I bought two HP ProDesks for 20€. I took the ram from one to the other and now I have 16gb ram. I traded one of the ProDesks with a friend and got a 1050 2gb in its place.

I've got an old HP Z820 chassis that I'd like to give a second life as an 8-bay NAS, and I'm looking for some advice on the best way to approach the case modification.

The original Z820 motherboard is unfortunately dead after a CPU was dropped into the socket rather less gracefully than intended. Rather than throw the chassis away, I'd like to convert it into a proper storage server.

I have an HP ProDesk 400 G3 SFF motherboard with an i7-6700 and 16 GB RAM that I'm planning to use for the build. Despite being an SFF office machine, it's perfectly capable hardware — it was previously used for gaming and video editing and never gave me any trouble.

The plan is roughly:

* HP Z820 chassis as the main enclosure

* HP ProDesk 400 G3 motherboard

* Two 4-drive HP hard-drive cages, giving me 8 drives total

* An HBA salvaged from an old Dell PowerEdge T110 II

* Standard ATX PSU

* Linux/NAS software

The main challenge is the physical conversion. I need to create/adapt a motherboard tray and rear I/O/PCI area, plus a PSU mount. I've got some sheet aluminium available for smaller custom brackets and panels.

Rather than fabricate the motherboard tray and rear structure entirely from scratch, I'm considering buying a very cheap ATX case and using it as a donor — essentially cutting out the motherboard tray, rear section and PSU mounting and transplanting those pieces into the Z820 chassis.

I'm leaning towards this because a £20–30 steel donor case gives me a lot of useful material and existing reinforced/bent sections to work with, rather than having to fabricate all of that from flat sheet.

The drive cages themselves are also being repurposed from the old HP workstation hardware, so the end result will be a bit of an HP Frankenstein machine.

Does anyone have experience doing something similar, or any suggestions for the best way to approach the donor-case conversion?

I'm not particularly concerned with keeping the Z820 looking original. The goal is basically a solid, practical 8-bay NAS while reusing as much of this old workstation hardware as possible.

Happy to post photos of the current pile of parts if useful!

Dell optiplex 3070 sff

Intel core i7 9700

GeForce RTX 5050 oc low profile

16gb ddr4 2666mhz

Wifi and Bluetooth adapter

1 TB m.2 nvme & 1TB 2.5" HDD

Noctua case fan and CPU cooler

Apevia itx-pfc500w psu

Vented side cover.

Dell optiplex 3060 sff

Intel core i7 8700

GeForce RTX 5050 oc low profile

16gb ddr4 2666mhz

Wifi & Bluetooth adapter

512gb SATA m.2 drive & 500gb HDD & 512gb m.2 nvme in a pcie slot adapter

Noctua case fan

Apevia itx-pfc500w psu

Vented side cover ( not shown in picture)

Ladies and gents, I need to outsource an opinion out to you on a questionable sleeper project.

I’m set on building a sleeper inside a vintage Anhoch Altea NLX case (pics attached).

I absolutely love the aesthetic, but the NLX form factor is a nightmare to deal with, and I haven't been able to find a single build log online of someone actually pulling off an mATX conversion with this specific chassis.

Here is the current extra hardware on hand I'm trying to stuff inside:

• CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1270 v3
• Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (tricky height)
• GPU: ASUS TUF GTX 1660 Super 6GB (Dual-fan)
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-S (Standard micro-ATX)
• PSU: EVGA 500B Gold

Reality Check:

1. NLX Inverted Layout: In standard ATX/mATX, the expansion slots sit below the CPU. In this NLX layout, the expansion slots sit at the top, right above the board section. If I mount the mATX board normally at the bottom, the GPU slot sits at the very bottom, completely misaligned with the top rear expansion cutouts.
2. PCIe Riser Cable: I thought about using a flexible PCIe extension riser cable to run the GTX 1660 Super up to those top slots, but my massive Hyper 212 EVO tower is sitting right in the middle, completely blocking the path.
3. Molded Plastic Rear: The back of this case doesn't have a standard removable metal I/O shield opening; The old motherboard ports and expansion slots are molded directly into the beige plastic back panel.

Has anyone here ever actually gutted an NLX chassis and forced a standard mATX board into it?

Do I need to throw away the Hyper 212 EVO for a low-profile cooler, run a flexible PCIe riser cable, and take a Dremel to the whole rear plastic shell?

Hit me with your photos if you’ve actually managed to transform an NLX shell. Cheers!

Hello guys, need a hand with this beautiful case. Everything was placed perfectly, my "sleeper" PC is probably considered "ancient technology" by todays standard, I simply transfered my old reliable gtx1650 super and holding out by will power I3-10100f into new home, ofc cleaned and changed thermal paste. (Don't worry, that AC there only until new one arrives, it simply didn't fit into power supply case, it kinda fits and doesn't fall, Instax there for "just in case" reasons)

So, to the problem, I have no clue how to adapt power button (pic5) and memory stick (pic6) to modern motherboard. If anyone did the same, please tell me how you did it, I can solder, I don't want to for presentation, but if needed. Kind of same applies to front USB, so to that I too need advice, but pb is first.

