**The LGR Computer Build Project: A Journey of Trial and Error**

As I sat down to begin building this computer, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. With all the weird voltages and potential hazards lurking around every corner, I knew that something could go terribly wrong at any moment. "Double, triple check everything," I told myself, as if that would guarantee success. And yet, despite my best efforts, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in for a wild ride.

As I powered on the system, I was greeted with a litany of frustrations. The display screen remained dark and unresponsive, and the various components relied on software to function properly. "Silly," I muttered to myself, shaking my head in amusement. But as I delved deeper into the system, I began to realize that some of these issues were more serious than I had initially thought. For example, the air conditioner unit was blowing hot air out, rather than cooling it down - a design flaw that seemed laughable now.

Despite the numerous missteps and mishaps, I couldn't help but be charmed by the quirky nature of this build. The Kingwin fan controller, in particular, had won me over with its cheap construction and functional design. "Pretty neat to look at and touch," I exclaimed, running my hand over its sleek surface. But as I continued to explore the system, I began to realize that it was more than just a pretty face - it required a functioning computer to truly come alive.

Speaking of which, I had been planning to use Windows XP for this build, but I wasn't entirely convinced. "I want to get this video out this week," I told myself, but the reality of my situation soon set in. The computer parts that I needed had not yet arrived, and I was faced with a daunting task: creating a system from scratch.

As I pondered my options, I couldn't help but feel a sense of frustration. What kind of hardware would be best suited for this build? Should I use existing components or repair those that were on hand? The more I thought about it, the more complicated things seemed to become. "Anything that fits all that criteria is inside of an existing build already, or it needs repair, and then that's gonna take longer than I have," I lamented.

But despite my reservations, I was determined to push forward. After all, this was a project that I had been dreaming about for some time now - and I wasn't about to let it slip through my fingers due to lack of planning or foresight. As I sat down at my desk, laptop open in front of me, I began to brainstorm ideas for the build. "What kind of system you'd like to see built in here" was a question that kept popping up in my mind.

And so, with a sense of purpose and determination, I set off on the next stage of this project - designing a system that would meet my needs, both functional and aesthetically pleasing. It wouldn't be easy, but I was ready for the challenge.

**The Cigarette Lighter Conundrum**

As I continued to tinker with the build, I couldn't help but think about one particular component: the cigarette lighter. "This thing still scares me," I admitted to myself, recalling the incident in which it had started lighting up without warning. The resulting smell of plastic was a clear indication that it was overheating - a design flaw that I would need to address if I wanted this build to be safe and functional.

"Leaving that part unplugged whenever I take it out in public," I decided, as a temporary solution. "It's a bit of a hazard." But despite my best efforts to mitigate the risk, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss. The cigarette lighter seemed like an unnecessary addition to this build - and yet, it had become an integral part of its design.

**The Future of LGR**

As I worked on this project, I couldn't help but think about what the future held for my YouTube channel, LGR (Little Guy Reviews). With a focus on reviewing vintage computers and computer parts, I had built up a loyal following over the years - and I was eager to continue pushing the boundaries of what was possible.

But as I looked around at this build, I realized that there were still many questions to be answered. What kind of system would be best suited for LGR? Should I stick with Windows XP, or explore other options like 2000 or Vista? The more I thought about it, the more complex things seemed to become.

Despite my reservations, I was determined to see this project through to its conclusion. And as I sat down at my desk, laptop open in front of me, I began to brainstorm ideas for the future of LGR. "What would you like to see in here? Running in here in terms of a system?" I asked myself, as I pondered the possibilities.

