Creative X-Fi "Music Creation" Mod

The Bare Essentials

The concept for the Music Creation PC was that it had to represent something which would be instantly recognisable to musicians everywhere. I chose a guitar amplifier as something suitable. The PC had to sport a blue theme, and obviously promote the X-Fi soundcard. The finished PC would be used at trade shows and feature in promotional literature. To this end it had to stand out from other amplifiers.

For those of you who like that sort of thing, here are the system specs:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz processor
  
• ABIT IG-80 motherboard
  
• 1GB Corsair XMS3200 XL low-latency memory
  
• ABIT Radeon X700 Pro graphics card
  
• Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro soundcard
  
• Seagate Barracuda 250GB hard drive
  
• Teac 16x Dual layer DVD/CD-RW drive
  
• Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W power supply

Let us start at the beginning. The case I started with was a brand new uATX case and I really only wanted the motherboard tray. Since the tray was not designed to be removable, the chassis needed to be completely stripped down.



Firstly, the sides came off.



Swiftly followed by the removal of the power supply and the front fascia.



Now I get to use my drill (hurrah!) to remove the rivets holding the chassis together. First to come off is the lid, followed by the rivets inside the case securing the motherboard panel.



The trick to removing rivets is to use the right sized drill bit. Too small, and it will go straight through and not remove the rivet; too large, and you can damage the case.



The rivet head should come off cleanly. Here you can see the removed rivet head on the drill bit. Next to come off are the drive bays.



The chassis base and back were made from the same piece of folded metal, so I bent them straight by hand and then used a pair of tin snips to separate them. (Cut along the dotted line!)

More stripping ahead…