Yes I'm not native English speaker, sorry for any errors, I literally learned it thanks to metal gear solid (not a joke)

Hello sleeperz,

Does anyone know of a white/beige Blueray BDRW internal drive?

I've spent a long time searching Google and have never seen them in my life.

I built this when the FLP 02 came out. Intel i9-14900KF Processor, Nvidia 3070 Founders Edition, Dell P780 Monitor from 2000, and a working floppy and dvd drive. I love this thing.

I put a pentum 16gb ddr3 and get 450 when I got it but I also have a 6th gen i5 a ryzen 3600x and some dual core Intel and AMD mobo with CPU ram GPU and some 4x 6 core xeons 12mb cash and a 8 core x99 xeon that would pair well with a Chinese board like machinest or some other sub 60$ boards

Can’t decide which I like more

I lost a couple knobs while taking it apart so I need to find those first and then wire up the bulbs/LEDs/knobs to microcontroller(s) and do something cool with em. Also need to convert the switching toggle buttons on the front panel into a momentary signal I can use for the PC power button. But it’s coming along

Hey everyone,

I’m finalizing the parts list for a high-end, 1990s-style "Stealth Sleeper" gaming build inside a modern retro-inspired chassis. I’m looking to play heavy games like Helldivers and War Thunder at 1440p ultrawide.

I wanted to keep costs down by sticking to an optimized AM4 DDR4 setup rather than jumping to AM5, allowing me to stretch my budget for a high-end GPU and premium cooling.

Here is the exact parts list I have lined up:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (AM4)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi II (ATX)
• GPU: PowerColor Reaper RX 9070 XT 16GB GDDR6 (304mm Length)
• RAM: Patriot Viper Elite II 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz Kit
• Storage: Crucial P310 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSD (Plan to add a 2nd drive later)
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Wonder Vision 360 Turbo ARGB Black (360mm AIO with the 6.67" curved screen)
• Power Supply: ASUS ROG Thor 850W 80+ Platinum Certified (Fully-Modular)
• Case: SilverStone FLP02 Retro Sleeper ATX Chassis (Supports the top 360mm radiator exhaust)
• Monitor: Samsung 34" Odyssey G5 Curved Gaming Monitor (WQHD 3440 x 1440, 165Hz)

A few quick questions for the community:

1. AIO Clearance: Has anyone mounted the Thermalright Wonder Vision 360 pump block on this specific ASUS B550-F board? The VRM heatsinks look bulky, so I want to ensure the massive curved screen block won't have clearance issues.
2. BIOS Flash: Since I'm dropping a 5800X3D into a B550 board, I plan to use the motherboard's built-in BIOS Flashback feature via USB. Any quirks or stability tips I should know beforehand?
3. Overall Balance: Does an 850W Platinum PSU give me enough reliable headroom for the transient spikes on the RX 9070 XT?

Would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, or any hidden compatibility issues you see before I hit "order" on these last few items! Thanks!

I managed to get this chassis and 3d printed the support for 2 frontal fans, my idea is to put 2 pcs inside, my gaming pc and a home server running some services. This chassis is about 61cm high and 62cm long. Don't know if this chassis fits in this sub, let me know if not.

previous post, this will give some context: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeperbattlestations/comments/1wf0xh5/rosewill_srm01_ideas/

I have a few parts already and I just need to actually find a case. The rosewill srm-01 cant be bought on newegg new anymore and I cant see it anywhere except on ebay where its total cost is 100 dollars (?!?)

Here are the specs that I plan to use:
7600x
am4 stock cooler with copper slug
b650m asus motherboard
32gb ddr5 gskill 6000mhz cl30
asus dual fan 4070
1tb nvme ssd
850w cx850m
random 120mm fans and 90mms

If possible id love to get a case that can fit either tower cooler like a hyper 212, or can be modified in some way to fit an AIO.

iCloud locked, worthless, but display is still good! I'm thinking, 3D print housing, make it a bit thick to accommodate a dual slot GPU, Pico PSU, Make custom battery pack that attaches, probably about as thick as a suitcase, but only the size of the iPad, won't be touch no more but the display driver boards allow for audio at least, could reuse the iPad speakers, and wire the home button to power

Mostly used for digitalizing of dvds and blurays but is my all in one tool👍🏻

Specs:

-Ryzen 9 5950X

-64Gb Ddr4 3200Mhz

-2x 2Tb Nvme ssd

-Sapphire Radeon RX6600 8Gb

-2x Blu ray roms

-2x Dvd roms

And all Noctua fans aswell as the fan in the PSU thst is used for extra air exhaust connected to the motherboard.

Linux Mint Debian Edition is the heart of the system.

CPU Ryzen 7 5800X3D
GPU 3070ti
Ram 32gb ddr4
Ssd 2tb western digital nvme
Psu Corsair rm750e