# Project Part I: Desk Conversion



## Smokyo7 (Apr 29, 2011)

I shall attempt to post this again, after talking with W1zzard. Thanks for the help guys.
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Hello all 

After reading through a few desk build logs I decided that I wanted to share in the awesomeness and convert my current desk into something nice. This will also clear room for my legs underneath the desk by removing the case from the equation since my desk is only 32" long. I'm also no master craftsman here, this is probably the most I've ever attempted to build something other than a simple box I made once out of plywood, lol.

Now I wasn't really planning on doing a build log but it will be cool to track my own progress and probably motivate me to continue working on this project and eventually building a custom desk once I've had my test run on the one I already own. So bear with me as I collect more pictures.

My desk was just a standard cheap desk from Target (or Ikea I forget) with a keyboard drawer, nothing fancy. My idea was to remove the drawer, put a bottom underneath, cut a slot on the left side for 2 hi-speed fans and a slot on the right side for the power supply. I got a sheet of steel sheet metal from this guy for $15 to attach all the hardware to and wrapped the sheet in this reflective material I found online. I took the original top to the desk and brought it to a glass cutter and had him cut a piece of glass for the top, only $60.

*Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @ 3ghz have o/c'd up to at least 3.4ghz (Currently running at 3ghz due to heat constraints)
2 x 2GB DDR2 RAM
EVGA GeForce 560ti GTX o/c
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
700w Corsair PSU

Storage
3x 500GB WD Caviar Green Internal HDD
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1x 1TB WD Caviar Green Internal HDD
1x 250GB WD Caviar Blue Internal HDD
(These are both situated inside a Thermaltake dual SATA dock)
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1x 650GB WD MyBook External HDD
1x 500GB WD MyBook External HDD

Monitors
1x Samsung SyncMaster 220WM 22" Widescreen monitor
1x Samsung SyncMaster 930b 19" monitor

Fans
2x generic 120mm fans

Interwebz Connection
40/35 FiOS
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*Desk mostly put together in this picture, nothing is plugged in checking everything for fit.*






*Same picture as above just more frontal, when the front that used to be the keyboard drawer is lowered the DVD drive is than accessible.*






*You can kind of see that in this picture on the right hand side, sorry my cell phone has no flash.*






*Here is the desk in its home in the corner.*






*The next two shot swill show how dirty my stuff is*






*Here's an overhead shot of everything right now.*






So those are all the pictures I have so far, these are only 3-5 days into the build. Right now I am waiting for 2 new fans, a touchscreen controller, and a couple LED's to come in.

These should be arriving shortly, I am excited:

*2x Delta FFB1212EH-F00 120mm Case Fan @ 4,000rpm*





*Lamptron Touch 6-channel fan controller*





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkahwEzVl8o

I can't figure out how to embed video on here 

*LOGISYS Computer MDLED5BL Blue 5LED LASER LIGHT*





*LOGISYS Computer CLK12UV 12" UV COLD CATHODE KIT*





I also ordered the CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler but I am going to return it and start saving towards a custom loop liquid cooling system. Right now I am looking at something like *Swiftech MCP655-B pump, Aquacomputer aquatube G1/4 reservoir or depending on size a FrozenQ Liquid Fusion 400ml reservoir, Xtreme NOVA 1080 Radiator w/ 9 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon Fan @ 1850 rpm, most likely use EK High Performance waterblocks for CPU/GPU*.

Hope I didn't forget anything, and I will be posting more pictures once I get my packages in the mail hopefully by Saturday. Thanks for being interested, I plan on doing a lot more refining to this desk and eventually building one from the ground up!


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## MRCL (Apr 29, 2011)

Sweet! A little messy as of now tho.

Also, video embedding is not possible on this forum.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Apr 29, 2011)

That touch fan controller is pretty nice.

Nice mod, will look sweet when its tidied up/finished.


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## Smokyo7 (Apr 29, 2011)

Oh yesir it is indeed messy right now. I was going through withdrawls and needed to get my PC back upstairs :-D . I hope to be making everything cleaner and more seamless in the next few weeks, kinda learning to build this as I go. I need to make a few trips to home depot to get some ideas on how to clean up the top of the desk where the glass sits. 

Also found out my fans were delivered today, so now I can clean up the slot on the left hand side.

If anyone has any suggestions feel free to throw them out there, never enough ideas to think about.


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## Smokyo7 (May 1, 2011)

Alright got some cool shit in today, gonna throw up some pictures. Not sure if I'm gonna tackle installing them tonight though, probably gonna have to wait for tomorrow.

