I made a thing...

Apr 8, 2020
31
57
120
Visit site
You've heard of Google Cardboard, right? The ultra-cheap standard Google came up with to convert regular smartphones into impressively disappointing VR headsets? Yeah... hold my beer:
View: https://i.imgur.com/Shux6Mc.jpg

View: https://i.imgur.com/PNUpIKs.jpg

It's a 21st century Frankenstein with a redneck aesthetic.


Elegance was never part of this PC's design philosophy; every component of this build -- except the PSU -- was left over from previous builds and orphaned after past upgrades. Despite everything, its gaming credentials could be a lot worse.


Right now, two of my kid cousins are staying with my family because their parents can't watch them while school's shut down. One of them's been spending her time on a low- to mid-range gaming PC we've got in the living room, but the other's been stuck on his crappy little laptop.

First, this build was meant to be completely caseless, resting on a shelf out of reach of our cats while it worked for PC Gamer's official Folding@home team. With my cousin's laptop only seeming more frustrating to use over time, however, I decided I'd use this build to solve a different problem. (Hey, I'm still folding with an RTX 2080 Ti; I'm doing my part.)

Those cats are a major problem; they'd cause staticy mayhem if I left the PC's guts loose where my cousin could use the machine. Enter... cardboard.


By repurposing a box from some recent online shopping, I got a-slicin' until I had something I could almost call a case.

Sporting an AMD FX-8350 processor, an AMD Radeon R9 270x video card, and 8GB of DDR3-1600MHz RAM, this haphazardly-constructed & cardboard-encased PC sports two fans lovingly plopped down, unsecured, over two holes I made with a box cutter. Similar holes are on the front and sides allowing I/O cables to reach their ports. Ventilation holes are strategically placed using an extremely loose understanding of thermodynamics.

For simplicity and user-friendliness, the 7200 RPM, 120GB mechanical drive marked as "Steam" is actually what the OS is installed on. The USB 2.0 external drive -- aren't they technically both external? -- is 500GB and more intended for mass storage and games.

Incredibly, it doesn't have cooling problems and it blows away my cousin's laptop in gaming. He's been thrilled with it and I'm filled with a peculiar mixture of pride and embarrassment for having created this thing.
 
If you can breadboard a PC, why not cardboard one!

Looks nice. Good cable management. I'd have gone with an Intel CPU for gaming ofc. Make sure the fans are properly configured for positive pressure or else the dust filtration will be no good.

:D
 
  • Like
Reactions: is_died
Apr 8, 2020
31
57
120
Visit site
Thanks!

I hadn't considered the dust situation, being a temporary thrown-together thing as it is. It already needed intake fans, but now I've got a specific reason to add some.

That's the nice thing about a cardboard case: extra fan spots are just a box cutter away. I'll shut it down and work on it later.
 

TRENDING THREADS