Custom Miner Rack Out of an Old Compter Case

I've seen a number of posts recently where people are showing off their custom GPU miner racks. Well back in 2014 when the Antiminer S1 was still state of the art I made a couple of custom racks for them. I started with an old computer case from a long dead system. Probably a 486 or P4. Case was a standard AT case between 17" and 19" high.

Of course that cover wasn't needed the more air the better so of fit goes.

Next rip out everything possible. Old drives, boards, PSU, front cover, drive bays, anything that will come out.

Left with a frame and some riveted in drive bays. Didn't want that solid bottom either. I marked what I didn't want then it was off to the auto mechanic next door with a few beers as payment. Quick cutoff wheel job and we have a nice open frame. Little filing and some hammering to flatten out some remaining pieces sticking in and it's ready.

Next came the miners. Marked where they would mount and drilled some holes. The back was a bit tricky as it was deeper than the miners so I made some custom brackets out of old slot covers. Then it was just a matter of some screws to hold them in.

This case had a removable motherboard panel. Few screws and a latch and you could take the whole board out. Well that panel flipped upside down made a nice place to mount the PSU.

Some wire ties, cat 5 M-F extenders for easy hookup once in the rack mount and there you have it. Custom miner mouth for 19" rack mount cabinet shelf.

It worked out nicely. Was a pain when a blade went bad and I had to disassemble it to send it back but otherwise made things easy. It did become obsolete after a few months though. The S3 came in their own case and it wasn't long before the S1 became too expensive to run. Winter did extend that since I heated my house with them. They did eventually wind up going for scrap though when I sold the miners.

How is this relevant today? Well for all those people putting a lot of time into fancy GPU racks made out of metal or wood here is a simple alternative. Find an old computer case and rip it apart. Can mount a bunch of GPUs in there easily. Don't even need to tear it apart as much as I did for the S1 units. GPUs will fit right in the bays and you can drill the top for even more.