http://hardforum.com/ Showoff your progress en Wed, 16 May 2012 16:11:01 GMT vBulletin 60 http://hardforum.com/images/misc/rss.jpg http://hardforum.com/ http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1693467&goto=newpost Tue, 15 May 2012 18:48:15 GMT Hello all my name is rob and this is my first case mod, the case I have chosen is the cooler master atcs 101 .I picked mine up from a fellow in Melbourne that was throwing it away and decided to get some money and put it on ebay on a friends recommendation the two pics underneath show the case looking really good.I however did not receive one looking this wonderful, instead the one i recieved was a bit bedraggled and missing quite a few bits nevertheless I had an aluminium case finally and was very happy with my purchase .On doing some research on the case I have since found it to be in quite limited numbers and I believe this mod I have done to it to be the only one anywhere.So anyway enough of the jabbering and such and in response to guitar hero I will explain what was done to the case in order to make it adaptable for my needs.




A spanky new one.Sooooo shiny


As you can see I have reversed the motherboard here,This will enable the gpu to exhaust straight out of the roof of the case instead of the bottom of the case [causing heat issues] also the drive bays were damaged on the one I bought so I decided to cut them away to the bare minimum,just enough to be able to attach to the front of the case and hold the power switch and replaced them with some old hard drive quick release racks bolted together.Here is where I struck my first problem the racks bottom two bays would have been unusable as reversing the motherboard raised the floor of the case by 25 mm as the top of the case is now the bottom of the case and therefore gets in the way of any hard drive using the bottom two bays you see? :facepalm:.I overcame this by using quad tubed aluminium underneath the racks to raise them sufficiently high enough to use all bays, Phew one problem solved.

I was using the case in this manner until my bios was unflashable or recoverable and killed my mainboard and i had to RMA my motherboard. :mad:


Now my motherboard is of to be RMA I decided since a friend said he had some watercooling parts left over from his build he had just completed .Time to do something different with this case in order fit a res ,pump etc in,To try my hand at watercooling my rig.
I decided to make it taller not try and compress all bits into the case and clutter all of the air flow and just cram them in .So first step was to make a new thermal zone that separated the PSU from the rest of the heat zones.On doing some research once more I discovered the best way to do this is a mid-plate.This will do two things separate the heat from the power supply and help hide all major cabling including the watercooling components for that slick look we all seek.

Test fitting the mid-plate


The mid-plate is constructed from 3mm aluminium and curved to fit.The holes for the fans were done by first marking centre and using a compass marking a circle one and a half cm bigger than the 120 mm fans radius.Then I dissected the circle, centre punched the drill holes and started with a pilot hole and eventually finished drilling all holes to a size of 10 mm , made the holes larger in the centre with a sphere orb bit and all the other holes were 1.5 mm countersunk for a cleaner look. A point to note when you drill a circular pattern like this drill the center hole last as it stops your material your drilling from wrapping and tearing from lack of strength from all the other holes you have already done. :ahh:

This is what I will use to raise the case it is dual aluminium window channel they commonly use it in sliding windows, we will use it here on the front of the case and in the middle and also at the back it will be more than enough strength to keep the case together,and support the weight. :woowoo:


test fitting the extension to the bottom of the case ,the hole you see is for the PSU cables to enter the case under the mid-plate.



Here we go after 4to5 hours of hand sanding and polishing each piece we have as follows powersupply plates by two backplate and a fan plate for the rear of the case.Oh I forgot I also cutaway the original fan grill from the back as it was square and it didn't fit in with the circle theme and one other thing I cut out the hole for the powersupply with an angle grinder and hand filed until I met the lines to fit the PSU neatly.



Since my drive bays were not in such good shape I had to make a fan plate for the front of the case



Here is the roof punched and ready to drill.Oh another bit of useful info I found during my time doing this when you drill diamond plate or checker plate use a cutting compound or oil I used kerosene for this it may stink a shade but it is better than frying your bits and cooking the motor in your drill trust me.



Final test fit of pieces before riveting,the bottom plate that the wheels will bolt to has also been drilled out in a circle so the PSU will intake air under the case.



Pesky rivets hit powersupply time to custom cut em.










Here to keep the theme going I drilled out the squares in the motherboard tray braces .Oh yeah the top witch was once the bottom of the case was cut out using a metal disk with an angle grinder as well.:yahoo:



Add a bit of lighting .


Almost done now I wait for my RMA and work on some covers for the extension to the case.



More later thankz for looking. ]]> Worklogs WOOKZ http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1693467 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1692610&goto=newpost Fri, 11 May 2012 14:36:39 GMT Hi Everyone, I wasnīt planning on doing a worklog on this project as it was made as a pressent for the missus who loved her playstation 2 to play the tekken games but unfortunately it broke a few months back. So for her birthday I decided I would buy one and combine it with her other passion, corsets. Now Iīve never owned a PS2 before nor have I opened one so I had to look it up and so on. Luckily I quickly found out that they are quite simple to take apart so that made my life easier. I also found out that the plastic they are made out is rather bad, and it was extremely hard to sand it down to get smooth edges. Iīm not entirely happy with how the back window cut came out but I am extremely happy on how the final thing looked. So here are 27 pictures from start to finish, most of them from the finish as I didnīt plan to do a worklog out of it, I hope you enjoy them, thanks for reading. PS: The missus was delighted and loves her birthday pressie : ) Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/1.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/2.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/3.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/4.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/5.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/6.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/7.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/8.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/9.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/10.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/11.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/12.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/13.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/14.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/15.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/16.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/17.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/18.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/19.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/20.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/21.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/22.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/23.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/24.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/25.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/26.JPG Image: http://www.neonit.net/images/corsetps2/27.JPG Hi Everyone,

I wasnīt planning on doing a worklog on this project as it was made as a pressent for the missus who loved her playstation 2 to play the tekken games but unfortunately it broke a few months back. So for her birthday I decided I would buy one and combine it with her other passion, corsets.

