Orac^3 -- Not Your Everyday Casemod

jmke writes "G-nome has finished his amazing Orac case mod, which looks absolutely stunning." An excerpt from the site: "Ever since I saw the first series of Blakes 7 I have wanted my own Orac. For those that don't know, Blakes 7 was a late 70s/early 80s British Science Fiction series and Orac was this intellectually snobbish, difficult and incredibly brilliant computer, hand built by an eccentric scientist. The special effects were straight out of 60's Star Trek and a lot of the props were converted from (or later converted to) props from other classic BBC series such as Doctor Who and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (where the Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain looks like it was made by the same bloke!)."

Comments

Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[erick99]

If you only look at one article this week or even this month you have got to look at this one. I have never seen such a gorgeous case in my life. The photographs are outstanding. The workmanship on this case is almost beyond what seems possible. THere is a surreal quality to the irridescent green color. THis is truly functional art.

Go look!!!!

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[randyest]

Is this a cruel joke? The site instantly went down -- I tried it before even the FP. Grrr. No love from the wayback machine or google cache either. sigh.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[MrNonchalant]

Well that's what seems to be the trouble, too many have gone and looked. The server is apparently too busy crying for mommy at this point.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's not art, it's craftsmanship.

Likewise, a plumber can do a "beautiful" job, but it will never be art. Art has to be useless in order to be art. Otherwise, artist would not be such a high-status occupation.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[waytoomuchcoffee]

I usually don't even check out these modding stories, but I am glad I looked at this one. It's the most beautiful case I have ever seen. Drop-dead amazing. Damn I want one.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[techno-vampire]

Wrong. Checking dictionary.com, we find:

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. The study of these activities.

In one definition and:

A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building. And, A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer. Nothing about it needing to be useless. Have you ever considered learning what you're writing about before posting?

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

That, sir, is one of the most uninfirmed and ignorant statements I have had the honor of witnessing on Slashdot.

You win an award. I don't know which one.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[simcop2387]

i'd go with the darwin awards, he has effectively taken himself out of the human gene pool by posting to /. like that

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[torpor]

I dunno. It doesn't look so Orac to me ... well, in that Orac is a transparent plexi-glass box, and this is also a transparent plexi-glass box, okay ... they're similar.

But this thing still looks like a rice-box PC. A true Blake7 fan wouldn't have stuck to PC form-factor in an imitation of Orac, in my opinion ...

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

So, um.. all those people working for CG characters in film and games are not artists? There is definitely usefulness in their creations, and they are defintiely creating art.

Hm, I think I just trumped your statement. Sorry.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[Bender_]

Seriously, if you'd want to have this in your living or work-room, you have issues. The only place I could this imagine at is a childrens room or maybe a cheesy nightclub.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[neosake]

Have you ever considered learning what you're writing about before posting?

You must be new here ;)

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[mrtroy]

One of my favorite parts of following that project log on bit-tech was that he never showed the entire case at once in photos until the end. He would just have those incredible clear and bright close-ups that kept me going back wanting to see more. It is a very impressive case "mod", actually a whole case design, and one of the best done I have seen yet. I wont include a link to MY project log, it pales in comparison.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[modecx]

No, as much as I usually distain case-modding (looks like he's missing an R-type sticker--kidding).. This is definitely art.

Face it--If H.R. Geiger were a case modder, he'd probably have come up with something like this.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[Mr. Bad Example]

You're not stupid, you're not expendable, and you're not going to that site.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[red floyd]

Damn, that case looks like something out of Brazil!

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[skotte]

gahh! i'm with you .. i'm not really up on the show, so i didnt know what the orac is. but seeing it now? that is no orac. orac looked like it was a bunch of junk thrown in a box. this is actually pieced together with some considerable care.

pretty. very very pretty. i wonder about the ventilation. with all that hosing and such.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[triso]

What do the keyboard and mouse look like?

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[Woody77]

water-cooled.

Re:Hi-Tech Eye Candy

[j4k3]

Yeah it's high tech alright, but I'd forgo some of the eye candy to get a bunch of those cables and things electrically grounded. Has someone made such a nice case like this, but has eliminated the RFI generated by it? I'm a nerdy case modder, I want the RFI and grounds with my mods. Has anyone seen any mod parts or cables, cases, and or accesories that are RF ground friendly?

Just wondering.

It's a radio.

[DAldredge]

That thing doesn't look like it has ANY RF shielding. Bet the FCC and the people who live around him love it. :->

Re:It's a radio.

[BoySetsFire]

i'd be willing to bet it doesn't put out nearly enough to cause a problem.

Re:It's a radio.

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

And this is? It's been done before, and I haven't heard of any problems stemming from a clear case.

Re:It's a radio.

[DAldredge]

That is a case, not a computer. The person/corp building the computer is responsible for ensuring it follows the correct specs. Notice how no large companies sell complete systems like that?

Re:It's a radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

RF levels put out by computers are generally significantly lower than those put out by cell phones, and many other devices. You're generally bathed by much more radiation from other sources. In my testing, in order to really detect a computer's RF signals (with the case off), we had to put it in a shielded chambed because there was too much background noise.

Also, most manufacturers of computer parts have to get the parts certified by the FCC by themselves. The computer as a whole also gets certified, but the individual parts also do.

RF is crazy stuff. Since the inside of a case is mostly reflective, any small hole in the case (such as where your fan comes out, any air vents, etc) will effectivel cause all the RF to leak out. There's plenty of those in any standard case.

Re:It's a radio.

[treyb]

It doesn't need any shielding: he used transparent aluminum.

Re:It's a radio.

[DAldredge]

It's doesn't take all that, just use an AM radio.

Re:It's a radio.

[CityZen]

What do you mean "no shielding"? There's a metal plate over the back of the motherboard, and you can't see the front due to all the conduit he's got on his (plentiful) cables.

Re:It's a radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

RF levels put out by computers are generally significantly lower than those put out by cell phones

WTF do you think a phone is supposed to do?

Re:It's a radio.

[anynameleft]

Indeed, I bet that thing doesn't comply to the FCC rules... Now the key point is whether the computer only interferes with your own devices or not. If it does, you have a little technical and practical problem, but if your neighbours start to complain, you can have a much bigger problem (think lawsuit).

Re:It's a radio.

[Linker3000]

Never seen a Faraday cage made of chicken wire then? A screen need not be solid.

In general, the most RF-leaky part of a PC is the main power lead where the crap from the switch mode power supply leaks out - I had to setup a system near to an AM shortwave receiver and to find out the most RF leaky parts of the PC we gradually covered it completely in metal foil. The RF noise picked up by the receiver didn't vary significantly between a fully covered and fully uncovered PC. The 'fix' for the noise was to improve the power filter on the INSIDE of the power supply - even fitting an external filter close to the body of the PC made a significant difference to RF noise levels. Doing the same process at UHF and VHF frequencies went about the same - filtering the power lead had the biggest effect.

Re:It's a radio.

[builderbob_nz]

arrrrgh it's alumin-i-um, check you periodic table and try to find aluminum. I dare you.

Re:It's a radio.

[mikael]

I Bet a 20" multisync monitor will put out more RF than the main unit itself. My parents used to enjoy listening to BBC radio 4 on long wave (198 Khz). When I bought a new graphics card, the default video resolution (1280x1024x85?) happened to have a frequency that matched the radio station exactly. For a radius of 10 metres (the entire house), it was impossible to receive the radio signal. Until we found out what the cause was. A quick change of the refresh rate fixed this problem.

Re:It's a radio.

[Davoid]

Have you ever thought the problem might be the reverse?
That is to say... the computer without adequate shielding will receive uf RF interference from outside sources. This could, perhaps, make the system unstable.
It is not so much that the computer is a transmitter of RF as it is a receiver of RF.

-DU-...etc...

Re:It's a radio.

[SpinyManiac]

Since he's in Australia he probably doesn't care much about the FCC.

Re:It's a radio.

[elgatozorbas]

RF is crazy stuff. Since the inside of a case is mostly reflective, any small hole in the case (such as where your fan comes out, any air vents, etc) will effectivel cause all the RF to leak out. There's plenty of those in any standard case.

Not entirely true. If the hole is small enough with respect to the wavelength, (next to) nothing will leak out. This is why microwaves stay in the oven, even though reflecting light from your potatoes comes through the holes.
While for the average person this RF-pollution is no problem, it can be e.g. for radio amateurs. RF emanation from computers can easily drown weak signals. And yes, you can tell the difference between a good and a bad case.

Re:It's a radio.

[hitech69]

Ummm...I would hold an AM radio to your computer and hear the birdies coming from your computer/monitor. :-) As for cell phone, um it's and RF device which is supposed to transmit and recieve RF signals. So, it's more discreet in it's transmissions. Likewise, hold up the phone to the AM radio. There should be significantly less birdies.

The moral to the story is, your computer is NOT an RF device, so any leakage would be considered interference if it were great enough. And in my house, since I operate HF radio, my computers are all in FCC certified cases without windows or missing appendages.

Re:It's a radio.

[ttsalo]

Never seen a Faraday cage made of chicken wire then? A screen need not be solid.

Anyone that talks about Faraday cages as RF protection doesn't know what they are talking about.

Faraday cage is for protection from electric fields, not RF radiation. Sure, RF has the E-field component, but RF can go through the holes in a Faraday cage, depending on the wavelength. Would you think that a microwave oven with chicken wire as the door would be safe? Think again. There's a reason why the holes in the microwave oven doors are the size they are. Faraday cages and RF enclosures are not synonyms. Modern processors operate far above the frequencies where chicken wire would block RF.

--

Re:It's a radio.

[Linker3000]

Thanks for the elaboration - I was keeping it simple while pointing out that the entire enclosure didn't have to be solid; maybe I oversimplified.

Re:It's a radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the STAINLESS STEEL shield he put around the mobo (to conceal it) qualifies. Whether or not it's properly gounded, who knows.

But also, I think the shower hoses probably qualify, too. There's a lot of 'em.

