Things to do with a old computer

Step 9: The case

Previously this page has no ideas except a picture of a posionious BBQ but thanks to MrJentis for sending me his instructable.

Make the case into a safe
Coolest use for a case yet, and somewhere to store valuables.


Add LED'S.
Self explainitory

Any other ideas, comment!

Comments

[faacuunndoo]

I will post a very good idea for doing with the case

[techboy411]

Yeah.. But Go Toshiba, ive got the Satellite C650-005, GREAT PC

[memyselfand1]

That poor computer! What did it do to it's owners to deserve that?? Let them RIP, after you have RIPPED out all the componants, naturally.

[prodlad]

freeze, crash, blue sceen

[memyselfand1]

Ah, the good old BSOD. Nothing like a good error message.

[cdousley]

i gt an hp laptop brand new windows 7
Two days later....
BSOD i restarted it it was back to normal

10 minutes later.........

BSOD i restarted it it was back to normal

lol true story

[tlynch1]

HP= horrible product
maybe they forgot to put thermal compound inside

[droyce4596]

That happened to my HP laptop when I got it too!
But, I had Windows Vista.
It scared the the crap out of me because I thought it was a goner and that would have sucked because my cousin told me HP motherboards in laptops overheated easily and I would hate it if he was right :)

But, I think It just got too hot because I was gaming and had my laptop sitting on a blanket.

[TheDutchOwner]

HP overheating, that's nothing special to me. HP is scrap and you shouldn't buy it. Only if you buy a HP Vista/7 laptop and use 98 on it, then it still has a use.

[cdousley]

ive had mine get too hot that way but no blue screen luckily

[Callum Snowden]

I've had my acer aspire reach 75oC on the ventilation system (I don't exactly know where the temperature sensor is) and it still run fine

[account3r2]

i thought microsoft fixed the bsod to not appear on windows vista + but i guess not

[REA]

i got 5 BSoDs in 10 minutes the first week i got my computer. good ol' Vista!

[alien200049655]

Vista was an abortion from the start. Xp was alright for what it was but, Windows 7 isn't all that bad, even though its a re-tooled Vista.

[Airwolf1]

Got a BSOD during Vista setup on my new HP laptop, BEAT THAT!

[REA]

touché. that takes some skills at failing!

[pichu1994]

Ha! I'm so good, i actually messed up the BSOD. When it came up, all the words were scrambled and cut off and all that good stuff. I now run Linux.

[cdousley]

if i could afford it i would go mac....

[REA]

trust me, you dont want a mac. they do a crap job at making durable hardware, and its tedious working with it. buy a decent PC thats at the most 5 years old and install Linux on it if you dont want Windows.

[alien200049655]

The newer Mac OS(s) Can run in any desktop, including The dell demension 9800. Drivers are tuff to come by though, but if you get them all, this desktop will run Mac. Dell will tell you its incompatable, because they want you to run their software. truth is any computer "can" run run Mac OS(s) with the right know how. And no I don't mean drastic hardware changes. Its all in the software.

[REA]

That's only thanks to iBoot and the OSx86 community. It's all unofficial (and possibly illegal). There's also the thing with some (after-market) mobos don't work too.

[dogboy12457]

i know what you mean by crap hardware. my imac g5 crapped out on me and i took it to get repaired. cost 570$, 500 for new motherboard and 70 for labor. about a year goes by and the same thing happens. what happened is when apple made the motherboard the capacitors on it cant stand the heat of the computer. And instead of the guys fixing the capacitors they just put a new motherboard in it. the problem with that is that it has the same capacitors in it as the ones that broke. however i found an instructable (http://www.instructables.com/id/Imac-G5-DIY-capacitors-repair/) that tells how to replace them. i did that and it has been working fine ever since.

[GENERALCHAOS]

lol i tryd to  get the bsod i cant get it to go on my test pc

[j_wo]

If you really want to crash your computer, just open Notepad and type this

@echo off
:START
start CRASH.bat
GOTO START

save it as "CRASH.bat" and then double click it.
It won't harm your computer, it'll just overwork your RAM and should cause a BSOD.

[account3r2]

try putting in a really low amount of ram in and try opening a bunch of stuff

[zack247]

well it depends how good your pc is.i was trying to biuld one once, and while it was setting up, i got the BSOD because the ram failed halfway through

[GENERALCHAOS]

MoBo intel D865GRH (2004) 1.5GB ddr400 single ch of ram  WD Green 320GB hdd   FX5200  creative labs 24bit

cpu 3.2
ram 4.2
desktop graphics 2.0
gaming 3.0
primHDD 5.9

BTW i got a nice scor on my hardisk
lol this old MoBo is bit strong
if i had the money il get some nice upgrad for see how bad @$$ i can get it
i wanna get the 3.2GHz cpu SSD sapphire HD 4600 agp and ddr400 dual channel kit 2x1gb and 2x512mb

[zack247]

you should get a 750W psu to put on top of that!

[GENERALCHAOS]

yea now is just the money i need lol

[memyselfand1]

welcome to the wonderful world of windows, my friend.
i reinstalled xp on my laptop last week, and discovered the hard way that i had no drivers for most of the internal devices.

my sound still doesn't work.

[alien200049655]

Go to the website of the brand of your laptop, and download all the drivvers for your model, Dell has free driver downloads availible.

[zack247]

this wouldn't be a dell, would it? even if it is, try googling "(insert laptop name here) sound drivers", i got the drivers for mine that way. you might just get lucky

[memyselfand1]

no results for Toshiba Portege M300 Synaptics Audio drivers. I got a driver scanner and installer program, so now it works.
on top of that, I was supplied with a new laptop anyway.

