans that came with it, they were a little noisy, and worse for wear, so they were replaced:

CM210Project030.jpg


So, now it was looking like this:

CM210Project028.jpg


CM210Project029.jpg


Not happy with the fan cabling yet, so have some things to tweak here:
CM210Project033.jpg

CM210Project036.jpg


The radiator is attached to the top of the case with re-usable clear sticky pads

CM210Project035.jpg


With all the lights off!
CM210Project038.jpg


Quite happy with the progress so far :)
 
Caporegime
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Man this is so good, though if you're going to have to have (and you will likely due to space constraints) external watercooling components, could you not get a zalman reserator, that would be epically period!

Alternatively, external components allows for a nice water chiller build!

I really need to decide what I'm doing with my ATCS-201SXK, ATCS-210 (same colour as yours) and ATCS-111.
 
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