The ghetto mod thread

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

I love the tube amp, but put those speakers in an enclosure! You'll get a much better bass response.
If plywood is too expensive, there's always sheetrock/drywall/gypsum panels .
It's super easy to cut and make into a box.

[TELVM]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

AMD Llano CPU heatsink ghetto-modded with zip-ties ontop a venerable 9800 Pro:



Ghetto ramsinks cut to size from some northbridge heatsink:



No more overheating problems .

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Some new mods to my main PC.

First off, I hot-glued a 70mm fan to my 128Mb video card (it had no fan!) You can also see the USB hub card with its internal connector.


8-pin power supply + 4 pin mobo = problem. Wait, what's this?


Aha! A spare 4-pin chopped off an old power supply shoved into a spare Molex connector!

[ben7]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Some new mods to my main PC.

First off, I hot-glued a 70mm fan to my 128Mb video card (it had no fan!) You can also see the USB hub card with its internal connector.


8-pin power supply + 4 pin mobo = problem. Wait, what's this?


Aha! A spare 4-pin chopped off an old power supply shoved into a spare Molex connector!

I don't like to swear, but oh shit dude!

PLEASE wire that up properly, you will get a fire in your computer leaving the wires shoved into that molex connector. Solder them onto the wires coming out of the PSU ... PLEASE!!!

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

I'm going to fix that right now. Although this thing has been running 24/7 with no problems and no smoke, it's better safe than sorry!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

In that case, i'm gonna keep quiet about how many years i've had fans running like that... But this is Romania, so YMMV.

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Okay. Fixed the "P4 power lead tapped off Molex connector" mod, although I had to sacrifice 250 watts of power. So, to boost cooling with my new power supply, I decided to fire up the ol' hot-glue gun and add a fan to the outside (in addition to the built-in fan which is located above the CPU and partially blocked off by a metal piece protruding from the case.)

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

In that case, i'm gonna keep quiet about how many years i've had fans running like that... But this is Romania, so YMMV.

I've done that as well, many times. Put some electrical tape and it was just fine. But, again, better safe than sorry!

[Nitro468]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

I wish I had pictures, we had a getto mod at work.

The old NYS inspection machine (with dyno and engine analyzer) was a Pentium 100 PACKED into a case without great cooling. When it was over 85 degrees in the shop that computer would do bad things. The getto rig... a 5000 BTU A/C next to it pumping air in the case.

The state and the vendor were the only ones with "access" to the internals.. we punched a few extra holes/slots into that machine in an attempt to keep it cool.


The system is now defunct I should take a pic of it as we still have it. We would like to revive the engine analyzer part but booting dos to install the program and Win 95 is problematic.

Wish I could boot USB, but it has 3 ISA slots with 2 FULL cards and a PCI slot in use.

[TELVM]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

... to boost cooling with my new power supply, I decided to fire up the ol' hot-glue gun and add a fan to the outside (in addition to the built-in fan which is located above the CPU ... ) ...

Coincidentally I'm just perpetrating something similar (alas with good ole screws).

>Expand . . . >Expand

The extra 80mm blows longitudinally on the tiny heatsinks. Cool .

.

[Pentium4]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

TELVM, Nice Looks awesome! How fast do those fans spin?

I'd be curious to know how much that extra fan helps. What I would do is load it up to say, 200W with the 80mm fan unplugged and let the PSU get nice and warm which would probably just take a few minutes, and then measure all the voltages and the temperature of the heatsinks. Then, plug in the 80mm fan and do the same thing to see how much of an impact that extra fan makes. I know that when these half bridge PSU's start to get hot their voltage can drop quite a bit.

[TELVM]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

The junk chinese 120mm that came with this cheap PSU, honestly no idea of its specs. As bad as they come I bet.

The swiss Arctic Cooling F8 80mm is advertised as 31cfm @ 2000rpm (whatever its truth). These Arctic 'F' are average quality, but with nine blades move a ton of air at decent static pressure, and are cheap (this side of the pond at least).

For PSUs, front-to-back flow ('old style'):


... is straighter and cools more efficiently than side-to-back flow ('modern style'):

Images taken from here

Side-to-back is by definition more turbulent (air is a fickled witch that hates sharp bends), and easily leaves hot spots of stagnant air. That's why they have to add these botches:


That clear plastic baffle is there to force the air towards the front of the PSU, hoping to avoid stagnant hot spots. It's also an aerodynamic crime that chokes flow in half, increases noise, and dynamically unbalances the impeller . What's the point then for a larger 120mm fan ?

