Ah, my trusty Lian Li PC-7B. Forever immortalized in my "Cooling the MSI K8T Master2-FAR" thread and the nicest case I could find at the time. That computer was great (and for $5k it had better have been; thanks again mom and dad for the awesome graduation present) but over time it's gotten long in the tooth. The rest of that computer has moved on to other things, powering my server and such but I still keep the case (mainly because it was damned expensive.)


But recently, it's been getting tired. The screws holding down the hard drive tray have been reamed and tapped twice now, the front panel connectors are fickle, and the power supply temperature-controlled fan header failed so all four of the high-flo-rate Panaflos are wired directly into the 12V for that hand-vac sound effect. I can't sleep next to it anymore so it gets turned off at night. While that's not so bad, apparently there are some other problems with it because every time I use this machine for VoIP calls on Skype I get complaints like this:

Quoting CBDroege

what the hell is that sound?
are your neighbors upstairs having a trance party again?

Hey, it sounds fine to me (if just a little bit loud.) Aside, that case doesn't come with two 80mm fans on the back; the lower one I put in myself with a 3" hole saw.
But what really threw me was this one:

Quoting primesuspect

drasnor, if that doesn't stop, I can't play anymore (Dungeons & Dragons). Seriously, I'm going to drive down there and punch you!
I'm gonna come across the Internet and punch you in the face!

What the hell do you want me to do about it? These things don't grow on trees and I'm on graduate student stipend income. I'm not terribly concerned about getting punched though because Primesuspect lives 1400 miles from me so until he figures out how to punch me through the Internet I'm safe. Primesuspect, if you do figure out how to punch me through the Internet you should patent that; you'll make a lot more money on it than on the site.


The computer inside the case is a lovely Abit NF7-S 2.0/Athlon XP Mobile box of the sort that gave enthusiasts erections not even 6 years ago. The clearance for that Thermalright SI-97 to the top of the case is about 3mm and I'll admit that I left a little bit of red bodily fluid in there when I had to put that heatsink in as there wasn't clearance to install the heatsink onto the board before sticking it into the case. I had to install the heatsink clip in reverse order (clipping the side with the screwdriver hole first and then pinching down the stiff side with my fingers) because I couldn't get the screwdriver between the PSU and the heatsink. I recently was given a better overclocker of a processor than what I've got in there but I'm not going to switch those out until it's safe to donate blood again.


The mouse I use at home is a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer Optical. This is a pretty great mouse and I'm a bit attached to it since I bought it at the Austin Goodwill Computer Works for five bucks, took it apart and cleaned all the weird smelly bits out of it, and replaced the worn-out pads on the bottom with high-performance adhesive-backed Teflon pads. The previous owner was a hell of a powerscroller though because the scroll wheel is completely detent-less and I know for a fact this mouse doesn't come like that from the factory. Also, the most mouse plaque was found on the scroll wheel. The side buttons and right mouse button are starting to stick a bit but I figure it's probably got a couple thousands clicks left in it. With those Teflon sliders I can get that space program spin-off groove going on my NASA Kennedy Space Center mouse pad.
Aside: While NASA didn't invent Teflon and spin it off to Du Pont, they did raise it to celebrity status buy buying enormous quantities of it.

So while I don't need a new case or mouse per se, it would be nice. It would be even nicer not to have to listen to my D&D group whine about it on Skype anytime I'm playing from home.

-drasnor

P.S. Both of those floppy drives work.