Originally intended for the Neverending Slug project as a retro way to show network stats. I thought it might look nice on my desktop PC too, so here’s a quick write up on how I rigged up a couple of old analogue meters to my PC.

Quick update - changed the links to some slightly improved software.

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Installing Debian was a success. Just the simple matter of carefully wading through the pages and pages and pages of instructions here, crossing my fat sausage fingers and hoping for the best.

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I’ve been playing with PCs for years, my first mod must’ve been taking a hacksaw to one of those original 4.77Mhz IBM PCs with my Dad, ruining a future classic forever no doubt in an attempt to squeeze in a speedy brand new 12Mhz 286 motherboard.

These days I have a big, beige, noisy, slightly overclocked, mostly average E6600 tucked out of the way under the desk, gently warming my feet as I type. On the desk is a growing collection of bits n pieces that have just kind of appeared over the months with no real purpose, or, as you can see from the pic, box.

For this mod I’m going to try and put all that stuff to some use. And find it a sexy box.

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The soft focus glamour shot

Finished. It powered up silently except for the Seagate ST3200822A drive which has a tendency to noisily send the heads for a wander around if sat idle for too long. I later discovered this was it’s own cooling mechanism, clever but still a very annoying click click click, clack clack clacking noise - My dreams of a completely silent PC dashed! And with them any hopes of beautiful serene nights in - dinner for two if you like… with the PC in a dress - now gone as the PC effectively farted every 5 minutes without fail.

As I’d lost the complete silence I was aiming for with the project (and as I’d forgot to drill any air holes into the case) I thought I might as well play it safe and… add a fan! I know, I know, this would totally ruin my kudos winning ‘fan-less PC’ concept. But what the hell, if I kept it quiet enough I could always lie.

The slower the fan the quieter it’d run, so wiring an old 486 cpu fan up to the +5 and +12v points of the molex power connector I could run it at 7v, less than the recommended 12 but I wanted even slower. Connecting to a 5v supply and with a couple of diodes in series to push it even lower, I could run it almost silently.

I installed Ubuntu, surely the Ikea of all distros, it was a painless install working first time without any problems. I’m using it headless as a web server, file server, a general torrent downloads machine, connected to the hi-fi to play mp3s and occasionally hooking up to a TV to play the odd DivX (Epia5000 board only just about manages this). As it’s low power, I feel happy leaving it on for weeks on end downloading podcasts and other bits and pieces. The LCD, powered by LCD4Linux, now shows the date/ time, current upload/download rate and the latest downloaded podcast thanks to a home-made plugin (details of which may be posted sometime in the future)

It’s been running for months now without any problems and has pride of place under the TV in the living room. I’ve since drilled a few air holes in the base to help with air flow and now that the PC is busy doing its thing the noisy click click clicking when idle has stopped. I’ve added a LIRC remote which allows me to select and scroll through my collection of mp3s via the LCD screen.

Parts List
VIA EPIA 5000
512MB RAM
200GB Seagate Barracuda ST3200822A
60W PSU
Blue / White HD44780 LCD
Blue LED - Maplin
Port Extender - Maplin

When finally dry, I attempted to level off the front plate with varying gradients of sand papers, a large file, power tools, half a house brick etc. It was at some point during a heavy session with a grinder that I remembered the beautiful finish that first attracted me to the box, bummer…

Beautiful front plate ruined forever

Eventually, with lots of filling and sanding, I smoothed the front nicely.

Looking slightly less awful

A quick splash of primer and it looked promising.

Primed ready for action

Finally, a few thousand coats of ‘Metalic Charcoal’ later…

The finished paint job

The final touch, another trip to Maplin’s for 1x blue power LED to match perfectly the blue LCD - beautiful, I should be a designer.

But will it all work or will it all go up in blue/metalic charcoal smoke? Find out in the 4th and final installment.

I wanted my PC to be sleek (bordering on PC metrosexual?) and that meant no trailing parallel LCD cable hanging out of the back - no that would look rubbish. I’d try to keep the visible connectors and switches to a bare minimum. This means just one power button at the front and only network, USB, audio/video and power connectors at the rear. I figured by rotating the board in the case there would be space to keep my LCD wiring entirely internal.

A £1.99 Maplin port extender would be the base for my new rear connectors. Hacked to bits, I removed its mic socket and transplanted a network socket from an old ISA NIC I had lying around. I also added a phono socket for the video out and knocked up a few internal cables to connect the extender to the sockets on the main board. The back plate was drilled with holes to fit the new extender snuggly.

Lovely, new sockets for the back.

I fashioned two hard drive brackets out of an old power supply case and screwed and glued them into the main box. A small 60W fanless power supply was mounted on the base.

Nice but will the mainboard fit in the box?

At this point I thought it probably a good idea to see if the mainboard would fit in the box…

I needn’t have worried, everything rams in just fine.

Thankfully it did! Cause for celebration indeed.

In part three I get to grips filler, sand paper and lots of spray paint as I attempt the face job. Stay tuned.

I decided to use the slight 170×170mm VIA embedded EPIA5000 Mini-ITX fanless motherboard. But just couldn’t decide what to use as a case? I’d been thinking of a suitable box for ages. Although a little bigger than I would have liked I eventually struck upon butchering a (4x) Hi-Fi separates system I’d bought years ago. The boxes looked amazing with their brushed steel effect and at 210×100x300mm would be great for a small PC. I’d only need one of the boxes, the others, for now, would be saved. But which one to pick? A difficult decision until I saw the cassette player. Clumsy old cassette tapes are ancient history these days - what a total waste of a nice box I thought. Having picked my victim and with the use of a small hammer, I happily bashed its contents into a neighbour’s skip.

The main, ex hifi, case chassis void of any cassette playing nonsense

But will the parts fit inside this case? Will I get reported for fly tipping by an angry neighbour? And why am I so seemingly obsessed with girly ikea tat? Tune in to part two to find out!