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    The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

    This was another interesting Craigslist find – I saw a PC case in the computer section for sale. It had only one picture, showing the case with the side off and the case stuffed with PSUs, optical drives, and other cables. The price was $1. This made me think it's one of those listings where the seller actually puts $1 for the price on purpose just to lure people to click on the post, but then asks for a higher price. So I passed the post several times. Eventually, the post got taken down in a week or two.

    After another two weeks, the post got re-listed again with the same picture. This time, however, I saw a PSU I was always curious to get: a HEC Orion HP585D, which is essentially the same thing as my trusty ThermalTake TR430W XP-550NP, minus the input EMI/RFI filtering. So I got curious and sent an email to the poster, inquiring about the price.

    Turns out, the seller really did only ask for $1 for the whole package of stuff. He explained the only reason he did this is because he didn't want to get bombarded with emails if he posted this in the free section (which actually really is quite common when posting things for free on CL.)

    Long story… a bit less longer, I met with the guy and bought the case (with everything inside). I actually gave him $5, just because it felt a little more right than just $1. Not only did the case come with the PSU mentioned above, but there was also a 5.25” floppy drive in there! I've been looking for one of those for a while!

    Anyways, I also asked the seller if the case was stored anywhere, where it could have picked up pests, such as termites, roaches, bedbugs, etc. Seller said no, but he said the case was stored in his garage where they did have mice before. So he said… (ok, RJARRRPCGP, you better get ready for this one ) … that there might be mice droppings on or in it, but otherwise it should be clean from other pests.

    As soon as I got it home, I took it outside for inspection. Sure enough, there were mice droppings on the bottom of the case, and the case also stunk like old piss. Since this was back in December, I left the case outside to catch some “fresh air”. And with last winter's cold temperatures (down to 0°F / -17°C), this was a good way to make sure there really wouldn't be any pests inside it (though upon inspection, I didn't see any.)

    In February, we had a few days where the temperatures were pretty warm. So I took advantage of those days to clean the case (actually, it was more of an “upcycle” job than a cleaning.) I stripped the case down to bare metal. The plastics all got a soapy wash with dish detergent, followed by some drying under the sun (UV light does kill bacteria ). But for the metal parts… I really wasn't quite sure what to do. It seems that the mouse piss and poop had caused a bit of corrosion.

    With limited time in terms of warm days, I decided that the same soapy wash with detergent and water would be a first good step to disinfect the case. With this done, at least I knew I could bring it in the garage afterwards.

    I used the garden hose to wash it, because the case was too bulky to clean in my utility sink. And because I felt it was dirtier than the plastics, I scrubbed it very hard with a cleaning sponge and plenty of detergent.

    When it all dried out, this is how the metal parts looked:
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580

    Not bad, right? … until you looked closer inside, near the drive bays:
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539921580

    Yeah, that mouse piss sure did some damage. Two of the three PSUs stuffed in the case also had some corrosion from that. One of these PSUs was a fairly gutless ATX unit (probably will post it sometime in the future), so I decided to do a bit of experimenting on it.

    From experience with my dumpster-picked and roach-pooped HP NetServer E-800, I knew that regular store-bought spray paint isn't going to work well here. It seems that the regular sprays just don't hold well onto metal – i.e. the paint easily chips and peels. I noticed this on the HP NetServer case even after the paint was freshly painted. And after several years, the rusts spots on it from the roach droppings came right back through the paint and made it flake of.

    So with this ATX case, I decided to do something a little different – latex paint. I know latex paint isn't exactly suitable for metal (nor would it look good when brushed/rolled onto the surface), but as long as it sticks to the case and doesn't let the rust come back through, I would be happy.

