This may need some introduction. I am doing a school Biology project on Artificial Life and I needed a PC that I could take to and from school (too poor to afford a laptop) that wouldn't look like a PC. It also needed to be lightweight. I decided to build it out of some scrap parts I had found in my basement, which turned out not to be too bad at all.

While in the basement, I was looking for something to carry the parts in and I came upon a 5 in. 3 ring binder. I was really bored and decided to try putting all of the components into the binder. I ripped out the rings and discovered that the binder's spine had been made with a natural spring, so I didn't need to make any supports to hold up the top.

After a lot of hot glue, some drilling of holes, lots of screws I built a PC that was perfectly capable of even running some games. And to think it was out of scrap parts! I never realized before that the CPU was as good as it was. I thought is was some 633 MHz Celeron. But I discovered after looking at the lable on the CPU that it was actually a Coppermine Pentium III. After installing Windows 2000, I looked at My Computer only to discover that its frequency wasn't displayed. I checked the BIOS, and it was only at ~450MHz which I didn't think was possible for a coppermine but I went with it. Figuring there was no ability to change the speed since it was a Gateway board, I left it that way for a day.

Then I discovered a magical group of pins on the Mobo that would allow me to access some special BIOS options. I changed the speed to a much better 933MHz, which after a google search of the CPU number found to be the correct setting, and am happily running it at that.

So, Here are the pics. Please excuse the backgrounds of the images.:


Looks like a regualar, beat to death, binder...

]
AHH!!! It's a bomb! Oh, wait...It's a computer!


Working like a charm. Look at all the desk clutter. Lost my mousepad. Notice some photoshopn' goin' on, on the monitor. I was working on these images.

SPECS:
Pentium III Coppermine at 933MHz
256MB PC133 SDRAM
GeForce4MX 4000 oc'd
2x 20GB IDE drives
Windows 2000 sp4
"External" vanilla 52x CD-ROM :P (That's the yellow cable)

The thing runs hotter than the 4th of July (approx 90-110 degrees Fahrenheit )

Also, just for fun, I tried to find out how much I can overclock my GeForce4 MX 4000 128MB just by adding a fan and I got the clock from about 250MHz to 410MHz stable. But unfortunately, for some reason, I didn't see any impact on the performance of games. Oh well...

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I'll take this as a no one cares... :'(

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Where did you put the power button?

I sort of embedded it into the fabric in the corner. So it is hidden. I just squeeze the corner and whala...it turns on. ;D

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Interesting design but I doubt it will last long judging by the cooling situation.

+ wont it get damaged easily?? :-X

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I just added an exaust fan to the back, and it definitely takes care of the cooling problem. It didn't generate that much heat figuring the specs weren't that high.

Yes, it is very fragile. It's probably going to break because somebody will think it's only a binder, and stack a ton of books on top of it, or throw it on the ground. But oh well, it isn't like a spent any money on it :P.

I'll take it to school on monday with my portable DVD player, and use it as a monitor because the graphics card has s-video out! Does anyone know if they make portable keyboards?

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Here's an update: One of my DVD players stopped working, and I took it apart to investigate it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong but noticed that the connections to the DVD drive inside were just a standard IDE cable and molex connector. So, I decided to connect it to the binder computer and to my surprise it worked! It reads DVD's great, figuring I'm watching Lord of the Rings right now. It's also silent as can be. Now I have a working Media Center PC because it can connect to the TV! ;D All that for Free!

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Yet another update: Since I am now declaring it a media center PC I worked on making it as quiet as possible. I put a fan speed controller on the exaust and CPU fans. That eliminated quite a bit of noise, but a majority of the noise was coming from the fan on the PSU. I "modified" (ripped out) the fan on the PSU and replaced it with a quieter fan. Does this small 90w PSU really need a fan, or at least a high RPM 80mm? It doesn't generate much heat.

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I'd probably leave the fan in just in case.
Wouldn't want a fire!

Unfortunately, my binder lost some of its streamlinedness(? I'm celebrating "Can't speak english day") I installed the DVD-ROM drive that I ripped out of my malfuntioning DVD player and stuffed it in the binder I had a negative amount of room to spare. Now there is a rather large hump on the binder. Oh well, at least I can watch DVDs :-[

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Nice work, I thought it was a car pc at one point lol I have a car pc its just a little bit smaller that yours.

Any how nice work

That's very interesting. How long did it take to build it?

If you want something more durable and easier to carry, you might consider a briefcase/suitcase.

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It looks pritty cool. I would actully try to make something like that my self but put it in a briefcase.ÂÂ! ;D

Computwiz

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It took me from about 10:00 o'clock one night until 2 A.M. That includes building it, Installing the OS, adding more hardware, and working out the bugs. It was a lot of fun.

That suitcase PC is a good idea!
I'll try that once I'm done with the Artificial Life project that I'm using the binder PC for.

I do want to upgrade the video card, and add more RAM.

Right now I am using an old GeForce 4 MX 4000 and with a slow CPU it sucks...bad. The problem is that the Mobo has only 2 PCI slots, and no AGP. That means I have to find a semi-powerful PCI card. I'm thinking about the Geforce FX 5200.

Also, does anyone know where I could find really cheap PC133 SDRAM? I want to go from 256MB to 512MB.

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I got a guy with some images of one he did in a metal cd case, lol i would post link but loz mite shoot me

but its good

hey there, seems good enough, although whats up with normal average looking computers?? Are computers in briefcases new fasion?? if so ill have to get mine into one lol, suppose it will take up less space anyway good luck with keepin it goin, hope it doesnt overheat

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Nice. I would put it into a suitcase/briefcase though, because they're more durable.

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