Only time would tell what the future held for LGR - but one thing was certain: this build had been an unforgettable journey, full of twists and turns that would stay with me for a long time to come.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enY'all ready for some nonsense?!Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing,a project that I've been wanting to dofor years now, honestly.And it's all finally startedto come together in termsof parts and components,and this case in particular.Yeah, what we're gonna be doingis building a kind of oddware museum,consisting of allthe 5 1/4 inch weird drive bay itemsthat I've covered here on LGRand LGR Oddware, and yeah,many of of which you have seen before,and several you haven't.I just haven't had anythingto do with 'em yet,or maybe they just haven't gotten aroundto having a video madeabout them or whatever.But we're gonna stick asmany as possible in here,and making that happenis this wonderful case from 2008.This is an Antec Twelve Hundreda big old beast of a full tower casehousing twelve 5 1/4 inch drive bays,pretty ideal for thiskind of project I hope.And yeah, this is the original versionof the case from 2008,there were later ones with updated ports,and fans, and whatnot.But the version one here cost $170in the summer of 2008,when it hits store shelvesor at least the store shelvesthat were big enough to hold this beast.I actually had the Three Hundredfrom Antec in 2008 myself,which was a mid-tower casewith nine 5 1/4 inch drive bays,but I pretty much just left them as-is,I didn't really use them,I mostly just left the fans in place,and there were lots of front fans includedon the Twelve Hundred here too,but I've already removed them,during the cleaning process.And yet the cleaning, thiscase really needed it,it's a black case so, you know,the dirt doesn't showup like super vividly,but it had like a decadeof caked-on fingerprint, grime,and dust, and other residuefrom whoever owned thisbefore I bought it online.And yeah, just gave ita thorough wipe downas well as dusting,and I just went through this thing outsidetook it all apart,blew all the crap outta the airthat was easy to get out,but like I said, it wasall this caked-on grime,so it took a bit of scrubbing aroundand brushes just to loosen everything up.Thankfully though thesecases always had reallygood airflow in my experience,so dust doesn't really cake up in oneor two spots so much as it does,just kind of everywheregets a layer of it.But at least air is constantly flowingall the way through the thing.I mean, there are multiplefan assembly blocksin the front of the casethat came pre-installed from the factory,as well as a massive 200 millimeter fan,up at the top of the case.So even though cooling isn'treally my biggest concernwith this project, eh,you know, it's here.Alongside multiple drive cagesfor 3 1/2 inchand 5 1/4 inch sized drivesall of which I'm gonna be removing,because I want to use every single oneof those drive baysfor stupid oddware drive bay things.In fact, I was really temptedto not use this case for this project,and just find like oneof those big CD/DVD duplicatortowers, or server tower,or some other thing witha ton of drive bays,and just like put my dreamWindows XP PC build in hereand swap that out from the other case.But I mean it's just sobig, and I don't know,we're gonna use it for this,because there are justtoo many interesting oddware thingsthat I've been wanting to put to use,and dang it, it's time.So here's the thing, as for this build...well, I had some choices to make,and challenges to meet in termsof what exactly we'regonna be doing with this,like, not only the devices,I'm gonna be fillingthese drive bays up with,but like, am I gonnaput a computer in here?I mean, I want to eventually,that is the plan,but I don't need to do so immediately,not to get everythingin there and powered on.For that, all I need isa power supply really,and so I've gotthis EVGA 850 watt semi-modular supply,something I got on sale a while back,and it should haveenough power connectionsfor what we're doing,at least with adapters,definitely gonna have to be usingsome SATA to Molex things'cause a lot of these areolder drive bay devices.The other concern is the rear slotsin the back of the case,I believe there's only seven,and there's obviouslymore drive bay thingsthat we're putting in here than that,and a lot of them do haverear brackets with them.So, I don't know if I'mgonna have room enoughfor all of the rear brackets, we'll see.Eh, that's enough of the preamble though.Let's just get straightinto the parts selectionand then into the build,which is, I don't know what we're doing,but it is gonna be fun.As for the 5 1/4 inch partsfor our Tower of Oddware Power,there were a lot of thingsthat I could choose from,lots and lots of fan controllers,and various cooling-relateddevices, water reservoirs,of course, tape backupdrives, optical drives,removable hard disk drives, and such,lots of bizarre and obsoletemedia formats of all kinds,and all sorts of just drawersand little stowaway thingswhich are interesting, sort of,but they're also kind of boringfor this particular project.And of course card readersand USB, FireWire, and other I/O interfaces,there are endless numbers of those,but that's all too pedestrian,I was really thinkingstuff along the linesof the drive bay CRT by STS,which I've covered before,and unfortunately do not own.I was only borrowing it for that one videoand then I sent it back,so unfortunately that's not somethingthat we're gonna be able to put in here.But that's the idea, you know,stuff that looks flashy