    Thus, I first tried painting the metal case top of the “guinea pig” gutless PSU mentioned above. After two days of drying, the paint stuck well and turned out looking alright (I actually tried several different colors on it.) Compared to the spray paint on my NetServer case, I couldn't easily nick or peel the latex paint off – especially parts where I applied a thicker layer of paint.
    Attached Files

    #2
    The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

    With these results, I proceeded to sand the rusted areas on the PC case as best as I could. I then gave the bottom part the same silver latex paint that I thought worked best on the experimental PSU. This is the result:
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017

    It probably looks better on the picture than it is, since I only took a low-res shot. But overall, it didn’t turn out too bad. Here is how the worst-affected areas turned out:
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017

    I think I got really lucky with the paint color here, because it matches the metal color of the case quite well. Depending on the room lightning and the angle at which one looks at the case, it’s sometimes not even possible to notice where the painted parts start from and where they end (note: I didn’t paint the whole case.)

    Because of this, I also decided to paint the removable motherboard tray (remember when cases still had those? ) It wasn’t necessary as it didn’t have much rust / corrosion. But at that point, I figured it would match the bottom of the case better.
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017
    As you can see from the second picture, the painted parts really do stand out at certain light angles. And it’s quite clear that I used a brush. I can’t say it looks terrible, though.

    Satisfied with the results, I moved forward with assembling the case.


    But being a cheaper case made from not very thick steel, of course the motherboard tray didn’t fit snug into place and rattled. Now, if there is one thing I absolutely dislike, it’s rattling noises from PC cases (I dislike it even more than PCs with tiny & very loud fans). So I took out the tray and tightened the metal tabs that held it. When I put it back, it went tightly in there and there was ZERO rattle.

    While assembling, another item caught my eye: the small ventilation holes for the rear fan. A drill bit slightly larger than the existing holes took care of this.

    While at it, I also added screw holes for a 92 mm case fan (shown in picture below).

    Okay, let’s put the side panels back on…


    And here is why I call this the PacMan ATX case:

    - Yes, Mr. PacMan there assumes the duty of the power button. The little button to the left of that is Reset. And of course next to that are the PWR and HDD LEDs. I think that’s a pretty cool design! Shame the case is not made of thicker steel. But it does have properly rolled edges and stamped parts for reinforcement for the most part. So it’s not exactly a cheap bottom-dollar case either. On that note, I wonder who made it. A year prior to this, I saw the same case at my former job, but with white panels and white (beige) front.

    Now, we all know PacMan is yellow in color. So perhaps I should paint that PWR button yellow? Yes, it probably will look tacky (but understandable, given the case design, no?) And while at it, maybe also paint the Reset button blue?? That way, when the PC is on, there will be the Red and Green LEDs, along with the Blue reset button, for a complete RGB color space. And with the yellow PacMan, that’s all the Windows colors too.

    Of course, those are just some ideas. Not sure if I will do them, though. For the time being, I’m using the case as-is. Currently, it is housing an Asus K8V-SE Deluxe motherboard with an Athlon 64 3200+, 3 GB of DDR RAM, 80 GB HDD, MSI GeForce FX 5200 64-bit , and a 250 Watt Lite-ON PSU. Prior to this, that system was in another case that didn’t fit it well at all. While that’s a pretty legacy system, it is new enough that it has front USB 2.0 headers – a good match for the case, as it also has two front USB ports under a plastic door on the front.
    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1539922017

    And to finish it all off (for now), here’s a final picture:


    In all honesty, this one turned a lot better than I expected. It’s been half a year now since I painted the case and the rust still hasn’t come through. It’s also worthwhile noting again that in places where I applied thicker paint, I cannot chip or break it easily. But on the bottom of the case, I applied a pretty thin layer and it nicks very easily.

    So in conclusion, it seems that… YES, you can use latex paint on a PC case (and the thicker the coat, the better it will stick.) Since I have a lot of leftover paint in the garage and also a few more PC cases that could use this treatment, I might do this again. As for this particular case - I’ll update the thread if I do anything more with it.

