[Case Gallery] The-Thing Mk. II

[Polaris573]

To view this case mod, go here.



Specs:
LGA 775 Intel E6550 Core2 Duo "Conroe" 2.33Ghz 4MB L2 Cache
MSI Neo2-FR -- Intel P35 Chipset
2GB G.Skill DDRII 800 4-4-3-5
320 MB eVGA 8800GTS
250 GB Seagate 16MB Cache
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music
OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt
ATI 550pro Video Capture Card

Mods:
Cut holes for cables

 

[Arrakis9]

simple and effective 5/10

 

[OD-Church]

I voted 3/10 because:

nothing special

User withdrew this vote on: Jan 2 2008 13:50

 

[shoktongxxx]

very neat..8/10 vote.^_^

see &v vote in my case..http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/1096.html

 

[Polaris573]

I voted 3/10 because:

nothing special

What could I do to make it special. Keeping in mind I don't particularly care for "ricer" neon lights and stickers. A 3 is a vote representing "poor". What is poor about it that I could improve? Any additional input is greatly appreciated.

 

[tkpenalty]

7/10

A fairly clean system, with a good choice of parts in my opinion. I'd take some effort into installing the hdd with the front facing the front of the case instead, which would easily look better. Its not the best I've seen, but definately you put some effort into it.

Just a final tip, that cable mass in front of your 8800 is somewhat blocking airflow to the top half of the system, i'd advise you to de-condense by possibly moving the Optical drive up

 

[Polaris573]

7/10

A fairly clean system, with a good choice of parts in my opinion. I'd take some effort into installing the hdd with the front facing the front of the case instead, which would easily look better. Its not the best I've seen, but definately you put some effort into it.

Just a final tip, that cable mass in front of your 8800 is somewhat blocking airflow to the top half of the system, i'd advise you to de-condense by possibly moving the Optical drive up

Yeah, what looks like a cable mass in the pictures is mostly just one PATA cable, it's pushed to the side to keep try and keep it from disrupting air flow but it's still really annoying to me too. I would move the DVD drive up but I would have to invest in a longer PATA cable to reach the secondary hard drive as well as the DVD drive. I'm considering just removing PATA hard drive because it is only 40 GB and it would let me manage that PATA cable better. I like it for backup though. Thanks for the advice and detailed feedback.

 

[NeoCrisis]

I voted 3/10 because:

nothing special

Dont mind OD-Church's votes or comments. He has no sense in Case Gallery judgment.

you get a 5 from me now for being a "Good" Clean looking case... not a 3(Poor looking case)
Ill change my vote if you can clean up that mess there on the side
Move your DVD drive to the top and tuck the cable against the side of the mobo tray or in the 5.25 bay
I have the exact same case but i didnt cut any holes into it cuz im too lazy

 

[btarunr]

According to me, more frills doesn't mean more points. I look for optimal utilization of available resources. I'll give you 7/10

Here's what I like:
1. The OCZ power-supply (efficient, gives lot of future head-room)
2.The Core 2 Duo E6550 (Intel supplies the same stock cooler which it engineered for the Prescott which means it can withstand lot of heat. For you it means OC'ing headroom since the E6550 runs green at 65W TDP.)
3. ATI Theaterix 550 Pro card (Hardware decoding of HDTV, doesn't bother the CPU, 16 MB cache)
4. I've got the same case

Here's what I didn't like:

1. Assuming you recently built this machine, for the price of the 8800 GTS 320M you could've easily got an ATI Radeon HD2900 Pro 512MB and used a XT BIOS from our collection. Your PSU can handle this card well.

2. Cable management: not a real complaint but it could look tidier and helps natural-convection.

3. You could put the optical drive in the first 5.25" bay.

 

[Polaris573]

I actually built it back in August, but didn't have any time to make it presentable until recently. It was a nasty rats nest of cables because I hadn't done any cable management whatsoever. I should have taken a before and after picture just for kicks. So that's back when the 8800GTS was cheaper than the 2900 and just before the 8800GT came out.

 

[cdawall]

5/10 its a good little build but i dont like the case design

 

[acousticlemur]

i gave you a 7 because it is very neat and clean... no cd or dvd drives????