overeverything else, you know,that's the priority, justa variety of aesthetics.And on that note,so the first one that I've chosenis the most recent to havebeen covered here on LGR,at the time of recording, that isthe Cooler Master MusketeerIII vacuum tube, VU meter,volume control, headphone output thingwith a rather underwhelmingresult in terms of audio.But again, that's notreally my priority here,I just want an awesome looking towerfull of awesome looking stuff,and what is more awesomelooking than vacuum tubesand analog VU meters,this will be great.Next up, is another I've covered on LGR,a lot of these I've covered on LGR,and we'll probably cover in the future tooif I haven't already, but yeah,the NewQ Gold,I have always enjoyedthe way this thing lookswith its VFD,looks like a car head unit kind of thing.In fact a lot of these looklike they could go ona car but they don't,they're 5 1/4 inch drive bay things.And yeah this is, uh. Looksgreat, had to have it!And here's one that Iactually haven't covered yet,and this is the Veris, uh, what is this?It's the Antec Veris, yeah,Multimedia Station Premier.And this is another thing that lookslike a vehicle head unit deal,but it actually takes uptwo five and a quarter inch drives,and just look at that,I haven't actually unboxed this,I think it's actuallymaybe still sealed, yeah,awesome looking, I hope,definitely the aestheticI'm going for though,naturally with all this audio stuff,I mean we gotta go with a Plusdeck 2cthe cassette tape drive for your computer,another one I've covered on LGR.And not only does itlook awesome, but yeah,it lets you play cassette tapes.See my video for in-depthdemonstration of this,and many of these othersis not really gonna be goinginto detail of any of these.We're just gonna get 'em in thereand make this tower look amazing.And of course, I mean, look,we have to go with a Thermaltake Xray.Or at least that's whatI was going to say,until I recently got this one herewhich is the same thing made by Sunbeaminstead of Thermaltake,and instead of having the beverage traythe drawer that pops out there,in addition to the cigarettelighter DC power thing,this one right here,has a drawer specificallymade for cigarettes,yeah, uh it's ribbedand everything to holda layer of cigarettes,it's just an amusing thing.I've covered this over an LGR Blerbs,it's just, it's thesame thing as the Xray,just even sillier in my opinion.Another Thermaltake devicewe gotta put in hereis the Circle Fire withthat Guy Fieri look to it,and the glowing, kind of VUI mean, I don't reallywanna call 'em VU meters,it calls them that,but they're not reallythey're just terrible.And it has a speaker in therefor putting your audiothrough and some LEDs.I mean this is just one of those thingsthat dances around withcolors and it's stupid,and the sound it puts out is terrible,and that's entirely fine for this.The stupider the better, right?Likewise with the CoolerMaster Musketeer 2,another one of thosedancing VU meter thingsthat doesn't really dowhat it should, if I recall,I don't know, it doesn't really matter.Also has a hard disk activityindicator there in the middle,but yeah, two meters on the side,and different lightingcolors you can choose from,and some switches.Switches and knobs are always welcome.Not that too many ofthese actually have them,but this one does have a little switchand a little knob on there,this is the Easyconnections.comMinisubwoofer.And yeah, you know, it's a thing,it's not very flashy to look at,but it does provide some soundthat is actually betterthan the Circle Fire,and even better than the stereospeaker twin sound thing.So I figured I'd use thisinstead of the twin sound,I don't know, likehaving a subwoofer insideof 5 1/4 inch drive bay is sillierto me than just plain old speakers.And being a sucker for displays,I had to go with this right here,this is a SilverStone SST-FP54,it has a VFD going on here, and yeah,got a dot matrix thing,I think you could program itto just show a number of different things.Another one that I've actually not openedor set up before,so hopefully we can get it going,I don't know, maybe itwill work, maybe it won't,but it looks like it will look awesome.As does this thing which is admittedly oneof the more, eh, boringin terms of what it does,it's just a touchscreen fan controller,but look at that display, I don't know,I just think alongsideall the other things thatthat will stand out a bit.I've never actually pluggedthis in or hooked it up,I don't even know if we're gonna plugin fans to it or anything like that,I mean, it's just here to look neat.And then at this point Istart running into, well,not running out of ideas,but running into some interesting choices,like, what else do Istill wanna put in here?I think I've still gota couple of bays left.Well, one of them that I choseis this Evercool PersonalComputer Air Conditioner?Uh. Yeah...Never used this!I don't know how in the heckthis is supposed to work,it seems like just a glorified fan,but the design is interesting,and maybe I'm wrong, Ithink this is supposedto be cooling your computeras opposed to you, right?That's what I'm gettingfrom this vague packagingand product name.And so since I may swap one of these out,not sure yet, I havean optional 13th choiceI might go with in the endif something goes wrong,one of these classics,a Creative Labs Creative Live!Drive IR and audio interface thing.I believe this is for, well,it's probably one of the Audigy cards,or one of the Sound Blaster Live! cards,I don't actually remember,I've got the other stuffthat goes with it somewhere,but yeah, you saw all kinds of these