70 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
70 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Carry On PC - How I crammed a full ATX board into a mATX Case"
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date: January 10, 2018
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draft: false
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---
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# Carry On PC - How I crammed a full ATX board into a mATX Case
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I use my PC for... well pretty much everything.
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Which means if I go somewhere for a few weeks at a time, my PC is coming with me.
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For a while I used a _Corsair 300r_, which has served me well until now.
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After looking around for a travel friendly ATX case I realized that there really aren't any.
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For that reason I would have to find a case that my parts physically fit into, and cram them in somehow.
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## Prepping the case
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To start the case I bought was a [Cooler MasterN200](http://us.coolermaster.com/product/Detail/case/n-series/n200.html).
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The main parts I had to worry about were as folow in the table:
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| Part | Length/Size | Name |
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|---|---|---|
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| MotherBoard | ATX | Gigabyte Z97X-UD4H |
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| CPU Cooler | 6.5in tall | Hyper 212 Evo |
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| Graphics Card | 10 in long | EVGA 960 2Gb SC Edition |
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After opening the case I saw a few things that had to go.
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1. Hard Drive bays
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I also took off the front IO panel since I have some plans to make this more flush later on, thus saving space to fit into a carry on bag.
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2. PSU rack holding thingy
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I have no idea what this thing is but it had to go since it wouldn't let my motherboard fit into the case.
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Luckily there was only a few rivets holding it in to a quick chiseling and they were gone with the rack too.
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## Test fitting some things
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First I checked how the motherboard would fit into the case on its own; I was afraid of possibly adjusted the rear I/O sheild hole.
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Next I fiddled with the psu since fitting it into the case was going to be _really_ akward.
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It ended up being as weird as I though but ultimately it works and seems to be stable so what you see in the picture is the setup I went with.
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I completely forgot about the hard drives until the end, but it worked out in a _totally not ghetto way_.
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The 3.5 inc drive is the only one that I _really_ need to worry about for mounting honestly because of two reaons:
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* 1 of the remaining drives is an _SSD_
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* The other drive is a laptop drive \
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Which I know still doesn't excuse the mounting but hey it coulnd't really move even if it wanted to.
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Hard drives have a little shroud which I made out of some heavy duty duck tape and cardboard.
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Kinda sketchy but not really since it holds things in a clean position and doesnt rattle at all.
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There's one more ssd that you don't see but its tucked way up in the cd drive bay up top as I dont actually use that bay at all.
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All in all I like how everything turned out as this pc is now ready to be taken anywhere in the US as _carry-on_ luggage!
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