Johnny builds another computer

Johnny put together a computer this weekend using some parts from his previous gaming system and some parts from some old systems I drug home from work. It wasn't enough to just bolt it together: it had to be modified, for improved cooling, you know. The case had two places, one in front and one in back, for mounting auxiliary cooling fans. The rack for the three and a half inch disk drives was a separate piece that could be removed. Johnny wanted extra cooling for the disk drives, so we bent some tabs and drilled some holes and mounted this disk drive rack to the floor of the case. This positioned it right in back of the fan mounted to the front panel.

Johnny also had some chrome wire fan grills that he wanted to use. The case had grills that were integral to the case made by punching a bunch of holes in the sheet metal. We cut these grills out by using an electric drill to cut the strips-of-metal-between-adjacent-holes (there is a term for this but I do not remember what it is). Then we used a small diameter (one inch) grindstone mounted in a high speed (three or four thousand RPM) electric drill to grind away jagged edges and then to remove the remaining metal to make the hole full size. We should have taken some pictures. It would make this easier to explain. A video with accurate sound would give a realistic idea of what all was involved. Grinding was very noisy. We wore the grindstone down to nothing.

Before we started all this drilling and cutting, Johnny removed all the electronic components from the computer case, including the power supply and the front panel switches. Little bits of steel can ruin sensitive electronics. After we were done with all the metal work, we used the air compressor to clean the case. We covered the floor of our work area (in the garage) with metal bits. I swept them up, it was quite a pile.

Johnny also spent considerable time sorting out the electronic components. We had three motherboards and three disk drives, all apparently good, but not all combinations would work together. Some motherboards would run the BIOS, but would not boot from any disk. Some disks would format and test fine, but no motherboard could boot from them. We finally ended up using the newest, and most powerful motherboard with one of two 80GB disk drives we had. We could not get our second 80GB disk to boot. It tests fine otherwise, so it is providing extra storage.

I was talking to Jack at lunch today about the mods we made to the computer case this weekend and I realized we probably should have wiped out the case with a damp cloth when were done, to pick up any grit that was left over from the grinding. Blowing it out with air was probably adequate, but the next time we do this, we should try wiping it off and see if we get any more grit.