typeof things on various,especially Creative Labscards back in the day,this one also adds infrared though,in addition to knobs,and inputs, and outputs,and MIDI, and all kinds of things,as opposed to doingsomething that's like thiswhich is just adding infraredin a five and a quarter inch drive bay,which is pretty cool in its own right.Yeah, you've got that plus more,and you know more is, yeah,is what I'm doing!So yeah, this is our dozen stupid thingswe're gonna put in thisstupid case, potentially,I don't know, this might be more stupidthan I realize and we mightswap out some of thesefor other thingsif I don't like how they go in there,or maybe they just,they don't work at all,some of these are untested, I don't know,I've got a lot morefive and a quarter inch drivebay items hanging around.So this is a subject to change,this is what I'm sayingthroughout this video,so whatever!Let's just start stickingstuff in the caseand see what we get!Hm. Interesting, it'sgot one of these bracketsfor putting a larger power supply in thereif you want, but eh,we just got a normal one.So, plenty of outputs therefor our various cables,but a lot of Molex isgonna be involved here,so no doubt gonna need some adapters.Of course, we'll need someway to actually power it on,beyond just grantingit power from the wall,you know, you'll typically initializethat by pressing the softpower button on your casewhich is then routed to the motherboardand that's powered through here.And while there aredifferent options availablefor doing that,and I think we're gonnago with one of these,which should make it very straightforward,instead of just shorting pins or whatever,we actually have this that goes to hereand there we go, we don'tneed to actually plug ina motherboard or anything.Plus it's just satisfying.All right.This gives usone, two, three, four, fivefull size 4-pin Molexand the rest is all SATA,and we got the one floppy.All right, we're gonna beusing a bunch of adapters.Okay, quick power test.Nice.Which one of these devices we put in firstis the question now?Hmm, I might like this up top,still never actually opened this thing upor seen it in action.A nifty remote.It is a very lightweight,cheap plasticky kind of thing.The heck is with the screen?That's just like a mirror.Yeah, that's that's just amirror, what in the world?I was not expectingthe whole vanity situation, okay.Huh, so we've got multiplepower sources here,power switch, motherboardpower, first power.Figures, I'll probably pickthe most complicatedone to start off with.Wow, what the heck?Okay, this is incredible and so sillyat the same time.It's leaching power off of pins six, sevenand nine, nine though,that's the five volt standby.So it's got regular five volts,but also controlling thestandby which goes in here,you're just supposed to be ableto control your computerthrough this remote control,and I guess it really wants youto have all of that.So this just goes inbetween your power supplyand the motherboard.And then you've alsogot this other one here,gets a pass through for your power switchon your computer case.And then this guy, plugthis pass-through in here,and then that just goesto your motherboardand gets your communications,it's just a couple of data linesand ground and voltage.Really, this is justusing plus five volts,but also it wants to stand by.I mean I guess we don'treally have to do that,we could just plug it in whatever way,but let's just put it in the pass-through.I promise these won't all take this longto get installed,I just wanna see thisthing power on.I'm just curious about that.Oh my, I haven't even...Okay, it just powered on, didn't it?Yeah, I haven't evenpowered anything on yet,it's plugged in but...All right,Anyway, look at this thing,that mirror makes it so very hard to see,but it's fascinatingto look at regardless.Okay, everything's powered off,it's not even plugged into the wall,we're still getting power,come on capacitors do your thing.Oh, finally powered itself offafter 30 seconds or soof being unplugged from everything.First one in.Look at that,that's the mirror is so stupid.All right, let's do theridiculous air conditioner.What we got here?It's a fan header,at least that feels lubricated,anyway, guess I'm gonna use oneof these three pin to Molex.Ah, let's see, feels like weshould have some speakers,let's do the Circle Fire.Oh yeah, I forgot,this thing is really dumb.I'm not even gonnabother with that for now,let's just plug in power.This is just gonna be a mess.Okay, well this is coming together.Why not do something silver here,we got the Cooler Master Musketeer IIIAll of these drive thingsand not an ounce of usability.Let's just put the other Musketeerunderneath the Musketeer.I totally forgot about all this.Everything about this isgonna scream fire hazardby the time I'm done.Both the Cooler Master things arelike totally different silvers,how annoying is that?Just not gonna look at it,not gonna look at it behind the curtain.Can't put it off any longer,we're gotta go with the tape deck.Ah, thank goodness,just got that one ribbon cable goingfrom the back to the front,instead of like 15 audio cables in serialand whatever else, somuch simpler, heck yeah.Always satisfying to see this installed,no matter how many times I do it.Cassette and a PConto the SATA adapters.An elegant solution fora more civilized age.All right, let's do this thing,I've also never opened or used.Mm, well, isn't that neat?And also it might be the most useless onewithout a computer to plug it into.So this uses a parallel cableand then this is both for data and power.Look at all the coolcrap you can do