hmmm

I actually did need to take a hacksaw to a Dell case when the PSU died, because they used a proprietary form factor. It was just removing some of the back panel and it worked fine.

Once upon a time I think they also had custom pinouts on the ATX connector, so just replacing your PSU with a standard one would fry your mobo
- What a bunch of assholes.
- They did, I was about to say the same thing! I had to buy an adapter to make it work right. This was like mid to late 2000's. I work in IT for a company and didn't want to spend money on a new PC yet so I snagged one from work that was no longer used. It got the job done, but yeah it was crazy to see what they did to make it so you couldn't swap or change some things inside.
- Yeeeep. I did this. Very disheartening after spending the time with a Dremel to modify the back panel enough for it to fit.

Reminds me of when I made a pc as a media center for my roommates out of old spare pc parts and the box that their xbox360 came in.

Had to turn it on by using a paper clip to short the right two pins, lol.

to short the right two pins
That's the core principle of how switches work. You have done everything right.
Legit badass. "Hotwire the PC so we can watch a movie!"
You know, you could have run down to the electronics store and bought an actual button for those pins. Still, that sounds like a fun build.
I test-"built" my first gaming pc with all the parts laying on my bed.
The only computer parts store within cycling distance just put returned parts back on the shelf, so there was about an 80% chance at least one part you bought was dead out of the box.
Later I remembered that that's possible, and built a gaming rig with all parts mounted openly on the wall behind my desk.

If it's stupid and it works...

"Tech hack"
So it isn't stupid anymore, but they could just find a random full size pc case somewhere and use it instead of this.
- It's an OEM motherboard and it may not be a normal standard. The PSU isn't normal either so it wouldn't fit most *ATX cases. Plus, free is free.

Done something similar when my CPU cooler didn't fit the HP case

- I don't know why but this has me rolling. Genuinely had to catch my breath.
- Is that some kind of blade server? Doesn’t that make it like not rack with other blades?
- That probably worked way better than having it in a thermally constrained environment.
- So .. you have to remove your CPU cooler to open the case? That does not look very convenient.
- I guess airflow is airflow, don't matter which way
Like a hotrod?
- Exactly!
Yup, the back plate for my CPU cooler wouldn't fit because of some weird struts my case has, so I cut open the case, just enough to fit it.

It's a Dell Outieplex.

Lol, nice one
This makes more sense. I worked with those so much

Literally thinking outside the box.

This is the dude I'd turn down any 1v1 Starcraft matches against at the lan party.

I have enough money for an angle grinder and a new used graphics card. But not a fancy new case.

With prebuilds like this a lot of times you can't just change the case without also changing the motherboard. Also they could have an angle grinder just laying around. They may even have done it on purpose for the lulz.
- I actually just upgraded my Dell Optiplex 990 SFF to a new full ATX case and had to get a new motherboard. Dell does some funky stuff to their motherboard to get it to fit into their custom cases. For instance the CPU cooler clipped into the case through the motherboard This was one of the ways the motherboard was secured into the case. The other mount points were entirely non-standard so no other case would fit. I did consider making some modifications to the case with a hacksaw before deciding to just get a new case and motherboard. The new Motherboard was pretty cheap because I was using a 4th-gen intel i3. Not great specs but good enough for a homebrew NAS.
- Yes, from experience, yes. But I used a pair of tin snips.

"Think outside the box."

Why even bother putting the side cover back on? I left mine open for years.

maybe pet hair? dust? maybe they get laid?
- You're talking about three different things, right? ... right?
- They're a pc gamer, they sure as shit ain't getting laid.
Probably sound mitigation
Fuckin' eh. My power supply is slung out the side to make room for a video card, with the case panel resting askew on top all perched on a milk crate. Like a slasher flick autopsy.
- I did this, except in a cardboard box, plugged into an outlet with no ground, and using it to mine cryptocurrency. Somehow I didn't burn down my apartment.

"Dude, you're getting a DELL."

~~getting~~ gutting (or cutting)

The hole in the side is a speed-hole. It makes the computer go faster.

How did you get a picture of my PC!?

I joke...I at least 3d printed a cover for the card lol

That PLA is melting as we speak.
- Pet-G brah, only the good stuff

It was such a good deal bro I had to buy it! 😂

If you’re on a budget and it works…

I know a guy who spent hundreds of extra dollars on his build to make sure everything was white. I think maybe I prefer this?