[drresearch]

Windows is not so great in my opinion. If you use Linux you would not have almost any problem with drivers. Just to let you know, if, for example, you buy a printer, you don't need to install it, just about plug it in and it will work!

[TheRealDutchOwner]

Ubuntu already failed on me, it won't boot and it gets stuck on a purple screen. Why? It lacks proper graphics card support. Appereantly 1GB DDR3 DX11 Graphics cards do not work in Ubuntu. I've had boot problems with Windows 7 too, but they are fixable with the Windows disc. Ubuntu? Nope.

[Sky Woulf]

because linux does not use device drivers, it is true plug and play. at least the red hat linux 7 was that way.......

[ivaneduardo747]

Linux is great specially on old hardware, where Windows fails miserably because the lack of drivers on the web.

[pfred2]

Not so great on new hardware though. I never got the on board sound for this system to work. I had to throw an old Sound Blaster into it.

[zack247]

dont forget windows NEEDS RAM. lots of it

[GENERALCHAOS]

that soo tru

[memyselfand1]

I agree. I hate Windows. Most of the time I use Mac, but I sometimes use Linux.

[ferrari484]

Have you looked on the site of the brand. And then look for updates.

I had the same problem whit my pc. 

[or_ford98]

^^^^^^^^^^ uber long comment chain, keep it up after 2 years =)

[Derin]

You mean that grill-who-or-it-whatever-way-you-want-that-used-to-be-a-tower?

[Sky Woulf]

with a hack saw, dremel, etc you can cut all the falt surfaces out to have a supply of sheet metal for other projects, then build you a smelter to "ingot" the rest for resale, or to have metal you can cast for other projects.

[GENERALCHAOS]

hey hope ur BBQ dont gets virus or BSOD XD XD XD XD XD

[account3r2]

:D lol (:

[rayfalcon]

Not to put pie in your face or to be a smartty or nothing like that just from one computer and electronics lover to another the cases can be used for tons of stuff..i will tell a few here 1 cut a hole in your wall and securly mount the case in the wall sideways for cases where the sides slide off as a in wall safe or behind a picture safe. 2 build a power station out of it most cars run on 12 vdc (volts dc) so does computers and their power packs so for every ide connector build circuitry out of old capacitors condensors and diodes and leds and also the cmos batteries or cr2032 batteries from wal-mart (to store the constant 12vdc to boost with) as a portable booster pack or 3 line the case with old mirrors and some reflective material (heat and or flame proof) and make a night stand light using the same princable as the booster to conserve electric run it on the stored dc of a night and charge it of a day ( hint hint these also can work for short times in case of juice failure ((if charged before hand)) as an emergency lighting source). rayfalcon aka charles the computer geek for 16 yrs. ALSO PLEASE be careful with those monitors especially the plasma screens they contain 27.83% mercury and radon as well as other type of deadly gases even in trace amounts like 3 ppm in other words if you busted it in your garage and breathed it for 2 minutes you would be reallly really sick headache nausea and at 3.5 minutes - 5 minutes you would die without ventilation of fresh air and medical treatment.

[LetsExplodeSomething]

rayfalcon, its the crt monitors that you have to be more careful with both extremely high voltage and large amounts of mercury

[DragonFlux]

@rayfalcon - Or you could use that old PC to learn some half-decent grammar. I English isn't everyone's first language on this site (or even second), but there's a difference between not knowing better and just being lazy! Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting down your ideas, just saying more people might benefit from them if they could actually follow what you are trying to say...

[memyselfand1]

Digital high-five!

[DFIII]

I use the Side cover of computer cases for magnetic work table. You can use magnets to hold your work instead of tape and clamps. I got one plastic cover and I made a craft table for my daughter.

[FraKtuL]

That's an excellent idea! I'm going to go dig mine out of the trash right now.

[opencan]

I have made an indoor grow-case out of an old PC case,

something like this one:
http://www.homegrown-hydroponics.com/pcgr3plsthyg.html

but using more light, 2 fans from another coputer to move air around and one big PC fan in a DIY carbon air filter.

My unit is made to using dirt and not hydro methods.

As for now its not in use due to heating issues (33-41C outside so adding the 2x45W CFLs heat inside its pretty hard to use) but its very funcional in the winter. I can grow basil inside there all-round the year and not only in the summer. :D

[prodlad]

can you please send me a photo of that to my email, its in the first and last step of the instructable

[opencan]

Sure, in a minute. There are only seedlings there currently as the ventilation is too poor to operate anything larger right now with the 38C outside. In 2 weeks or so I'll start a new complete grow. If you can, please remind me in 3-4 weeks and I'll give you some better pictures :D

[daniknotts]

mmmm....yummy chemical infused food....super heated tin releases many forms of alloy oxidation. A portion of which will undoubtedly end up in your meat.

[ATG]

hahaha.....'yummy chemical infused food' lol....u just made my day.....

[prodlad]

i got that off google images lol

[k_man93]

old memes are old. rules 1 and 2

[nortly]

I used my 10 year old desktop as the core in a MAME machine for my rec room. Some great ideas here thanks for the instructable

[bionicle72000]

lol but cool idea

[MINIMOOSE101]

i use mine as a table

[tonks]

Is it wrong that I now want to do this with the computer at work? My previous dream was to go "Office Space" on the work computer. Just crush it in a field some where... but this. This is good... every time you cook on it is like a little piece of revenge for every time that it has crashed... Love it!

[ipodgeek]

Wow! A nice computer roster! I like it!

[prodlad]

LOL makes me hungary