*Got my 2x Delta FFB1212EH-F00 120mm Case Fan @ 4,000rpm*






*Some thermal stuff for down the road, motivate myself to get that custom loop installed*






*My favorite thing from today is the Lamptron Touch 6-channel fan controller. This seems very well build, definitely a quality product and I am excited to get this up and running with those two Delta fans.*










*It came packed very well too.*






I was hoping my LEDs were going to be here today since I ordered them a day before all this stuff, but I guess not  . Good thing I'm off from work Monday! 

Hope to throw up some more picture tomorrow. Thanks for reading!


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## Smokyo7 (May 3, 2011)

So I've decided to pretty much skip the desk conversion. I have begun building my own desk similar in layout to the one I was converting but it should be better. I'll post some pics later for anyone who may be following this.


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## Smokyo7 (May 5, 2011)

Alright here are some pics on what I have been working on. I decided that the desk conversion was a good learning lesson and since its just about the same dimensions as the desk I am building I can test things on it if need be.

*So here are just some pictures of the left and right sides.*





















*This is a piece that is being glued together, I may use this as the base on which to lay the sheet metal that all the hardware will screwed into. We'll see how things come along. Either way I am going to add another piece to the back to house all the cables so that there is nothing strewn about.*
















*The hardware laid out on the sheet metal, just trying to get an idea of what to do and how things may come along. Also I'll need to re-wrap that in the mylar I found to use for this.*
















*So I've also decided that I want to use an acrylic on the sides for the fan & PSU. From the images on the site it will be see through enough for the LED's to come through but not be obnoxious. I made a couple of mock ups to use in the mean time. I saw that UltimateDesk had DangerDen create a couple of acrylic pieces, I was thinking of seeing if they could so the same.*











*Images of the acrylic I was looking at.*











Some bad news of course. The Lamptron Touch fan controller seems to be defective. It won't power on any of the fans that I have tried plugging into it. It also doesn't detect anything but fan 1 it seems, only giving me a voltage reading for it. May have to RMA it, FrozenCPU.com where I bought it said they would test the replacement before they sent it out at least. 

So that's my update for now. Peace


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## copenhagen69 (May 5, 2011)

cool looking stuff!

Subb'd


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## Smokyo7 (May 5, 2011)

Some great news. I was just being stupid with the fan controller and didn't realize what I thought was channel 1 was actually channel 6. So anyway, the controller works beautifully, powers on both Delta's to 3,960 (they are rated @ 4,000 so perfect), as well as a couple other fans I had lying around.


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

Alright time for an update. I've been working on what will become the front piece of the desk that will hold the fan controller, optical drive, and SD reader. I just finished the rough cuts and made sure that everything fit and was functional. I still have to sand down the entire desk, I've been delaying the inevitable. But the next thing to be done will be finishing the back panel that will house the cords.


























*Edit*

I also received a 4 slot I/O panel from DangerDen but I am not sure if I will use it, but better have it and be safe than wait for it to arrive.


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

I like the concept and it looks pretty good so far, but I'm not sure about the internal layout of the hardware.  Particularly, it seems like airflow would be obstructed by your hard-drives.  I would either lay them flat, or put them against the sides.  Also, do you plan to have any fans for exhaust on the other side of the desk?  I think that would work great.

In any case, good job so far, I'll be keeping my eye on this


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

Aye thanks  

Ya the layout is the biggest pain due to the size of the desk. I just took the mylar off the sheet metal and I'm gonna see what other options work. I ideally want to keep the 3 hard drives near each other but I may have to move one near the PSU.

As for the exhaust situation. I can't really put any fans on the opposite side by the PSU because its 2" away from the wall, so I'm not sure how well it would pull in air. What I was thinking of was getting a Sanyo Denki blower ( http://www.newark.com/sanyo-denki-sanace-fans/9bfb12p2h003/blower-2-3a-12v/dp/19T8929?CMP=AFC-HEARST 3,750rpm) to put by the PSU to suck in air and push it through to the opposite side towards the two Delta fans, or installing one in the back, or even on the bottom that would be kinda cool. Anyway those Deltas push air like crazy (150cfm/4krpm @ 100% each), I wanna try and make a video it's pretty awesome haha.

Thanks for the comments dude, always up for suggestions. This is the most I've ever built, so I'm trying to take my time and not ruin anything too badly


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

Smokyo7 said:


> Aye thanks
> 
> Ya the layout is the biggest pain due to the size of the desk. I just took the mylar off the sheet metal and I'm gonna see what other options work. I ideally want to keep the 3 hard drives near each other but I may have to move one near the PSU.
> 
> ...