    Have fun modding!
    Attached Files
    Last edited by momaka; 10-18-2018, 10:12 PM.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

      The case front is like the case I bought on July 1, 2003! And had it until sometime in the later-2010s. My front was white and I painted it a certain shade of red. I also had corrosion similar to that, despite I didn't recall a mouse even getting into my computer room. It was more likely arachnids and/or insects, LOL.

      Spent most of its life with a socket 462 platform.
      Last edited by RJARRRPCGP; 10-19-2018, 02:29 AM.
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      Comment


        #4
        Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

        Nice, but you disappointed me with no pictures of the 5.25" floppy drive
        "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

        Comment


          #5
          Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

          Originally posted by RJARRRPCGP View Post
          The case front is like the case I bought on July 1, 2003! And had it until sometime in the later-2010s. My front was white and I painted it a certain shade of red. I also had corrosion similar to that, despite I didn't recall a mouse even getting into my computer room. It was more likely arachnids and/or insects, LOL.
          Early 2000's sounds about right for these cases.

          Yes, corrosion can happen from many things, including moist air + dust mixing together. In my case (literally! ), the mice dropping were stuck right on the corroded area, so there's no doubt they caused it, along with the urine. I just didn't take pictures of that as I figured... well, who takes pictures of mice droppings to put them on the internet?

          The two affected PSUs also had lots of corrosion on their cases from the mice urine. In fact, I had to give the HEC Orion HP585D a wash, because some of that was stuck in the wires and on the primary-side heatsink, right on the switching MOSFET - and we all know that salt-water (which urine is similar to) is a good conductor.

          Originally posted by RJARRRPCGP View Post
          Spent most of its life with a socket 462 platform.
          I guess I got you 1-Up'd there - the Asus K8V-SE Delux is a socket 754 mobo.

          Originally posted by Per Hansson View Post
          Nice, but you disappointed me with no pictures of the 5.25" floppy drive
          Sorry about that. I've been meaning to take pictures of it, along with testing it out as I'm not sure if it suffered from any corrosion too - I did clean it as best inside as I could, though.

          I just finished a photo shoot session today with some older AT (PSU) "models".
          Last edited by momaka; 10-19-2018, 06:15 PM.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

            lol @ pacman case....I'm more interested to see what goes in it...
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              #7
              Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

              Originally posted by Topcat View Post
              lol @ pacman case....I'm more interested to see what goes in it...
              Alright, one customer at a time, please!

              Attached in this post are the pictures of the 5.25" floppy drive, as promised to Mr. Hansson. This is after I cleaned it up. I haven't tested it yet, still (lol). But I will soon. I'm curious if these fellas still work:
              https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1540614123
              They are close to 30 years old, I think (give or take a few years).

              I can also snap a shot of the current build if you like TC, though there really isn't much to it now as it's still a bit temporary (at least the video card portion is, and possibly the PSU as well - will see).
              Attached Files
              Last edited by momaka; 10-26-2018, 10:24 PM.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                This drive appears to have been made in 1990.
                Don't buy those $10 PSU "specials". They fail, and they have taken whole computers with them.

                My computer doubles as a space heater.

                Permanently Retired Systems:
                RIP Advantech UNO-3072LA (2008-2021) - Decommissioned and taken out of service permanently due to lack of software support for it. Not very likely to ever be recommissioned again.
                Asus Q550LF (Old main laptop, 2014-2022) - Decommissioned and stripped due to a myriad of problems, the main battery bloating being the final nail in the coffin.


