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Winner of Ion Case Mod Contest is Glowing Green Cube

Paul Lilly — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:30:34 -0600

Bill "Overkill Bill" Owen from Mnpctech walked away a winner in Nvidia's Ion case mod contest announced a few months back. The contest tasked 5 professional case modders with building a "revolutionary Ion-based PC" out of an Zotac Ion ITX 330 motherboard containing an Nvidia Ion GPU and an Intel Atom dual-core CPU, along with $500 for any additional PC parts.

Owen's winning entry came in the form of a wild looking green cube consisting of hundreds of hours of labor and a whole lot of CNC milled sheets of aluminum and laser-cut acrylic.

Full system specs can be found here, but it's the worklog and plethora of pictures that are the real treat, and you can view it all right here.

Image Credit: Mnpctech

Awesome NES Case Mod Stuffs System, Screen into Cartridge

Paul Lilly — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:08:09 -0500

We've seen modded NES systems before, but BenHeck.com forum member "airz" earned some serious geek cred on Thursday by cramming all kinds of goodies into an NES cartridge.

Airz took a foreign-made portable media player and hacked an NES controller to replace the player's buttons, then stuffed the whole assembly into a Super Mario / Duck Hunt combo cartridge. He then cut out an opening for the 2.8-inch LCD screen and the end result is a handheld NES cartridge capable of playing a complete library of NES games using the original buttons, while also serving as an MP3 player, FM radio, picture viewer, audio recorder, and more.

After going through 3 game cases, 2 controllers, and 2 media players to make the mod work, Airz said he's selling his awesome mod to recoup his losses.

YouTube Video
Worklog

Image Credit: forums.benheck.com airz

Atom Computers Stuffed Into Vase, Mini-Ferrari

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:30:17 -0500

The Atom processor is a pretty nifty little thing. It draws very little power, it doesn’t require much cooling – this allows PC creators to put them in just about anything. And, “anything” now includes a toy Ferrari and a vase.

These two computers sport nettop stats, and it’s expected that the Ferarri enclosed machine is being aimed at kids, while the Vase case is for those that just want to hide their machine amongst their pottery.

No word yet on price or availability, but it’s expected that these are simply meant as proof of concept.

(Sorry about the small picture size – be sure to check out the respective articles for better views).

Image Credit: Gizmodo

Awesome Batmobile PC For Sale By Owner, Slightly Used, Batpod Not Included

Benson Hong — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:15:33 -0500

What would be a better way to celebrate the release of The Dark Knight than with your own version of the Batmobile? Impress your comic-book fanboy friends when you roll up to the movie theaters in your new Batmobile Tumbler and watch the ladies swarm to your ride.

Okay, so this may not be the life size Tumbler you were expecting to show off to your crew, but Kevin Core’s 1/6-scale Batmobile Tumbler featured in our January 2008 issue is the next best thing. After winning Rig of the Month with his inventive creation, Kevin is finally putting his rig up for sale. This 28” x 17” x 11” mini-PC features seven hard drive LED lights, 10 LED headlines, and some other nifty features. It's not a particularly powerful rig, but we can't help but admire the effort. If you're interested in owning a piece of Mod-of-the-Month history, grab your wallet, start your web browser, and head over to the auction page now!

Check out Kevin's work log for more pictures.

Ken Kirby's Super Bee

Tom Edwards — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:38:51 -0500

Ken Kirby might not know much about cars, but there’s no denying that he’s got quite a handle on case modding. He designed the Super Bee rig as a gift for his in-laws to replace their aging 700MHz Windows 98 machine.

Ken chose the Super Bee theme to appeal to his father-in-law’s love of cars, especially Dodge muscle cars. The entire project was a breeze to complete, save for a few minor issues: Ken had a bit of trouble designing the top of the air filter on his processor’s fan, and when he first fired up his rig, nothing happened—his motherboard was completely shot.

One quick trip to the computer store solved the problem, and soon enough the Super Bee was up and running.

Yeah, that's a big picture. And rightfully so.

Instead of a 426 Hemi, this Super Bee rocks an Athlon X2 3800+ processor, 1GB of Corsair RAM, and a GeForce FX 6600.

Ken acquired the customized parts for the case right off of ebay, including the Super Bee's hood logo and fender "bee."

Ken started with a green Aspire X-Discovery case andused flat-black highlights to mimic a real car's look!

For his winning entry, Ken wins a $250 gift certificate to fund his modding madness!

Troy Fryfogle's Hellusion

Tom Edwards — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:59:24 -0600

Sequels always suck, right? Well, sometimes that’s not the case. How about Godfather II? Troy Fryfogle’s Hellusion mod is another example of the exception proving the rule. A year in the making, this mod is the follow-up to Troy’s HellRaiser Cenobite PC (http://tinyurl.com/23xoyx).

The Hellusion was built from the inside out, with the puzzle box illusion created first since it’s the primary visual aspect and innermost point—and because if it didn’t work correctly, the rest of the mod wouldn’t come together. We say it came together perfectly—and we’re hoping this series becomes a trilogy!

Where’s the rig? This box seems to hold only the Hellraiser puzzle cube, yet it’s a fully functional machine.

The case was built entirely from scratch, and there’s not a single screw or rivet holding it together. Instead, Troy used Alum Angle and AcrylPanel throughout.

This magician has chosen to reveal his tricks. While the Hellraiser cube sits in the center of the rig, all the components are cleverly hidden around the edges of the case.

For his winning entry, Troy wins a $500 gift certificate for Buy.com to fund his modding madness!

Jason Dumbaugh's Spider-Man/Venom Mod

Tom Edwards — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:25:21 -0500

While the latest Spider-Man film was met with mixed reviews, Jason Dumbaugh’s Spider-Man/Venom mod is a must-see blockbuster. Sporting a multitude of spiders—both inside and out—as well as a tangle of webs and ooze, this rig captures the feel of the film.

Jason, who wrote a step-by-step tutorial on how to create this mod at Techwarelabs.com, built the case for his roommate, a Spider-Man superfan. He explained that apart from a few minor missteps, the process was pretty straightforward. Great job, Jason, we’ll be watching for your Iron Man mod in the summer of ’08!

After wiring up and epoxying 26 LEDs, Jason realized that in such a configuration, each light would need its own resistor. The final design features five lights.

Jason first created a stencil in Photoshop and then cut the spider image out of a piece of 26-gauge zinc sheet metal.

By applying eight layers of clear coat after affixing the webbing and ooze, Jason ensured this rig could take some abuse but continue to shine.

The spider motif carries over into the interior of the rig, which also sports a red LED fan.

For his winning entry, Jason wins a $500 gift certificate for Buy.com to fund his modding madness! See all the hardware deals at www.buy.com.

If you have a contender for Rig of the Month, email rig@maximumpc.com with high-res digital pics and a 300-word write-up.

December 2003: Gear of the Year '03

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0600

In the PDF archive of the December 2003 issue, you can find:

Gear of the Year 2003
Case Mod Contest Winner
CPU Slugfest
Holiday Gift Guide
And Lots of Awesome Reviews including Halo and the ATI Radeon 9800 XT!
Ask the Doctor
Rig of the Month
The Watchdog
And a whole lot more!

Click the mondo huge cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!