Project Amplify - Living room gaming sleeper
Crummy old amplifier or 4K gaming beast?
Lore
A decade or so ago I acquired this 1977-ish Lenco A50 amplifier, it was in sad shape when I got it and needed a lot of repairs to sound good again. I put it in storage with the idea of eventually repairing it, which of course never happened.
To give you an idea of how sad of a shape this thing was in: three of the four power transistors were blown, many transistors in the preamp stage were gone, the main PCB had heat damage and was starting to delaminate and many traces/pads were just gone thanks to botched repair attempts made by previous owner(s).
Fast-forward to 2022, that's when I built a gaming PC with (for the time) some okay parts in it. I used it for a bit, then priorities shifted and it became disused. I realized that gaming behind a desk just isn't my jam anymore, I much rather enjoy my games in the living room on the big screen TV.
Recently I stumbled upon this amplifier and got an idea: why don't I just transplant the guts from my disused gaming PC into this chassis and turn it into the ultimate sleeper PC for the living room? So that's exactly why I did.
This particular amplifier model isn't some coveted HiFi heirloom from a bygone era, it's just an average amp with a cool looking faceplate. I didn't feel too bad about repurposing the chassis for something else.
Specs
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
- AMD Radeon 6900 XT (Asus TUF edition)
- Asrock B550M-ITX/AC
- Corsair 32 GB DDR4 kit
- Kingston 2 TB M.2 SSD
- EVGA Supernova 750 GT
- Noctua NH-L12Sx77 low profile CPU cooler
- Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm case fan (assisted by two additional 120mm fans in the AV cabinet)
Build process
Here are a few excerpts from the build, I posted a detailed build log on the LTT forums (link).
Bottom air intake for the CPU cooler with 3D-printer shroud and bracket for the riser cable
Motherboard fitted on M3 all thread rods
Top view with PSU and faceplate fitted
Rear IO with 3D-printed panels to fit USB/antenna extensions and an Ethernet keystone coupler
Front panel wiring: the original knobs, switches, and VU meters are wired to two Arduino's.
Debugging the firmware for my PC case
Result
Power cord plugs in on the side (where the PSU exhausts)
To power on the PC you just put the power switch in the on position, the Arduino then pulses the power pin on the motherboard to start the system. When the power switch is put back in the off position a 10 second countdown starts before the power pin is pulsed again to start the shutdown sequence.
A program in Windows sends system metrics like CPU/memory usage to the Arduino, which then drives the VU meters to make them do something interesting. The knobs and switches adjust the backlight color/brightness and can be used to change how the VU meters respond.
The five red LEDs show different scanning patterns based on the state of the system.
To prevent the system from just recycling hot air I installed two 120mm intake fans in the AV cabinet (that's what the extra plug on the back panel is for). Cooling is adequate, under a typical gaming load both the GPU and CPU hover around 75c.