3dfx Nightmare - My Quakecon Build

**HeavyG** · 08-16-16, 10:49 PM

For those of you that didn't attend Quakecon, here are pics of my build. It is two computers in one box, powered off of one PSU. Unfortunately the motherboard in the bottom PC died at Quakecon. I have a replacement inbound.

The bottom PC is a Pentium II 450 with 768 MB of RAM with a Voodoo5 5500 GPU. There is no hard drive, but rather only a Compact Flash card with the Windows 98 OS. The top PC is a a Skylake i7-6700K with 16GB DDR4 3000 RAM and a GTX 1080. They can be powered independently.

I had a lot of fun making this build. It isn't anything like I normally make, so I got to expand my modders skillset a bit and be more creative than I normally would. I think it turned out pretty sweet.

**HeavyG** · 08-16-16, 10:52 PM

Oh, and here is the before pic:

**dex71** · 08-17-16, 04:26 AM

Bad Ass. Some fantastic work. She looks purdy.

**AetheLove** · 08-17-16, 08:41 AM

Holy shit. Where did you get the case?

It's almost exactly the same as the case I bought for my 2001 build - a P4 that ran great at a 50% overclock. Mine had a different layout on the front, and extra space under the slide-off top.

I also modded the front - cut a hole for a 6" Comair Rotron fan that I don't remember where I got it.

I dremel'd the hell out of that case. Didn't paint it though. It just ran.

Yours looks great, and I love the idea of modern and retro rigs in one box.

Æ

**HeavyG** · 08-17-16, 06:36 PM

Originally Posted by AetheLove

Holy shit. Where did you get the case?

It's almost exactly the same as the case I bought for my 2001 build - a P4 that ran great at a 50% overclock. Mine had a different layout on the front, and extra space under the slide-off top.

I also modded the front - cut a hole for a 6" Comair Rotron fan that I don't remember where I got it.

I dremel'd the hell out of that case. Didn't paint it though. It just ran.

Yours looks great, and I love the idea of modern and retro rigs in one box.

Æ

I picked up the case on Ebay. I actually found one at a thrift store almost exactly like it, but one of the side panels was badly bent. I found this case on eBay for $40, but had to pay $30 for shipping. It was an overstock, so was brand new. I took it right away.

I had some trouble with the paint. 100 degree Florida weather and rain every single day made painting a HUGE disaster. I'm probably going to respray the front at some point. I also had a bit of a disaster as during clear coat $3, some heavy winds blew over my makeshift paint booth, and the front cracked. I had to do a major repair on the front just one week before Quakecon. The finish was MUCH better before I had to sand, prime, paint, and clear it for a second time. It really needed some more time sanding, but time wasn't a luxury I had.

**HeavyG** · 08-17-16, 06:37 PM

Oh, and the textured on the exterior panels is actually created by powder coating. I used a coat called cracked black ice. It goes on as flat black and has an awesome wrinkle effect. I then laid some silver primer poweder coat, then solid orange, and then dusted on some transparent red and transparent yellow. The goal was to make it look like lava, which I think it turned out pretty "lava-ish" or "lava-esque".

**dex71** · 08-17-16, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by HeavyG

Oh, and the textured on the exterior panels is actually created by powder coating. I used a coat called cracked black ice. It goes on as flat black and has an awesome wrinkle effect. I then laid some silver primer poweder coat, then solid orange, and then dusted on some transparent red and transparent yellow. The goal was to make it look like lava, which I think it turned out pretty "lava-ish" or "lava-esque".

lava-adjacent

At first glance, I thought it was that crackle paint stuff. The wrinkle effect gives it a cool texture.

The "lava-adjacent" braided cables look great as well. Did you sleeve them yourself?

**HeavyG** · 08-18-16, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by dex71

lava-adjacent

At first glance, I thought it was that crackle paint stuff. The wrinkle effect gives it a cool texture.

The "lava-adjacent" braided cables look great as well. Did you sleeve them yourself?

I did! $10 worth of black/orange paracord, 100ft spool of wire, $25 worth of pins and connectors, and a couple all nighters, and they were good to go. I messed up a few of the connectors when dealing with my bottom motherboard issues at Quakecon, so I have some repairs that need to be done, but I ran out of paracord and had to order some more from Amazon.