Ah, I totally overlooked which direction your fans were facing and thought you were using them as intake, but now I see that they're already exhaust.  Hmm, maybe put a vent and an intake fan on the bottom, all the way to the right.  Also, I'd probably flip the PSU and put a vent underneath that as well, even though that would make cable management a bit more difficult.


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

Since I have that Thermaltake SATA dock I eliminated one of the internal drives so there will only be two in the desk due to size constraints. I think this layout would work best for air flow as long as I can get creative with the cable management.





















*I definitely am going to get one of these so that I don't have to run another wire to the fan controller.*


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

I like that layout a lot better, but why are your drives facing opposite directions?


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

Its the best way to have them situated due to the way the cables are. Kinda annoying but not really that big of a deal.

Ya the new layout will be pulling 2 x 150cfm straight off the cpu/gpu now. I'm anxious to get it all together and check out temperatures with those badass fans going.


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

I bet they'll be pretty good.  I just thought of another idea too; can your CPU heatsink be rotated 90 degrees?  If so, then the fins would be lined up with your fans.  And I still think you should put an intake where I mentioned before


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## Techtu (May 8, 2011)

Subbed


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

theJesus said:


> I bet they'll be pretty good.  I just thought of another idea too; can your CPU heatsink be rotated 90 degrees?  If so, then the fins would be lined up with your fans.  And I still think you should put an intake where I mentioned before



I will check if the sink can be rotated . Ya I wanna put another 120mm intake or the blower I mentioned before, on right side somewhere to get crossflow, gonna see what works out best.



Techtu said:


> Subbed



Thanks


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

Another thing I just thought of:  What are you doing about power/reset switch, usb ports, etc.?


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

Power button/reset is going to be in the middle of the panel that has the fan controller, optical drive, sd reader. I drilled the hole for the power button (you can kind of see it in the picture below), and have a button, but I may order a different one with an orange LED. The one I have is just black.

I bought a Silverstone FP36 - USB 3.0 from copenhagen69, sending that out this week, and I have an 8 port USB hub. Just thinking of this made me realize that it may be able to hold one of my hdds and solve that dilemma.






*Edit*

I attached the back panel last night, so I laid everything out earlier to get an idea on how this will come together. I have to trim it down some. Everything is in need of a hardcore sanding too. That wood piece in the middle is not attached, I used it as a brace for all the clamps I had on and now it fits nice and snug in there on its own.


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## theJesus (May 8, 2011)

Lookin' good, can't wait to see it finished


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## Smokyo7 (May 8, 2011)

theJesus said:


> Lookin' good, can't wait to see it finished



Me too!


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## Smokyo7 (May 9, 2011)

Alright so tonight I ordered the acrylic, a bulgin power switch, and some orange sleeving/heatshrink for the cables that will be visible.


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## Smokyo7 (May 11, 2011)

Aye so I've been at a stand still at the moment. Have some finals going on and I'm waiting for some stuff which should be arriving today. Hope to post some pictures today and get back to work on this tomorrow.


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## OneMoar (May 11, 2011)

motherboard resting on a sheet of metal 
make sure you get some stand off's under neath that good ones to also I would build a frame to hold the edge of the board


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## Smokyo7 (May 11, 2011)

There are pegs screwed into the metal, and the mobo will be screwed into the pegs.


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## Smokyo7 (May 11, 2011)

Received my stuff today.

16"x16" smoked acrylic
Multiple sized orange sleeving and heatshrink for cables that will be exposed.
Molex removal tool
Silverstone FP36 - USB 3.0 courtesy of copenhagen69.
Bulgin power switch with PWR cables.













*Figured I'd throw in the mess I have been creating in the dining room over the past few weeks.*


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## theJesus (May 12, 2011)

Pfff, you call that a mess?

Anyway, how are you planning to cut the acrylic?  I find it best to score it with a knife and then snap it, rather than trying to use power tools (they make it melt).


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## Smokyo7 (May 12, 2011)

Well I have two options, try to cut it myself, or my buddy works at a machine shop and can use an auto-cad program like Solid Works to design what I want and than program his machine to make the cuts for me. That would be the ideal solution since it makes perfectly clean smooth cuts. 

Ya I used a dremel on the cheaper acrylic I had to mess around with and it melted it bad.


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## theJesus (May 12, 2011)

Well, if you can get it done at the shop, then definitely do that.  Otherwise, practice scoring/snapping with the cheaper acrylic you just mentioned.


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## Smokyo7 (May 18, 2011)

Time for an update.

I started painting the three main pieces, the frame of the desk still needs another 2 coats, maybe 3 depending on how it looks, the other two need 1 more thin coat. I also cut a wide hole in the back so I can run the monitor cables through, added another slot next to where the fan controller will go for the two USB 3.0 ports, and bored out the hole for the new power button I got since it's a little bigger.