 

[OD-Church]

Dont mind OD-Church's votes or comments. He has no sense in Case Gallery judgment.

you get a 5 from me now for being a "Good" Clean looking case... not a 3(Poor looking case)
Ill change my vote if you can clean up that mess there on the side
Move your DVD drive to the top and tuck the cable against the side of the mobo tray or in the 5.25 bay
I have the exact same case but i didnt cut any holes into it cuz im too lazy

why do i have no sense in jugement exactley?

 

[Polaris573]

No insults in my case gallery discussion please Neocrisis. Stay on topic OD-Church and I would really appreciate that feedback.

 

[btarunr]

i gave you a 7 because it is very neat and clean... no cd or dvd drives????

Look at bay #5.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Dont mind OD-Church's votes or comments. He has no sense in Case Gallery judgment.

you get a 5 from me now for being a "Good" Clean looking case... not a 3(Poor looking case)
Ill change my vote if you can clean up that mess there on the side
Move your DVD drive to the top and tuck the cable against the side of the mobo tray or in the 5.25 bay
I have the exact same case but i didnt cut any holes into it cuz im too lazy

I would agree with a 5, it looks decent though doesn't offer anything special. There is nothing that makes me think "oh that's nice" nor anything that makes me think "omg, fix that".

 

[Polaris573]

Thanks guys, about all I'm looking for is a 5 because that is what I would give it. Of course that doesn't mean anything higher isn't appreciated lol.

 

[OD-Church]

painting the inside would look nice good sugestion about the blue that would go good
also where did you cut the holes for the wires

 

[Polaris573]

This is the only on visible in the pictures. I like the painting idea, but I'm scared I'll screw it up.

 

[OD-Church]

This is the only on visible in the pictures. I like the painting idea, but I'm scared I'll screw it up.

painting isnt really as hard as you think just clean up the inside dust it and pretty much any spray paint will work mask away the aluminum parts and the front
if you have any old cases you should practice once or twice on them thats hwat i did

 

[btarunr]

Polaris, I've come up with something important regarding your mainboard.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/msi_p35_platinum/3.html

^The link is to a review of the MSI P35 Platinum, an upscale variant of the board you're using, they're 90% the same. The reviewer claims that the yellow PCI-E slot is the one that provides the video-card with 16 PCI-E lanes and not the white one you're using (it gives 4 PCI-E lanes).

I guess the reviewer is BS'ing, I'm not sure. Can you run GPU-Z once to check how many PCI-E lanes your card is running on? If it shows "PCIe x16 @ x4" you should shift the video card to the yellow slot or face performance penalties with your graphics (which means it eats into one of the PCI slots.).

 

[Polaris573]

Both GPU-Z and the manual say that the white one is the 16X slot. I think the reviewer just made a mistake. Thanks for the heads up though.

 

[NeoCrisis]

why do i have no sense in jugement exactley?

You've given ppl's cases low scores of 2 and 3 after they've put in hrs of hard work and their love and not give a single worthy explanation on WHY their case deserves such a low score. Nor do you give any Positive criticism or advice on how they can improve the look of their case.

That explanation was for his 3vote.
I see that he has given somewhat suggestions after he has retracted his vote

Polaris573: I had no intentions of insulting him there. I just dont like point of giving your case a 3 with a reason of "nothing special" and no suggestions on making it better.

 

[OD-Church]

if you went with rounded IDE cables it would make it loook alot better

 

[TechnicalFreak]

This is the only on visible in the pictures. I like the painting idea, but I'm scared I'll screw it up.

It's almost impossible to screw it up. What you do is following:
Get some auto paing (same as for cars), if you don't want the metallic blue - pick another one. When painting, make sure you are in a well ventilated room.
Distance to object when using aerosol spray paint : 20cm/0.2m/7.8inches. This is because otherwise the paint will "run" and it would look ugly, also it sticks on faster this way. Make sure you are working in room temps. I don't know if they sell AutoK aerosol spray paint where you live , but that is a good brand.

Auto K link (UK) http://www.ukpaints.co.uk/autok_special.php

Tip: To make things more or less "scratch proof", you can also at the end cover the paint with a "clear" paint (becomes like a second invisible layer). Also to get a darker color , you can achieve this by using either a primer or just something darker than the paint you are going to use, let it dry for a full day before starting with next paint.