Hello Kitty

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notarat
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Hello Kitty

Post by notarat »

Ever find yourself bored to death, just surfing Digg or Reddit when a link takes you to a site that makes you go , "Hmm...I wonder if..."?

I was surfing Reddit and Digg while waiting on Rift to patch one day, and I stumbled around through several different links and found myself at a lunchbox website and saw this...

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I thought to myself, I kinda like the nerd theme so I think I'll get one of those to hold computer screws and little parts and stuff like that...

Then, once it arrived, I sat it on the counter next to one of my spare hard drives while I emptied out my little parts box into it.

After I was done filling it with motherboard mount screws and stuff like that, I started looking closer at the lunchbox and the hard drive sitting next to it and decided to do something else...

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Seems like I may be able to fit a normal hard drive in it so, if I can do that, I know I can put a 2.5" laptop drive in...maybe an SSD? Why not both?!

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I hopped over to Newegg and started looking around for a suitable test subject and came across the Asus AT5IONT-I motherboard.

Seemed small enough, and had suitable performance for a HTPC so I thought Why not?

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I needed something to power it, so I went to to mini-itx.com and bought their Pico ITX DC-DC Power Supply and a 105watt DC-DC pico power supply brick.

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Two things to note:
The Black Grill under the handle is for air inlet that flows over the Pico-ITX DC-DC Power Supply, then out the top of the case. Temps never see north of 39°C
The AT5IONT-I takes an odd SO-DIMM so I got some Kingston Modules that, according to their site, were specifically made for the Asus board.

Okay...so it's a computer...but what can you use it for? I loaded Windows 7 Homoe Premium and Office 2010. I use it for light office work when I telework and I use it as a HTPC.

I added an infra-red receiver for remote control and wireless keyboard and mouse to see if it would be feasible to use it as a Home Theater PC

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They were attached via velcro, but I permanently installed them in a more concealed fashion.

I then added a USB Hewlett Packard TV Tuner to it. It's a rebranded Hauppauge 950 and it is a capable unit that I had a lot of experience with on my HP Mini-210

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I used it as my main computer from January of this year to July, while my Sandy Bridge system was down due to the Motherboard recall issue and, even after that was resolved, I continued using it in the living room until August, recording all my TV shows and surfing the net, and it worked great. The Hello Kitty theme also served as a Theft-Deterrent system because the thieves who robbed my apartment in June left it since no one in their right mind would be caught dead with a Hello Kitty computer...

I've since rebuilt it in a Thermaltake V4 case, and sold it to a co-worker who wasn't keen on the Hello Kitty Theme. It soldiers on now, with a SATA card installed to allow for 2 more HDD connections and he loves the fact it uses so little power and is able to record over the air digital 1080p with no problems using Windows 7 Media Center.

Me? I replaced it with a Sandybridge 2100/passively-cooled 6770 combo in an abs black pearl case chock-full of HDDs so I can rip my DVD collection to it and still have room to back up my gaming system, but that's another build...

Edited to add that I have posted this on a different forum, but added it here because users may want to see it.
Corsair Obsidian 800D -- Intel 2600K @4.8GHz -- Corsair H80 Cooler -- 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 -- Corsair AX850 PSU -- Crucial M4 256GB SSD -- (2) XFX Brand AMD Radeon 6970s in Xfire -- (3) WD Caviar Black 2TB HDDs -- Dell U3011 LCD

Corsair Carbide 400 -- Intel 2500K @4.8GHz -- Corsair H80 Cooler -- 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 -- Corsair TX650 PSU -- Crucial M4 256GB SSD -- XFX Brand AMD Radeon 6850 -- (3) WD Caviar Black 2TB HDDs -- Dell 2408FWP LCD
vbironchef
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by vbironchef »

notarat, very cool! I am very impressed! :supz:
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kenc51
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by kenc51 »

Great job!
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Apoptosis
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by Apoptosis »

great idea and nice job!

What are the idle/load temps like in that case without any fans?
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notarat
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by notarat »

Apoptosis wrote:great idea and nice job!

What are the idle/load temps like in that case without any fans?
I used a fan from a Socket 939 Opteron 4800+ Heatsink and ran it at 7v. Temps never saw north of 39°C under load recording TV

With no fans at all, load temps got up to around 43°/45°C (CPU/GPU)

What you don't really see in the pics is that, in addition to the mesh opening behind the handle, I placed one in the top. (which would be the side of the lunchbox when standing on its side in the last pic.)

As hot air rises out the top, it pulled in cooler air across the Pico-ITX DC-DC PSU and, to a lesser extent, the big heatsink on the CPU/GPU.

For a general purpose email/surf/HTPC, these things are really nice, and they use so little in the way of electricity that you don't have to worry about leaving it on 24/7.
Corsair Obsidian 800D -- Intel 2600K @4.8GHz -- Corsair H80 Cooler -- 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 -- Corsair AX850 PSU -- Crucial M4 256GB SSD -- (2) XFX Brand AMD Radeon 6970s in Xfire -- (3) WD Caviar Black 2TB HDDs -- Dell U3011 LCD

Corsair Carbide 400 -- Intel 2500K @4.8GHz -- Corsair H80 Cooler -- 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 -- Corsair TX650 PSU -- Crucial M4 256GB SSD -- XFX Brand AMD Radeon 6850 -- (3) WD Caviar Black 2TB HDDs -- Dell 2408FWP LCD
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PM_DMNKLR
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by PM_DMNKLR »

This has inspired me to see how well the innards of a NES console would fit into one of these, as I have a LoZ: Phantom Hourglass lunchbox, which housed the accessory kit for my DS. Would be even more awesome to be able to have a small LCD panel inside, so that it could be used as an on-the-go game console as well :) Heck, I might just skip that and use an emulator on a pico-itx or mini-itx mobo-based system, similar to this, that way I can play my games and have an on-the-go rig, similar to a laptop, but cooler :) Thanks for the inspiration!
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xdunaticx
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Re: Hello Kitty

Post by xdunaticx »

I know alot of girls who would kill for this. hahah!
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