Re:It's a radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

It should modulate a defined set of frequencies, not broadcast buzzing noises to your amp.

Re:It's a radio.

[Anonymous Coward]

To everyone who's jacking me about microwaves, RF enclosures, etc, I know. I was just simplifying it in that the case is that computers aren't designed as an RF chamber. I haven't yet seen a case that uses proper RF filters for the incoming fan and other air vents, and joints, etc. So, the RF will go out the air holes. The holes are generally big enough for the 900MHz and higher frequencies that it will escape.

The reason you don't get the birdies with a cell phone and AM radio is that the frequency used by cell phones is out of the range of AM radios. The FCC controls allocation, and it would be doing a crappy job if a cell phone could interfere with AM radio.

Modern desktops use spread spectrum multiplexing, which basically takes the RF power and smears it across a whole range of frequencies. The general idea is that instead of having a power spike at one specific frequency, they smear that power over a whole range such that the total power emitted at a specific frequency is less than the background noise. It works well. Although, you still are adding RF power, so it will mess with AM signals.

Improperly constructed power supplies will cause a problem. Just like anything improperly constructed that changes power levels of an electrical signal will. Buy quality stuff, and that generally won't be a problem.

Just for edification, there are some small differences in RF output across architectures. AMD's are worse than Pentium's in general (although motherboard layout has a significant role in that). Laptops just rock due to their incredibly short trace lengths. A full powered pentium 4 laptop was emmitting less than a 386 laptop we had. Furthermore, there was little to no appreciable difference between a computer idling, and a computer running everything at full bore. RF levels stay the same, the extra power is mostly used up as heat. Hope this clears some thigns up.

Re:It's a radio.

[h00dLuM]

How do you know he didn't invent the stuff?

Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could.

Re:Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intresting mod on parent?

Re:Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?

[nmg196]

No, because by the time you've finished building it in 2048, AMD with have released the 16 core Athlon 256-FX/2.4Thz processor, which would be faster than the whole cluster.

this is good.

[crazyray]

I am happy someone is doing more than just adding neon or chrome to an otherwise-boring beige box. Many of you may think this is wierd, but I am happy to see people express themselves inside or outside of the PC.

Re:this is good.

[pjay_dml]

I have to fully agree with you!
CaseModding is a modern art form. I miss the days, when artist had to actually be able to produce their own creations. If you look at a lot of contemporary art, they go out and get someone else to produce their idea. Great! Any idiot can have a brilliant idea, transforming it from an idea into something that 'existing', is where the challenge and talent lays. And it doesn't take any skill to order something.

Back to the art form of case modding. Here we are able to find the finest skills put to work. We become witnesses to the transformation of technology, into an object of admiration. An esthetic achievement, celebrating beauty.
At least that is how I feel :D

Why?

[Cycline3]

OK, this is a killer mod. But it just makes me wonder why so many people who do a total mod make it look just like a regualar tower PC case? With all that freedom... why is this still just a rectangular box?

Re:Why?

[Zorak Man]

Have you every tried building a computer enclouser from scratch? Its a bitch, and to do it as anything other then a box/rextangle/cube is even more of a bitch.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

not necessarily.
http://www.metku.net/index.html?sect =view&n=1&path =mods/epia_sphere/index_eng

Re:Why?

[Snad]

With all that freedom... why is this still just a rectangular box?

Indeed. And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?

I hate to sound curmudgeonly, and the case mod looks interesting and all, but it looks about as much like a Dalek as it does Orac.

Re:Why?

[notanatheist]

Simple case of RTFA. It's a C3 case heavily modified. Not a scratch build case. There you go. And once the /.'ing is over I'd recommend going back and reading about the rest of his pet project too.

Re:Why?

[evilviper]

why is this still just a rectangular box?

Because we have a hard time finding round motherboards...

Seriously, it's not as if you could make it any shorter or much narrower, so the only option is bigger. Although good looks are nice, so is saving space.

Re:Why?

[Propaganda13]

What? Besides the obvious answer that computer parts are square.

If you look at bit-tech, (when it's up) there are fine examples of interesting case mods that are not square. How about the Y2K Bug case? (a computer shaped like a bug)

I'll take a nice rectangular case anyday.

Re:Why?

[WenisMonger]

There are plenty of other options than just a plain rectangular box or even a bigger one (like the Spider Case and others done with MicroATX).

But I think with all of the polish and insane attention to detail, I have no problem forgiving his rectangular choice.

Re:Why?

[snellgrove2]

Oh but you gotta admit, that the Y2KBug case was quite incredible!!

window m0dded hard drives with cathodes!

personally though, I wouldnt want a PC that looks like a bug.. people would swat it at lan parties, in revenge after you frag them

Re:Why?

[CityZen]

1) Orac merely served as the inspiration. Orac^3 wasn't meant to be an exact copy.

2) Orac is also "just" a rectangular box.

Re:Why?

[torpor]

hey now, a Dalek PC case is something I would enjoy owning immensely. wonder if such a thing already exists?

i've had "build own dalek" on my 'retirement:todo' list for years, but since thats far, far away and getting further by the day, i guess i'd be happy to just buy a pre-fab dalek case .. especially if i could put a PC in it ...

Re:Why?

[gnu-sucks]

Did you used to work at radioshack, in ohio, by chance?

Thats something we used to say....

Re:Why?

[jeff munkyfaces]

Indeed. And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?

i think probably because it would look shit.

Re:Why?

[Steve Cox]

I thought they looked like this:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?s t=1&c=180

Steve :)

Re:Why?

[ifwm]

This is exactly what I think every time I see a "killer case mod." Very nice, well crafted, but still just a tower.

I saw one in Popular Science (Mechanics?) that was built into a motorcycle gas tank. Far more imprssive in my opinion.

Still all in all not a bad job.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

True. It does look amazing, and it must have taken an age to construct, but it looks buggerall like ORAC.
Wouldn't a mini-itx system, e.g. a Via EPIA, be a better candidate for an ORAC mod?

Re:Why?

[hal2814]

I've been wanting to build my own Dalek PC, but I can't find a mutated Kaled to use as a CPU.

Re:Why?

[N1KO]

This is disturbing.

Re:Why?

[Rei]

I disagree.

If I ever were to do a case mod, I would have the components separated by "reading lamp" style adjustable arms. For example, I would have the floppy drive and cd/dvd drives on a midlevel to upper-level arm so that they can be moved to wherever is convenient and are held at a convenient arm-reach level. The power supply would be the most distant part of the computer from the monitor, which would itself be suspended from a (stronger) arm. The whole shape would in general resemble a mechanical "tree". Since the arms could be positioned however you wanted, and the monitor arms would rise above the level in which most furniture is placed, it would actually take up less usable space. Only the area with the motherboard and cards are really particularly geometrically constrained.

Re:Why?

[evilviper]

Well, I actually found it on bash.org (great site), and I just found it perfectly sumarizing my own experiences. If I could name the source, I would be happy to include it...

Re:Why?

[gnu-sucks]

I looked around, I can't figure it out. But, I did see the quote quoted a few times. I'll ask a few radioshack buddies I still keep in contact with, and see what they say.

Re:Why?

[Captain DaFt]

Look at the article again. This one is the ORAC^3.
Not a copy so much as a homage to the original. (Though it does get me wondering where ORAC^2 might be hiding... ) };->

Awesome...

[sbszine]

Just don't let Servalan get her hands on the key : )

Re:Awesome...

[techno-vampire]

I know it's a tad off-topic, but I always wanted to see Servalan get together with Ming The Merciless. Granted, she was more trecherous, but he had lots more loyal subordinates. Sometimes, killing people for their first mistake isn't the best idea.

/.ed already?

[Animekiksazz]

Damnit, only 8 replies and it's /.ed.

Any mirrors?

[freitasm]

/.ed already... It seems the images are huge!

Re:Any mirrors?

[Anonymous Coward]

id mirror it but theres like 22 pages with tons of pictures.. ive mirrored stuff before and never been slashdotted but i think that might do it.. so sorry

Prepare for the Server....

[City_Idiot]

Burn...

Whoa, All those cable and stuff..

[Rellik66]

That is a tight fit, is there any space for the computer components

I was lucky to see it early, now it's slowing down to a crawl

Amazing

[Amigori]

This is one of the best system mods that I have ever seen. Congradulations! This was obviously a lot of work and an incredible attention. Absolutely amazing.

Um No

[moosesocks]

I'll first congratulate whoever built this maagnificent piece of art. Very cool. You have way too much free time :) (He's also an excellent photographer. Not something you see very often in case modders :) )

But it's just not functional!!!!

All that metal tubing for the cables and stuff and the water cooling tubing must make it a nightmare to work in. Do all those tubes even go anywhere?? It seems awfuly crowded to work in there

How would you change a hard drive?

I'm also not a huge fan of watercooling. If there is a leak, two things happen.
1) Your computer gets wet
2) The chernobyl effect. Assuming it's survived this long, the coolant's now gone, and the computer keeps getting hotter. Uh oh.

That being said, it's still beautifully crafted with incredible attention paid to detail.

Gone in 60 Seconds

[XellDx]

Ding dong the servers dead.....

FreeCache to the Rescue

[DM_NeoFLeX]

Try the FreeCache link, you can at a min. view the first page

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[Animekiksazz]

Hmmm link didn't work for me. :(

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[DM_NeoFLeX]

It has loaded twice for me, although my ISP has a proxy so I could be hitting a cache of the cache.

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[Animekiksazz]

Yeah my bad it's just really slow, first time timed out but the second appears to be working, though slow.

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[DM_NeoFLeX]

If they ever get Free Cache up and running properly it will proove must usefull.

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[PhrostyMcByte]

FreeCache only works on the one file you link to. So, even if it did cache files less than 5MB, you wouldn't get any of the pictures.

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

It does run properly ... on files 5mb or larger. It's stated clearly on their website, and almost every time someone tries posting a link here.

