Dell mATX case mod? Dude, I got a Dell..

Well I had some spare parts laying around and I found an old Dell computer (date stamped on this case is October 2000). A co-worker of mine was going to throw it away (hauled off to a local recycle place). This Dell had a PIII 800mhz processor. Talk about some processing power.. Well, I knew the computer was going to be thrown away so I told my co-worker that I would take it off of his hands. He simply gave me his old Dell computer. The model on this Dell is the L800R. I looked it over and saw that the case itself was in really good condition. So, after much planning, I decided to give this thing a complete overhaul.

Laying around, I have 2gb's of Corsair Dominator 1066mhz ram, a spare Maxtor hard drive (but working on "obtaining" a Seagate Baracuda hard drive), a PC Power and Cooling 750watt power supply, a combo CD/DVD-RW drive, a bulgin delrin vandal resistant power switch, a 8800gts 640mb video card, some AC Ryan 120mm fans and some misc stuff here and there to snaz the case up.. Lets start with the case.. I plan on this case being a HTPC so it's not critical for me to have the very highest end parts inside.. Here it is, in stock form..





Here's where the snazzing starts to come into play.. I have a few window kits laying around and thought that a Black / Neon Green color scheme on this setup would look pretty cool (almost nVidia-ish). I went to my local Home Depot and purchased some plastic epoxy, plastic primer, spray paint and clear coat. First things first however.. I had to make sure I could get the parts to fit inside. If you notice, the power supply sits directly in the middle of the case, positioned directly over the processor. I knew this stock setup was NOT going to work for me. I wanted a decent amount of cooling and this left NO room for even a STOCK Intel HSF to be mounted. I had to find somewhere else to stick the power supply. Well there is basically only one other place in this case, where it can go.. It would simply have to be mounted in the traditional area above the motherboard.

With that all figured out, I put my first plan into action. I measured the plastic area where the power supply was going to be mounted and went to work.. dremeling away. After some smoothing over with a file and some 220 grit sandpaper, my first mod on this case is looking OK. While I was at it, I decided to "hollow out" the area where the factory power supply was. Again, after some dremel and sandpaper time, I was left with a nice big "hollowed out" area on the rear of the case, which will help me later on with air cooling.

This would be a great case to be a sleeper.

As you probably saw in the picture above, I also cut a hole in the side of the case panel. This is for my case window. Here is a direct shot of it..

I've started to address the air flow issue. This Dell case, in stock form, is ABSOLUTELY without a doubt, the worst when it comes to airflow. Most mATX cases simply cannot flow a large amount of air obviously due to its small size. This case is no different. There were NO fans up front, sucking air into the case. The factory PIII was basically cooled with a passive heatsink (with what appears to be a tiny 40mm fan sitting on top of the passive heatsink).

After many measurements, I found out that I was limited to about a 127mm clearance between the top of the CPU, to the interior side wall of my Dell case. With that in mind, it really limited me on my aftermarket CPU heatsink options. Basically ANY 120mm fan equipped cpu heatsink THAT I WANTED, would not fit into this case. I saw a few flat style 120mm fan equipped CPU heatsinks (where the 120mm fan is positioned parallel to the actual processor / socket) but I wasn't too crazy about what I saw. I did see something that caught my eye.. It was the Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 fan. It barely fit my size criteria with only a few millimeters to spare. Even more impressive was this fans color scheme. Its nickel plated copper with a GREEN LED fan. This fan fit the bill perfectly. So, long story short, I bought it. I am a previous CNPS9500 owner (back in my socket 939 Opteron days). Again, it's not the latest and greatest.. but it fits my needs perfectly! Now I just need a processor, LOL! E8400? Q6600? Q9450? I found a local place that has the Q6600's on sale for $199, so I might end up going that route (although I would prefer the lower heat output of the 45nm processors).

Back to air flow and air cooling the case. From a previous worklog of mine (Lian Li Vapochill), I had some 6" bass ports left over. Since I am EXTREMELY pleased with the air flow in my Lian Li case, I simply went with "what I know works". Here is where it starts getting a little "sticky" and "[H]ard"..I measured the front of the case from top to bottom and from side to side. Again, with only millimeters to spare, I cut (2) 6" holes in the front of my Dell mATX case. Then it was time to plastic epoxy everything to make it look nice and smooth. Take a look at the front of this case:





See the little "over hang" near the bottom of the case? There are actually a few air holes there. As small as they are, I decided to epoxy the entire air hole area and make it look like one solid piece. Once the sticky epoxy was mixed, I litterally had only a few minutes to work it into place before it fully [H]ardened. I accomplished this by applying a small amount at a time vs trying to shape one large mass of epoxy. With the epoxy in place, I sanded and sanded and sanded until i achieved the desired result. While I was at it, I epoxied the slot for the 3 1/2" floppy drive and the top 3 1/2" bay. Again I sanded and sanded until I achieved the desired result. Next, I took (2) 6" bass ports and fit them into the (2) 6" holes that I cut into the front part of my case. Here's where the results of my labor started to pay off. Here is one of the 6" bass ports (to give you an idea of what $4.99 will buy you on ebay).

