Building the R2 Toast PC! Vertical Optical Drive Case from 2008
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Date: 2023-04-22
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Comments and reviews: 14
MrGoodBurn
I remember building in this case back when it came out. At that time I was a Computer Systems Engineer for a large company, and had more spare hardware (usually engineering samples) to play with than I knew what to do with. I would build computers in all kinds of oddball cases, play around with them for a wile, and eventually give them away to whoever needed one. This case was a bit frustrating, but it was kind of fun since it was different. Obviously optical drives were more important back then, and were still quite common in most systems. I was thinking it was kind of dumb to have that cover in the front over the drive, but not having it in place with the drive installed. What I did was use some of the white squishy foam double sided tape to attach that cover to the front of the drive tray. I can't remember if I took the cover off the tray first or lowered the drive slightly, but I did get it on there, and it looked much better. It took a little trial and error to get it lined up perfectly so it looked right, and didn't bind while opening and closing, but it's doable. Maybe you can try that on yours as well.
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I remember building in this case back when it came out. At that time I was a Computer Systems Engineer for a large company, and had more spare hardware (usually engineering samples) to play with than I knew what to do with. I would build computers in all kinds of oddball cases, play around with them for a wile, and eventually give them away to whoever needed one. This case was a bit frustrating, but it was kind of fun since it was different. Obviously optical drives were more important back then, and were still quite common in most systems. I was thinking it was kind of dumb to have that cover in the front over the drive, but not having it in place with the drive installed. What I did was use some of the white squishy foam double sided tape to attach that cover to the front of the drive tray. I can't remember if I took the cover off the tray first or lowered the drive slightly, but I did get it on there, and it looked much better. It took a little trial and error to get it lined up perfectly so it looked right, and didn't bind while opening and closing, but it's doable. Maybe you can try that on yours as well.
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Roxor128
Seems that if you want a vertical drive, trying to adapt a tray one via a weird case isn't the best approach. What you'd really want is a push-onto-the-spindle drive, like you got on something like the original Playstation or a portable CD player. You might be able to cram the mechanism of one of those into 3x 5. 25 drive bays with a clear swinging door. Now _that_ would make for a cool-looking optical drive, even though it would take up a lot of space at the front. Still, I guess you could fit a few hard drives behind it, so it wouldn't be that big a sacrifice for the sake of cool. Could make for a nice HTPC machine, especially if you could get a desktop case with 3x 5. 25 drive bays.
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Seems that if you want a vertical drive, trying to adapt a tray one via a weird case isn't the best approach. What you'd really want is a push-onto-the-spindle drive, like you got on something like the original Playstation or a portable CD player. You might be able to cram the mechanism of one of those into 3x 5. 25 drive bays with a clear swinging door. Now _that_ would make for a cool-looking optical drive, even though it would take up a lot of space at the front. Still, I guess you could fit a few hard drives behind it, so it wouldn't be that big a sacrifice for the sake of cool. Could make for a nice HTPC machine, especially if you could get a desktop case with 3x 5. 25 drive bays.
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Elizabeth
After years using ages old second-hand cases for modern hardware to save money and building in cramped, sharp boxes designed for Pentium 4s I finally got a Corsair 4000D Airflow. I had assumed that cable routing paths were for overly fussy builders and that I'd miss having the space for optical drives if I needed them but. goddamn, I cannot go back now. From the weird gimmicky build, huge amount of front space dedicated to bays, lack of airflow, lack of filtering, venting hot air through the PSU, cramped space and ugly Molex adapters this build beautifully exemplifies all the problems with 2000s/early 2010s PCs.
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After years using ages old second-hand cases for modern hardware to save money and building in cramped, sharp boxes designed for Pentium 4s I finally got a Corsair 4000D Airflow. I had assumed that cable routing paths were for overly fussy builders and that I'd miss having the space for optical drives if I needed them but. goddamn, I cannot go back now. From the weird gimmicky build, huge amount of front space dedicated to bays, lack of airflow, lack of filtering, venting hot air through the PSU, cramped space and ugly Molex adapters this build beautifully exemplifies all the problems with 2000s/early 2010s PCs.
