Normaly at work when we upgrade a computer we send it over to goodwill.
This time my son's daycare was haveing a fundraiser for certain items.  One of them being new computers.  I told them I was going to take a bunch to goodwill and that I would let them have them instead.  The catch was I had to make them work again.   I managed to get two out of the four we had stored working again.

     This is what is left of my first self build computer. Now that it is outdated it works as a comp for my wife and Kids to play on. I do occasionally use it as my backup LAN computer. It started out as a SOYO barebones kit that got upgraded to a new Lanboy case. After looking at it for a while I decided it needed Cathodes and Fans, then vinyl and new cabling.  Then it kinda became my experimental testbed for mods.

    This casket was originally meant for a test PSU I had laying around. Unfortunalty It burnt out in the middle of the project.  (Un)-luckily for me my power supply on the UTMod just wasn't cutting it anymore.  So I took the shuttle PSU out and put it into the casket instead.  It didn't fit the same so I had to bend a piece of Acrylic into an L and adhere the circuit board to it with Bolts and Nuts.

    This is my first hardcore mod - I started with the Idea that I wanted a Mod that wasn't just a box with a hole cut in the side with some lights.  I wanted to create something that wasn't square and was kinda cool to look at, even  when It wasn't on. I wanted to put it in my living room and hook it up to HDTV as my media center PC after all.  I am also an avid gamer and wanted to play some serious games too.

    It all started with a simple SK41G shuttle case.   All hardware was taken out of that case to be put inside my custom creation.   The case was built from Acrylic bent around the shape of a UT2004 Character.  Small, portable, completely custom and unlike anything else out there this mod was my LAN rig for over 2 years and won me second place at quakecon among many other awards.

Brandon Steen, A friend and Fellow Co-worker of mine who also just happens to be an excellent artist, was having some computer problems. His problem? His case was uglier than sin and an abomination to mankind.

I had been wanting to try out some things with backpainting and Brandon desperately needed a new case. So we decided to work together on a Mod. Using his awsome artwork and my modding skills. We were trying to create an artful masterpiece.  What we ended up with was sick, twisted and horrifically beautiful.

Over the past few months I had been in contact with Sapphire.  They had been wanting
to do something with me but hadn't decided what yet.  Then out of the blue it hits them: E3!

My Mission:  To create a Crowd Pleasing Modded Demo PC from Scratch for their new Flagship hardware Debut at E3.

The Enemy:  Time.  E3 was only two weeks away!!  (Que Burning Fuse and Mission Impossible music...)

This design is directly spawned off the Sapphire cube.  
I really didn't get enough time with that case and I really wanted to do a lot more to it.
So when it came time to upgrade my LAN PC the desire was too strong to deny.
I had to make another cube.

Using Red Plex and Aluminum I created a 13" square cube to fit the hardware that Sapphire had given to me.  The Pure Innovation Motherboard and the X1800XTPE with thier red and white PCB's gave me the idea for the color scheme.

Sapphire wanted another case for E3 again this year. Again they wanted a cold theme for another Graphics Card cooler. This time the cooler is an all inclusive liquid cooler from Thermaltake branded with the "Toxic" name and mounted on two X1900XTX's in Crossfire mode.  Both of these cards are then mounted to a Pure Crossfire advantage mobo.  The hardware specs for this rig are pretty impressive.  Building a case to do the hardware Justice should prove to be a challenge.