Sleeper PC Build

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I've always liked the concept of sleepers. Now I have a project to scratch that itch.

I originally was going to use an early 2000s Dell Dimension, which I may still.

Ended up buying this case on marketplace. While it is old and basic looking, it's a very nice workstation full tower with 800w bronze redundant psus and a lot of espension options.

For now, I've been test fitting some parts I have lying around

I threw in an optical drive and a spare b350 motherboard as well as some pci and pcie expansion cards. I also installed an old OEM AMD cooler, with a matching silver fan grille.

Ideally I'm going for a ~15 year old prebuilt look on the inside.

this board does not at all fit the aesthetic of this system, so this is one piece that is likely to get changed. The GPU (rx470) I might be able to make work. I've considered spray painting the backplate silver and changing the cooler shroud.

I have ordered a Pentium 4 sticker for the front of the case. May put a dell emblem on it or something too.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Now with dell logo.

 

[xrror]

I miss the days of LAN parties, where sleeper PC's were a hilarious thing =D

And terrifyingly, right next to the person who managed to cut and grind a dual Athlon MP system into a desktop P75 Packard Bell case, and was actually the host for the Battlefield game everyone was on - was someone using an actual stock eMachines with the integrated chipset graphics and playing at 12fps - but still having the time of their life lol.

Sorry for the mildly off topic, but yea sleeper machines are great. And best part is if you ever have concerns about anything cosmetically ... well don't LOL. It's whatever you could jam in there! You don't have a window on the sleeper! - unless of course, you want to hahah.

Spoiler: In the spirit of sleeper PC

Sorry don't have more pics, can get if wanted but don't want to Off Topic. Just showing support for the sleeper concept LOL. This was an inadvertent build of what was on hand, started by having this Noctua low profile heatsink from a failed prior project and it being the only AM4 heatsink I had on hand... shoved it on as a temp... happened to look over and see the Vostro 220s case and... a laugh and "well, shiggles!" - Ryzen 3600 - GTX 750Ti - Asrock B450m. And now there's apparently a low profile RTX 4060 that can fit in this? ahhhh.. must resist compulsion to ... complete build i'll... never have a practical use for... lol

just noticed, it's that 2nd Radeon that gets it! LOL

 

[remixedcat]

I wanna eventually do a sleeper laptop build some time but that's a whole nother level lol...

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I miss the days of LAN parties, where sleeper PC's were a hilarious thing =D

And terrifyingly, right next to the person who managed to cut and grind a dual Athlon MP system into a desktop P75 Packard Bell case, and was actually the host for the Battlefield game everyone was on - was someone using an actual stock eMachines with the integrated chipset graphics and playing at 12fps - but still having the time of their life lol.

Sorry for the mildly off topic, but yea sleeper machines are great. And best part is if you ever have concerns about anything cosmetically ... well don't LOL. It's whatever you could jam in there! You don't have a window on the sleeper! - unless of course, you want to hahah.

Spoiler: In the spirit of sleeper PC

View attachment 337692View attachment 337693Sorry don't have more pics, can get if wanted but don't want to Off Topic. Just showing support for the sleeper concept LOL. This was an inadvertent build of what was on hand, started by having this Noctua low profile heatsink from a failed prior project and it being the only AM4 heatsink I had on hand... shoved it on as a temp... happened to look over and see the Vostro 220s case and... a laugh and "well, shiggles!" - Ryzen 3600 - GTX 750Ti - Asrock B450m. And now there's apparently a low profile RTX 4060 that can fit in this? ahhhh.. must resist compulsion to ... complete build i'll... never have a practical use for... lol

just noticed, it's that 2nd Radeon that gets it! LOL
View attachment 337696

That is a Radeon 7000 pci lol. This board has 2 pci slots. One beneath is a FireWire card.

Now with floppy drive. Bought a startech 5.25 to 3.5in adapter. Only floppy drive I could dig up did not have a faceplate due to the design of the prebuilt it came from.

However this awesome stl and some slight modifications worked great.

Teac Floppy Faceplate by evanevery

Here is a Face Plate for a TEAC 1.44 Floppy Drive. It is simply a derivative of my Floptical face plate. The "legs", "button", and penetrations have been modified to work with the Teac floppy drive.

www.thingiverse.com

I could buy a fdd to USB adapter and make it actually work, but quite frankly I don't think that's worth $10.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Got it working (mostly) today. Installed the Ryzen 5 1400 and slapped on a Pentium 4 sticker to the front.

Probably going to remove the Dell branding. It doesn't look good.

It plays games ok. Probably going to make this into my racing rig machine, it has enough grunt to play Assetto Corsa.

 

[Shrek]

Love the idea of a wolf in sheeps clothing.

 

[venturi]

IT CAN BE DONE

This is a great idea.! That case has plenty of real estate to take it over the top. You might want to consider stealth cooling:
cut out bottom to allow 120mm fan inlets, use audio equipment shallow isolation cones to add unobtrusively 2 more CM of clearance for air to be pulled in through the bottom of the case. Creating a very quiet positive pressure environment.

You could fit 5 Phantec T30 fans in there with positive pressure blowing air out extake fan, PSU and through video blower cards.

