Post your comments and questions for the article: Adding A Custom Case Window.

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ActiveTuning - Partner & Director Of Sales & Marketing

man
i don't mean to slag anyones work and you must be doing something right to be listed in the gamespy daily but your window is not exactly what i would consider to be custom.
the article was very well written and had alot of information.
but this is a custom window:


your article was nice but the title was kind of misleading.

That's all an issue of semantics. Is it a variation from the PC you originally bought? Then it is "custom", as you have personalized it yourself.

By your definition, it's not custom unless it's original, and that's simply not the case. For instance, this is not my definition of custom, yet to many people it is.

Also, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a vendor out there selling a case window without using the word "custom" or a variance thereof in its description.

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

Makes it look easier then it sounds. I think I'll give it a try next time I have access to a jigsaw and am not feeling lazy. Cheeper then I though too.

One thing I'd like to know is what effect does the plexyglass have on the sound? Is the fan noise about the same, less noise, or more noise? I've been thinking about sound-proofing and wonder how the window might affect that.

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Road Runner!!!!

I'd love to take on a project like that, but my case already has three huge holes in it for 120mm fans that I took out, and I doubt that I could design a window that could take into account the placement of those.

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Aaron Dahlen - Gaming Editor
aaron@slcentral.com
SLCentral - Your logical choice for computing and technology
http://www.slcentral.com

Athlon XP 1800+ ... K7V DRAGON Plus ... 256 MB PC2100 ... GeForce3 PowerPack !!! ... Sound Blaster Audigy ... IBM 60GXP 40 GB ... Samsung SyncMaster 950p ... Windows XP Home

Anytime someone posts a casemod like this on Slashdot, people always start making reference to the fact that a PC chassis is made of metal for a reason - It's an EMI/RFI grounding shield, AKA Faraday Cage. If you've seen Enemy of the State, you should recognize the principle. Brill's habitat was encased in a huge wire fence. This fence prevented outsiders from using equipment which tunes into stray signal broadcasts from his electronic equipment inside the compound.

Partial/full plexiglass cases don't have this shielding...thus they're subject to interference from exterior sources, and your household appliances will be subject to the interference from your computer. Specifically, I *know* those neon tube lights have to be emitting some pretty off-band frequencies...

Anyway, I'm just kinda curious how damaging (from an electrical engineer's standpoint) having a case window is. Has anyone conducted any tests like this?

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

So we could attach an open wires to the case and everything sould be ok, eh? I'm not gonna try it, heh.

Never thought about that. Atctually, this works in cars, too. If the car gets struck by lightening or severed power line, anyone is safe untill they leave the car. And the car has many windows. Never, Never, exit your car if a power line falls on it.

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Road Runner!!!!

its true that adding windows does increase the chance of emi but belive it or not there is very little extra emi emmited by the unit.
i have been doing some testing on cold cathode tubes and normal neons. the CCFL outputs a minimal amount of emi but the inverters we use are the real emmiters of interference. thats why we coat them in rubber (plus they will give you a nasty shock if you touch the wrong thing. neon tube like those you buy for cars put out alot of interference but the frequency seems not cause interference with the computer. i have never heard of people having problems with interference. but i am sure that in the future some type of hardware will be released that will be sensative to the frequency emitted by the lighting.

Wow, I hadn't thought I did this much to caust trouble

well, anyways, here goes:
Lord P. You're somewhat correct in your assessment of this mod, I made it extremely simple. If you re-read the text in my article I said I made it simple, intentionally. Of the folks who read this site, maybe 1/20 or 1/30 have done any case mods before. Not many at all. So if I started out showing them how I did a super complicated mod and all that stuff, well, I woulda lost the intended audience. The guys who frequewn your site are a bit different in this respect, they head to your place forr more advanced mods. Its all in the audience, man.

Cutriss- You just stepped into a rats nest of trouble there, which I'm not getting into right now. What you're basically talking about is something I mentioned a while ago in an article on modding. Its not neat or pretty to start up. Then about the plexi/EMI thing, well, its been talked about and it is something that people generally dismiss. I Have never heard of people having unusual troubles with a plexi case or window added.

amistadcliffman- No real changes in noise with or without a window. I actaully took the chance to knock the side fans to 7V while I had the case apart doing this.

Aaron- get a holesaw and just put fan holes in your window

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HAHAHA, Work's fun.
Then you put in 65 hours in 5 days. What the hell was I thinking?

ayb? (i am assuming u r the same one i know)
i didn't know you wrote that article. it was the title that got to me, i was quite shocked to see it listed in "gamespy daily" but when i linked on it i was a little disapointed. the article was fine infact it was quite well written. i didn't even know you did articles man, you should let me know these things. i am constantly looking for new talent.

btw you mention some of the funky problems people have had, everyone i have help with that has ended up with a wiring problem. but there was one guy i still have no clue what was going on but i don't think it was directly involving the CCFL (personally i think he had a dying PS and was in denial).

you've got it
That's me. AllUrBase/TKitch/WhateverTheNextNickItakeIs

THX for the compliment

(as proof, I am the one Drool banned like 7 times )

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HAHAHA, Work's fun.
Then you put in 65 hours in 5 days. What the hell was I thinking?

Yup, Kitch has been writing at SL for quite some time. He is our cooling/overclocking/modding expert

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ActiveTuning - Partner & Director Of Sales & Marketing

Bummer, and all this time I thought it was for my complete lack of looks, charm and all around social ineptness.

heheh, if its wasn't for rage moderating my forums, i polly would have been kicked off the [H] a long time ago.

i have no reason to kick you from my forums, in fact almost everyone has behaved themselves so far...

keep up the good work

Sometimes I think I just enjoyed pissing off drool. I don't know why else I woulda done it.