The itch that has to be scratched!
It's been quite a while since I last undertake a major modding project. The last one being the AOpen HX08 Tower Case Mod Project way back in April 2000. Eversince then, it's just been a little mod here and a little mod there plus, time spent running the site and everything that has to do with it. Anyone that has been to the Cool Case Gallery will agree that at some point of time, you're probably saying; "Wow! I wish I had the time to do that!" or "Damn! I gotta start this new-found hobby of mine!" Now that it has reached and surpassed the 2000 submission milestone, I'm thinking that it's about damn time that I do something...and fast! :O) But I wasn't going to do something spectacular or out of this world, but rather something simple, but appealing and at the same time, trying out something that I have always wanted to do but didn't have enuff confidence to do it, afraid I might screw up somewhere between the lines. So I'm basically going back to the roots of modding, going back to basics or doing something "Old Skool" if you like. What is that you ask? Read on my friends....

I suddenly find myself with a whole lot of time about a month or so ago. I wouldn't even want to go into why I had this sudden burst of time in my hands, but needless to say, this is the TIME! My dremel has been itching, my holesaws' been restless and my soldering iron have been crying for some serious modding action. And myself, well, there has just been no better time than NOW! So it's off to do the necessary browsing around, looking at all the possibilities, narrowing your choices and finally, purchasing all the parts for the project in hand. What you will find in these pages are the processes/steps that I had gone thru while undertaking this project. It's intended to be something "informative" or "educational" if you like to call it and not to be taken seriously. Risks are always involved when you're dealing with power tools / electrical components so if you hurt yourself or someone else, or you screwed up your hardware, you're on your own baby! :^) If you're not sure, get someone who does to help you out. With that in mind, I present you....

Project Tivoli

The case......
I'm looking at a mid-tower for the project, but I wasn't going for the aluminium kind. I'm going for the normal steel cases and it's no secret that apart from the Antec Performa Series of cases, the Chenbro Genie and the LiteOn FS020 are my other dream mid-tower cases and so, that basically narrows down my choice of cases for the project. But neither Chenbros, nor LiteOns are available here in Singapore, so the only other choice I had was the Antec. Well, it isn't actually the Antec, but rather the ChiefTec mid tower case that I got. I've reviewed one before here, and Diceman did one too of the similar case, but black in colour. It's a very popular case and we peeps in Singapore only recently got the chance to own one, courtesy of Eclipse Enterprise.

For a mid tower, the case is pretty huge and heavy too! It has lots of space for you to work in and a well-balanced airflow system with 2 X 80mm fan slots in the front and 2 X 80mm fan slots at the rear. Of course, for any serious modder, that probably wouldn't be enuff. The only gripe I have is that there's no removable mobo tray but looking at the size and internal space, it wouldn't be much of a problem.