After all of my epoxy and sanding, the front of this case was ready to be primered, painted and clear coated.. Here is the end result (different settings on my camera.. it looks wet but its completely dry):

This could be amusing.

Also, you sir may be getting some PMs when it comes time to mount the VapoChill in the bottom of my new case...seeing as you've done it before. I'd almost forgotten about that!

Cuts look very clean, work looks good so far. Certainly an interesting case, can't wait to see what else you're doing with it.

rogue_jedi said:

Cuts look very clean, work looks good so far. Certainly an interesting case, can't wait to see what else you're doing with it.

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He's pretty good at molding stuff in -- the Lian Li mod is impressive as well, if you haven't seen it.

Thanks! I'm at a stopping point right now.. I've got to wait on the paint to dry on the case panels. I'm working on cutting out the metal case and squeezing my big ole 750 watt power supply in. It's not going well right now. I measured, measured and re-measured. It should fit, with 1mm per side clearance and a 2mm clearance up top. So far, it's a no-go. It just refuses to slide into place. I think my problems are the factory rivets.. Time to drill them out.. let's see if that works. I'll let ya know!

BTW, on a side note, if ya need some help with your Vapochill, I'm always willing to share any tips or tricks that I have encountered! Buy some Dow Corning 4 (DC4) compound if you don't already have some. It was pretty hard for me to find this stuff locally but finally found a few tubes of it at an airplane mechanics shop.

Man, this is awesome job! Better then the my local auto body shop. Couldn't wait to see more results.

FINALLY! Omg! I had to drill a few rivets out and after alot of wiggling, the power supply is in. Once my camera is charged back up, I will snap some pictures. I will take my case to a local powder coater and have the metal powder coated neon green!

Got some pictures as promised.. The metal is a tad scratched up but that will NOT make a difference when it is all powder coated! It will look 100% brand new when they are done powder coating! I also wanted to point out that my cut out does NOT exactly match up with my PC P&C 750 watt power supply. But that's ok since its a "generic" cut out that should pretty much fit 99% of the power supplies out there.

Those are some "expensive" parts you just have lying around

What are you going to do with the half of the leads you don't actually need? I've got one of those things and I'm not even using all the leads with two GTXs and a case full of fans...

Im sorry, i if i missed this in the OP, but what CPU and Mobo are you using in this build?

The coolest part about this is its amazingly humble origins. When you get finished it's going to look so different that no one's going to know how it started life.

Heller said:

Im sorry, i if i missed this in the OP, but what CPU and Mobo are you using in this build?

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Well, I don't actually have those parts laying around.. LOL! I will have to go buy a motherboard and cpu.. I am leaning towards an E8400 or Q6600. As long as I can hit 3.2ghz on my this HTPC, I will be happy.

silent-circuit said:

What are you going to do with the half of the leads you don't actually need? I've got one of those things and I'm not even using all the leads with two GTXs and a case full of fans...

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I know! There are definately no shortages of wires! But that is a bad thing if the person using this power supply only needs about 4 of the leads! As for the other wires, I will "discretely" tuck them away. As we speak, I am planning on cutting a large hole in the metal under the motherboard to help route some of the unused cables there. Every litte nook and cranny will help! Also, most of my parts laying around are decent quality (for back up purposes in case my MAIN computer setup has issues). I try to keep parts on hand because I hate the down time!

officermartinez said:

Well, I don't actually have those parts laying around.. LOL! I will have to go buy a motherboard and cpu.. I am leaning towards an E8400 or Q6600. As long as I can hit 3.2ghz on my this HTPC, I will be happy.

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You can hit 3.8Ghz guaranteed on an E8400, and with a little more volts you can usually hit 4.0Ghz.
But if you want a quad, then the Q6600 will be a great CPU!
You can get 3.6-8Ghz on the Q6600, and if your lucky you can get 4Ghz.
But be warned, the Q6600 will run tons more hotter than the E8400.

smee said:

You can hit 3.8Ghz guaranteed on an E8400, and with a little more volts you can usually hit 4.0Ghz.
But if you want a quad, then the Q6600 will be a great CPU!
You can get 3.6-8Ghz on the Q6600, and if your lucky you can get 4Ghz.
But be warned, the Q6600 will run tons more hotter than the E8400.