Re:FreeCache to the Rescue

[ameoba]

For the love of god, stop posting & upmodding freecache links to webpages. It doesn't work like that.

Slashdotted already

[jtev]

Realy folks, don't give us links to servers that can't handle a real load.

Re:Case modding is evil

[emorphien]

What are you doing spending money to have a computer, or be online? If it's not your computer, why are you paying taxes instead of moving to africa and sharing your money with the poor?

Why, why!? Ohhh the humanity!

Special effects mis-attributed.

[techno-vampire]

The effects on Blakes7 were not borrowed from Classic Trek. They were lifted straight out of Dr. Who, another landmark BBC SF show famous for its cheesy effects.

Re:Special effects mis-attributed.

[CaptnMArk]

This should be obvious to anyone that has seen the show. The shows was made 10 years after trek, but the effects look like they from 10 years before trek.

Re:Special effects mis-attributed.

[techno-vampire]

The next time you see an episode of Blake's7, look at the logo at the beginning. It's a Trek communicator, and not by accident, either. The show had a Federation like Trek, but topsy-turvy. Instead of sweetness and light, it was the Dark Side: watch your back and trust nobody.

Re:Special effects mis-attributed.

[yuri benjamin]

Who cares about the cheesy FX? You hardly notice them because the story line was excellent. One Blakes 7 episode had more plot than a whole series of trek.

Re:Case modding is evil

[krem81]

Well, why don't you start helping, by turning off you Internet and electricity services and use the money saved on helping the starved kids.

Partial mirror...

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is chugging along slowly, but here's a mirror of the two shots on the front page so people can get the gist of the mod.
Front
Back

Re:Partial mirror...

[a.koepke]

Here is another of the front

Front
Back

Re:Partial mirror...

[LurkerXXX]

Thanks for the links. but... Dear god, do you think there is any air-flow in that thing???

A beautiful piece of work.

[neuro.slug]

Apple should hire this guy. In the world of cheesy 'look-through-the-window-at-my-neon-tubes' case-modding, this fellow has certainly showed us all something truly unique.

-- n

Re:A beautiful piece of work.

[MrNonchalant]

Though I don't dispute Apple has come up with some neat designs, how much working with white rounded structures would it take to drive a true artist crazy?

Re:A beautiful piece of work.

[drinkypoo]

He has? It's not the first all-acrylic case with no RF protection I've ever seen. Some have even been linked from here.

Building a case with no RF shielding is a bad idea. It makes it trivial for your PC to interfere with other systems and for other systems to interfere with your PC. PC cases are made out of metal for a reason.

ha!

[cmacmanus]

Fools! Not even that progressive *.jpg's will help your server from getting destroyed. Slashdot should really consider mirroring [I know others do it, but come on slash] the sites it explodes, out of consideration. Oh well..

Re:ha!

[xoran99]

Copyright issues would be hell...

Mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO article submitters should be reponsible about their submitted articles, knowing full well what the /. effect is, and make some mirrors or at least try to. This is pathetic only a handfull of replies and its already /.ed

I mean I love the thought of someone's server melting down to a gooey glob of plastich and maybe taking their house down with them, but i want to read the story dammit.

OMFG.

[pb]

It's like if H.R. Geiger got together with IKEA to build a computer. Avoid. Not to mention the gigantic ugly logos everywhere. Maybe I should add Nike onto the list.

On the other hand, what do I know about art, eh? Actually, what do nerds know about it in general. If green neon and shower tubing floats your boat, then who am I to judge. But I'd take a beige box over that monstrosity any day of the week. Just my opinion, mind you.

And anyhow, who cares how pretty your webserver looks, after /. kicks it to the curb. :)

Re:OMFG.

[kfg]

I must admit that after reading the first few comments I was rather disappointed when I actually got to see the thing. Not my taste. I'm more of a mahogany and brass sort of guy. A Chinese tea chest case might be rather nice, or something in the style of a Japanese kitchen chest.

Still, there's no denying the work that went into this thing, so I'll give him brownie points for that.

KFG

Re:OMFG.

[0racle]

To each theor own, personally I'd like to find a really old radion, you know what I mean, the wooden ones from the 20's or 30's and put a little ITX board in it and use it to stream MP3's to the stereo system, but in the end, its about how you like the way it looks, and how much pride you can take in it. I'd say hes got both the looks and pride hands down.

Currently I've just painted all of mine, but it adds colour to the room so its nicer to work in here, and yes I have a neon tube, but I like blue.

Re:OMFG.

[kfg]

To each theor own

Absolutely.

I'd like to find a really old radion, you know what I mean, the wooden ones from the 20's or 30's and put a little ITX

I like your radio idea. Never occured to me. I've got a 1920s floor model. I could put a 20 inch TV in it with room to spare. In fact, I could probably put an ATX board in it without disturbing the radio itself. Maybe two. :) Most of the space is empty, open backed speaker enclosure.

I think I'll leave well enough alone for now though.

KFG

Yes, definently to the 3 power

[thedogcow]

The slashdotting of this server can be raised to the 3 as well.

Exp[Server]=slashdotting

Re:Yes, definently to the 3 power

[identity0]

Oh yeah? Mine goes up to 11!

First two pics

[Anonymous Coward]

I was able to grab the first two images before server died.

Re:First two pics

[Solosoft]

Just open a new window and let it load. It goes but REALLY REALLY slow.

Im lucky enough to have a tab enabled browser so it sits nicely loading on the side.

:)

Re:First two pics

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, tabbed browsing is no faster or slower than windowed browsing, it's just a form of web browsing that uses more real estate in exchange for showing you a little tab for each page you're on, instead of letting your operating system handle it.

Admittedly some *nix environments do a worse job of window management than your local MS/Apple operating system, so that might be one reason for tabbed browsing to be "better" for some users.

But certainly tabbed browsing neither makes you lucky or better performing.

Re:First two pics

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously he meant that he is lucky enough to use a browser that frees him from the sheep mentality of IE and would not expect him to sit there and watch the image as it loads.

Actually,

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that he actually runs his computer off of African slave labor. That's right, he feeds them, clothes them, and expects them each to put in their 12 hours on the treadmill! Yah! Get along there!

image mirror

[infonick]

Thanks to my /. subscription, i was able to secure some images! orac3 images

Re:image mirror

[MasTRE]

> Thanks to my /. subscription, i was able to secure some images! orac3 images [members.shaw.ca]

Thanks to all that grabbed images, but I'm sure I am not alone in being more interested in reading along (with eye candy on the side) than just looking at the pix. Why not make a full mirror?

Re:image mirror

[Bit-tech.net]

Actually, we've added extra capacity to cope with demand, so hopefully EVERYONE can now enjoy Orac in all its glory :P

Um Yes

[Donny Smith]

>1) Your computer gets wet

They could submerge it (and still make it look nice) instead:
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller= articles/s ubmersion/submersion.html

>2) The chernobyl effect. Assuming it's survived this long, the coolant's now gone, and the computer keeps getting hotter. Uh oh.

It should be a closed system; I presume there isn't a water hose leading to the guy's kitchen?

Re:Um Yes

[BLAG-blast]

They could submerge it (and still make it look nice) instead: http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/s ubmersion/submersion.html

I like the bit where it says about liquid nitrogen: "But extra precaution has to be taken as this stuff is very dangerous if not handled properly." Right next to the picture of somebody pouring a jug of liquid nitrogen in the cooling tube with there bare hands......

Re:Um Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

when working with liquid nitrogen, it's best to work naked. seriously. if the stuff touches your skin, it boils immediately, doing no damage, but if it gets on clothes you're in trouble.

Re:Um Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

with there bare hands

"their".

Re:Um Yes

[Richy_T]

Liquid nitrogen, if it comes into brief contact with the skin, will quickly evaporate and cause no damage. Gloves can cause a quantity of liquid nitrogen to come into contact with the skin for an extended period of time, causing damage.

Thus, unless you intend to stand there pouring liquid nitrogen over your hand or you are holding an uninsulated container, gloves aren't really helpful.

Rich

names are important

[corian]

from the story posting:

"G-nome has finished his amazing Orac case mod, which looks absolutely stunning."

from the linked web site:

by G-gnome on 9th June 2004

that's G-gnome, not G-nome. Note the extra "G".

Proofreading, anyone?

Re:names are important

[aardvarkjoe]

So, let's see:

• The article submitters don't RTFA.
• The editors don't RTFA.
• The posters don't RTFA.
• The moderators don't RTFA.

As far as I can tell, nobody visits these web sites. So what exactly is the slashdot effect?

Re:names are important

[Anonymous Coward]

So what exactly is the slashdot effect?

RTFA and you'll find out.

Re:names are important

[CityZen]

It's the lurkers who RTFA.

Re:names are important

[Error27]

The lurkers...

We're watching everything you do.

And we're not amused.

Re:names are important

[julesh]

All ISPs have a techy that constantly reads slashdot. He looks for articles that link to sites on their servers, and when he spots one, he pulls the plug.

Re:names are important

[Gabrill]

For the pictures, stupid!

Re:Case modding is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Sell your computer, cancel you internet connection, and send all the money to Africa then. Hell, why are you spending any of your time or money on frivelous things like Slashdot or any sort of entertainment or hobbies when there's starving children out there?! Get back to work! And don't stop until everyone who's currently poorer than you isn't!

Orac

[Anonymous Coward]

Been a while, but IIRC...

Orac was special because it had access to subspace, and could communicate with any computer anywhere.

Orac met his demise when the occupants of subspace got annoyed at the signals he was transmitting though their realm. (Sort of reminds me of a STTNG episode too... perhaps I'm confused).

Last I heard, the actor that played the character "Avon", had bought the rights to the series, and was working on continuing it.

Any torrents of the series?

Back on topic: why would anone want to see the dust in their computer? Or end up a slave to constantly cleaning it, and carefully?

