I'm Thinking About A Mod....

I have a Gateway with the standard creamy-white (eww!) case, and about 4 disk drives. I want to get a good case and an improved fan for the guts I will soon be upgrading. The system is basically Win98 with 128Mb SDRAM and a 12.7Gb HDD. Oh, and I have an Intel Pentium III. I would like some ideas from people who know this stuff, about a good design at a nice price that won't give me a really bad neck cramp from tensing my money muscles.
I am thinking about using a black case with red neon, and a really cold fan. Suggestions? Where the heck do I get this stuff? Where is best? Websites? Suggestions on design? Feel free to supply me with obscenely large amounts of information

Thanks a lot guys, I have already learned so much from the last 4 days of browsing your site.

 

what kind of fans? case fans? id just get ones that light up neon red themselves which u can find at best buy or on the web, for a case i would suggest going to a computer store, not on the internet, i know a lot of people that got shitty cases when they though they were good, its a lot nicer to see them in person, you can lift them up, look at them, see any cool little things on the case that u just can't see from a digital picture, dont go for a super light case, they are usually plastic, and just really suck, many things that can go wrong with them, other then that, just make sure it can fit all your disk drives and everything, then just go on looks mostly

 

i would look at different case mod gallery's to get some ideas. i've gotten stuff from www.xoxide.com and www.svc.com and www.newegg.com.

here are pics of my case (disregard the first pic...thats for a different thread so i can't delete it) http://billiehall.com/mike/

 

The fan is going to fit somewhere.... just so I can keep my little processor (Pentium 3, poor little thing) alive and at a nice temp. I'll probably upgrade to a P4, 2Ghz or so. And then, yeah, another set of SDRAM, go to 256Mb.

Nice case AceJones, I'm looking for something similar, but fairly inexpensive (low budget at 15). I like the black, but now I'm thinking of trying deep red or green, or go Terran Confederacy Pearl White. The icky white already on here is nasty looking.

 

Personally, I'd go buy a cheapo £30 (thats about $55) case from a local store or a site on the internet and then do some serious modding. First to go would be the built in fan grills (yuck!) and replaced by real fan grills, and then install a window. Then paint it, and add some lighting (such as cold cathodes, LED arrays... stuff like that). I might put some cool decals on the side, hand painted of course! maybe stealth the drives, mod the drives with lighting, maybe swap out the drive activity LEDs, or relocate them...

But then, thats just me. Modding is such a thing that you have to put your own creative input into it, and I can't really do that part for you.

 

I don't have pictures, but I'm using an old Gateway Essential case that I've seriously modified to accept more & larger fans. It works quite well actually.

Personally I would look at modding that case, before buying a new one. But that's just me. You'd be surprised what can be done with a Dremel, a couple cans of spray paint & a bit of imagination.

 

I love modding OEM machines... I modded my friends packard bell to have an extra few fans, a better heatsink (that was pretty hard, had to make my own retention clip!) and an extra blowhole and a backlit power button

OEM cases really suck for being able to take them appart though. I think I broke every fixing that was there.. all mended again with a bit of glue and self threading screws I find it more of a challenge in any case