Strange Mod Ideas

[Mysterium]

Okay. These are a bit out there. Well, not too far, but they're not exactly normal. They've been turning over in my head for a while, though . . .

Lava lamp. Not one, like, sitting on top of the case, but one where the bottom and the light are imbedded in the case, so the active part just bubbles up out of the case. Problem would be that it would add a whole lot of heat. Maybe you'd need blowholes on either side of it. And there's no way you could use it as a cooling device, could you? CPU's don't get hot enough to run a lava lamp . . . needs some research.

Ant farm. Main area in a side panel with two or three removable tubes into it, then the tubes run into some smaller parts (maybe in the cover instead of one or two 5.25 bays?) around the case. Lots of tubes into and out of the case. You have to make sure it's pretty secure, though. "Ants in the HSF" isn't covered by warranty, I don't think . . .

Any other truly wacky ideas?

[KryoNexus]

the lava lamp i would say is definitely out of the question. you would be raising the internal case temperature probably 10C or more. it could possibly be done if you weren't overclocking, but i still wouldn't recommend it. oh, and yes, a cpu would get hot enough to make the lava lamp run, but i imagine that it would be on the verge of frying if you did (would probably have to do it with heatpipes or watercooling anyway)

the ant farm could definitely work out, but i personally wouldn't want to risk that the ants would find a way out and into my computer. :-)

hope that sheds some light for you

[undergroundtech]

I don't know, the Lavalamp might be do-able. A lavalamp takes a 40watt bulb to heat it, if you were to use a 40 watt TEC (Thermoelectric cooler) and a CPU with comparable heat dissipation, it may work out well.
You would want to use fans in the case to keep the inside case temps as close to room temp. as possible, for the lamp (and your PC) to function properly.
A desktop style case would work best, because you could have the lamp sitting directly on the hot side of the TEC while having the rest of the lamp extend out of the case.
It deffinitely would be original 8)

[KryoNexus]

take a run at it. i wouldn't use a processor that your attached to though

[Mysterium]

I'm trying to hit up the IT guy at work to see if there's any server cases they don't need. It'd be nice to have plenty of extra space if I was going to do it.

Maybe a Zen rock garden on the top instead? Tough to move, though. Cactus garden? There's got to be lots of ideas out there to do something instead of "Put in some windows and make it glow," y'know?

[mdw906]

implant a pair robotic arms with one on each side of machine, and they are powered and run entirely by the computer. talk about putting in cds without the need of taking your hands off the mouse or keyboard.