Ghetto Mods

[Tulatin]

It’s not really a mod.. but it’s a little ghetto in the looks department. I stripped the crossbar on my first FC140, so I took the one off of my TRUE Black

This reminds me of the X bracket for the TRUE - If you stuck a nickel between the bracket and the sink, temps would drop by a few degrees.

I have a bunch of content for this thread, I just have to dig em out. In the meantime, have an X800 AIO that came to me. Tested it the first time, blackscreen. That KT4 board is hokey. Switched to a K8V that's known working... A VRM decided to release the magic smoke.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

The keyboard sounds doable. The monitor… not so much
I’ll see what I can do

Active converter to USB-C and a portable monitor?

It would be amusing at the very least.

 

[oobymach]

Saw this on PC Master Race group on fb. It's the $10 2tb drive from aliexpress

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Saw this on PC Master Race group on fb. It's the $10 2tb drive from aliexpress

View attachment 287828

Oh lawd!

These things are also floating around on Amazon too. Tom's did a story about it a few weeks ago. Basically, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but people be falling for it anyway.

 

[nomdeplume]

The keyboard sounds doable. The monitor… not so much
I’ll see what I can do

My first thought was wondering if you actually went so far as mounting a 80mm intake fan feeding fresh air to the cpu cooler by means of a port formed from plastic binder stiffener. Not sure you have the height to a run it with the stock Intel cooler pulling air from the top.

 

[Lei]

The keyboard sounds doable. The monitor… not so much
I’ll see what I can do

Look at this:

Amazon.com : portable monitor

 

[Arco]

That videocard must get plenty of ventilation.

Oh, its a Fractal Torrent with 2x180mm fans.

 

[80251]

@Arco
That case is bomb for videocard cooling.

Do you get discounts when buying gas with that 'nick?

 

[Arco]

That case is bomb for videocard cooling.

Do you get discounts when buying gas with that 'nick?

Sadly not. They would not accept the free advertising deal...

 

[Macro Device]

My first here.

It was XFX RX 6700 XT Speedster SWFT309 and it became a bizarre frightening beast.

Pic 3 is original temps.
Pic 4 is current temps.

I'm happy I didn't screw my GPU up.

Spoiler: Huh.

But I will de-ghetto this some day.

"Overstrøm" is Danish for "overcurrent" if you're interested.

 

[R-T-B]

Bluetooth modded 1991 IBM made Model M powered by 4 AA NiMH cells. Integrated OLED battery meter / voltimeter with current reading.

Runs around 10 hours with 4 eneloop pros.

I could probably fit all but the battery pack inside the Model M Chasis but that would be a destructive mod. This is a thing I can rip off this historical kb anytime.

 

[80251]

The old IBM PS/2 keyboard. I remember back when the all still living cast of MASH did a commercial for Big Blue and the PS/2!

 

[R-T-B]

Playing "How Low can it go" Limbo right now with it's power source.

PS/2 Spec is technically 4.5-5.5v. Technically usb is only 4.75V to 5.25V, but the bluetooth controller and PS2 converter both can tolerate a wider range at 3v-12v, so we are really only limited by the keyboard. I already know the keyboard is a little "wide range" because it will run on 6volts with 4x AA alkaline batteries in a pinch, but my NiMH cells can go as low as 0.9v each without degrading... 0.9volts x 4 = 3.6volts. Doubt the keyboard will run that low, but curious how low below 4.5v it will tolerate.

If it dies from low voltage, that'd possibly be the lamest IBM death ever. I don't think that'll happen. These things tend to be overbuilt with somewhat insane tolerances...

EDIT: The answer is 3.3volts. The batteries will actually harm themselves slightly before the keyboard shuts off, lol.

Interestingly, this probably means you could run a PS/2 keyboard off of a 3.3v power supply line, just barely, as long as it was not under spec much.

Still, to be nice to the cells, I'm switching to a regulated Panasonic made 4xAA -> 5V 1A output powerbank I bought a bit ago. Should be safer, if a bit less capacity from the conversion and MCU.

Excact part number of the power bank is BQ-CC87, it has a charger built in too. Order one on amazon if you like:

https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BQ-CC87ABBA-Advanced-Individual-Technology/dp/B07WVVXQX7

 

[80251]

R-T-B must REALLY like those IBM PS/2 keyboards. I can't remember if they were mechanical or not or if they could do n-key rollover.

 

[R-T-B]

R-T-B must REALLY like those IBM PS/2 keyboards. I can't remember if they were mechanical or not or if they could do n-key rollover.

They are mechanical in the sense that they are durable and feel every bit as good if not better than a modern mechanical. Very tactile. But technically the actual keyswitch is a membrane at least partially.

They do not support n-key rollover, but I never really had a serious need beyond 2KRO and they do that fine (if using modifiers it's more like 4KRO).

If I was a hardcore keyboard "gamer" I'd worry about the loss of timing resolution (PS/2 is like close to 1000hz because it's interrupt driven, bluetooth "polls" at like 250hz at best) but I'm honestly not that worried because my reflexes are far worse.