Judge not…

I might judge a little.

The Ryzen 7 5700G can get hot.

I call it DeskMiniMax.

Slightly related: You remember back when cases would have little grommets for water cooling lines because the reservoir and/or the tank would be external to the PC case?

PSU popping noises and smoke...

although a joke, usually oem psus are fairly high efficiency, just low wattage. however the image uses a gpu without a 6/8/12 pin connector, so its highly unlikely the up to 75W load would kill the system when the psus are usually rated for 200, and the cpu usually only uses 1/4 of that

I admit to doing stuff like this to Dells and no-name cases. 😂 It's usually to fit a more common standard PSU though. One time, I put the power supply in the 5 1/4" bay and flipped the rear fans.

I kind of think more designs should be like that. Let the GPU breathe cold air from outside the case.

There were a lot of experiments with wind tunnels and such back in the day. In the end, the difference wasn't significant enough to justify the R&D.
- ??? You don't wind tunnel test for thermals. That's for aerodynamics. It's well known that a GPU outside of a case runs cooler than inside.
  It's why cases are tested by putting a GPU inside and reporting the thermals at idle and load. It is significant.

I did this a number of years back with a GTX 750ti... because that was the last good card that ran without a dedicated power supply connection.

Even if you rigged a power connector, it's be damn hard trying to keep a modern card stable with the 250w-325w power supply in the Optiplix

Winning. So much wow!

Noice.

This looks like a Basic Bitch® office workstation. Surely you could put the same graphics card in a price-comparable gaming rig without having to resort to this...

A basic bitch office workstation is like $20 at a garage sale to $150 from a refurb shop with a Windows license. Cutting the case is twenty minutes for template and cut.
Nothing fiscally competes with these.
Most likely. I "reassigned" an old work Dell Optiplex to play about with Linux a few years back, and it didn't like whatever onboard graphics chipset was on the board. I bought an inexpensive GeForce card... not realising that it would end up looking like this bad boi, and that I had to buy a low-profile card.

plugged in US power outlets with reversed pins (so 110 volts now runs through the metal case
PC power supplies don't work the way you think they do.
- I think OC has a case of the Kruger peak...
  ATX power supplies are literally some of the safest power supplies to exist, and a GFCI breaker would prevent this scenario from even happening IMO lol
- Where exactly do you think the middle pin from power outlet goes?
  If not to ground the metallic husk, then the third pin is useless there. It's there with a purpose: it's meant to ground, generally (present at the best of electrical house infrastructures) going all the way to a buried copper rod that creates a short circuit with the ground present when someone is touching the metallic husk. Also, in US, IIRC (I'm from Brazil so I don't know the US electric system so well, although old Brazilian outlets are inspired by US outlets) they have GFCI (Ground fault circuit interrupter): if GFCI detects flowing energy at the ground, the outlet shuts off, protecting people from electrical shock.
  However, on many houses, neither GFCI nor proper ground is present. Some houses (it's common in Brazil with older outlets inspired by the US outlet) route ground wire to the "neutral", be it on the outlet, be it on a DIY extension cord. The latter will allow for neutral to be plugged into phase, so ground will be phase as well. From there, I guess I don't need to detail what happens if someone touches a phased ground. Zap!
  In Brazil we have a different kind of outlet, one with a specific shape (inspired by the Swiss power outlet) that won't let us plug reversely. With these outlets, phase goes to phase, ground to ground and neutral to neutral. Old houses still have the US-based outlet, tho.
3-prong plugs (which computers use) have never been possible to insert upside down, and 2-prong plugs have been required to be polarized (one blade longer than the other, so impossible to insert upside down) since 1962. Aside from this, all voltage rails in a computer are electrically isolated from both sides of the mains. Most connect their 0V rail to the ground pin of the wall outlet, but there is no path from the AC lines to the DC. Touching a PC case has a 0% chance of electrocuting you.
Regarding the graphics card, one side is covered by the fan shroud and the other by the backplate. No part of the bare PCB is exposed to the chassis. Even if it was, there is more than enough clearance to keep anything from shorting out, and if there isn't, a piece of foam is all it takes to fix that.