Sunbeam Acrylic Case: Build 1

This is my first ever build in the my Sunbeam acrylic case. I did this one in 2004.

The specs for this one were:

Processor was an AMD Athlon XP 2900+, we also had a XP 3200+ that was in my sisters computer at the time, and my dad had one of the original AMD 64 single core chips the 3200+ model.

The motherboard was some cheap budget board called chaintec or something like that. It did have a black PCB, which was different and nice for 2004.

The graphics card was a Radeon 9800 Pro with a aftermarket Zalman heat pipe cooler on it.

Memory was 512mb or something I can't remember, then later it was changed to 1gb of ocz stuff.

Hard drives were an 80gb samsung drive that came with my hp pavilion in 2001! and then an additional 160gb seagate drive added on later.

it had a vantac fan controller and some of the same fans that were in the other sunbeam build + some crappy blue led fans with sleeve bearings that were really loud..

I had an alien head fan grille at the front. and there was no dust filters at all anywhere on the case so it would just fill up with dust constantly.

PSU was the blue metallic ultra x connect back when it actually worked.

cables were a mix of the blue UV cables from the silver x connect and green UV cables from the green UV x connect.

i had mutant mods green uv ide cables

and some other cables sleeved myself .

for lighting i had ultra uv cold cathode tubes . i had 2 of them, but i think only one was in the case when these photos were taken. i also had a couple of little uv rings that would go on the fans..

i also had a thing from i think ac ryan back when they did pc mod stuff which was a little led tube with bubbles in the plastic so it had a sort of bubbles in a fishtank look when it was on. i had one of these in the top left corner...

i had a thermaltake cooler for the cpu which had a 60mm fan on it i think and the heatsink was quite a nice chunk of copper with very fine fins. the fan was either auto or manually controlled and it was ok at lower speeds but it was so loud at full speed.


my speakers were 4.1 gaming speakers from cambridge sound works with a single 2inch i think driver in each satellite enclosure and a tiny 5 or 6 inch "subwoofer".




147_4787 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



147_4791 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


at the top i had one of those horrible ULTRA fan grilles from one of the dead x connect psu's -- it was so horrible and tacky, i cant believe i actually put that in!

does anyone where remember ultrea x connect power supplies the original version?



147_4796 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



here was my 'setup' at the time. i had a 5:4 DCLCD 19' monitor, which was one of those cheap off brands from TigerDirect at the time.


117_1724 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

One thing I still do like is the subtle purple-ish glow from UV lighting


117_1730 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



117_1733 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


117_1737 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



117_1745 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



117_1751 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr



117_1754 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


117_1762 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


117_1763 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr


this was an alternative version that i did up really quick right near the end of the life of this system where i put in a regular cold cathode, the green UV window version of the ultra x connect psu , and switched out the top fan with a half life mutant mods fan grille, and swapped out the cpu cooler fan with a multi coloured one.

IMG_9674 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr

Nice Hot Wheels collection XD

Awesome :d

Really nice work Mate!

Goldskis45 said:

Nice Hot Wheels collection XD

Click to expand...

rossi94 said:

Awesome :d

Click to expand...

The Orange One said:

Really nice work Mate!

Click to expand...

Thank you all! it's always a bit of fun looking back at these old systems and remember the "good old days " I still have the original radeon 9800 pro cooler and it's good for a laugh at how tiny it is. before that in my 2001 hp pavilion i also had a geforce ti4200, and the hp pavilion actually came with a geforce 2 series integrated chip which was pretty useless for games!

The stock cooler for the Radeon 9800 Pro!

wow looks very nice

hi everyone. i've been having some fun today looking through my old folder of PC pictures, and i have plenty more old builds and variations of old builds to post over the new few days

pretty nice work mate
looking good

CPMFW said:

pretty nice work mate
looking good

Click to expand...

thanks man, it looks so messy to me now but it's still a lot of good fun to look back and all the memories and hardware from back then etc

i really have a serious soft spot for acrylic cases, less the traditional tower style ones and more the cube style ones. i am seriously so tempted to grab one of these UFO cube cases and do a little side project in one with some older looking hardware (ie that stuff that is currently in the A OPen case or something like that) and do sort of a build that is mainly for looks to be kind of like a piece of art that i would just put in the corner and run it just for looks you know? throw in a couple of Clear UV fans i already have, all old fashioned style PSU cables and green/brown PCB/that memory i have with no heat sink on it, a couple of old fashioned cold cathode tubes and make sort of a sculpture / light type of thing.

i would definitely pick up this for $79, only problem is the shipping is like $80 to where i am plus tax etc the total adds up to quite a bit.

http://www.xoxide.com/sunbeam-ufo-cube-case-clear.html

they even have them in stock at amazon.com but same story with the shipping it comes to like $144

http://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-Acryl...53277830&sr=8-3&keywords=sunbeam+acrylic+case

i quite like the UV ones too because if you put a bunch of UV ccds in it all the walls glow and that is really cool looking and less harsh that regular cold cathodes or LEDs












I also love how the motherboard sits horizontally in the middle of the case in the cube model, to me that makes it look really interesting and different , less like a computer and more like something from a movie.

Awesome ..

the cube looks brilliant

CPMFW said:

the cube looks brilliant

Click to expand...

I really love it too! I think it will be perfect for a little side project if I can find one for a decent price without the massive shipping cost! It brings back the nostalgic feelings I had towards the acrylic towers plus an exciting new form factor that makes it quite different looking and should be fun to build in too.

Allso-- I have found some more photos of this and a handful of other older builds so I will be adding some more photos and some new threads soon as I get all the photos uploaded