Look at the Antec Signatures, Rolls&Royce PSUs:

. . .

They could have put a 140mm side fan, but they chose good ole front-to-back flow .


However I suspect the vast majority of nowadays users couldn't care less about aerodynamics, wouldn't buy an 'old looking' PSU at gunpoint, and absolutely NEED a large side fan with LED bling bling to be satisfied .

[TELVM]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

An interesting ghetto-mod I found elsewhere:

^ Kicked off the grill and stock 80mm fan. Added a 90mm with integrated adapter to 80mm, placed 'backwards' for back-to-front reversed flow.



^ Ghetto-modded a spinner to optimize airflow into fan.



^ The reason for PSU reversed airflow .

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...7&postcount=11

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

AMD Llano CPU heatsink ghetto-modded with zip-ties ontop a venerable 9800 Pro:

http://e.pictureupload.us/127359487052470e262d698.png

Ghetto ramsinks cut to size from some northbridge heatsink:

http://e.pictureupload.us/185658380752470e72766ed.png

No more overheating problems .

That raises the bar or ghetto cooling solutions quite a bit there

Now I have to come up with something "better".
Recently, I acquired a PS3 heat sink, so we will see what I can do with that, hehe.

I haven't done that much "intriguing" ghetto-modding lately. Just fixed my roommate's power adapter for his laptop. As usual, one of the wires in the adapter's cord frayed and snapped right where the jack plugs into the laptop. I cut off some of the rubber jacket on the jack and also stripped some of the wire, then soldered a staple to join the broken wire.


The other ghetto fix is a chandelier/light fixture for some family friends.
But I don't have enough pictures (or nerves) to explain what exactly was wrong with it and how I fixed it. Let's just say I did a bunch of soldering where it probably wasn't needed. But in the end, when you have to handle 20A (at 12V), loose connections are just not an option (otherwise, that chandelier will end up with the same problem).

Other than that, not much ghetto modding. Perhaps I will snap a picture of my ghetto BGA "rework" setup (i.e. the kitchen stove with a Kada hot air wand next to it ). Surprisingly, I was able to pull off some RAM chips off of a dead 360 board and transplant them to a GeForce 7600GT video card. The 7600GT was dead beyond repair, unfortunately. I do have another one that needs RAM swap, and this one is more promising that it's not dead.

In that case, i'm gonna keep quiet about how many years i've had fans running like that...

Same here. In fact, I still do it every now and then (for myself only, of course).

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

My main PC's hard drives were getting pretty hot, so I hot-glued two 40mm fans to the front of the case. It makes my PC sound very rattly (cheap sleeve bearings) but I don't mind. Eventually I'm going to upgrade to a better case.

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Slight modification to my main PC, as the dual fans above were driving me insane with their rattling noise.

[momaka]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Yeah, 2x 40 mm fans going full throttle will drive anyone crazy. I can just imagine...
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

What you could have tried is to wire them in series so that way each one is only running on 6V. It might even be more quiet than the single fan you have in there right now.

[luke10050]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

im not sure if this is a true ghetto mod but here goes.

Recently i've been overclocking my crappy pc trying to get a bit more performance out of it to try and put off buying a new system i dont have the money for. i noticed the northbridge was getting extremely hot and bringing with it memory instability over a clock of about 800MHz. so i found a nice 40mm fan and proceeded to cable tie it to the northbridge heatsink.

it ended up working quite well, bringing the temperatures from around too-hot-to-touch to a comfortable 30-40 degrees. (i didnt actually measure the temps beforehand but it was causing memory instability)

will post pics when my phone starts playing along

[ncovert]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Yeah, 2x 40 mm fans going full throttle will drive anyone crazy. I can just imagine...
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

What you could have tried is to wire them in series so that way each one is only running on 6V. It might even be more quiet than the single fan you have in there right now.

Those dual 40mm fans had bad bearings, so I picked one with good bearings and stuck it in there. My hard drives stay just as cool, and it reduced a lot of noise.

[TELVM]

Re: The ghetto mod thread

Small fans are totally hopeless for case ventilation. A 120mm @ 1300rpm moves ~11 times more air than a 40mm @ 4500rpm (while making much less noise than the little bugger). A 92mm @ 1600rpm moves ~8 times more.

If that case has any air intake at bottom front (or if the intrepid owner is able to ghetto-mod one), I'd place the largest fan that shoehorns in there, then reposition the HDD/s to catch its flow.