# Doing some more cutting on my case.



## wtf8269 (Dec 4, 2006)

Well I was pretty damned happy with how my wires looked for quite some time, but now they're starting to look disgusting to me again. I'm going to be taking out my hard drive cage again, as well as the piece of metal covering my 3.5" bays (or what's left of them lol). The hard drives will be seated up in my 5.25" bays with some adapters, and I'll be taking out my DVD-ROM drive and leaving my DVD-RW in. Lastly, I'll be cutting some portions out of my motherboard tray to run the wires directly behind the motherboard.

I've ordered a Zalman 9700, the HDD adapter brackets, some 3ft SATA cables, and two blue LED rods. (I've been running no internal lights since the middle of summer.) Since I won't be doing anything until I get these parts and I hate people that their first post of their project log has no pictures, here are some pictures of my current setup. Yes I know my front speakers look like ass, that's how I got them for cheap.



















Hope to get rid of this mess soon:





Here are some older pics to give you a better idea of what my current wiring looks like.


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## Protius (Dec 4, 2006)

perty


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## Chewy (Dec 4, 2006)

Nice system, I need to get me an ide cable like you got there... mine looks like crap.

 Your taking your hd cage out for better airflow I take it?

 ah figured it out,  it will look some clean in there when your done man.


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## ATIonion (Dec 4, 2006)

nice man....case looks clean in all pics to me..but i know how self perfection is..lol...
now is the zalman cooler a newer picture then the other (thermaltake??) cooler?? that other cooler looks like it rests on the damn video card.. 


but what i noticed the most were the klispch, what are those sf-1's?


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## wtf8269 (Dec 4, 2006)

Chewy said:


> Nice system, I need to get me an ide cable like you got there... mine looks like crap.
> 
> Your taking your hd cage out for better airflow I take it?
> 
> ah figured it out,  it will look some clean in there when your done man.



Actually I'm taking the hard drive cage out for two reasons. One is for the sheer sake of making the case look cleaner, two is that DX10 cards would be too long to fit in my case if I left the HDD cage there. I have a hard time being able to plug the power connector in for my GPU as is. Air flow doesn't matter too much as I already have side fans.


ATIonion said:


> nice man....case looks clean in all pics to me..but i know how self perfection is..lol...
> now is the zalman cooler a newer picture then the other (thermaltake??) cooler?? that other cooler looks like it rests on the damn video card..
> 
> 
> but what i noticed the most were the klispch, what are those sf-1's?


Yeah the Zalman I installed mid-summer. Before that I had the Thermalright XP-90C with a 92mm Tornado, but I decided it was too loud. And yes, the XP-90 was only about a 1/4" from touching my GPU. My fronts are RF-3 II's, the center is an RC-3 II.


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## zekrahminator (Dec 4, 2006)

I remember when you first chopped off that hard drive block and put it where it is now, you loved the idea of a wind tunnel. And then you put some serious labor into it, and got a very nice looking computer. Then you said something about hating the constant fan noise, and then I kinda stopped paying attention .


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## wtf8269 (Dec 4, 2006)

Haha I wouldn't blame you. My project logs aren't nearly as interesting as Marklebb's (sp?) were.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 7, 2006)

Well I'm pretty much done. I didn't take progress pics, because I usually just like to try to get things done ASAP. My idle temp dropped 3ºC so now I idle at 21ºC. I haven't tested for load temp yet. This 9700 BARELY fits in my case. My side fans are actually touching the fins lol. I'm going to try taking out the inner top two bolts of my side fans and see if that helps. My LED rods won't be here until Monday. Oh yeah, I was able to fit my old Corsair XMS 3500LLPro in too. (I missed the activity LEDs on them ).

My wiring looks a TON better. I'll probalby have to redo a few small things when my LED rods get here. I'll get some pictures up tomorrow. For now, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I don't want to do my homework.


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## WarEagleAU (Dec 7, 2006)

What are those two fans I see above that Zalman cpu cooler your using. In one picture I see it having two fans and in the other picture I see that it only has one where in the previous one it had two. Is it my eyes or am I looking and something totally weird? It could just be me, who knows. Anyways nice setup of your pc. I think your wires look pretty good unless you just want the best cleanest pc with absolutely no wires showing whatsoever. good job and good luck man.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 7, 2006)

The bottom two pictures are older pictures of when I was using a Thermalright XP-90C with a Tornado fan. Those pictures were taken with the side panel off. The pictures above that were taken over the weekend with the side panel left on and you're seeing my side fans.


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## DaMulta (Dec 7, 2006)

O I see you have a basement for you PC room very nice.