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                  #9
                  Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                  That is awesome!
                  Never owned a 5.25" floppy myself, they are before my time.
                  Still use 3.5" floppies at work (I'm a service technician) to this day though, so there's always that
                  "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                    Originally posted by Topcat View Post
                    I'm more interested to see what goes in it...
                    There you go, picture attached:
                    https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1541371104

                    Like I said, not much to it yet. I plan on using a different video card (most likely a GeForce 6800 XT, when I finish doing a heatsink mod for it) and also installing only 1 or 1.5 GB of RAM. AFAIK, socket 754 mobos don't support dual channel, so I can mix-n-match sticks. Right now, there's 3 GB in the board, which just isn't necessary. The build also needs an optical drive and a rear exhaust fan. And I probably should recap the motherboard too - it has mostly OST caps (RLX on CPU low side and RLP on other small rails), along with Chemicon KZE 16V 1200 uF caps on the CPU input side. I can use those KZE caps in PSUs, so I'll probably swap them for Nichicon HN or Rubycon MCZ @ 1500 uF. In addition to that, the Northbridge heatsink needs to be swapped with a bigger one (and with a fan). Even though the chipset is a VIA, it does run warmer than I like to see chipsets run.

                    Originally posted by Per Hansson View Post
                    Never owned a 5.25" floppy myself, they are before my time.
                    Same here. I remember loading 3.5" floppies into the computer as a kid, but never 5.25" ones. This is truly my first "own" 5.25" drive. I think I also know which (old) PC I'm going to put it in eventually.

                    And yes, I still use 3.5" floppies too, very occasionally. I had Killdisk on one of them and another low-level format utility on another. Also used a few to do BIOS upgrades on a few mobos that actually needed them (otherwise, I never flash newer BIOS).
                    Attached Files
                    Last edited by momaka; 11-04-2018, 04:54 PM.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                      Originally posted by momaka View Post


                      Now, we all know PacMan is yellow in color. So perhaps I should paint that PWR button yellow? Yes, it probably will look tacky (but understandable, given the case design, no?) And while at it, maybe also paint the Reset button blue?? That way, when the PC is on, there will be the Red and Green LEDs, along with the Blue reset button, for a complete RGB color space. And with the yellow PacMan, that's all the Windows colors too.

                      Of course, those are just some ideas. Not sure if I will do them, though.
                      I support the idea of painting the power button yellow, nail polish should work well and it's cheap.
                      Nice work with the latex paint, as for the brush marks i wouldn't about them, they are on the inside and also, anything is better than rust

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                        Originally posted by momaka View Post
                        Alright, one customer at a time, please!

                        Attached in this post are the pictures of the 5.25" floppy drive, as promised to Mr. Hansson. This is after I cleaned it up. I haven't tested it yet, still (lol). But I will soon. I'm curious if these fellas still work:
                        https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1540614123
                        They are close to 30 years old, I think (give or take a few years).

                        I can also snap a shot of the current build if you like TC, though there really isn't much to it now as it's still a bit temporary (at least the video card portion is, and possibly the PSU as well - will see).
                        Looks like 1994. And one of the first ones with a part that's actually made in China, LOL. Around the time I expected GE clock radios to start getting made in China, LOL.
                        ASRock B550 PG Velocita

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                        "¡Me encanta "Me Encanta o Enlistarlo con Hilary Farr!" -Mí mismo

                        "There's nothing more unattractive than a chick smoking a cigarette" -Topcat

                        "Today's lesson in pissivity comes in the form of a ziplock baggie full of GPU extension brackets & hardware that for the last ~3 years have been on my bench, always in my way, getting moved around constantly....and yesterday I found myself in need of them....and the bastards are now nowhere to be found! Motherfracker!!" -Topcat

                        "did I see a chair fly? I think I did! Time for popcorn!" -ratdude747

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                          Not even a high density disk?
                          Looks like a SD or DD disk...

                          Teac fdd's were "da bomb" from back in the day IIRC. Currently I actually have two 5.25" FDDs still, one is a mitsumi I think, other is an epson dual (3.5 and 5.25 both in a HH bay.) Both are high density and can use high coercivity disks.

                          I don't have any spare 5.25" media however.

                          I have a lot more solo 3.5" FDD drives and media however...all are high density drives. And I still curse that person calling 3.5" floppies "hard disks"... GRR...

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                            lol me too once upon a time i did. it all has to do with the "HD" mark on 3.5" floppies causing the confusion. on those floppies, it meant high density not hard disk lol! computer acronyms getting u down lol!