The T30s are PWM but also have built in selectors allowing changes in range from low high and hybrid, so your motherboard speed control can range from 300 rpm to 3000 rpm. PC can be ultra silent but scale as needed.

you could fit a corsair 1600w powers supply in the same place, runs silent and will allow air to also to be pushed out even when fans turns itself off.

Add an ssd or nvme 4 drive array.

Remove the right side drive bay section to allow for larger video cards (blowers)

use 4090 blower or 4080 blower card so it fits but also because all hot air is blown out the back of the pc and not blown in.

you could do dual 4090 blowers.....

With so much positive pressure, air is forced through the blower fans aiding them but also able to have constant air flow

Take one of the CD players players and make it a Blu-ray burner, and the other one keep the cover but when you eject, an LCD screen slides out for bios, fans, etc.
OR simply keep the covers, discard the players, and use that space for cable management and the raid array.

There are several boards that could fit in there with some modification as well. Including Xeon and Epyc.


How far do you want to take the "sleeper" label???

 

[freeagent]

The doctor is in

 

[Shrek]

The concept is great, but how does one move external USB 2 ports to USB 3?

 

[nomdeplume]

The concept is great, but how does one move external USB 2 ports to USB 3?

How does one replace a faulty USB port.
Promises to be quite similar, no?

 

[Shrek]

I'm not very familiar with cases, but doesn't each case have its own panel type?

 

[venturi]

There are plenty of usb to motherboard cable on amazon that can be molded to fit in the same. Just requires a little research/shopping.

I'm not very familiar with cases, but doesn't each case have its own panel type?

They do, but most of the time its based on a standard, and if you browse enough the offerings, you can pick up what would work. Sometimes the ports are a standard spacing apart, or grouped in side by side two slot configurations. On the backside of the PC where the section is mounted, one can normally take it apart, and fit something else for USB3.

Just sayin, it requires some ingenuity and patience.

In this case, the ports are covered by a sliding mini door, hence any ports that are in that shape can go back there. Cut the metal framework to allow a replacement to fit flush where the prior ones would be.

 

[Shrek]

My recent experience has distorted my view; I have a Cooler Master case with one broken USB port and things there are not standard.

When a new case can be had for $40 and the cables needed to make the mod might be $20, I am given to wonder.

 

[Arctucas]

The concept is great, but how does one move external USB 2 ports to USB 3?

I used this https://www.amazon.com/Longdex-Female-Motherboard-Adapter-Converter/dp/B07XNYX25V

Don't get USB3 speeds, but there are I/O ports if I need that.

 

[Shrek]

Why not use the USB 3 version?

 

[venturi]

if you mount the power supply side ways with an internal nema extension, and remove the hard drive frames and cd players, you could put a dual cpu mobo in there in the ssb format...

could do dual xeon or dual epyc... just sayin'



....the ultimate sleeper

 

[Arctucas]

Why not use the USB 3 version?
View attachment 349857

Didn't want to tear apart whole front of chassis. This is plug and play.

The cable still gives me USB2 speeds, which is generally enough for the few times I plug a thumb drive into the front panel, which I only use for small files, such as BIOS updates.

If I need larger file transfer with higher speeds, I use an extender cable for the rear I/O panel USB3 jacks. Example: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BR...d_r=ac464696-dbf5-4f86-8953-36c0897e9fd5&th=1

 

[xrror]

It can be a real pain in the rear, and sometimes it comes out chop shop anyway but I think it's still worth it =D
"welp, probably not gonna be using firewire anymore..."

Spoiler: The rest of it

This next one isn't that machine, but shows the USB3 cables I hacked up to add to the compaq case.

 

[Courier 6]

Nice case

I've always liked the concept of sleepers. Now I have a project to scratch that itch.

I originally was going to use an early 2000s Dell Dimension, which I may still.

View attachment 337542
Ended up buying this case on marketplace. While it is old and basic looking, it's a very nice workstation full tower with 800w bronze redundant psus and a lot of espension options.

For now, I've been test fitting some parts I have lying around

View attachment 337543

I threw in an optical drive and a spare b350 motherboard as well as some pci and pcie expansion cards. I also installed an old OEM AMD cooler, with a matching silver fan grille.

Ideally I'm going for a ~15 year old prebuilt look on the inside.

View attachment 337544 this board does not at all fit the aesthetic of this system, so this is one piece that is likely to get changed. The GPU (rx470) I might be able to make work. I've considered spray painting the backplate silver and changing the cooler shroud.

I have ordered a Pentium 4 sticker for the front of the case. May put a dell emblem on it or something too.

Nice case, it need some cleaning, but nice

 

[Shrek]

It can be a real pain in the rear, and sometimes it comes out chop shop anyway but I think it's still worth it =D
"welp, probably not gonna be using firewire anymore..."
View attachment 351367

Those USB 2 ports look distressed.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

Little update on this. I have upgraded my main, so this gained my Ryzen 5 3600. I also put 16gb ram in it. Even though it's not green or OEM looking. I also put in a spare 256gb m.2 drive. Will probably add some mechanical storage. I'm planning on upgrading my main GPU and putting the 5700xt in here.

Also quieter fan but kept the avc sticker and grille

I am eventually going to put together a racing sim rig using this.