It was time to start work on the case itself. I had to cut holes for all of the peripherals. Here is the picture of the old USB plate I used as a template for the holes for the USB and PS2 riser card. The old AT design meant I could put ports anywhere I wanted or leave them out altogether as they were all on detachable ribbon cables. I kept the USB, VGA and the holes for the expansion cards. In the end I forgot to drill the hole for the keyboard but I never use it as I administer this machine remotely through Windows XP.

The second picture shows the holes cut out using a Wizard (Black and Decker equivalent of a Dremel). The case's sides were made of that really nasty cheap hard-board. Dust went everywhere and it was horrible to work with but eventually I got it looking OK.

I needed a blowhole as well. This I cut into the lid of the case with an 80mm holesaw for an 80mm fan. Well that's what you'd expect except that I actually used the 90mm holesaw. Good one Stu. Luckily the holes for the corners of the 80mm fan still fitted alright. Just looks a bit odd. The thickness of the board meant that I couldn't use my beloved blowhole surround rubber to neaten things up. I also had to scrap the individual holes for the USB ports and cut out one big one and stick the backing plate back on. The wood was too thick for the ports to get through so I had to clear wood out of the way wide enough for any devices to connect to.

Having got all of the holes cut (except the keyboard one which I forgot), it was time to put it all together and hope for the best. The motherboard was wedged in, the hard drive was hotglue gunned to the inside of the lid of the case, as was the PSU's circuit board. The 80mm fan and grill were held in with 4 bolts from theoverclockingstore. Apologies for the poor picture, it was getting dark outside.

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