Re:Orac

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar to what happened in Dan Simmons' excellent Hyperion series, where the fatline transmitters stopped working when the higher-order beings finally said something to the effect of "people are trying to get work done here, please go away"

Re:Orac

[stratjakt]

A decent filter practically eliminates dust, even a half assed one makes a huge difference. The vent filters that you shove into heat registers fit perfectly in the front bezel of the standard antec tower, and makes a HUGE difference. I just changed the filter today, as a matter of fact, and it was completely filthy with dust, but the guts of the computer are practically spotless.

Re:Orac

[BigBadBus]

Have a look at the Blakes 7 fan club
here
- Paul Darrow (Avon) has detached himself from the B7 revival

Re:Orac

[orac2]

Orac met his demise

What demise? Orac was in the final episode, last seen as the crew flew towards Blake's base on Gauda Prime. Along with Avon, he is the only character who's fate is uncertain.

Re:Orac

[Blastercorps]

It's water-cooled. No air circulation so no dust should be in there.

Re:Orac

[ChrisGuest]

Many years ago I wanted to have my own Orac too, so I customised my Pentium 1 with some of these sound bites.
When my machine was shutting down it said, "I am closing down, I have much to do, you engaged my circuits on your petty affairs for far too long!"

Re:Um No

[xtal]

I'm also not a huge fan of watercooling. If there is a leak, two things happen.
1) Your computer gets wet
2) The chernobyl effect. Assuming it's survived this long, the coolant's now gone, and the computer keeps getting hotter. Uh oh.


I did a lot of experimenting with watercooling for about two years, short answer is it isn't going to leak unless you do something stupid or are very unlucky. If you have a GFCI on the outlet, you don't actually have too much to worry about. Just use proper clamps, or even zip ties will work ok.

So basically, I'd say this one is not worth worrying about. There have been very few meltdowns for all of the water cooling kits sold, and it HAS come a long way. Resevoirs aren't really needed with some of the new and adapted pumps that are out there. Fish tank 120V submersibles are obsoleted for 12V pumps. Good purpose built radiators are out there. Add silicone tubes and good hose clamps, and you shouldn't see a leak. Think of all the high pressure systems in your average car - rarely do those fail if maintained in far worse conditions.

Wow.

[dave1212]

That's really impressive, a ton of work went into this mod. I can't imagine having this amount of time to devote. Nice photos too for the most part, and very descriptive captions.

I'll post a mirror as PDFs if needed.

Re:Wow.

[ralf1]

Needed. "I'll post a mirror as PDFs if needed."

Re:Wow.

[dave1212]

Holy crap, we killed it already. Oh well, here's the PDFs I promised, served happily again from Spymac:

PDFs in zip format.

If you're in OS X, it's not the double-clickable kind, Use Stuffit Expander to unzip it.

warning!

[Chris Deegan]

don't put this machine near your kids or anything - they might get assimilated...

Re:warning!

[Anonymous Coward]

resistance is futile
you will be assimilated
we have already begun with these images

He wanted that look

[Mr SaLTy]

But it's just not functional!!!!

All that metal tubing for the cables and stuff and the water cooling tubing must make it a nightmare to work in. Do all those tubes even go anywhere?? It seems awfuly crowded to work in there


The crowded nature of the case with all the cables and tubes was what he wanted to produce. There are people that are not going to like that but to each his own. If you do get a chance to read his comments (after the harsh ./ ing) you will see that this is exactly the look he was going for. I agree that if you have problems though its going to be a bitch to fix it.

Having done some modding myself, I can't imagine the work that went into this thing. Its really amazing even if its not everyone's 'cup of tea'.

Re:He wanted that look

[surprise_audit]

you will see that this is exactly the look he was going for. I agree that if you have problems though its going to be a bitch to fix it.

Haven't had a chance to RTFA yet but, if the crowded look is deliberate, maybe a bunch of the tubes and/or cables are simply held in place by the casing, so that when you open it, you can lift them out in seconds? Shoot, they could even be attached to the casing and not actually joined to anything inside, so they'd come away with the side panels...

Re:He wanted that look

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the cables do do stuff. His original plan was to have a shitload of led lights and chasers and flashing things. However he decided half way through (after already wiring a lot of it up) that "less is more" and so he left out the led's. The cables for the led's were henceforce plugged into the chromed pole on the back left corner to keep them out of the way.

I think you'll find that the rest of the cables are functional. They hide the power/reset/light switch cables, contain the sata and drive power cables etc.

Looks nothing like ORAC

[Usquebaugh]

Really,

it's a very nice case mod, but has no link to Blakes7 other than the name.

Re:Looks nothing like ORAC

[Bitsy Boffin]

I agree, that was the first thing I thought. For comparison, here is the real Orac

Re:Looks nothing like ORAC

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree...I actually think it looks a lot better than the old Orac.

Re:Looks nothing like ORAC

[qarce]

you think so? At least the old orac wouldn't overheat.... How is this thing cooled?

Re:Um No

[stratjakt]

Watercooling will be stock inside of a year or two. No matter how hard and elite the modders try to make it sound, you really have to do something stupid to fuck it up.

And all those cables are power/usb/drive/etc cables inside any computer.

You could still dismantle it if you had to do some work, it's not really that much more crowded than any other case.

It looks....

[Fiz Ocelot]

It looks interesting, but I can't get by all of those tubes going all over the place.

Or to put it differently, I like it but would not want it to be my own. I'd want something that looks awsome but also extremely functional. This looks like a maitnance/upgrade nightmare. Don't mean to be trollish, just my honest opinion. If it is easy to work with, then it has my vote.

Amusing, but misguided.

[DerProfi]

Like millions of others, I'm always mucking around in my PC. For the past 15 years, all of the various incarnations of my main desktop have spent most of their time with the cover off. And I've yet to have a single cell phone problem, cordless phone problem, pager problem, AM radio problem, FM radio problem, shortwave radio problem, CB radio problem, 802.11b, g or a problem, TV reception problem, or flux capacitor problem. Best of all, chicks dig it! And who can blame them? I'm clearly the kind of guy who likes to live life on the edge.

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[rebelcool]

heh, when my cell phone rings, or when im talking on it too close my computer speakers, they make a very loud buzzing sound.

Then again, when I bring my cordless landline phone near my PC the static makes it unbearable to use.

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[lucifer_666]

Oh duuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrr... the only thing a PC affects is amature radio! (HAM radio)

If you had one of these, you would know of the buzz we speak of. :-)

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[Segway Ninja]

Only weirdness I've ever encouterd from PC's is that my friends one tends to turn my Nokia 5510 off... First time it happend I though I had just left it out of keylock, but it happens every time it gets turned on.

To this day, I have no idea how that happens, but it does.

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, but just wait till it gives you cancer! : P

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[Feztaa]

I have my cellphone sitting on my desk in front of the monitor, and the phone rings, the monitor flickers. It's really weird.

Re:Amusing, but misguided.

[Anonymous Coward]

If i set my cell phone on my laptop, I lose service. Also, if I am near the computer, or my clock radio, or car stereo when i get a call, lots of ticking/buzzing noises can be hear from their speakers.

mirror of 55 of the pics

[770291]

http://robotiq.com/index.asp?category=orac

bad link

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry. link didnt work. just nav thru modding then find the epia sphere one on www.metku.net, sorry for the inconveniance.

Fast link to main pic

[miknight]

For those who just want to see the final picture of the case quickly go here.

Re:Fast link to main pic

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT DOWN
He stole the pic from the above poster.
It's people like you that make me want to join the Gay Nigger Association of America.

Re:pragmatism and policy

[jon_oner]

two words : water cooling

You people are aesthetically challenged

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ok. Not great. Looks like a green plastic box full of metal tubing.

Slashdot link --

[Anonymous Coward]

-- not your every day traffic load.

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

And all those cables are power/usb/drive/etc cables inside any computer.

Either you're not looking at the same pictures I'm looking at, or your machine is the worst nightmare computer ever.

If my computer had half the frigging tubes and cables this thing has, I'd be looking for a triple size case to put it all in. That is not normal.

Slashdot Never Fails

[japsu]

I must say that when a case mod gets to the Slashdot headlines, it's always one worth looking at. Thank you for telling us about this incredible piece of art, and congratulations to the modder for a work well done!

It's too bad the sites showing the mods tend to get the most problems from the Slashdot effect. Those big pictures seem to be the second-worst server-killer right after badly designed dynamic content.

Computers from Blake's 7

[Tekoneiric]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's thought of building a ORAC computer mod. My Amiga on my LAN has been called Orac for years. I also named my wintel box Gambit, my gf's box Zen and our extra computer Slave. :)

Re:Computers from Blake's 7

[spacefall]

I have a smoothwall box named Gambit myself, though really the games box should take that name. My main machine is named after Toise, who wasn't a computer but did have a very nice hat.

un-fucking-believable

[spir0]

this really is beautiful.

now if only powermac g5's were cheap enough for me to buy one, and completely ignore the warranty to build a piece of art like this. Of course, I'd use those chrome tubes and attach Doctor Octopus claws on the end of mine.

ROFL This show led me into computing!

[Edmund Blackadder]

Believe it or not I became interested in computing from that TV show and that same orac computer.

No, I am not British. I am actually from one of the soviet block countries and believe it or not our national TV bought and broadcast that show. I can see now why they prefer it to Star Trek. I don't remember the storylines exactly, but Blake's 7 had a revolutionary overall story line -- it was a bit like Star Wars with a small revolutionary group fighting an evil empire. Also I am willing to bet Blake's was much much cheaper than startrek.

Well I was a little kid and I asked my parents what a computer was ... and luck would have it they were both computer engineers. So they told me a all about how a computer is an intelligent machine, and from then on i decided that i would create computers like ORAC and was pretty much obssessed with them. Shortly thereafter i got my parents to buy my a BASIC book and was deeply mired in goto statements.

Anyways, thank you Blake's 7!!! You made me a nerd!

P.S. Am I glad my country did not buy Startrek instead! I would be a startrek nerd on top everything else!

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[torpor]

If you liked Blake7, check out Farscape. Chances are you'll find yourself getting that old sci-fi show chill factor again.

