Part 1: 20 Crazy And Unique Case Mods

Leela From Futurama

One die-hard fan decided to go nuts and build several case mods based on the animated Futurama TV series. In this instance, we have Leela, based on an actual exhibition doll made from pressure foam. Although the exterior would be somewhat frightening in a dark room at night, the mod's interior houses a mini-ITX motherboard just inside her back. Her one eyeball actually features a Webcam and the LCD mounted on her arm really works. A USB thumb drive can be inserted into her...erm...thumb. Sorry, this one is just creepy.

PC In A Microwave

Seen here at the CES 2003 exhibition, this mod should speak for itself, using a microwave oven as a chassis. Mounted on the top is a DVD drive and the microwave door is actually an LCD panel. Within the device, you won't find room to heat up a meal, but rather the PC components. The modder replaced the microwave's controls for PC-based controls including the power, reset, and even volume buttons. The only thing missing here is a background image on the LCD depicting a severed, cooked head.

The Red Tower

Although this chassis looks simply awesome, the modder didn't present much detail regarding this Red Tower mod. Based on the images, this rig features Nvidia SLI graphics, three cooling fans mounted on both sides of the base, and a custom water-cooled system. The entire rig costs around $6,620 and took 700 hours to build. It's clear that this modder should be an architect.

Atlas, The Battle Mech

Created by designer Ron Sole, this Battle Mech named "Atlas" took a year to complete. It stands about 3 ft. tall (2.5 ft., when it's in a walking stance), 27" wide, and 27" thick from its back to gun tip, and weighs approximately 60 lbs. On a whole, this robotic rig houses 1TB of storage consisting of two hard drives mounted on each side. It also features 1.5GB of RAM, an MSI Theater 550 Pro, MSI's K8N Neo4 motherboard, an AMD CPU, an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS, and more.

The power supply, directly behind the red 80 mm fan, is on aluminum rails that slide out the back for maintenance or replacement, Sole says. The motherboard also slides directly out the back by removing the back screws. The front lexan and hood are removable for easy access to motherboard, RAM, cards, etc.

The Nvidia SLI Machine Motorcycle

Russian designer Dennis "Xooler" IIyin entered his monster PC mod in an Nvidia-sponsored contest and won second place. The design should speak for itself, replacing the motorcycle's engine with his custom-built PC. The glowing green cylinders mounted on the rear aren't just for decoration, but serve as a water jacket to keep this PC's "engine" nice and cool. Other than what you see in the pictures, that's all the available information. However, you can check out the other Nvidia-themed case mods in the Nvidia mod contest.

Doom 3: Project Mars City

On March 3, 2005, Paul Capello began his Doom 3-themed PC mod with an Antec Super Lanboy case. About 14 months later, the end result was an awesome display of creativity, detail, and sheer determination in the form of a monster PC.

"This case will be a Doom 3 gaming monster and DangerDen water-cooled and [will have] top-of-the-line hardware and components that have yet to be determined," he said at the beginning of the project.

Eventually, Capello had to add an extension onto the rear so that the PC Power and Cooling 510 SLi PSU could be pulled out two inches to allow for "wire management and components."

When we contacted Capello about the rig, he sent over a few highlights, listed below:

• Inspired by the graphic artwork within the Doom 3 game (i.e. the industrial/military look and feel);
• The decorative and structural components were created from scratch, using polystyrene plastic sheets;
• Used a "kit-bashing' method to add smaller details. Many parts from military tank models, sci-fi models, and found objects;
• All the moving parts, like the blast door and Airlock, were custom-fabricated and engineered;
• The smoke generator was from a model train supply store and uses oil to create the smoke;
• Moving parts like the airlock and blast door are controlled by infrared remote. The lighting is also remotely controlled;
• The 7" LCD monitor is touch controlled;
• The case was painted by airbrush and by hand.

You can see a video of this Doom-flavored rig over on YouTube.

The Edelweiss

This PC actually appeared last year, designed by Pius Giger in Switzerland. The details were rather scarce even back then, but this PC still looks striking today, combining functionality with modern art. Even with the front panel removed, the inner wiring is orderly and in tune with the PC's overall red/black/white theme. But it's not all about the looks--an image of the PC sporting the Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 motherboard indicates that it offers more than just sophisticated appearances. In fact, two Nvidia graphics cards are pictured mounted inside.

The Dalek

Created by John Machin, this PC case mod is based on Doctor Who's arch nemesis, the Daleks.

"It was not meant to be a high-spec running machine, as I was only going to run Opensuse Linux on it anyway but I have tried XP and Windows 7 on it and both run smoothly," he told us. "The hardware I used was an MSI K8MM3-V 64-bit motherboard, AMD's Sempron 3300+ 2.00 GHz CPU, 512 MB of DDR memory, a 550-watt black Magna power supply, a Seagate ST380011A80 GB IDE hard drive, a 256 MB Nvidia GeForce FX 5600XT graphics card, and a Lian motherboard tray to attach the motherboard.

"At the end, the Dalek project took about three months to do in the spare time I had. I was pleased with the end result, and I hope it encourages others to do a PC case project as well. Will I be doing another PC case? Most probably once the summer is over in 2010...if we get one that is. I have seen a full-size Dalek called Dalek Storm made by Alan Clarke, which is very impressive, so I may make one like that."

Leukemia

Richard "Darth Beavis" Surroz actually built this awesome rig for Nvidia late last year for a charity auction. As the name might indicate, the money gained from its sale went to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the eBay sale actually brought-in a meaty $5,600 (Surroz donated an additional $1,500 via CPU Magazine). Inside the greenish hull, the pure-performance PC features hardware from Nvidia, Danger Den, Intel, Crucial, Asus, Silverstone, and Smooth Creations. On the processor front, it uses Intel's Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, while Nvidia provided the GeForce GTX 295. Performance PCs donated PSU sleeving services.

More hardware specs can be found here.

"My buddy, Paul, from Nvidia asked me months ago if I would do a mod for a charity (the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society)," Surroz said. "How could I say no? At the time, we both thought it would just be a modest build and might raise a little money for a good cause. Well, things sort of went beyond what we thought with all sorts of vendors helping out."

Motorized Madness

Dan Coe's Motorized Madness started out as a 3D model so he could get a feel for how to get all the motorized parts to work. "There will be several panels on the case that will be motorized to reveal objects, fans, controls etc," he said on his project page. "Some panels will be hidden, and some will be obvious. The most electronically-challenging part of this mod will be to integrate all the motorization with a controller and have them automatically open on Windows start and close on Windows shutdown." With a turbine mounted on top, he managed to create his motorized monster in around seven and a half months.

The Great Pyramid

Here's an interesting case built by polo360x, which first appeared over a year ago. According to this post, the actual chassis is 7.5 lbs. and is made of laser-cut, (very) high-quality black and silver aluminum. The base measures 19" x 19" and is 25" high. Inside the rig, you'll see an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 B3 overclocked at 3.15 GHz. It also has 4GB of memory overclocked to 1,066 MT/s, a Zotac GeForce 8800GT AMP! Edition graphics card, a 500W power supply, a 500GB Caviar WD 3 Gb/s SATA hard drive, and more. Check out the rig in action on YouTube.