Custom Sleeper Gaming PC (with Case Mods, Etc), and My Setup

This project will explain my PC build, with pictures of how it is set up on my desk. Don't think of this as a full how-to guide, but use it for ideas.

I am student with not a lot of money, so I always spend the time looking for and doing the cheapest option(s). Since new computer parts are hard to find in stock for anywhere near reasonable prices when I bought the parts for this (February 2021, you know if you know...), I went with mostly used, low-end options. Half of them were bought on eBay. I bought the GPU off of someone in a Discord server, the new parts were bought off of Amazon, and the case was a giving to me from a family member. Another thing to note is that I wanted to create more of a sleeper build.

I will get to my full desk setup in the last step.

PC Parts list:

• CPU - (used) Intel Xeon E5 2620V3 (25$)
• CPU Cooler - (new) Deepcool Gammax 400 (25$)
• Motherboard - (OEM, used) HP Z440 mobo (65$)
• RAM - (used) Micron 2x8GB 2133MHZ, 2Rx8, CL15 (50$)
• Storage - (new) 256GB Samsung 870 EVO (40$), (used) 2.5in SATAIII Toshiba drive I got from a laptop (for free)
• GPU - (used) XFX RX 460 4gb (70$)
• PSU - (open box) Corsair CX650M (the new gray/black ones) (50$)
• PSU-Mobo Adapters - (40$)
• Case - (used) rando case from a 20 year old Pentium IIII Gateway computer (free)

Installing the CPU, CPU cooler, and RAM went fairly easy as it should. The first and only problem I encountered was that the CPU fan header on the mobo is 6 pins. After looking at a picture of the stock cooler, I saw that its fan connector had 3 pins tied together. One of those associated wires ran all the way up into the fan, while the two others just bridged the three pins together. After looking over forums and other such sites, I found that each header on the motherboard has a triangle pointing at ground. Also from that, I deducted that the pinout went as follows: (triangle pointing at) ground, 12v, sense (tachometer), PWM, a pin that needed to be bridged to ground, and another pin that needed to be bridged to ground. The first four pins are the same exact pinout as a "normal consumer" PWM fan header. With all that in mind, I soldered 4 jumper wires together, one with a male end going to fan's ground pin, and three with female ends going to the ground pin on the mobo header, and the other two going to the last two pins on the header. The other three pins on the mobo header (not yet connected) I wired to their respective pins on the fan using female to male jumper wires. Suffice it to say, when I booted it up for the first time after getting the next steps done, it worked.

This is where most of the modding happened:

The IO shield was integrated into the case so I cut that out with an oscillating tool. The cuts weren't perfect and it needed some filing obviously. There's no IO shield in it now, but the mobo didn't even come with one anyways and it's not the most important thing by far.

If you look in the picture on the case with all it's original parts, you'll see that the 3.5in drive tray almost completely blocks airflow. I'm as confused on that as you are. I decided that was not okay, and took the drive cage out. The problem with that of course, is I need a place to put the drives. After much thinking and experimenting, I finally settled on using the drive cage that I had taken out of another old case. If you look in the pictures, you can see that I used 2 small screws going through the little lip on the 3.5in cage to the bottom of the floppy drive cage, and tightened with nuts (the screw were actually standoffs, which is what I immediately had on hand). There were two holes in the external 5.25in drive cage (of the case), and two in the top of the little lip on the (transplanted) 3.5in drive cage, but they didn't all line up, so I had to drill another hole in the 3.5in drive cage lip. As well as those 2 mounting points, I drilled another hole through the mobo tray (it isn't a mobo tray on this case, that's just closest word I can think of). With all that, you can also see that cage isn't completely square at the top; it's a bit wider at the top than the bottom. That is how I had to mount it. It'll work for now, since I could force a 3.5in drive to mount there correctly in the bottom of the cage. I also am only using two 2.5in drives with no sleds, so the drives are only held on by two screws anyways *gasp*.

The case's PSU mounting was proprietary to the OEM PSU, which forced me to drill new holes. I made marks as best I could using calipers to measure how far the mounting holes were from the edge of the PSU. I got 3 holes after a second time drilling, but the fourth one was too messed up to make it work. The PSU is only being held in by 3 screws *gasp*.

The motherboard mounting system also isn't designed that well. If you look at the picture of the whole case inside without anything in, you'll see that the "standoffs" can slide around. I'm really not sure what the engineers were thinking when they designed this case. There is one standoff in the middle that can't move, but it only lines up with the oem mobo, so I took a hacksaw blade to it (couldn't fit the whole hacksaw in the case). I marked and drilled another whole in the tray, lined up with a mounting whole in the middle of the mobo, and put a standoff in with a nut tightened on the other side of the tray. The mobo no longer slides around. I should also note that the mounting in the case is ATX standard, besides that one standoff I cut off, and the mobo mounting is completely ATX standard.

The PSU connectors on this mobo aren't the usual 24pin/8-12pin that you would expect in a custom build. But that wasn't a big problem, because cable adapters are plentiful on eBay. However if you would rather them to come within a week than a month, then you have to spend twice as much. They are from China.

Another peculiar thing is that the mounting holes on the case expansion slots don't line up quite right (*visible confusion*), so the GPU is being held in by a zip tie *gasp*. Also I don't have expansion slot covers that fit the unused slots, but it's fine.

The case also doesn't have any front panel IO but the power button and led. I have extra front panel USB 2.0 and audio ports, so I connected those the headers on the mobo. However I am having problems with audio breaking whenever I plug something into those audio ports. Those front panel ports are also actually running out a hole above the rear expansion slots; I honestly will probably just take them out. I didn't connect the USB 3.0 because I don't have any USB 3.0 front panel ports. I also didn't connect the power button or anything else, because after a considerable amount of searching, I still can't find the pinout for that header. The rear IO has a power button anyways.

I am running an old 80mm non-pwm fan on the front (connected straight to the PSU, spins at a faster, constant speed), and an 80mm pwm fan (that I already had) for exhaust. This setup is positive pressure airflow, which is a bit better for keeping dust out. The reasoning here is that if there is positive pressure, air will be going out all the little slits/holes, etc that most cases have (cases aren't sealed airtight for obvious reasons), instead of in, which also brings dust in. This is really only useful if the intake is filtered, which mine kind of is, but it's a case from 20 years ago, so the filtering isn't great.

Yup, these mods are ghetto, and flame me all you want, but it's working.

My setup isn't that great, but like I said, I don't have that much money, and it works.

Yes the monitors are mismatched, what can I say when one of them was free and the other 5$.

Main (left) monitor: Acer S200HQL - 1600x900@60p, secondary (right) Samsung SyncMaster E1920 - 1366x768@60p

Windows 10 Home - build 20H2 - unactivated

Cinebench 23 multithread score: 3766

Averge fps in Apex Legends: 60-75 @ 1600x900 on medium settings

Will update this to show average fps of games. Before I could test other games, MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner broke, so I can't monitor the fps. I have already tried several solutions and can't think of much else, so I'm done for now.