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Yeah.. I'm pretty much up to date on the "pro's and con's" of each processor. My situation has more to do with cost and less to do with highest clock possible. I'm already the proud owner of a Vapochilled QX6700 running at 4ghz.. This build is strictly for my home theater. BTW, I finally found a Q6600 for $199! If anyone knows where I can beat this price, send me a PM. If not, it's road trip time to Richardson, Texas in the morning (about 75 minutes from my house).

Yeah, the Microcenter deal is killer. Unfortunately, there are none anywhere near me, or my soon-to-arrive shiny new X3220 would be going straight back in the box.

Looks great
I wish I had those kind of parts just lying around...

AMD_RULES said:

Looks great
I wish I had those kind of parts just lying around...

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pssshhh, you and me both!

silent-circuit said:

Yeah, the Microcenter deal is killer. Unfortunately, there are none anywhere near me, or my soon-to-arrive shiny new X3220 would be going straight back in the box.

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Hey everyone.. Good and bad news. I was at Microcenter first thing this morning (35 degree F), standing in line at the front door, wait for them to open. At 10:00 am sharp, the doors opened and I made a B-Line to the BYOPC counter. There must have been 4-5 guys behind me. I told the sales assistant that I would like to purchase a Q6600. With less than 10 minutes before Microcenter closed last night, I called to ask how many they had in stock. After 4-5 minutes of being on hold, an associate picked the phone up and said that they had "3" in stock. Great I thought.. In all reality, the store was only going to be open for 2 more minutes. I asked the sales associate if she could put one of them "on-hold" for me but she said she would not be able to do that. So, fast forward to this morning.. When I asked for a Q6600, the sales associate said, "uhhhhh, we show to have -1 quanity".

What in the world??? NEGATIVE 1? I drove for hours this morning in weather that was close to freezing, only for an associate to tell me that they were out of stock. He kindly redirected my attention to their E4500. Guess what my reaction was.. LOL. I held the tears back and said no thank you. It was my lucky day however. The main store manager walked by and could see that my world had just been shattered.. LMAO! He asked if there was a problem and I told him my situation. As soon as I finished my sob story, I saw a small golden halo begin to appear above his head as he said that as a favor, he would be willing to use expedited shipping via FEDEX and ship me a Q6600 (as soon as their stock truck arrived with more Q6600's) if I paid the sale price of $199 today. With the quickness, I whipped out my Visa check card and gladly paid the sale price of $199. The manager said that if there was no Q6600's on this truck coming, he would FIND me a brand new retail boxed Q6600 regardless, if it meant keeping a returning customer happy.

Kudo's to Microcenter. That's just simply good customer service. They've earned my business on future purchases. (If any Microcenter employee reads this, THANK YOU)!

So, the good news: I have a Q6600 coming and it's already paid for.
The bad news: Microcenter in Richardson, Texas has NO stock on the Q6600 or E8400.

As for the parts laying around, I think I am not going to use my "old" 200gb Maxtor drive.. Instead I will need to buy atleast a 500gb Sata drive (Seagate 7200.10 perhaps.. $104). I also need to buy my mATX board. Since the rumored DFI mATX board is only speculation, I will probably end up buying the Asus P5E-VM HDMI board.

Color me impressed. I love the front panel work. I always admire a guy who likes to cram lots of parts in small spaces...

I say watercool this "Dell".

Thanks! I simply didn't have the watercooling parts laying around and since it's "only" a HTPC, there was no sense in going that route. Maybe one day, I can do a mATX watercooling setup.. I'm really diggin this mATX build.. It's been really fun. Speaking of fun, I just bought an Asus P5E-VM HDMI ( http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1233021 ). It should be here sometime next week.

Things I still need to buy:

Windows Vista Ultimate x64
5 1/4" media card reader (to fit into the top drive bay)
500gb Sata Hard Drive

This build is becoming really, really interesting. Nice work on the Dell case, do you subcontract???

A little update.. I began applying the final coats of clear coat.. I ran into a snag with the front 120mm fan mounts.. I have since had to re-cut a piece of aluminum and start over.. It's all measured out and waiting to be cut. I'll try to take a few pictures of the "before and after" cuts (so you can get an idea of what the fans are going to be mounted to). As for sub-contracting, LOL, as long as I have the time, I am willing to lend a hand or help out with anything that I can. I've only done a few "mods" for money. Since my main job (police) requires a lot of my time, those couple of mod jobs took longer than normal.

