ZG5 nettop build in vintage metal case

The screen on my 160/1.5 ZG5 broke and I decided to put the motherboard into a metal case for photographic slides that I found at goodwill. The case has a much larger volume than the original so an internal 3.5" HDD or optical drive is possible, in my case I don't mind the optical drive being external though. Physically you might be able to fit three or four 3.5" drives if you wanted, since it's high enough that you can stack them in twos. I'm going for something between a nettop and a low-powered media/file server, running windows 7 and possibly equipped with a usb tv tuner at some later point.

Basically at this point nothing is fixed to the case, and the motherboard rests on top of the power supply at one end and the battery at the other, both being conveniently very close to the same height. I've cut out slots in the case for USB, VGA, Ethernet and power so far, using a dremel and hand file. I did a bit of a sloppy job but you mostly can't tell with the cords plugged in. Not quite sure yet where I'm going to place the right-side ports, or how exactly I'm going to fix the components to the case.

Upgrades I'm debating:

USB 2.0 hub(s), three ports just isn't enough if keyboard, mouse, wireless, storage, etc. are all over USB. Dirt cheap but I haven't got around to it yet.

Supplement storage with 3.5" drive(s). Potentially one could be hooked up directly to the SATA port on the motherboard with an extension cable, more likely I'd use USB. Maybe the best combo would be 2.5" SATA SSD for OS etc and 3.5" over USB for bulk file storage. Until I can get a 128 GB SSD for $100 or so I'd probably hold off though.

Put something else in the mini pci express slot. Gigabit and usb 3.0 come to mind. For wireless I'm using a usb adapter to get more range than the stock card. A full-sized PCI express card (x1) could fit in the case, but the adaptors I've seen available are too expensive. Not many people have a use for them so you pay a premium, no thanks. USB 3.0 might actually open up the most options, but again finding a cheap adapter might be difficult due to lack of demand. I'm thinking maybe $40 or less.

Supplementary ventilation. A 2" fan can fit upright in the case so that's a good start. Could be run off the power supply for the 3.5" USB HDD(s).

 

Power supply

Harvested the power supply from a USB to 3.5" IDE enclosure formerly used with an optical drive. It doesn't take up much space and the amperage ratings work out to 21.6 W for the 12v and 7.5 W on the 5v. The combined power would seem to be more than sufficient for two 2 TB WD Green drives at 6 W each, assuming they don't each need to draw more than 3.75 W of that over the 5v line. Intuitively that seems reasonable but I'd want to be sure before hooking up two drives. It'll be fine for running fans and at least one HDD anyway.

The onboard fan controller on the power sort of pulses constantly, seemingly by design. If that varies with temperature it might be pretty useful, otherwise they could be run through the IDE power connector along with the 3.5" HDD(s).



Just now I added some 3/4" tall rubber feet to the bottom of the case for clearance, as a bonus they go with the 1960's A/V theme. Should help with passive cooling, plus it allows for fan(s) on the bottom of the case. Pics to follow.

 

A few months later this is still my primary computer, have been using it with a 21.5" Acer monitor @ 1920x1080 for browsing and movie watching. I tested the setup with a power meter recently and the whole setup uses 30-55 watts depending on monitor brightness, 15 with the monitor off altogether.