Very nice work on your PC BTW!!


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## GLD (Dec 7, 2006)

The only mess I see is that you still have the tag/label/pull on that ide cable. It looks like you removed all the others, but why not that one?


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 7, 2006)

*cool bachelor pad*

im guessing you aint married.


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## KennyT772 (Dec 7, 2006)

if i were you i would flip that xp-90 around. i have the aluminum version and the same mobo. makes changing ram harder but it isnt worth shorting your gpu out...


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## pt (Dec 7, 2006)

wtf8269 said:


> The bottom two pictures are older pictures of when I was using a Thermalright XP-90C with a Tornado fan. Those pictures were taken with the side panel off. The pictures above that were taken over the weekend with the side panel left on and you're seeing my side fans.



why did you toke the xp-90c out?  

nice case, btw


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## wtf8269 (Dec 7, 2006)

Easy Rhino said:


> im guessing you aint married.



Nope, I'm 17, definitely not lol.


pt said:


> why did you toke the xp-90c out?
> 
> nice case, btw



Too loud. This CNPS9700 seems to cool about the same as the XP-90 anyway.


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## WarEagleAU (Dec 7, 2006)

wtf8269 said:


> The bottom two pictures are older pictures of when I was using a Thermalright XP-90C with a Tornado fan. Those pictures were taken with the side panel off. The pictures above that were taken over the weekend with the side panel left on and you're seeing my side fans.



Aha. I see.


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## Judas (Dec 7, 2006)

Rather nice setup, you have got your self there


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## wtf8269 (Dec 8, 2006)

Here are some pics. Wiring isn't quite finalized yet, and I still need to trim and install the aluminum cover I used for my 3.5" bays. The only thing I'm bugged by a little is that my side fans are touching my heatsink, but this will probably change as I will probably be getting a different motherboard in a month or two. I'm extremely happy with how the wiring turned out.


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## wazzledoozle (Dec 8, 2006)

It may be an optical illusion, but it looks like your X1800XT has some serious slant to it 

Also what kind of cutting bit are you using with your dremel? (Or are you even using a dremel?)

And lastly, still have any of those 80mm led fans sitting around? Ill buy one off you...


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## Easy Rhino (Dec 8, 2006)

*nice job*

it looks really good. my only gripe is that the twin side fans are blocking view of the x1800xt. but thats just my personal opinion.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 8, 2006)

wazzledoozle said:


> It may be an optical illusion, but it looks like your X1800XT has some serious slant to it
> 
> Also what kind of cutting bit are you using with your dremel? (Or are you even using a dremel?)
> 
> And lastly, still have any of those 80mm led fans sitting around? Ill buy one off you...



It's an optical illusion. For cutting the hole behind the mobo I used a cutting disc for my drill, but to cut the hole for my SATA cables etc I used the drill bit that comes with the Dremel. That hole didn't turn out too well, because the drill bit got a bit jumpy but atleast it functions.

I don't have any of the TT Smart fans left though, sold them all to WarEagle a few months ago.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 30, 2006)

Sorry for the late update. I'm sure many of you can relate to my laziness. Here are some pictures of my PC completed at a recent LAN party I had.










Obviously I got the LED rods in. I really like these a whole lot better than any cold cathodes I ever had. The blue is a lot more pure and not overwhelming at all. I also tidied up the wires a bit more; a few zip ties here and there, but overall it still looks about the same inside. I did take the fan washers out from my side fans. I think it looks a lot better now that I did that. Also doing that fixed my clearance issue with my CPU heatsink. I put the metal cover back in that covered up my 3.5" bays, but I trimmed it down a little as well.

Hopefully I'll get the motivation to take some actual good pics and update my case mod gallery. But if not, meh oh well.


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## stevorob (Dec 30, 2006)

I have pretty much the same case, except I don't have the windowed side panel.

Just wondering what you used to cut the other 80mm hole on the back of the mobo tray for the second fan because I was planning on doing that mod to my case, and yours looks really neat.

Thanks in advance.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 30, 2006)

I used a 3" holesaw that I got from Home Depot. The key thing is to make sure the holesaw along w/ the other drill bits you use are made for metal.

To mark up where to drill the holes I took the frame of an old fan and marked through the holes and traced the circle of the inside of the frame.

Happy modding.


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## stevorob (Dec 30, 2006)

Thanks man.

Also heard that a nibbler will work well for that as well.  I might just try to pick one up since I don't have a hole saw.


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## wtf8269 (Dec 30, 2006)

A hole saw is just a big drill bit. Cost me about $30 including the mandrel. But the nibbler may be a better buy depending on the price.


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