Yet Another Phat Mobo In An Atx Case, Jasper in Options

[RainFade]

So I lucked into a cheap small block jasper with a good cb and wanted to build in something I could cool better than the stock case.
Also wanted to do the bulk of the mods to anything but the mobo and leave lots of room to experiment with different cooling options.

I wanted the atx case to hold an atx power supply to run everything and give me lots of extra power for fans, pumps, 3.5" hdd whatever might tickle my fancy as this evolves.

I definitely wanted the atx supply to behave like the 360 supply so inverting the power on signal was a must.

Still a work in progress but seeing as the case only arrived yesterday I don't think it's progressing too badly.

For those who might ask why or want to tell me it's not cost effective you wil never get it god bless you but just click elsewhere... I just felt like it. That and 3 rrod falcons in a matter of months may have left me with a desire to cool the crap outta a 360 and to use a jasper.

On desk in pieces awaiting case but everything working.



mobo tray I made from scrap of metal in my basement junk pile.
used old junk falcon and old junk atx mobo's as layout guide as i'm lazy and out of dykem and honestly i'm not fitting a match bbl here i'm bolting a game system to a $60 case so it's nice to just make a few marks and drill some holes for a change.




In case everything working execpt not yet extended the sync and eject, power is tied to case power button.



Presently using old 320 gig 3.5" drive I had lying around but going to get at least 1.5 gig.
Presently using pair of 120mm fans stolen from an old A70 lying around in junk box.

Tonight I plan to wire sync to reset on case and put eject on momentary NO switch I had in junk box once I mangle the liteon into the case I'll decide where to mount the eject button. Really I'll use it for booting xell more than i'll ever actually eject a disc... what do I need with a disc in this thing


Using guts from old hdd shell and m-f sata cable for hdd normal sata and long power cable for dvd dead 360 supply donated cable I grafted to 620 watt atx supply. I guess that's about it for now.

Constructive feedback and suggestions welcome.

[ozzylow]

Great project, i would reccomend some cable management make it look a lot cleaner inside.

[RainFade]

Plan is once I have everything working correctly and like the temp's it's getting totally blown back apart and tidied up.

Still debating what heatsink and fan combo and haven't fitted dvd yet.

Do have usb, power, power led, sync and eject wired now awaiting parts.


Thank you for the input.

[RainFade]

Making progress.

Still awaiting sata gender bender and short sata cable and a few bling items but have it mostly done.
Yes I have removed that tape residue from the drive bays since taking the pictures.



For now have 1/8" piece of aluminum in place of remaining 5.25" drive covers with 80mm fan behind it, waiting on 3/16 piece of plexi but the brushed aluminum finish actually looks decent in the light... goofy in the dark for sure.




It's been fun but i will never do a fully transparent case again you just don't have anywhere to hide any ugly.




I swapped the 2nd gen cpu heatsinks for 1st gen (sideways to get them to cover both die on the gpu) and it was good for several degree c if anyone cares about such things.

This post has been edited by RainFade: Feb 9 2012, 10:50 PM

[NLT89]

How did you power it off the atx power supply? seems more than one way to do it..

[RainFade]

If you look on that site hosting my pictures you'll see the schematic I found on here.
A few points of interest, the newer atx supplies have a sense signal for voltages sometimes a small wire from supply you'll see crimped in the connector say a smaller gauge wire crimped to a 3.3 it senses that 3.3 is good and if not the supply will shut off instantly.

When you cut the mobo connector off and your supply suddenly won't come on and stay on that's the problem (trust me on this I had 2 supplies with them)
Why they didn't sense the voltage inside the supply is beyond me but just watch for wires crimped to wires you expect in the connector based on the pinouts and be sure to connect them once you cut off the atx mobo connector.

The original thread went on about finding an atx supply with more than one 12v rail but I can tell you there are newer supplies with 30 amps or more 12v on a single rail the big thing is get enough amperage.
The atx standard has a volt/amp limit that apparently some of the newer supplies just ignore as I say I have one with over 30 amps and all the 12v's are tied together in the supply.

I found my supply on ebay and the cable I used was from a dead falcon supply.

When you use the schematic remember you are looking at the xbox connector so as you are soldering on the cable from your donor supply 5vsb and power on are the other way round (left to right) your multi meter is your friend.

On my dead mobo (the one I used to layout the mounting plate etc.) it seems all the 12v's and ground are tied together on the 360 mobo I guess they use 6 conductors for the amperage so I guess you could tie them all together and tie that to at least 3 12 volt wires from the supply but I wired mine to discreet wires.

Here is the schematic I refer to.



On my supply all the 12 volt and all the ground were tied together in the supply so I ignored his instructions to only use certain ground and 12v, your milage may vary.

I used the value of resistor given (had to google the ratshack part # he gave) and had a drawer full of generic npn and pnp transistors.... nary a problem worked 1st try. Turns on and off on command of the console just like the MS brick just has a LOT more juice and lots of 3.3 and 5v for interesting things as well as a crapload of 12 volt. Heck I might even find a use for that -12 volt.