What DIY PC hacks have you done?

Tech
#1

I saw the below article on PC Gamer and it made me think of some of the (as my dad would say) “Heath Robinson” (1) or Janky DIY modifications I’ve used on my PC.

I once took a hacksaw to my HDD cage to cut off a section of it so that my new HD5870 could fit into my case at the time. I used the case this way for many years until recently getting a new case.

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Here’s a pic of the old dusty, chopped up case

My one friend has a block of wood propping up his graphics card in his PC :laughing:

What janky DIY jobs have you done in the past on your PC’s?

(1) "Heath Robinson contraption" is perhaps more often used in relation to temporary fixes using ingenuity and whatever is to hand, often string and tape, or unlikely cannibalisations.

#2

I used isolation tape to block off all the blue light from the power and HDD lights by the power button.

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#3

Also I don’t know if its really a hack, above the hardrive bay where all the cd drives should go, 5.25" bays? I stuck a 140mm fan in there to draw in air from the front through the mesh.

#4

Cut a hole in the case so the CPU cooler could fit… Was cheaper than buying a new case

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#5

Haha! I stuck prestik on mine. Over time the ball seems to have gotten smaller and smaller…

When younger I screwed the side panel of my PC to the wall, and then simply took the PC off the panel to get the PC down. It worked really well!

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#6

I forgot to mention that with the old case there wasn’t an SSD drive bay or mounting so I just secured it in the floppy disk bays with cable ties.

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#7

I had to temporarily use a box to support the graphics card because I couldnt find the stupid “tool free” mounting clamp thing the case had, and was too lazy to look for it properly.

#8

took a hdd cage from an old case and fitted it in my Haf Xb that i bought recently as it didnt have enough space to house all my hard drives

#9

Futherest I have gone is putting insulation tape over my laptops camera.

On a side note I “made” a bigger bracket that holds my cars battery so I could put a bigger battery in with a higher CCA

#10

Why not just disconnect the power LED / HDD LED on the motherboard itself? o_0

I have a lego tower keeping my gfx card “up”. i dont like how the gfx cards have become so frikking weighty and “sag”…just not comfortable with that, so yea i have a lego “pillar” helping keep weight off the PCI-X slot.

#11

Why? Why not just remove the camera and microphone array like a normal person

#12

i have also done that :wink: people say im paranoid

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#13

Laziness?

I’d have to turn the computer around, take the side off and fiddle. Doing it the other way was easier.

#14

Worst hack I can can remember was using a full size fan to try and keep my PC cool while it was crashing a lot. Even dragged it along to lan parties. It was still crashing but it seemed to be less frequent. I think we eventually after several months figured out it was somehow related to the AGP slot, which probably means the fan didn’t even make a real difference, but the issues was finally resolved after replacing the motherboard.

This must have been at least 15 years ago, I can’t even remember when AGP was a thing.

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#15

Wow AGP was a while back come to think of it. I don’t think I have used AMD hardware since those days