*sigh* Farscape.

Why do they always cancel the good shows?

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[BlacKat]

Did you know that SciFi has made a four-episode mini-series to "finish" the story? It will be airied during the fall/winter season this year. :)

Each episode is one hour, so less commercials about 40 minutes, or 160 in total, for just over 2½ hours. :)

I would of prefered all of season five myself, but it will be nice to see a conclusion to the story instead of just "To Be Continued..."!

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[KZigurs]

I absolutely believe you or not!

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[torpor]

I did not know that. Since I moved to Europe, I haven't been able to keep up with my junk-media needs ...

Looking forward to the day, though, when I can get the complete Farscape series, plus these new mini-series, on DVD and watch them myself. I loved Farscape the times I actually caught it on TV, its one of those shows you just kick yourself for not paying more attention to.

There's an 'eery mysticism' to the show that really casts it in interesting light. Gave me chills after my first watching ... which was the episode where they're stuck on some slave asteroid and have to make enough money just to get out of the hole... great story line, great characters, interesting plot.

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find anything at SciFi.com to confirm this. Blakes7.com doesn't seem to have any new news either. Could you please provide a link to confirm this...I would be very delighted to find out that Blakes7 is coming back!

Re:ROFL This show led me into computing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am British but to be truthful I was always a little embarrassed by the special effects on British sci-fi shows like Blake's 7 and Doctor Who when compared to US series like Star Trek; particularly when ST was itself a very low budget production initially. You really could see the scenery shake on Dr Who, and as for the props on Blake's 7, well, jesus, sprayed coke cans and 50p Woolworths ray guns.eesh.

Of course the things we do/did better were scripts and acting. Americans cant write a script to save their lives: look at any Hollywood film for proof. So it's not all bad.

Re:Case mods are fine, if they add functionality

[sjwt]

dude, wear do you live??

My 386 had a PS2 ports, mind you it was an IBM :)

But my 2 486's one a random brand name one a no name had them..

Next you'll be wanting a mod to put USB 1.1 on your Athlon XP case..

Um It's Not Supposed To Be Functional

[Anonymous Coward]

The tubes are what make it look cool. Who cares if they go anywhere? It's a case mod. What good does the translucent green crap do?

Re:Case mods are fine, if they add functionality

[saskboy]

I'm talking about generic cases from before 1995, when the AT standard didn't even have the PS/2 mouse port next to the keyboard port, like there were on many late model 486s, and Pentium boards. Had to saw away a chunk of the case on some of those babies to get the mouse to the motherboard.

Not sure why I was modded flamebait, I guess case-modders of the namby pamby pretty case sort, are easily offended by critism of their speed holes, and fins.

Re:Case modding is evil

[psoriac]

This idiot should take his next pay packet and sponsor a child in Africa or something.

Let me see if I understand what you're saying:

1) Study hard.
2) Work hard.
3) Don't Profit!

Fake?

[mosb1000]

Am I the only one who finds the lack of any smudging whatsoever suspicious? And what about that background? Somehow I don't think it's that easy to find a completely dark room with a brushed metal floor to set this thing on. And where's the power cord? How is it emitting light? Glowy plastic tubes and metal tubes are not easy to work with, and you'd never get them to turn out this well, and it'd take one heck of a work shop to bevel the edges of the case and get them smooth like that.

I'm afraid that these images are almost certainly computer generated.

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a professional graphic artist and skilled photo manipulator, allow me to be the first to say: WTF??

The amount of detail in these images is positively frightening, from a CG perspective. There are most certainly smudges, as well as dust, reflections of the outside world, and radiosity-class lighting.

If these pics are computer generated, the graphics themselves are a greater achievement than the case mod would have been.

- GNU/Anonymous Coward

Re:Fake?

[mosb1000]

You're right, I spoke before a saw more than just the first two pictures. This is quite real.

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter, because this thread will never be moderated above 0, but sorry if I came off rude. Been reading Slashdot for too long. ;)

-- GNU/Anonymous Coward

Re:Fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

On a separate note, it says a lot about the quality of this mod that someone could reasonably think it had to be CG by looking at the pictures. Looking at some of the "glamour shots," I can see where you drew your conclusion. (I had seen most of the pictures by the time I saw your post.) This guy is amazing.

-- GNU/Anonymous Coward

that's just beautiful

[circletimessquare]

hands down, that's art

it reminds of paintings by hr giger, the guy who created the monster from the movie alien:

google image search for hr giger

Call that extreme?

[Cyburbia]

Th2t Ca$3 is so teh L@m3. Th3r3's N0th1ng 0n it fr0m TheRmaLtaKe. TheRmaLtaKe bling-bling PWNS!!!!11!!

/okay, so it's really a work of art.

Re:Um No

[Monkelectric]

I had my Koolance system fail twice, the first time soaked the entire mb, took a week to clean up and killed a stick of ram ... the second time it didn't spill but nearly fried the computer because even with antifeeze the pumps seized with some kind of growth...

Note, both times it took over a year for the system to fail. It is my belief that on a long enough time line, all water cooling systems will fail. How long have you been using yours for?

useless chatter

[swordsaintzero]

I have been following his friendly rivalry with Zap wizard for awhile now. It has taken him a good bit of time. Very impressive. I know its not a valuable post but I felt I just had to say something about this, since I was so surprised that other people were actually following this build (which seemed to take forever dammit!)

The forms must be obeyed

[BdosError]

Proofreading, anyone? 42 [1]

[1]: You're new here, aren't you? [2]
[2]: Much like the joke about the prisoners who've been locked up so long they call out jokes by number.

Re:The forms must be obeyed

[LoztInSpace]

A variation on the ending is that he calls out "197" and the whole place erupts in howling laughter for about 20 minutes. When he asks what was so funny about #197 he's told that nobody had heard it before.

I've seen this before... it is amazing.

[atarione]

I've seen this case before, but truely a amazing piece of work... just plain amazing. nice work to the constructor of this case simply awsome.

redundant mods here please

[Anonymous Coward]

its completely UNLIKE ORAC.

as a casemod its pretty OTT but still, well done.
too bad he couldnt spend that money on a decent server

Re:Um No

[simcop2387]

put one drop of bleach in there (on a side note, if you ever have to sanitize water, one drop of bleach per gallon should kill most harmful bacteria and other living organisms)

Re:Case mods are fine, if they add functionality

[0racle]

Well firstly, everytime someone does something interesting, theres an army of people deriding it because it doesn't add any functionality.

Secondly, everyone does stuff that is not of a functional nature, so saying anything bad or deogatory about someone elses hard work when obviouly they are quite proud of it simply because it didn't make it any faster is a little hypocritical. For instance ever painted a room or bought a plant? Did painting the room add any space or help you organize the room better? Did the plant clean up after you or remind you that you had things to do? They wern't very functional endevors now were they, but you did them anyways.

Its amazing what one can do with some silver loom

[aardwolf204]

This mod reminds me a lot of my PC mod. I'm not trying to tute my own wistle here, just offer some insight into the wonderful things one can do with something as simple as silver loom and offer some advice

My friends and I got into the case mod thing a while back. I ended up getting a nice case with a window, threw in a few blue cold cathodes, and watched in glee as all of my friends and I had the same exact thing albeit different colored LEDs and Neons. Wippdie-do. I needed something to make mine look a little different than my friends so aside from doing the invisible CD drive mod (case simplicity is bliss), I loomed all of my power and IDE cords with chrome loom you can pick up from automotive shops like Advance or Auto Zone.

I also found the chrome loom at a few online retailers but the price was ridicilious. I think I ended up getting a few feet of the stuff from a local auto shop from the StreetGlow brand. This stuff can really make what used to be a boring case something plesant on the eyes. It really accents the colored LEDs or Neons in your case.

The tricky part is figuring out how much to cut for each strip of wite. I suggest laying out all of your drives in your case and connecting the molexes. Make sure to leave an extra molex near the bottom for future upgrade as I'm sure most new graphics cards will require them. Cut the loom to size of the wire with a litte bit extra which can nicely cover that ugly molex. I went with 1/4" loom which worked perfectly for that huge motherboard connector, and works great with room to spare on the rounded IDE cables. If you want to give it something a little extra get some 1/8" also and use it for the smaller cables. I was going to cover my water cooling tubes with the stuff but that was a bit over kill. Still, the case looks more like something out of a badass anime while all of my friends cases look just about the same.

You can also try colored chrome loom instead of traditional silver but since I've got blue lights I wanted as much reflection as possible.

Has anyone else had experience with this, what problems did you run across? Can you share some advice?

But it's still a PC

[bigredradio]

Lot's of work for a Brittany Spears downloader. :-)
It looks pretty cool, but still nowhere near a Mac. Sorry.

By the way....Does it run Debian?

Re:But it's still a PC

[dave420]

"nowhere near a Mac"

Whatever, buddy. Seriously. Come to think of it, I'd expect to hear a mac fanboy say that :)

Re:But it's still a PC

[paja]

I have not seen a Mac, which needed any case moding.

Re:But it's still a PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine the outcry and hate mail he would get if he gutted the insides and replaced it with a G5?

Curse you, Slashdot!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I stumbled across this project a couple of months ago, and read and reread all 4 sections (you'll note, this one is part 5). And as soon as the final section is posted, /. strikes!

Curse you!!

It's good - but it's nothing like Orac

[Anonymous Coward]

it is a fantastic case mod, but it's not much like the original Orac.... sorry.

MIRROR OF THE PAGE CONTENT

[infonick]

Due to popular request, I went digging and found the site in my cache! Unfotunatly, I only got 3 pages before the server was /.'d. Still worth it. http://members.shaw.ca/infonic/orac/ enjoy!

Re:MIRROR OF THE PAGE CONTENT

[Bit-tech.net]

We've boosted bandwidth by x4, so hopefully you won't have any more problems.

