Recase an Acer Aspire X1700 X1800 desktop PC

Once upon a time I bought and Acer Aspire X1800 (basically the same as X1700). It seemed a good idea at the time. Now it would be a low end+ capable PC.
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300
- 4 GB Ram, 1 TB HDD, DVD drive.
- Nvidia 9500GT graphics card
- lots of USB 2 ports, firewire, eSata, serial, Realtek audio.
- PCIe x1 expansion slot

Good 2nd PC but:
- VERY cramped. No room for extra fan cooling.
- HDD and Graphics card have very little ventilation and get very hot! The graphics card is shoved up against the top of the case.
- Vertical mounted DVD unit sounds like a jet engine
- Difficult to get at the HDD
- low power (220W) PSU starting to make noises. Didn't meet eXtreme PSU calculator minimal rating.

One partial solution to the heat - take the side off and use a fan

With moderate effort I took it apart and moved it across to a Thermaltake V4 with 450W PSU. Cost me $73. Added a PCie x1 sata card (<$30). Added a 128 GB SSD with the 1 TB HDD.

Side by side comparison


May be able to use the PCIe slot for a USB 3 or extra sata port card?????

Hello ge2champ,
1) Pull the sata and power cables from the DVD/HDD cradle
2) When you open the front flip door you will see two Philips screws holding the cradle. You need a Philips type screw driver. You can carefully remove the complete front flip door. You will also need to unplug the connector for the front panel LEDs and power switch.
3) Again Philips type screws need to be removed that hold the DVD and HDD in place. Remove the HDD with a little care not touching the circuit board because of electrostatic damage.

I have the X1700 service manual but can't upload it because it is a 8.7MB PDF. I also can't locate a link. The X1700 is virtually identical to the X1800.

I will comment that the recasing keeps temps way down from the little box. The DVD horizontally mounted is quite! You can add a PCIex1 card to give you say USB3 or other Sata ports.

The front panel connector to the Motherboard will need to be directly connected with the new case connectors.

Can you send me please the pdf file using email? My email is *** thank you so much for the help and sorry for the trouble.

I found a link
https://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1012961757.pdf
I suggest you delete your personal email.

Glad to be of help. My son uses the recased system and runs the odd game or two (!!!!!!!) without overloading the PSU and frying the graphics card. With the higher rated PSU you could easily upgrade the graphics card.

This is practically the same machine as I have,
I've been thinking of doing this for mostly the same reason photo shop 3d features,
It's one thing to think about it but you have pictures of it
Wickedly cool,
I've never had any overheating issues though ?
Cheers.