Konstantinov's Case MOD Project

[Konstantinov]

Hey all, I have a very important project that I'm about to undertake and I wanted people's opinions / help on the matter. This project will be my first case modding that I've ever tried.

The case is going to be an original 8 bit Nintendo Entertainment System, gutted and filled with goodies and bells and whistles. The computer is going to be my girlfriend's XMas / BDay present (her bday is in early January)...

Here's what I'm going to need:

3 NES cases w/ working original power and reset buttons - I'm going to gut and sand down the rest, the case is primarily for cosmetics / nostalgia. The original power and reset buttons have to be in working order tho, because they will power on / reset the system.

A mini ITX motherboard - Zotac has a nice socket 775 one and a few others that have less power consuming and heat expending processors.

RAM - I'm going to use as much as I can fit on the motherboard. The one I had in mind can handle 8GB of DDR2 800... so that's what I plan on getting.

Hard drive - I plan on getting a 64GB (or larger) Solid State Disc for this, as it will consume less power, expend less heat, and be smaller to fit into the NES case.

DVD drive - This will have to be slimline, so it can come out when the cartride slot is lifted on the NES case.

Power Supply - I've decided to use a 150 Watt Pico PSU, with a 150 watt AC adapter. It should be just enough juice to run this compy.

Case / cooling MODing - this thing is going to toast stuff, so I'mma have to provide a lot of cooling. I plan to use a slim 775 heatsink and fan, with 3 case fans. I am going to have to ponder getting a larger fan tho on the bottom.

Anyways, I was hoping to get some input as well as some help. You see, this has been done before, but for the life of me I can not find anyone who has done this with a 775 dual core CPU, except one person who was selling the case MOD on ebay... but he has yet to reply to my inquiries. He claims it went through a somewhat rigorous heat test in the ebay ad...

So what does everyone think? Does anyone know how much heat a dual core 65watt CPU expends? Anyways, input / constructive thoughts concerns are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[TerryMason]

I think that would be sweet! The only thing that comes to mind would be that a 64 gig SSD would be pretty expensive - I'd probably go with a cheap notebook drive myself.

I don't know if there is a such thing as an inline power supply (like a laptop uses), but that would be ideal.

[Necromancer]

^^ Looks awesome !

[dafunk_lull]

LOL! GUT a game cube and put the power supply inside the game cube husk

[Konstantinov]

So I've decided to scrap the socket 775 idea. I'mma put in this mobo instead and run it off it's own PSU + adapter:

Newegg.com - ZOTAC IONITX-A-U Atom N330 1.6GHz Dual-Core 441 NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo - Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo

But to do this, I'mma have to use an eSATA HDD, does anyone know or have any tips on how to boot Win7 from eSATA using that mobo and an external HDD?

Thanks in advance.

[Kay]

I have nothing useful on the tech side to say but I love the idea! I bet your girlfriend will be thrilled that you went to all that trouble. Pat on the back for you.

[dafunk_lull]

shouldn't be much of a problem booting windows 7 from an esata.
i would suspect that it would show up in the bios and be set to a boot device if not i bet theres a bios update to do it.

but with an itx mobo im almost positive they would not be so daft as to not allow esata bootability.

my current bios allows usb and esata boot devices. not an itx motherboard though.