Re:Case modding is evil

[suckmysav]

I can't believe anyone thinks it's right to spend hundreds of dollars on this kind of crap when there are billions of people around the world living in poverty. This idiot should take his next pay packet and sponsor a child in Africa or something.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety

How delightfully ironic. Do you have even the slightest clue what the word "liberty" means?

Not Orac -- ORACLE

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Indeed. And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?

It isn't a Dr. Who homage. The problem is that he only used a half-size tower case. If he had gone with a full-tower, he would not have had to leave off the "le" on the end. At least he used something approximating the corporate font on the resevoir so you still kind of get an impression of what he was aiming for.

Re:Not Orac -- ORACLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Orac is from blakes 7 not doctor who...

Re:Not Orac -- ORACLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaa?? OracLE? Orac Light Edition? Is that like the regular Orac except with half the features crippled and a nag screen cheerfully reminding you to upgrade to full Orac every time you run it?

Re:Not Orac -- ORACLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Nagging was one of Orac's primary functions.

bling bling

[BoySetsFire]

i wonder how huch that effing thing cost him to build, aside from the acutal components.

Re:bling bling

[JazzXP]

Probably a fortune considering he's an Aussie... things are overpriced down here!

DVD

[sbszine]

It's available on DVD now, finally.

Yeah, OK.

[Kaemaril]

Um ... it's cute and all... but it's absolutely nothing like Orac.

And I bet it's not got the original annoyingly condescending voice, either. Can't have Orac without that!

Re:Um No

[jbischof]

most processors will slow themselves down if they get too hot.

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

Martha Stewart did that with her floweers water!!!!

Another eye-candy piece.

[dekket]

Since the site went down, I feel bad for people, so here's another casemod that really shows how much work that goes into it... Here ya are, the Blackmesa Case Mod

Re:Another eye-candy piece.

[dekket]

Which I now see has already been featured in a previous article on Slashdot... sry.

Re:Um No

[CityZen]

Most of the cheap-ass fans they put in computers these days also fail after about a year.

I once took apart a "ball-bearing" fan. It had a single metal ball inside, placed at the end of the shaft (the real bearing was just a metal sleeve). I had to laugh! At least they weren't totally dishonest.

I am waiting

[__aahlyu4518]

for K-kde to finish his mod ;-)

Doesn't look much like Orac...

[BigBadBus]

Looks nice, but its not Orac. Wheres the circular ring with the sequential flashing lights? And when you turn it on, does it sound like an angry bee trapped inside a coke can?

Re:Doesn't look much like Orac...

[polyp2000]

My thoughts exactly I was dissappointed when I saw it to be honest. Dont get me wrong its a fair case mod (although Im not to keen on the flourescent green). But it doesnt bear a huge resemblance to orac apart from the fact that its transparent.

Re:Case modding is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if anyone has ever told you that you're a complete moron.

Heartless. Someone suggests an act of humanity in lieu of Consumericanism (you can't get any more Consumerican than this case-mod, sorry) and your response is to call him a moron?

I wonder how much the world hates you ...

Re:Um No

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Do not, however, believe the idiots who tell you this is a fine way to make river water potable when camping.

It had rained during the night, so we were having trouble getting the campfire started to boil a pot of water. My buddy, who was an Army Ranger for chrissakes, says, "No problem!" He pulls out this tiny bottle with an eyedropper, and plops one drop of bleach into the pot. No more buggies. Nice and clean. Tasted nasty, but it was safe.

Holy christ. Somebody needed to tell that to our digestive systems. About fifteen minutes later, somebody down there pulled the Big Red Switch and WHOOOM. More came out than ever went in, and it emerged with a force sufficient to lift me about a foot right up into the air. I expected to look down and see a pile of clean, white bones lying there. A couple of ribs, my left ulna, two vertibrae, and, right in the middle, my pelvis.

I was expelling so fast my butt actually got hot from the friction.

I've had dissentary and I've drunk bleach-water. I'll take the amoebas any day.

Doesn't need it...

[Cyno01]

PC components are individually certified by the FCC.

blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Its still a bloody box you wankers. If neon coloured tinting and some metal piping is art then I'll be glad to sell to you fools my kitchen sink, ah hell; I'll throw in the gunk in my disposal for free.

Glad...

[Cyno01]

I saw this a couple weeks ago, because its slashdotted pretty well now. Truly remarkable, above and beyond most case modding.

Re:Um No

[Rosonowski]

Only the pentium 4, as far as desktops go, and in certain laptops as well, but aside from that, no. It's far from "most".

Re:Um No

[EvanED]

The Athlon XP (at least with some motherboards) will shut off if it gets to hot. I don't think it degrades gracefully, and I don't think I want to find out given the Toms Hardware video of them testing the original Athlon (supposedly part of what scared AMD into putting a thermal diode into their chips), but at least it shouldn't die.

Re:Its amazing what one can do with some silver lo

[JazzXP]

The thing is he didn't use silver loom, it's actually shower hoses.

Re:Um No

[phyrestang]

Actually, if you take a look a the new Apple G5s they are already liquid cooled. http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Functionless art is just tolerated vandalism

[CyberDruid]

...or so they say.

old news

[kilox]

i saw this thing almost a year ago

Yes another mirror

[Fizzl]

Not really, but I was lucky enough to see the front page so I'll post a sample picture.
Here's the better of the two pictures on the front page:
orac3.jpg

(This ain't blazingly fast server either, so my apologizies if it's dead already)

I did the same

[91degrees]

First thing it did when I turned it on was predict the destruction of the liberator.

Re:I did the same

[iggymanz]

you're lucky, when I turned mine on it folded 99.99999999 % of itself into quantum hyperspace, and I haven't been able to find it since

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too smart, GI Joe. Bleach isn't going to take care of contaminated river water. Who knows what pollutants you ingested - even seemingly freshwater these days isn't. There was probably a chicken farm upstream dumping crap into it.

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

I think after the drop of bleach is added it should be left to do its work for several hours. The local waterworks has 'contact tanks' where water is left 'in contact' with chlorine at far higher concentrations than 1 drop/gallon.

Personally I'd prefer a Mac too.

[tukkayoot]

I think case-modding is interesting, but 99% of case mods, to me, just look lame... I'd rather have a beige box. This one is no different. I don't really care for the whole "look at all the junk inside my computer" look. To me it's cheesy and retro, like a transparent telephone from the 80's. The fact that this guy's case is stuffed with all manner of cables doesn't impress me... you can't even see (what to me) is the coolest part, which is the circuitry. Perhaps I'm just not enough of a case-modding guru to recognize the genius of this work.

I don't own a Mac, but I really like the styling of Macintosh computers. They have a cool, clean, modern, almost organic look to them. It's clear they have been professionally designed to have an appealing aesthetic. Case-mods, for the most part, are done by hobbyists/amateurs, and they look like it, too.

Not to take anything away from this guy. He's obviously skilled. To me, though, it's just kind of ugly. :\

Re:Personally I'd prefer a Mac too.

[TheTrueGStu]

if you think the circuitry is the coolest part you might wanna take a quick glance at this mod

I've seen a mac that needs(i use the word loosely) it's case modded as much as any other PC i own.. classic beige G3 tower... it's not a particularly beutiful machine

Re:Um No

[haakoneide]

The msi-boards even cut the power to the processor if it gets too hot.

Complete Mirror

[devnullify]

Wanted to see the pics, so I took the time to set up a complete mirror, content and all. The server seems to be quite a bit better now, but it's still buckling under the load.

Full mirror

Just used wget so the javascript won't work, but all the content is there.

Iodine, not bleach (chlorine)

[Anonymous Coward]

As I remember from my camping and backpacking days, I used iodine tablets (Coghlans [sp?]) that came in a small bottle. It was 1 tablet per *quart* and it had to be shaken until dissolved, then let sit for several minutes. The water turned a light brownish color and tasted like rubber. But, if you were at least sure there wasn't anybody dumping chemicals upstream, you knew the water would be safe to drink. I've never had a problem from it, and neither did the hundreds of others I camped with who also used that method.

There are now portable water filters that are small enough for backpacking and will last for several gallons. But a bottle of iodine tablets is smaller than your thumb, cheaper, and lasts longer. Though it probably makes sense to take both, the filter for flavored drinks, the iodine for everything else, unless you don't have room in your backpack.

In any case, neither will be good enough for the Mississippi River or (insert your major river name here).

Man that's a lot of work!

[Thaidog]

I saw this thing when he 1st started... it turned out nice... but did he actually do any system/harware tweaking? I'd like to see the specs on this thing for quake...etc...

Re:It's a radio. - shielding doesn't work that way

[Steve Cox]

For computers, any shielding will mainly work in the opposite direction.

Surrounding an EMF generating component with a grounded metal case generally does very little.

Surrounding an EMF sensitive component with a grounded metal case will stop EMF signals from affecting it.

Computers are EMF sensitive components - the main advantage of a metal case is sheilding from other EMF generating devices (it is not the only shield though - the multi layered circuit boards will all have ground planes running through them).

Steve.

Re:Case modding is evil

[builderbob_nz]

No I believe he is saying: 1) Study hard 2) Work hard 3) Profit 4) (which a lot of people don't think about) Put the profit to good use.

Presumably

[chegosaurus]

an intellectually snobbish computer runs linux? Certainly most of the intellectually snobbish computer users do.

case mods suck

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have to take my hat off to this guy. That's a heck of an accomplishment.

Re:Um No

[ross.w]

Chances are you didn't use enough bleach. The water in your tap, has been dosed with chlorine at much higher concentrations than what you would have drunk. Haven't you ever been swimming in a pool? Didn't you swallow any? That didn't give you the runs did it? I agree with the other poster who said you should have used more bleach and left it for an hour or two. I think the water purifying tablets you can buy say much the same thing in the instructions.

Re:First post

[Anonymous Coward]

No, U B Failure.

Re:Um No

[pcmanjon]

QUOTE "the second time it didn't spill but nearly fried the computer because even with antifeeze the pumps seized with some kind of growth..."