My main thoughts are "battery life could be better" but I'd need a bluetooth LE controller for that and they cost more than I'm willing to throw at this for probably marginal gains. I've heard some people have had luck replacing some of the old electronics, or applying internal resistors, but I don't want to mod the keyboard.

 

[LabRat 891]

This reminds me of the X bracket for the TRUE - If you stuck a nickel between the bracket and the sink, temps would drop by a few degrees.

I have a bunch of content for this thread, I just have to dig em out. In the meantime, have an X800 AIO that came to me. Tested it the first time, blackscreen. That KT4 board is hokey. Switched to a K8V that's known working... A VRM decided to release the magic smoke.

View attachment 287805

Okay, you got me to post one of my recent works. (huge contrast in 'finished look' )




Yes. That's a 120x38mm 1.9A 12VDC 4-pin PWM 'Server Blower' (affectionately named: 'Blowymatron')
Yes. It is powered and auto-controlled by the card. (which, is built to support something like a 3.9A 12VDC 'Squirrel-Cage Screamer')

PS: 'Not-WX9100s' (Reflashed MI25 AKA: The Poors' Vega 64 16GB FE) will do multiple displays via an MST hub. Caveat: No FreeSync, and I'm not spending $50-90 on a hub that claims FreeSync/VRR/G-Sync over DP. I'll just shove my 6500XT in my X570 along with it, somewhere, somehow... That alone will make for another great 'ghetto mod' OC.

 

[joemama]

Just found an old photo of cutting a hole out of my laptop case to maximize airflow, it reduced the CPU temperature by 5 degrees celsius

 

[silentbogo]

Just found an old photo of cutting a hole out of my laptop case to maximize airflow,

At least it's functional and makes sense. For some reason our local "DIYers" simply snip the plastic grill on the side, and then blame "tight hinges" for their cracked lower chassis
All you need to do now, is add a piece of metal mesh, and it'll be better than factory ))))

 

[80251]

Wouldn't it be better to at least filter the intake for that laptop?

 

[LabRat 891]

Just found an old photo of cutting a hole out of my laptop case to maximize airflow, it reduced the CPU temperature by 5 degrees celsius

View attachment 289427

At least it's functional and makes sense. For some reason our local "DIYers" simply snip the plastic grill on the side, and then blame "tight hinges" for their cracked lower chassis
All you need to do now, is add a piece of metal mesh, and it'll be better than factory ))))

I wonder if I have any pics of the 1st gen i7 Toshiba I did the same procedure to. Toshiba either purposfully or accidentally used a lower chassis from a Pentium/i3-equipped unit; the intake was 100% solid plastic with 'fake grates'.

I cut out the area w/ a dremel(rotary tool) and JBwelded(2-part knead-able epoxy) in a snipped-down fan grille.
It immediately 'fixed' every issue I had with that laptop and I sold it soon after (fully disclosing the modification)

 

[maxfly]

Not exactly a ghetto mod but mounting it to anything today would require some serious innovation
If I can figure out a way to secure one to an m.2 with some thermal tape...anyhow.
I found these badboys while digging through some long lost boxes and thought you all would appreciate it.
A blast from the past for sure! It's so old Thermalright doesn't even have it on their website anymore lol!

 

[Kwadratowicz]

Not exactly a ghetto mod but mounting it to anything today would require some serious innovation
If I can figure out a way to secure one to an m.2 with some thermal tape...anyhow.
I found these badboys while digging through some long lost boxes and thought you all would appreciate it.
A blast from the past for sure! It's so old Thermalright doesn't even have it on their website anymore lol!

Zipties?

 

[80251]

Thermalright used to be really innovative in things like videocard cooling and VRM cooling. They had all kinds of interesting heatpipe coolers for videocards. One of them (sidewinder maybe?) could even be mounted in two different orientations.

 

[silentbogo]

My ghetto filament holder for my 3D printer.
All it took is a spare steel rod, tension coupler, phone holder to keep it from moving too much, and a shoelace to prevent the spool from falling off(that one is not in pic, but I added it later after knocking it off with my head yesterday during an emergency nozzle cleaning).

Just a temporary solution, before I print a normal holder

 

[Magic Cube]

Not exactly a ghetto mod but mounting it to anything today would require some serious innovation
If I can figure out a way to secure one to an m.2 with some thermal tape...anyhow.
I found these badboys while digging through some long lost boxes and thought you all would appreciate it.
A blast from the past for sure! It's so old Thermalright doesn't even have it on their website anymore lol!


View attachment 289899

I had these on some DFI AMD Motherboard, I don't remember motherboard model anymore. I did sell motherboard+Cpu+these Thermalright vrm heatsinks. But I do miss these. Too bad these are so hard to get these days. If I had one of those cheaper motherboards with no VRM heatsink, I would try to mount something like these to board.

Only bad Thermalright product I owned was HR-02 with it's base, which was skewed and did take couple hours of using sand paper to get to the copper base. Nickel base it had was really bad. Temperatures dropped about 10 celsius with this operation, if I remember correctly processor was Q6600. After cpu was lapped temperatures where about 20 degrees lower. So lapping is good thing sometimes.