LOL, that totally makes the forum name make more sense. I just had to call executive recycling to come pick up 25 of those old dell Optiplex cases, still have two left but the hard drives weren't removed yet for destruction. I even managed to save some of the parts since my boss told me I can keep anything I want from them besides the hard drives.

KrylonArt said:

LOL, that totally makes the forum name make more sense. I just had to call executive recycling to come pick up 25 of those old dell Optiplex cases, still have two left but the hard drives weren't removed yet for destruction. I even managed to save some of the parts since my boss told me I can keep anything I want from them besides the hard drives.

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Sweet! Is there a Dell mod worklog in your near future!!!!

Most of what I kept so far was just a few ,otherboards/processors/ram, some Audigy 2 cards and a complete Optiplex SX260 that I hope to put to use as my first folding PC after a few minor upgrades.

i assume, with that PSU, your not planning on useing any *d-roms in the thing, cause i dont think they will fit with that PSU in there... not that this has stopped people in the past

Here's the "redesigned" front piece of aluminum where the (2) 120mm fans will mount up to the front part of the case..

This thing is going to end up having some hardcore airflow for a mATX case. Maybe you can make some kind of baffle system, have one exhaust one intake... or something. So it makes like a "U" with a third fan pushing the air through the rear "leg". This is probably pointless. I am probably tired and frustrated.

silent-circuit said:

This thing is going to end up having some hardcore airflow for a mATX case. Maybe you can make some kind of baffle system, have one exhaust one intake... or something. So it makes like a "U" with a third fan pushing the air through the rear "leg". This is probably pointless. I am probably tired and frustrated.

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Yeah, it's getting late and I think I am at a stopping point for the night.. I totally know whatcha mean! That "U" idea sounds good but since I cut out the rear of the case already, the exhaust air will just be forced out, through the back. I completely agree that this little mATX is going to have some very serious airflow.. I am really interested to see what kind of temps I will get on my Q6600 (speaking of which, Microcenter said they sent my Q6600 off and as a courtesy, they said it was DEFINATELY a SLACR (G0) stepping). So, I'm pretty happy about that!

thore said:

i assume, with that PSU, your not planning on useing any *d-roms in the thing, cause i dont think they will fit with that PSU in there... not that this has stopped people in the past

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VERY GOOD! I was wondering when someone would chime in and notice that my cd/dvd-rom was not going to fit.. Also, my HARD DRIVE won't fit in there either.. LMAO! Since I have this spare Maxtor laying around, I tried every which way to mount it in there and it just wasn't in the cards. So, I bought this: http://www.censuspc.com/product.php?productid=637&cat=0&page=1 ..I'm not sure if I want to mod that little external case to match my mATX case. I'll cross that road when I get there.. LOL!

KrylonArt - That Optiplex would make a kickin lil mod project!

Too bad you don't have enough room to try to drop a slimline drive in from the top of the case. That would be bad ass to have just two intakes on the front with the power switch and the drive is actually suspended from the top of the case out of plain sight.

Wow that looks awesome. Subscribed!

Posting #23 was very interesting to read ... thanks.

NickS said:

Wow that looks awesome. Subscribed!

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Thanks NickS! Nothing to report right now.. it's a nice and warm day here in Fort Worth, Texas. I have applied my final coat of clear to the remaining parts of the Dell case.. It's drying at the moment. I also took my case (and related parts) to the powder coating place.. Hopefully sometime this upcoming week, my case will be ready for pick up.. I'm having it done in a "one coat" NEON GREEN.. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to snap a few pictures of the re-designed front 120mm fan bracket (after I finished cutting it out and smoothing everything out). It turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself.

KrylonArt - my wife suggested that, in the planning stage of this build. It would have been a very tight squeeze and but it would have looked pretty tricked out.. I ultimately decided to go with the standard size cd/dvd-rom simply because its modular and I can change that thing out at a moments notice (blu-ray in the future perhaps).

I have a few "bare" wires that I am going to sleeve today so not much going on.. It's basically a sit and wait game at the moment.. I'm waiting on my CPU, Motherboard and powder coating. I'm will probably check out the FS threads to see if anyone has any great deals on Vista Ultimate x64 and a 500gb hard drive.

Just a little update... Still waiting on my parts to come back from the powder coater.. As promised, I puchased a Q6600 (G0) and an Asus mATX motherboard! Also, I went ahead and sleeved some wires.. My external CD-ROM / hard drive case came in yesterday.. It took me about 2 minutes to completely dismantle everything down to the frame.. I didn't like the layout inside so I am going to give it a small internal make over in the mean time..