This is probably because of mineral deposits that built up and not biological "growths".

tap-water contains minerals and other crap and is very unclean to leave in a system like that, eventually minerals collect in a place and the pump seizes.

I'd suggest you used Distilled water...

That brings another question:

Can water be too pure for use in PC water-coolant systems? It may sound counter-intuitive, but yes, water can be too pure. Both distilled and de-ionized water have a very low dissolved solids content. This means there is a very low concentration of ions in solution, as indicated by high conductivity. It takes a lot of effort and energy (various purification processes) to remove the majority of ions from water. Water desires these ions back to maintain equilibrium and will aggressively take them from any available source.

Using 100% distilled water or DI water in a PC water-cooling system is not recommended, as it may slowly attack metallic surfaces, especially aluminum!

Several of the coolant additives specifically designed for race cars and water-cooled motorcycles have warnings stating not to use distilled or DI water with their products unless automotive antifreeze is also used in the mix. The reason for this is that the thin walls of lightweight aluminum radiators used on racing cars and motorcycles may form pinhole leaks as the aluminum is attacked by the hot, pure water. Adding a little antifreeze (or other additives) to the mix puts enough ions back into the water to re-establish equilibrium and help neutralize pure water's corrosive properties. It is worth noting that this affect is greatly accelerated by the higher temperatures found in racing coolant systems.

So why use distilled water at all? Another good question! The two main reasons I recommend using distilled water as the primary component of the coolant are:

* Distilled water is naturally low in dissolved minerals and other contaminants
* Steam distilled water (especially if it has been treated with ozone or uV light prior to bottling) will be virtually free of microorganisms
* And, because the corrosive nature of distilled (or DI) water can be effectively neutralized by adding small amounts of various additives

Using water that is low in mineral and other contaminants is important for two reasons: First, having a low mineral content will help prevent any mineral deposits from forming on heat transfer surfaces. This is the same scaly buildup commonly associated with hard water. The second reason for using water with minimal contaminants is that this removes one of the main food sources that microorganisms need to live on. Without a food source they can not grow and multiply.

I still recommend using distilled water as the primary coolant. The key is to use a proper mix of additives to minimize corrosion, keep microorganisms from growing and decrease surface tension.

I wrote a huge article all about this and tips and etc etc... all about the water in watercooling at http://www.overclockers.com/tips1153/index.asp

Looks better than the original

[VJTod]

I think G-nome forgot to leave room inside his case for the keyboard.
http://www.waveney.demon.co.uk/whoswho/Orac.jpeg
I can't find any good pics of the original orac, but here's a sample.

Re:Looks better than the original

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU HERETIC. better than the original?????? i think not. you heretic. burn you. at the stake.

go back to watching your dvd of the phantom menace.

Aluminum

[Anonymous Coward]

arrrrgh it's alumin-i-um, check you periodic table and try to find aluminum. I dare you.

Not over here it ain't, my kiwi(?) chum. Check for yourself in the good ole American Webster's dictionary.

But since this is a story about a case mod based on a British sci-fi show, perhaps he should have said alumin-i-um instead.

Re:Aluminum

[Anonymous Coward]

I think thats just another case of Americans making up words that they cant say properly =D

Re:Um No

[carnivore302]

Is there any way we can mod this up to +6 funny?

I'm still shaking from laughter. Great story.

Re:It's a radio. - shielding doesn't work that way

[wowbagger]

Surrounding an EMF generating component with a grounded metal case generally does very little.

Excuse me, but BULLSHIT .

I design radio test equipment for a living, and you DAMN SURE do keep the RF from a device from radiating by putting a shield around it - you just TRY to get a reciever working if don't have the local oscillators in cans!

The problem with most computer cases nowadays is they are CHEEP (spelling deliberate) and poorly made. Most panel to panel connections are simply 2 pieces of aluminum resting against each other (in other words, two pieces of aluminum seperated by a sapphire insulator, as aluminum quickly develops an oxide coating) - no beryllium-copper fingerstock, no compression gaskets, no star washers, nothing. When you have a chunk of metal not bonded to the chassis, you have a passive radiator, not a shield.

If you wish to evaluate a case for RF shielding, put a light inside it, turn out the room lights, and look for leaks. Any gap longer than about 20 centimeters will act as a slot antenna for 1.5GHz(ish). Most modern cases leak like sieves.

If you ever have the chance, look at an old Atari 800 (NOT 800XL) - those things were TANKS and didn't leak any RF to speak of - potmetal case around all active components, proper gaskets - truely a joy to behold. Of course that adds cost to the system, and in this day that won't fly.

I constantly have birdies on my 2 meter rig from my computer - I have to unload the Firewire drivers any time I am not using them or I get a signal that is half-full scale 100 meters from my house. I'm seriously thinking of making a full Faraday cage for all my computer gear (save user interface elements) just to avoid the problems.

Yeah, yeah ...

[kabz]

But where's the model of the crew cut beauty and Blake's arch nemesis, Servalan ?

One of the British TVs most beautiful and schoolboy, errr, fantasy-inspiring women.

Re:Yeah, yeah ...

[iggymanz]

heh, at the time she looked a little too old for me but she's looking hot now! and don't forget about Jossette Simon as Dayna

Re:Case modding is evil

[Speare]

This idiot should take his next pay packet and sponsor a child in Africa or something.
--
[ Franklin/Jeffersonian quote of "let people be free" here. ]

They that can give up someone else's essential liberty to grant some child in Africa a little temporary food deserve neither liberty nor food.

Orac^3 is a casemod?

[Pan T. Hose]

I thought it was the default Oracle dierctory on Windows as seen in the 8+3-limited command line "shell." Was the pun intended?

shower hose

[StripedCow]

Looks like this guy has a shower hose running through his computer case.

Re:shower hose

[Bit-tech.net]

If you read the entire project log (5 parts) you find that's exactly what he used :)

Karma whoring effect?

[Sr. Zezinho]

Nobody? No, all the karma whores rush instantly to the site to post the full article or to make mirrors, "just in case it goes down"...

OK, you are half right, they also don't RTFA, but they do visit the sites.

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too smart, GI Joe. Bleach isn't going to take care of contaminated river water. Who knows what pollutants you ingested - even seemingly freshwater these days isn't. There was probably a chicken farm upstream dumping crap into it.

Look who's not too smart. The primary danger from chicken crap is fecal coliform bacteria, which bleach will get rid of. The kind of contaminants bleach will not get rid of include PCBs, excessive levels of which you are not likely to encounter, unless you're eating Carp or other bottom-dwellers.

More bandwidth on the way!

[Bit-tech.net]

Fear not, little chickens - we've spoken to our hosts, and a line upgrade is imminent! You guys have been maxxing out our line to 100% for 7 hours, so do your worst to the new one, eh? :)

Its a bit borg

[QuasiRob]

Its very pretty but it looks more Borg and Orac.

The Epia Sphere

[Ch_Omega]

What about the Epia Sphere? :)

Re:It's a radio. - shielding doesn't work that way

[caulktel]

Yes, but your 2 meter rig no doubt has a receiver that is broad as all outdoors, they just don't design them very tight for the same reason that they don't design cases very tight, MONEY. It sure would be great to have a handheld (or mobile), with a tracking front end, then you would have very few if any birdies.

Because.

[Ch_Omega]

"...And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?"

Probably because it was inspired by Orac. And in my opinion, it looks way better than the Blakes 7 prop.

Re:Case modding is evil

[woah]

Are you suggesting that doing anything artistic is waste of time? Millions of people waste their money on pointless things that they consider to be important, such as buying the latest this or that or whatever. The consumerism in our society is a far greater "evil", as you put it, than artistic expression. It's true that there are other, perhaps more worthy causes, which could hardly be solved by a few hundred dollars. It's upto the government to address the issues of third world poverty. And it's really upto the people to put preassure on the government to do so. In any case, how do you know that the guy(?) who built the thing doesn't do his bit for charity?

An A for effort, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

overall I don't like the look of it. It's far to busy visually and I can't imagine what would happen if you needed to crack open the case and replace something.

Re:An A for effort, but...

[Bit-tech.net]

On behalf of the creator, I can say: 1) The "busy" effect is intentional 2) Pretty much every component has been modded in some way. As a result, there won't be any future upgrades for this box.

Re:Um No

[fred_sanford]

I got about a years worth of running out of mine as well. No leaks. It was the DC pump that failed one day. Just stoped working overnight.

Wow...didn't think it was possible

[Phlatline_ATL]

Someone captured a sentinel right off the screen of The Matrix and just slam dunked into a plexiglas case. Sweet!

Re:Mediocrity says...

[windex]

YOU FUCKING FAILED IT, 9,428,063.

(karma be damned) ... :)

Re:Case modding is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know case modding was considered an "essential liberty." I'll have to reread the constitution, I must have missed that section.

Re:Case modding is evil

[sindarin2001]

I'm sorry, but case modding is far from Consumerican (unless you count those pre-modded cases, which should hardly be counted as "modded"). Normally case mods come with a lot of hard work. Have you ever spent 3 hours with a dremel cutting a window in the side of your case so that it looks perfect. Or how about sanding a coat of paint for 9 hours total so that you can fix your hair in it. There's far more involved in case modding than "oooooh...shinies." It's something you make with your own hard labor. Most American consumers wouldn't touch something that would involve so much work unless it paid well, and definatelly NOT for the "enjoyment" of it.

Cold water?

[Hoi Polloi]

Bleach will work if...

1. You use the right amount (don't know the proportions off the top of my head)

2. You leave it to sit and work based on the temperature of the water. Cold water requires you let it sit longer.

3. Lots of particulate matter (protein!) can protect nasty buggies from the chemicals. Physically filtering the water through something to get the big bits out first is a good idea.

I've had a 100% success rate by using a ceramic filter and my judgment. If the water looks really iffy (i.e. hepatitis) I'll look elsewhere or use iodine after filtering it. Fortunatly really nasty stuff (like viruses) isn't a problem in wilderness areas where human waste isn't present.

