This case mod is something I always wanted to do- Two PC systems in one case.

The ITX system I have had around for a year now but wanted to reduce clutter around my office by intergrating it into my main PC case. When the power supply for the ITX system crapped out now was the time to give it a go.

The main PC is a AMD 5000+ X2 with a 8800GT, it pulls 170 watts at idle, the ITX system pulls 24 watts with the Compaq ATX power supply you see in the pictures. The power supply just exhausts into the case, it doesn't get very warm since it is working at 25% of it's rated spec.

The wall plate is a spare with an attached a short CAT5e cable, it plugs right in as does everything else so the ITX board can be removed if needed with little fuss and bother. The mods to the main case were light so things can be reversed if need be. All I did was cut out the stamped fan grill opening in the case and drilled two holes to mount the wall plate.

After that it was a matter of grinding out the holes for the VGA, Power, USB and Keyboard. The power lead is actually a shortened cable so it plugs right in too. The keyboard port wasn't really needed but sometimes a USB keyboard just won't do and I had the PS/2 lead kicking around. Sound is actually used, I just snaked the audio cable through one of the backplate slots to output through my monitors unused crappy speakers.

Monitor supports dual inputs, if I have to access the ITX machine I just hit a button on the LCD and go in via remote desktop.

I still have to pop in a power button in the front of  the case, I was going to drill a small hole where the case badge resides and mount it there.

Total cost? Nothing. All the cables and junk were kicking around my attic. The ITX machine works great for a low power home server / torrent downloader.

Gary

P.S. The PII fan tie wrapped on is just insurance, the VIA CPU runs fairly cool.

WHOA! Mental Chicken Oriental!

SHOEBOX-PC!

ZOMG!

Looks neat, intresting to see how it works out.

I would not mind trading off the C3 system for an Atom system, the C3 system is a bit slow at times for my taste.

I have a Dell mini 9 laptop and it rocks.

Just in case someone doesn't know, there's Thermaltake Mozart TX
It's desinged to store 2 motherboards, a classic ATX one and a mini ITX board. More, it has a special bay where you can fit a 7" TFT. I'd say it's the perfect case for 2 systems.

Then there's VIA Artigo, a full minisystem that can be placed in a standard 5.25" bay.
Just think that you can put 5 artigo's in the Mozart TX...7 systems in one case 

^^^
haha   

too expensive indeed-considering that you can get a nv ion/ati hd4530 based system for just a few bucks more (avoiding the terrible intel chipset)..

guess its good enough for that..

gdonovan wrote on 25.09.09 at 13:18:12:


I recently got bitten by the upgrade bug and completely gutted my primary Home Theater/Gaming PC (Core2 quad/Nvidia 8800GTX) and stepped up to an Core i7 setup.  This left me with a pile of 2 year old components that were in perfectly good working order.  

Instead of giving them away on eBay, I decided to reconstitute them into slim low power daily surfer computer.  Since my original motherboard was a full ATX, I decided to pick up a uATX model with integrated graphics.  The board I chose is the ASUS P5N7A-VM LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300/nForce 730i HDMI.  I dropped this all into an older slim uATX case along with an old 160GB 2.5" SATA laptop drive.  I was surprised to discover that ASUS went Green with this board and it has what is called the EPU-4 engine integrated into it.  It's basically a chip that monitors power usage and tries reduce it as much as possible.  While surfing and doing email, my Core2 Quad Q6600 only draws 13 watts of power.  I would guess the entire system draws well below 100 watts, even under fully load.  I have it connected to dual 22" LCD monitors, so I could really do much more with this setup than just surfing and email.  

You could build a similar setup with a lower power Intel or AMD CPU for just a little more than one of the EEE PCs that Asus sells.