I also re-wrapped the sheet metal in mylar, rotated the heatsink so the dual Delta fans will pull air right off the CPU/GPU, and cleaned/reapplied MX-5 paste of course. I cut the two pieces of acrylic, one for the PSU which looks great, and the other for the two fans which came out alright but at least I'll be able to hand a mock up of what I need my buddy to cut for me at his machine shop and get a real nice clean looking piece. Once everything is dry I'll be able to lay it out and see which cables I need to wrap in that orange heatwrap/sleeving I ordered.

Hope I didn't forget anything, I'll be updating this a few more times over the next couple of days. Thanks for reading.


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## Smokyo7 (May 23, 2011)

Time for an update. Been busy doing detail shit such as sleeving the wires, getting a design worked out for the acrylic to be cut for the fans. Right now I'm waiting for some stuff from FrozenCPU.com come in; more sleeving, black mobo screws, black fan screws, the Bitspower X-Station Power Extension I had a picture of in a previous post, 3 more UV cathode tube (plan is to square off the mobo with the UV tubes, don't plan on using LED's anymore), and I wired up the bulgin power button.

I'm not done sleeving as I said, I ran out so I should be getting more by Wed/Thurs to finish that off. Also need to resleeve a couple things. Anyway, heres some pics.































Thanks for reading.


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## theJesus (May 23, 2011)

Looking good so far


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## Smokyo7 (May 23, 2011)

Put the front on w/ the fan controller, USB, power button, optical drive, and SD reader.

The fan controller doesn't have power yet, waiting for the Bitspower Xstation and 4-pin extension cable.

In the second picture you'll see I put on a front piece to cover the places where the wood frame connects. Parts of the desk need some touchup paint from gluing/sanding. Cables are all over the place, I was making sure both USB ports were working, and need to sleeve SATA cables and fan wires. Also waiting for some 1/4" thick rubber to come in to use on the corners to hold the glass. Those stoppers are just a temporary solution so I can continue working.

Overall I'm pleased with the progress so far.


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## OneMoar (May 24, 2011)

holy hatrick. may the gods of cable management help you
you are going to run those underneath right ? 
shame to spoil the effort thus far with the evil cable monster


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## theJesus (May 24, 2011)

Mess?  Pfft, that's normal to me. 

It's definitely coming along nicely though.  I think it would look great if you ghosted that DVD drive.


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## Smokyo7 (May 24, 2011)

OneMoar said:


> holy hatrick. may the gods of cable management help you
> you are going to run those underneath right ?
> shame to spoil the effort thus far with the evil cable monster



Haha, yes most of the cables will be run underneath the mobo, I'm gonna try to use some for accenting since the UV tubes will be in there, if I can make it look good I think it will be pretty cool. Some cables need to be shortened, some need to be re-sleeved; I ran out of sleeving so it should be here tomorrow. I wanted to get the desk together so I could do some heat tests and layout cable management for the power cables/usb cables.






I will be getting a few other things as well:

3/8" Nylon Cable Sleeve - UV Superhero
1/2" Orange Heatshrink
Customizable Standard 4 Pin Extention Cable 18"
Lian Li Motherboard Thumb Screw Kit - Black - 12 Pack
Brass Stud Coarse Thread Standoff
Blow Off Contact Cleaner
Bitspower X-Station Power Extension I - Orange LED
1/4" Nylon Cable Sleeve - Orange
Standard 4-pin Female Connector - UV Bright Orange
Standard 4-pin Male Connector - UV Bright Orange
12" Cold Cathode Kit (Dual Ready) - Ultra Bright UV
2 x 15" Deluxe Sound Activate Cold Cathode Kit - UV
Logisys Inverter Harness Cable w/ Rocker Switch
Lamptron 4 Channel High Output Aluminum Cathode Inverter - 4 Tubes Off One Inverter
Fan Screw - Black
1/4" thick piece of 12"x12" rubber so I can remove those ugly stands that are holding the glass.

Thanks to Ultimate Desk for sending this over to me, will now be able to securely attach my PSU to the acrylic on the side:








theJesus said:


> Mess?  Pfft, that's normal to me.
> 
> It's definitely coming along nicely though.  I think it would look great if you ghosted that DVD drive.



What do you mean ghosted? Thanks for the kind words along the way duder 

Today my buddy is attempting to make this awesome fan cutout on the piece of acrylic I gave him, so if it doesn't crack in the machine it should look awesome. Even if it does I'll be ordering UV Orange acrylic down the road and leeching an idea from l3p by having my mousepad glow and putting it under a cup holder, so he can try again. Looked really good on his build and since I'll have 4 UV tubes in this desk it should make it glow nicely.