We've added more bandwidth

[Bit-tech.net]

We appreciate the gesture, but we've added more capacity to cope with demand - please remove our images from your server. Thanks

Re:Um No

[Emperor Shaddam IV]

Did you ever consider maybe there were more parasites in you already then in the water? Maybe the bleach killed them and your body was doing a good core dump...

PC Mods and Honda Civics

[$criptah]

PC mods remind me of souped up Honda Civics or as I call them "all show and no go." I am just curious why people waste so much money on something that can be quite expensive and so useless.

I haven't had a PC mod in my life. If I end up with extra money, I usually spend it on hardware or something that can increase my productivity, something that is useful. I do admire the fact that people are dedicated to making their boxes look good, but gee.... a computer is just a tool.

Re:PC Mods and Honda Civics

[rtt]

I know what you're saying, there are indeed a lot of mods out there that make me think "why did you bother?", usually by some 16 year old kid. Though I think there's a world of difference between the likes of Orac^3 and other case mods like Blackmesa HL2 and the bog standard window-mod and a few case lights by the 16 year old kid with his paper delivery job. It's not so much the case but the new ideas being thought up and the sheer attention to detail, the overall look can sometimes be 1/4 of the fun! 0.02

Re:PC Mods and Honda Civics

[TheTrueGStu]

Who says that casemods can't be productive/useful. I mean, if you're looking into overclocking your processor, then you need extra cooling... as long as you're going with water cooling, why not just go all out like this guy did and make it something for all us slashdot nerds to drool over. Admittedly many aren't too useful, but like the man before me said... working on all that stuff can be quite entertaining also just my .02

TORRENTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Search suprnova for 'blake' - the apostrophe is still catching people out after all these years ;)
The first season is all there; other seasons can be found on edonkey...

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

The only not to smart is that he obviously didn't remember the amounts and times for bleach disinfection that we learned in Ranger school - otherwise bleach works great!

Re:It's a radio. - shielding doesn't work that way

[CharlieG]

Hey,
The 3 out of my 4 2m Rigs have nice TIGHT front ends - not hard to buy either. Stop looking for out of band receive. I bought commercial gear, in my case (pun) GE, but Motorola is just as good. Yeah, the stuff is larger, if bought new, a LOT more expensive, doesn't have as many features, but when other folks are plagued with intermod, or birdies, my rig is quiet, you can HEAR the HT I carry, even in a noisy environment, and if I drop it on the floor, it bounces

Of couse, to by that HT NEW would run you about $1800 USD vs, what, $200 for a new 2mHT? Of course, by shopping around, I got a used rig for that same $200

You pay your money, you make your choices...

Re:Um No

[chl]

Keep in mind that this will only be useful to prevent something like algae growth in clean tap water, e.g. in when you fill your emergency drinking water supply with water that is already safe to drink.

chl

Re:Um No

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the cheap-ass fans they put in computers these days also fail after about a year.

Dude, take a freaking statistics class and try to learn why anectodal evidence doesn't mean anything. Just because your gay lover's fan failed within a year doesn't mean that "most" fans fail within a year. Retard.

Creative, Unique, however...

[ksilebo]

One word comes to mind (well, compound one):

Clusterfuck

Jonathan Ive meets the BORG!

[Johnny Mozzarella]

My thoughts exactly. It is a shame Apple added liquid cooling only to hide it away under the hood.

Re:Um No

[Monkelectric]

Holy shit thats a comprehensive article, you weren't kidding. I'm tempted to buy one of the new koolance cases and try out your advice. Maybe if the new ones are designed to contain the water during the inevitable failure. I had the original koolance case (PC2-MID) and the problem with it, well there were lots of problems, but the biggest one was there was no way to service the system without completely tearing down the computer.

I used distilled water+the koolance brand anti-freeze, and I'm pretty sure I had biological growth still as opposed to mineral deposits because it was a pale white sludge that was slippery to the tough and vaguely resembeled phglem.

Re:Um No

[drinkypoo]

You put antifreeze in your water cooling system? No wonder it failed. Don't put glycols in systems not designed for them.

The ONLY ONLY ONLY thing to put in a water cooling system is DI water. DI water is both distilled and deionized which means it is neither conductive nor corrosive.

Your local community college probably makes DI water and will likely fill up a couple of gallon jugs for you for free.

to bleach water... (us gov't info, 70s) -

[caveat]

take ~1 gallon of water and add enough blach dropwise until you get a little whiff of chlorine from the water (just a little stronger than city water). Let sit 2 hours, then aerate the water by pouring it back and forth between two pots a few times, and add anough bleach to get back to the tiny whiff of Cl. the water should have a pronounced bleach flavor - "it tastes like shit, but you can live off it!"

Re:Um No

[mikael]

I'll take the amoebas any day.

You really don't want an amoebic infection of the bloodstream. My stepfather got one while clearing out the drains in our cottage (disused farmhouse cottage). We don't know how long it had been brewing, but for about three nights he would go to bed and then start having "the shakes". He was deathly white, and was shivering with an amplitude of an inch. I was just about expecting something to burst out at any minute.

Fortunately, we got him to the doctor for a checkup. As his white blood cell count was somewhere beyond the solar system, the doc immediately sent him to hospital. The medics managed to drain around 2 litres of gunk out of his liver, and then injected him full of antibiotics. After that, he had a full checkup to find out how the amoeba's got into his bloodstream. The doctors suspect the cause was a missing filling.

dear god in heaven

[Hinde01]

that has to be the best case mod i have EVER seen. it even tops my prior favorite, the alien case mod.

hmm...

[Psymunn]

Wow. Nice case. But what happens when he needs to add a new network card...?

Re:It's a radio. - shielding doesn't work that way

[wowbagger]

Actually, the receiver in question is 2 meters ONLY.

Also, I've looked at the signals with a spectrum analyzer (remember, I *design* spec-ans!).

And setting up a tracking front end is far easier said than done in a small package - you have to have some variable capacitance and inductance to make the filter.

Maybe someday somebody will make a MEMS tracking filter, but I've not seen any shipping yet.

Re:Um No

[Rosonowski]

You're right, it's only with some motherboards, and only if you set it to such. As far as THW goes, they're pretty much laughed at among most enthusiasts nowadays, usually for their obvious intel/nVidia bias.

Re:Case modding is evil

[N1KO]

"Good use" is subjective. If people did only what they thought was useful we would still be living in caves, hunting animals with wooden spears.

What FCC? The guy lives in Australia!

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia, MAN!

Re:Um No

[silicon not in the v]

All that metal tubing for the cables and stuff and the water cooling tubing must make it a nightmare to work in. Do all those tubes even go anywhere?? It seems awfuly crowded to work in there

How would you change a hard drive?

After all the time/work he put into making this, do you think he really cares if it takes a while longer to replace something inside it?

Re:Case mods are fine, if they add functionality

[saskboy]

Funny you should pick those two "customizations".

Plants add air recycling AKA Oxygen from CO2. And a psychological affect of having a connection to nature.

And paint adds longevity to the wall's materials by insulating it from air.

This is /., not a mother oohing and aweing over a kid's painting.

Sure, a pretty case is impressive, but geeks of all people know that it is what is under the hood that counts.

"Secondly, everyone does stuff that is not of a functional nature, so saying anything bad or deogatory about someone elses hard work when obviouly they are quite proud of it simply because it didn't make it any faster is a little hypocritical. For instance ever painted a room or bought a plant? Did painting the room add any space or help you organize the room better? Did the plant clean up after you or remind you that you had things to do? They wern't very functional endevors now were they, but you did them anyways."

Aside:

[SamSim]

You have way too much free time

People always say this as though it's a bad thing... personally, I can see an upside to it...

Case mods? Bleh.

[pclminion]

Don't take this as flamebait, it's not meant as such. But here's why I think case mods are silly.

Can you imagine somebody tricking out an ENIAC? You know, like putting phosphor coatings on choice vacuum tubes, so you can see them switching? Attaching neon tubes to the power rails? It would be a ridiculous looking thing.

Now, a little closer to the present day... Can you imagine a tricked out 486 desktop? Don't you think that would look a little... stupid? Now, remember that in 10 years time, your spiffy modded machine will be the equivalent of a 486. And at that time, it'll seem just as stupid as a tricked out 486 does today.

Not to mention that most of these case mods use huge tower cases with multiple fans, redundant power supply fans, passive heat pipes, etc. Don't you think there's something kind of pointless about calling attention to the power-inefficiency of the machine, as if it was something to be proud of? "Look, my machine burns 500 watts, BOOOYA!"

In the future, computers will hopefully be the size of shirt buttons, run on less than a watt of power, and run at terahertz-equivalent speeds. At that point, we'll look back on all these case mods, shake our heads in shame, and wonder, "What the hell was the point of that?"

It IS an everyday case mod, and it is BOOORING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boooooring boring. I don't see anything really special about it.

Thank God you're not in the US

[greycortex]

Hmm... I'm just thinking if my landlord saw that in my apartment.
The Department of Homeland Security would have confiscated that wunderbox in their effort to quash the pursuit of "un-American activities" a-la the Patriot Act.

Re:Case mods are fine, if they add functionality

[0racle]

I picked those two because when I think of making a place nicer to live in, those are the first things that come to my mind.

A single plant would have little effect in a house or a small apartment since any window would let in far more crap then the plant cleaned up, and the 'psychological affect', is only there if you like plants, but then again, thats why you got it in the first place. Every house I've ever been in, new or old, has the walls painted with this butt ugly eggshell, therefore it does not need to be painted again for that reason, who still has that really off white. If you have kids, you have to be one cold hearted person not to put their school work or paintings on the refrigerator. Which of course leads to wall hangings, paintings, statuette and so on.

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

[Moqawama]

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

American pigs will soon see the results of their attack on our lands and people! Ten thousand of our brothers died, and we will make ten million of theirs pay!

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

Death to the American swine! We will make their cities burn so that they forget 11 September! We remember al-Fallujah, and we will make sure the Americans never forget!

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!
Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!