                            Comment


                              #15
                              TEAC FD-55GFR 5.25'' floppy drive tests

                              Originally posted by momaka View Post
                              Attached in this post are the pictures of the 5.25" floppy drive, as promised to Mr. Hansson. This is after I cleaned it up. I haven't tested it yet, still (lol). But I will soon.
                              Well, it only too me 2 years to get to this.

                              However, I'm excited to say, the TEAC FD-55GFR actually works!

                              I built a test Windows 98SE system to try some old software, and that's when it dawned on me I could test this floppy drive and also see if it could read my 25-year old 5.25” floppies. Unfortunately, I think that's a little too much time for all of this old hardware. I couldn't get anything read from any of the 5.25” floppies. So, I tried formatting one fully. The TEAC FD-55GFR drive was able to complete that operation, albeit with quite a number of bad sectors (I imagine the magnetic coating on those 30+ year old floppy disks is probably nowhere near spec anymore.)

                              Ouch! The bad sectors are taking up approximately 1/10 of the entire capacity of that floppy drive.

                              Nevertheless, I was curious to see if I can still read/write files to a 5.25” disk. The screenshot seen above was actually originally a BMP file (taken on the Windows 98 PC with Print Screen and then saved in MS Paint… which only allows saving in BMP format for Windows 9x lol. ) It was, of course, too large to fit on a floppy (several MB worth of data, because… BMP format ) So as a test, I used WinRAR to compress the file, which came down to 59 KBs of data. After this, I wrote it onto the 5.25” floppy, then copied it back from the floppy onto the HDD and decompressed to see if the file was still intact and readable… and miraculously, it was!

                              So the 5.25” drive does appear to be working, after all. However, when I tried reading from another of the old 5.25” floppies again and then back from this floppy with the compressed screenshot, the drive kept throwing errors that it's not ready or cannot read from source of disk (same as the other floppies before it.) I'm not sure what's going on there, but it looks like the motherboard controller could also be a bit finicky, because I had the same issue with the 3.5” floppy drive in that system. To clear the issue, I had to do a full power-down of the system each time. Seems as if the motherboard's controller gets hung onto something and only power-cycling clears it (a reboot doesn't.)

                              Either way, I'm still happy with this result. And now I can brag I have a more-or-less working 5.25” floppy drive in my collection of old junky hardware.
                              Attached Files

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                                now you need an 8" floppy drive!
                                (and build an interface)

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                                  Last time I looked at a 8" drive interface, I thought it was electrically identical to the 5¼" / 3½" floppy drives, but the connector had a different pinout. I was really tempted to hook up a 5.25" HD FDD to my TRS-80 back then as the 8" floppies were hard to come by, but didn't help me read my existing media...

                                  I think I still have two 5¼" floppy drives now, both are high density drives... No 8" drives (my TRS-80 used a 1.2MB double sided double density 8" drive).

                                  ---

                                  Hmm..weird, floppies magnetic media shouldn't degrade over time, though the lubrication may be lost. Look very closely at the media to see if there are any scratches...? I should check mine if they still work or not...
                                  Last edited by eccerr0r; 08-09-2020, 09:35 AM.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                                    the only 8" drives i ever saw uncased had a LOT of pins on them - the connector adapted onto a 37pin D connector.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                                      When you cleaned the floppy did you also clean the read head with IPA?
                                      If not then do, and also grease the bearings.
                                      This might allow the unit to work fine.
                                      As I understand it 5.25" floppies are supposed to be quite reliable.
                                      "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Re: The PacMan ATX Computer Case - cleaning and painting

                                        unlike 3.5 floppies, they are very reliable, much greater surface area per bit.
                                        they do use a sliding head system similar to a cd though, so you need to clean and lube the sliders.

                                        i used to have a lot of experience with 5.25 drives - i used to repair the commodore ones for the c64 etc.

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