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Honey
I'm using the lime green side panel of the R2 toast as my weed tray as of right now, The build quality on that case is one of the worst EVER manufactured, It is not a practical case for everyday wear and tear, it will break, the wire joints are held in with hot glue, the button will break out, the leds will burn out etc. It's a cool looking case, but it's an awful case, with horrible cooling to boot, it's only suitable for a pentium 3. If you even look at it wrong it will dent. If you build a pc with this case, it's best to just leave it as it is, that's how delicate it is.
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I'm using the lime green side panel of the R2 toast as my weed tray as of right now, The build quality on that case is one of the worst EVER manufactured, It is not a practical case for everyday wear and tear, it will break, the wire joints are held in with hot glue, the button will break out, the leds will burn out etc. It's a cool looking case, but it's an awful case, with horrible cooling to boot, it's only suitable for a pentium 3. If you even look at it wrong it will dent. If you build a pc with this case, it's best to just leave it as it is, that's how delicate it is.
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Reid
If it were me, I'd look at the Silverstone SST-FP58 which is a bracket with brushed metal bezel that fits a slot-load laptop drive into a 5-1/4 desktop drive bay. If I couldn't find one, I'd probably fabricate a mounting bracket for the drive and cut a slot into the blanking plate from the Toast case. I'd pair it with an optical drive such as a Panasonic/Matsushita UJ-265, 267, 272. These are slimline slot loading SATA Blu-Ray writers. These have the smaller slim-SATA connector that has a narrower 6 pin power connector, but adapters are cheap, simple, and readily available.
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If it were me, I'd look at the Silverstone SST-FP58 which is a bracket with brushed metal bezel that fits a slot-load laptop drive into a 5-1/4 desktop drive bay. If I couldn't find one, I'd probably fabricate a mounting bracket for the drive and cut a slot into the blanking plate from the Toast case. I'd pair it with an optical drive such as a Panasonic/Matsushita UJ-265, 267, 272. These are slimline slot loading SATA Blu-Ray writers. These have the smaller slim-SATA connector that has a narrower 6 pin power connector, but adapters are cheap, simple, and readily available.
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Dmitriy
Wow, it's amazing to see a video like this! It s even hard to think that someone will come across this rare and strange case. Of my experience of using such a case (which I still have in use, all of a sudden, but why not, not all drives agreed to work in this position, for example, Sony-NEC (Optiarc, which were very common at that time, refused to read discs at all. After sorting through several drives, I settled on Pioneer, which kept the disk in the tray well even without additional retaining stickers and read (and still reads) disks perfectly.
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Wow, it's amazing to see a video like this! It s even hard to think that someone will come across this rare and strange case. Of my experience of using such a case (which I still have in use, all of a sudden, but why not, not all drives agreed to work in this position, for example, Sony-NEC (Optiarc, which were very common at that time, refused to read discs at all. After sorting through several drives, I settled on Pioneer, which kept the disk in the tray well even without additional retaining stickers and read (and still reads) disks perfectly.
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Evandro
I put a slightly older pc (4th gen instead of 7th) in an older case from a pc from 2006, that was actually my main pc last year, with an i7 4790 and R7 265, cable management was simply non-existant, as well as cooling solutions, when I made the upgrade actually got another cheap case, in dollars it would be aprox 10 dollars (count my country money as one fifth the dollar value and five times anything due to taxes, so 100 bucks the case) that still doesn't have cable management due to cheapness
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I put a slightly older pc (4th gen instead of 7th) in an older case from a pc from 2006, that was actually my main pc last year, with an i7 4790 and R7 265, cable management was simply non-existant, as well as cooling solutions, when I made the upgrade actually got another cheap case, in dollars it would be aprox 10 dollars (count my country money as one fifth the dollar value and five times anything due to taxes, so 100 bucks the case) that still doesn't have cable management due to cheapness
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Choralone422
Early to mid 2000's cases were truly something special. There was a LOT of plastic going on at times! That along with cheap, thin, and ultra sharp sheet metal made working on them interesting to say the least! While most cases these days are better made with good cable management as part of the design instead of an afterthought, there are still times when I yearn for a funky looking basic case, especially one in the desktop format!