though,it'll show you your system information,CPU model, speed, memory capacity, WinAmp,display, song title, playtime,your network stats, super cool.That'll be awesome to use someday.All right, let's do thisfan controller deal.I've never used this myself,but I did purchase it used.Which way's up, which way is down?Yeah, logo on the left.I wonder if I could plug itinto the stupid air conditioner'cause that does use a fan header.I hope it looks cool,because man it feels like total garbage.All right, it's time for cigarettes,not really, just time for the thing.Yeah, NewQ time,haven't had this thing out in years.Predates the MegaluminumMonster and everything.It's another one thatuses a 10 pin connectorfor the audio and data.And what are we up to now in termsof brackets, five, six?Lost count.So I won't even needthis other set of cables'cause we just have twomore things to plug in, so.Last but probably least,we have the subwoofer piece of junk,I mean, you know, it's a little betteras just a regular speaker than a sub.Oh yeah, there we go.It is done.This nonsense,it's finally reality.At least the partwhere there's just a whole bunchof hardware in one case.12 distinctly silly devicesthat is an incredible sight in person.Well, now, there is of course allthe back bracket stuff,which I'm not too overly concernedwith at the moment,since we don't even havea computer in there,and of course I just needto check all of the power.Just double, triple check everything,'cause man, there's weirdvoltages everywhere,talk about a, oh, ahazard waiting to happen.I'm gonna check out all that stuffand be back shortly.All right, just a power test here,went and checked over everything,it seems to be all connected up,sort of properly,so before I get it fully assembledlet's just power this sucker on.Oh, okay.Oh my goodness,it's all powered on.This is so silly.Of course we don't get a displayor any kind of interactivityfrom everything,'cause a number of them relyon the computer where, you know, software,so nothing from that SilverStone bit,and the cassette deck,that also needs software to work.But the rest of this, yeah man,this is so dumb.Speaking of dumb,yeah, that that air conditioner thingthat is blowing out, not intaking,and then blowing in or anything,it's I guess supposed to cool you off,just pointing downward?What he is he's supposed to be just,'cause he could feel it here,but not here, you can feel it right here,but that's about it.So it's just sucking hot air,from your computer on the inside,and pushing it out?I don't know, I guess that kind of,I'm confused by it.And despite the terriblycheap constructionthis Kingwin fan controller dealis pretty neat to lookat and touch and stuff.Man, I really wish I had a computer readyto put in here.I wasn't planning on doing that, not yet.I think Windows XP wouldwork for everything,because a lot of theseare platform agnosticor whatever, but the onesthat do require software,I believe XP is probably the way to go.I really want this to work.I want a lot of these things to workthat aren't currently functioning.And on that note, I think I'mgonna end this video here,even though I really don't want to.The reason being that as coolas this is to just messaround with on its own as is,it clearly needs the computer sideof things to really makethe most out of everything,or even use some of these deals at all.And I'm left at kind ofa weird position here,just as somebody makingYouTube videos, right?Because, I want to getthis video out this week,I didn't have one lastweek, I was out of town,and the computer parts thatI was gonna put in herehave not yet arrived,I was really counting on themarriving over the weekend,or before, preferably,but they still haven't.And so I kind of just needto like just put this out there,and then get your thoughts, like,may as well, right?What would you like to see in here?Running in here in terms of a system?Windows XP is kind ofideal, but maybe 2000.I think the software for this, this,and this will also work in 2000,but maybe Vista, I don't know.I'm obviously leaning more towards XP,but what kind of hardware?Like I said, I've gotsomething on the way,but I also have thingshanging around here.The thing is though,and I would just go aheadand use what I have,everything of that erathat would make sense for this,because it's gotta have serial,it's gotta have parallel,it's gotta have USB,and preferably integrated graphics,so we're not not taking up anyof those slots in the back,yeah, anything that fits all that criteriais inside of an existing build already,or it needs repair,and then that's gonnatake longer than I have.You see what I mean?I'm just in a weird spot.So anyway, lemme know you thoughts.I'm curious because my plan isto take this out places,like vintage computer festivals,and things like that,wherever I have like anLGR table exhibit thingset up so people can just mess aroundwith all of this,except maybe the cigarette lighter.This thing still scares me.In fact, I had this,I accidentally bumped into it,and it just sort of started lighting up,I started smelling a bit of plastic.I think it's heating up this Kingwin thinga bit too much.So I might have to shiftthat around.I'm just gonna leave that part unpluggedwhenever I take it out in public,it's a bit of a hazard.Anyway, still more work to do on this,lemme know your thoughtsas it is right now,or maybe some other thingsthat you'd prefer to see swapped out with,something else stupid,in terms of drive bay items.And, yeah, what kind of system you'd liketo see built in hereand the follow up video,that I guess we're doing.And as always, thanks for watching.\n"