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For reading all that you get some pics, enjoy!


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## theJesus (May 24, 2011)

Ghosting a drive is where you recess the drive and then attach a panel to the front of the tray, so when it is closed you don't see the drive.  Normally the panel is the drive-bay cover on a regular case.  Also, it is standard to make it so that when you press on the panel, it pushes the eject button.

Anyway, you'll have to take a vid of those sound-reactive cathodes for me, I've always wondered how well they work lol


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## Smokyo7 (May 24, 2011)

Ya I wanna throw up a video of the fans running off the controller and I'll do one of the UV tubes for ya. I didn't realize the 15" ones did that until after I ordered them, kinda cool though.


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## Smokyo7 (May 26, 2011)

I am too impatient to wait for Photobucket so I hosted the updated pictures on my site: http://chronic7.com/pc_build/


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## yogurt_21 (May 26, 2011)

Smokyo7 said:


> I am too impatient to wait for Photobucket so I hosted the updated pictures on my site: http://chronic7.com/pc_build/



why didn't you just host them here?


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## Smokyo7 (May 26, 2011)

The files are large and I didn't feel like resizing them at the moment. I think if I upload a huge image file here it doesn't autoresize.

I'll be getting a virtual server at my work in the next few days and will just host the images myself.


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## theJesus (May 27, 2011)

Smokyo7 said:


> I am too impatient to wait for Photobucket so I hosted the updated pictures on my site: http://chronic7.com/pc_build/


lol Photobucket bandwidth exceeded 
These pics look really cool though, I like the way the lights make the cables glow.


yogurt_21 said:


> why didn't you just host them here?


I assume you mean techpowerup._org_ 
File-size limit of 2mb.  No bulk upload option that I'm aware of.  No easy way to manage all your uploads.
Those are my main reasons for not always using it.


Smokyo7 said:


> The files are large and I didn't feel like resizing them at the moment. I think if I upload a huge image file here it doesn't autoresize.


Yeah, if the file is over 2mb it just gives you an error.


Smokyo7 said:


> I'll be getting a virtual server at my work in the next few days and will just host the images myself.


That will be nice I bet.


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## Smokyo7 (May 27, 2011)

Thanks man, I like the way the cathodes look too, not bright and obnoxious like LEDs would be, gives off a nice glow. I went with two different sleeving's as you can see; orange and UV superman from FrozenCPU. I wish I had a better camera, it looks way cooler in person, the camera just doesn't capture the full color =P

I've still gotta do some more painting, wire management, and I wanna get some UV acrylic to outline the mouse pad and maybe the base of the monitors. My ashtray looks hilariously awesome. I'll take a pic of it later.

Thanks for reading. This was a pretty simple build, if this is something that looks like you would like it's not too difficult if you take your time and think things out. I've never built a piece of furniture in my life before this, so ya :-D


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## mATrIxLord (May 27, 2011)

nice pics..... need moar!  subed to see how this goes... awesome build..


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## de.das.dude (May 27, 2011)

i cant see photobucket pix! its saying bandwidth exceeded and wants me to upgrade to pro. please use TPUs own image hosting.


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## theJesus (May 27, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> i cant see photobucket pix! its saying bandwidth exceeded and wants me to upgrade to pro. please use TPUs own image hosting.


How 'bout you read the recent posts?


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## Smokyo7 (May 27, 2011)

de.das.dude said:


> i cant see photobucket pix! its saying bandwidth exceeded and wants me to upgrade to pro. please use TPUs own image hosting.





Smokyo7 said:


> I am too impatient to wait for Photobucket so I hosted the updated pictures on my site: http://chronic7.com/pc_build/



It wants _me_ to upgrade to pro since I uploaded too many pictures, they should all be working again tomorrow though. I don't know anything about TPU's image hosting, all I know is the pictures file size is large and I haven't resized any of them. I'll check into doing this later on though.

You can go to that link above for the latest pics, I am just hosting them in a temp directory under my old CS 1.6 website, lol.


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## Smokyo7 (May 28, 2011)

mATrIxLord said:


> nice pics..... need moar!  subed to see how this goes... awesome build..



Thanks! Kind words are much appreciated.


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## OneMoar (May 28, 2011)

did someone say MOAR ?


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## Smokyo7 (May 29, 2011)

Here are the pictures that I was hosting on my site now that Photobucket is working again. Sometime in the near future I am going to upload all these pictures to TPU's image hosting as well as in a directory on my own site in full hi-res gloriousness. For now enjoy and thanks for reading.


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