[SOLVED] HP Blackbird 002 Case

[Da18thLetter28]

Is the HP Blackbird 002 case still a viable starting point for a top end build?
I bought an HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition when they first came out and it was a great system for me for quite a few years. After most of the parts in it wore out, it has been sitting in my closet for the past few years. I replaced a few things a long the way to keep it alive, but finally decided to upgrade and bought a new prebuilt Alienware Aurora a while back.
I have been considering building a new high end machine from scratch and thought I might try to repurpose this beast of a case.
Any thoughts on if I should strip it down and build her up nice again?
Any recommendations on where I should start if this is the case I should use?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Is the HP Blackbird 002 case still a viable starting point

depends on the type of case.

the majority of HP, Dell, Compaq, etc prebuilt systems use proprietary power supplies, motherboards, and other components that do not comply with standard sizes/connections so most of them cannot be upgraded with 3rd party aftermarket hardware.

Any recommendations on where I should start..?

your budget and your intended use for this system will be the determining factors of which way you should go with the new build.

 

[DSzymborski]

I believe the motherboards that shipped in this case were standard ATX ones.

In addition to the issues that JBG raised, it's also a question of why.

If you want to use this case for practical reasons, it's hard to justify using this case in a new, modern build. You'll be missing ports that modern motherboards will have headers for (and vice-versa). This was before radiator mounts had been more or less standardized, so that may be a problem. Also the large cages for 5.25" bays and 3.5" drives (you'd have to check if these are removable) would reduce airflow considerably, something that has to be considered for modern CPUs which have aggressive boost behavior. You'll also be missing a lot of things that developed in the case market as aftermarket cases became a good thing, both practical features (tool-less features, configuration flexibility, cable management) and aesthetic ones (things like tempered glass and the ability to hide a lot of the mess of building a PC).

Now, if you want to use this case for sentimental reasons, that it's a case that means something personal to you, then there's a lot more of a reason to use this case. Whether the sentimentality has meaning to you relative to more practical considerations is something only you can answer. I'm offering you the best advice you can, but in the end, the case doesn't mean anything to me, but it may mean something to you, meaning that your priorities are going to be different than mine.

 

[roderickchan]

Is the HP Blackbird 002 case still a viable starting point for a top end build?
I bought an HP Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition when they first came out and it was a great system for me for quite a few years. After most of the parts in it wore out, it has been sitting in my closet for the past few years. I replaced a few things a long the way to keep it alive, but finally decided to upgrade and bought a new prebuilt Alienware Aurora a while back.
I have been considering building a new high end machine from scratch and thought I might try to repurpose this beast of a case.
Any thoughts on if I should strip it down and build her up nice again?
Any recommendations on where I should start if this is the case I should use?

I have the same case bb002 dedication.
it's been working great for their time.

but every day use i'll just use the modern case.

many disadvantage with old case, no usb3.0 front port, no vertical gpu mount. sata backplane is proprietary board.
and
many parts has wore out just like you said.
at one point, some of pci latch cracked and no longer be able to secure the pci cards.

i'm using my just for retro windows xp gaming now.