A rainy day project idea - VIA style

Looking back at this old Mini-ITX mod, it has occurred to me how simple it would be to adapt it to VIA's latest offerings. This log cabin case mod featured a VIA Mini-ITX motherboard. This could so easily be adapted to feature a VIA APC Rock motherboard.

Case mod memory lane #7: Bender case

I actually saw this case mod in person at QuakeCon in 2005. It looks more like a movie prop than a computer. The dimensions are just right and the eyes and mouth have the right personality. This is one mini-ITX case mod where the VIA motherboard inside is not the star of the show!

"After the platform was made, everything went like a dream. The parts slotted right inside. I can thank myself for this due to careful planning and taking my time with the project. It actually took 3 months longer than planned." - Mini-ITX.com

Case mod memory lane #6: The Spidercase

This mod is certainly one of the most creative and unique. Rather than putting a VIA EPIA Mini-ITX motherboard inside something that already exists, this mod was made from scratch. It was not without cost ...

"After cutting openings for the legs, I had to figure out how and what to make the legs with. Originally I had planned for the aluminum look but finding a cheap CNC cutter + blocks of aluminum in only a few days seemed nearly impossible. So I decided to go with my reliable source of acrylic at www.tapplastics.com. Since there was a local store within a mile of my house, I quickly made some templates and ran off to get some acrylic. About halfway through cutting the legs out, I stuck my middle fingertip into a table saw and found out first hand why people wear gloves. One stitch and 3 hours later I was back in the garage cutting again. I'll spare you the pictures. The thighs were 1-1/4" thick and only 6 were made at the time because the template picture I was going off showed only 6 legs on the spider. Later I changed it to 8. As I was cutting the lower portion of the legs, I routed my thumb and figured out for the second time why I should learn things the first time (wear gloves!!!@#). Since I couldn't use my right hand for the last few leg parts, I took them to Tap Plastics and they gladly cut out the shapes I needed cheap. This was after they laughed at me for cutting my hand for the 2nd time."

More on Mini-ITX.com.

VIA case mod memory lane #5: The teddybear

It's all class this week with a look back at the computer case mod that has a teddy bear stuffed to the brim with a VIA EPIA-based computer.

Was that the best place for the power cord? Seriously though, it was good thinking to include a fan on the top. VIA embedded motherboards do run without passive cooling, but maybe not when they're inside a fur coat. More on Mini-ITX.com

VIA case mod memory lane #4: The Playstation PC

It's ironic that consoles really do have the innards of a PC these days and in this mod, Per Samuelsson, gutted an old-school, grey Playstation and crammed inside a VIA EPIA Mini-ITX board 6GB hard drive, 256MB RAM, 145 Watt PSU, power switch, power connector and an extra fan. It was a tight squeeze.

"The EPIA mainboard fits exactly into a Playstation chassis, what luck! Of course I had to remove the gameports - to make them look like real gameports I filed them down until I had a 2.5mm thick frame, then glued the memory flaps into place and fitted the controller pins on black cardboard. Now they really looked like real Playstation gameports. I installed the Ram on the mainboard and tried to fit the cover. Fat chance Buster! It was too high. Dremel, Dremel, Dremel..."

It looks like someone's trying to smuggle something in there! Full story on Mini-ITX.com

Case mod memory lane#3: The iGrill

Continuing on with the kitchen theme, this week we take a look at the George Forman grill that was turned into a PC back in 2005 by James Goldsmith.

James actually bought the grill new and what's the first crazy thing you have to do with a mod like this?

"Of course, the first thing to do when a new toy arrives is to completely take it apart. So 5 minutes with philips-head and pro-drive screwdrivers later, it was down to the bare components. With hindsight, I probably should have done this with some kind of due care and attention, as it took me as long again to figure out which bits belonged where. I had intended to use the original power cabling, and mod the psu to use them, but this proved unfeasible, as I had to slice the cabling in two just to open the damn thing up."

Yes, the VIA Mini-ITX platform has been the cause for parts of many machines to be strewn across people's living rooms in pursuit of the ultimate case mod. You can read more about this mod on Mini-ITX.com.

Case mod memory lane again: the waffle iron

The chrome casing to this waffle iron provided a classy look to an otherwise cooky mod for the VIA EPIA M1000.

Find out more on Mini-ITX.com.

The Mini-ITX cluster proves forever popular

Over on Mini-ITX.com, the right border of the popular site shows the most viewed content that day. Fourth on the list is a blast from the past, from February 2004, the build of the 12 node mini-cluster, powered by the VIA EPIA V8000.

The write-up of the project is no Dan Brown novel, so it must be the content that has people visiting so much some nine years later. Or maybe it's just that it looks so darn cool!

"I built a Mini-ITX based massively parallel cluster named PROTEUS. I have 12 nodes using VIA EPIA V8000, 800 MHz motherboards. The little machine is running FreeBSD 4.8, and MPICH 1.2.5.2. Troubles installing and configuring Free BSD and MPICH were few. In fact, there were no major issues with either FreeBSD or MPICH. The construction is simple and inexpensive. The motherboards were stacked using threaded aluminum standoffs and then mounted on aluminum plates. Two stacks of three motherboards were assembled into each rack. Diagonal stiffeners were fabricated from aluminum angle stock to reduce flexing of the rack assembly."

A living legend of Mini-ITX PC modding

Jeffrey Stephenson is a named you have probably come across over the years if you find yourself reading news about VIA, about small form factor PCs or about case modding. Jeffrey's designs don't involve a fun but crude gutting of an old appliance, they are carefully planned and meticulously executed masterpieces.

Jeffrey and his work have been honoured in an article in SiliconValleyWatcher. His passion for modding began with a VIA Mini-IT board:

"Stephenson bought one of the first mini-ITX form factor motherboards by VIA Technologies in 2003. He liked the idea of having a small, high performing computer. He had trouble finding a case that wasn't expensive or boring. "Then I stumbled across a site that sold wooden desktop cigar humidors, which had perfect dimensions and a stylish exterior," he said."

Lovely tiny wooden PC with built in LCD

Jeffrey Stephenson has been making wooden mods with VIA integrated boards for almost a decade. I've seen designs from him using humidors, clocks and old radios. Often times his designs are inspired by old devices but not actually made out of them. Instead he crafts the wood himself - and that's what he's done here. This one is "inspired from the mantle clock design of Bayard, a French clockmaker."

The Pico Bayard looks like a fancy digital photo frame but it is in fact a complete PC. The article doesn't say what type of board it is but I'm betting on a Pico-ITX model.

"It is a shade taller than your can of coca cola, and houses a 1GHz VIA C7 processor, along with 1GB DDR2 memory."

Now tell me, what other type of hardware can be used for this type of mod other than VIA's?!

Old fashioned meets old fashioned

Today I want to tell you about an old fashioned case mod in an old fashioned Sega PC. Years ago when VIA first released the Mini-ITX and their EPIA boards, case modders went wild with creativity sticking the little boards in Star Wars toys, an ET doll, odd lamps, small briefcases - you name it, it's been done. This one might also have been done before, or at least something similar. I'm sure I've seen an Atari mod before. But what makes this particularly cool is that the keyboard actually works. So although it's a VIA EPIA Nano-ITX NX15000G inside an old chasis, which is not that original, it's actually a keyboard that is a working PC - and that is far from old fashioned. - Technabob