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Early to mid 2000's cases were truly something special. There was a LOT of plastic going on at times! That along with cheap, thin, and ultra sharp sheet metal made working on them interesting to say the least! While most cases these days are better made with good cable management as part of the design instead of an afterthought, there are still times when I yearn for a funky looking basic case, especially one in the desktop format!
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MrRom92DAW
It s such a cool idea from a design standpoint but I was shocked when I realize this case didn t come with an optical drive meant to stand up like that that s just asking for a bad time! It seems like it would really be hit or miss as to whether it would even fit the case, and also not drop the disc from the tray when oriented like that. One of those drives with a snap-in center would probably be ideal
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It s such a cool idea from a design standpoint but I was shocked when I realize this case didn t come with an optical drive meant to stand up like that that s just asking for a bad time! It seems like it would really be hit or miss as to whether it would even fit the case, and also not drop the disc from the tray when oriented like that. One of those drives with a snap-in center would probably be ideal
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BSD
little tip on that build. Update the bios for the motherboard and drop in an i7 6700 or 7700 then pop in some fans a bit of a better tower cooler and whatever GPU you want and you could have a more powerful emulator / gaming computer. there are cheap RX 580s for under 100 that should easily fit this case and you could run steamdeck os. and if you live near free geek that could be a cool upgrade video idea.
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little tip on that build. Update the bios for the motherboard and drop in an i7 6700 or 7700 then pop in some fans a bit of a better tower cooler and whatever GPU you want and you could have a more powerful emulator / gaming computer. there are cheap RX 580s for under 100 that should easily fit this case and you could run steamdeck os. and if you live near free geek that could be a cool upgrade video idea.
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Cyber
Thank you for the video it was nice to watch it but i have little question, i have the same xbox 360 controller but mine is wireless i bought a usb cable for it but the computer did not want to detect it i want really use the xbox 360 controller who is wireless, i am sure it work nothing is wrong with it can you advice me how shall i do please, and thank you _
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Thank you for the video it was nice to watch it but i have little question, i have the same xbox 360 controller but mine is wireless i bought a usb cable for it but the computer did not want to detect it i want really use the xbox 360 controller who is wireless, i am sure it work nothing is wrong with it can you advice me how shall i do please, and thank you _
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t3hbeowulf
I still have my Auzentech Meridian sound card. It was pretty awesome for the period in that it allowed Dolby Digital Live encoding over SPDIF and Toslink cables on modern windows environments. (e. g. Vista and Windows 7) Windows 10 broke support for these cards, forcing them to default to bog standard c-media drivers, losing that Live encoding feature.
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I still have my Auzentech Meridian sound card. It was pretty awesome for the period in that it allowed Dolby Digital Live encoding over SPDIF and Toslink cables on modern windows environments. (e. g. Vista and Windows 7) Windows 10 broke support for these cards, forcing them to default to bog standard c-media drivers, losing that Live encoding feature.
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lazygamereviews
I'm not going to lie, I didn't get the name at first and was genuinely disappointed that this wasn't an ATX mid-tower PC that had a built-in toaster.
Edit: That solution you came up with to combat the discs falling out was so simple that I'm flabbergasted the manufacturers didn't think of it. Boggles the mind really.
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I'm not going to lie, I didn't get the name at first and was genuinely disappointed that this wasn't an ATX mid-tower PC that had a built-in toaster.
Edit: That solution you came up with to combat the discs falling out was so simple that I'm flabbergasted the manufacturers didn't think of it. Boggles the mind really.
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Tim
Honestly that's kinda lame. (The case, not the video) When I'm thinking about a vertically mounted CD drive on the front what I'd like to see is a special drive where you just snap the disc in place and then have a transparent slieding door to cover it. (Or no door at all) That way you'd see the disc spinning form the front.
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Honestly that's kinda lame. (The case, not the video) When I'm thinking about a vertically mounted CD drive on the front what I'd like to see is a special drive where you just snap the disc in place and then have a transparent slieding door to cover it. (Or no door at all) That way you'd see the disc spinning form the front.
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