Now Iīve never owned a PS2 before nor have I opened one so I had to look it up and so on. Luckily I quickly found out that they are quite simple to take apart so that made my life easier. I also found out that the plastic they are made out is rather bad, and it was extremely hard to sand it down to get smooth edges. Iīm not entirely happy with how the back window cut came out but I am extremely happy on how the final thing looked.

So here are 27 pictures from start to finish, most of them from the finish as I didnīt plan to do a worklog out of it, I hope you enjoy them, thanks for reading.

PS: The missus was delighted and loves her birthday pressie : )





















































]]> Worklogs Luciel http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1692610 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1692436&goto=newpost Thu, 10 May 2012 20:50:28 GMT pump>radiator> and figured I would take it from there. You can see I still planned on using my Coolermaster, but now it was it's own loop, just for the hard drives and memory: Image: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eKiNNhwkt1I/T6sT54XcT6I/AAAAAAAAAJI/ClGQjFih6w8/s640/CIMG2332.JPG Excessive, I know, but I already had all the hardware. Why the heck not? :P I skipped a few steps here... but I proceeded to sleeve all of my ET850 power supply (man, what a massive pain in the butt that was) and apply the water blocks to my CPU/GPU/Northbridge. For the blocks, I used a Swiftech Apogee for the CPU, an EK full cover block for the GPU, and an EK block for the northbridge as well. Now, for the finished product: Image: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8Dh7c9hE6IE/T6sT8XUxFTI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/NxKbJNyFm-g/s640/CIMG2338.JPG Nice vortex going, so the water pressure must be doing ok: Image: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Ir6CR5-Is_8/T6sT9I8W9iI/AAAAAAAAAKI/B3GmMWDVGuo/s640/CIMG2340.JPG Temps doing good after 24 hours of torture testing in an apartment on a summer day with no air conditioning: Image: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Ur3bz27zuVY/T6sT-S1kEcI/AAAAAAAAAKg/oL7_OAqD4yE/s640/CIMG2343.JPG And finally, some night shots to show the 'ground lighting' effects the fans give. Nifty! Image: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4VbFdMIWZ_Y/T6sUTDv4O2I/AAAAAAAAAKw/zpEDlfSGyKM/s640/CIMG2945.JPG In the interim between completion and now, a few changes have been made (undocumented, sadly) including: - Overclocking the E6600 from 2.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz, stable, without topping 50C - Overclocking the 8800GTX by about 15% without any voltage mods - Removing the Coolermaster/HDD/RAM loop. It got noisy, and wasn't doing much. - Replacing the coolant mixture several times, always with the same mix of distilled water and Pentosin G11 (a recommendation made here ages ago that I have kept.) That completes the history lesson. Azuremight v2 is still in service as of this posting, and has been performing dutifully for well on 4.5 years now. The components have grown old, and barely keep 60fps in modern games. The case is dusty and dinged up, but as functional as ever. Next post... the plans for tearing it all apart, and starting from scratch, but keeping the same old tried-and-true Lian-Li PC-v2000B. As a teaser, here's the components list, most of which is on a truck right now on the way to my door: - Intel Core i7-3770K - EVGA GTX 680 SC+ - Corsair AX850 psu - 16GB of Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US - Swiftech Apogee HD black - EK 680 Full nickel VGA block Still undecided on, but deciding soon: - motherboard - ASUS P8z77-v Pro vs ASUS Sabertooth z77 vs wait for EVGA z77 FTW vs others? - Pumps - EK-D5 dual top (PMP-450's) vs EK-DDC Dual top (DDC 3.2's)? - radiator - Two Thermochill PA120.4 vs Two XSPC RX480s vs Two EK-CoolStream Rad XT480? (which gives you a hint to what I am doing for cooling :D) - controller - Koolance TMS-205 vs Aquaero 5? - Fans - Scythe Gentile Typhoons, any other recommendations? See you soon!]]> It's been a looooong time since I have posted on [H] about anything... about 5 years to be exact. Last time I was here, I was in the process of building a new rig out of my old one... replacing all the components, and turning things up a notch in my water cooling system. Now I plan to do the same. :)

I'll start by posting some classic pictures... the 'evolution' of my rig, if you will, so you can get a feel of where this classic watercooling case has been, and it will put all the more context into where it's going. Enjoy!

First, Azuremight v1. It was my first shot at watercooling a system. It housed a P4 2.4Ghz running on an ASUS P4v533 motherboard, with a whopping 4GB of RAMBUS RDRAM. That's right. RAMBUS. That dates this computer around 2005 or so. It was... well... a nightmare, as this set of photos will show you:

Inside the maw of the beast:


A closeup, showing the P4, my Ram cooler from Koolance, the Radeon 9800 AIW, and the ghetto tubes going out the back of an unused PCI slot:


The rear of the case, sporting a 1986 Chevette heater core with a brandless fan tacked on the back (by twisty ties, no less!):


Another shot of the insides, showing the DD12V-D5 pump, and the back of a Coolermaster pump/reservoir/monitor all in one unit, along with the ugly 1/2" ID to 1/4"ID up/down converters to tie the whole mess together into one monstrous loop:


And finally, the case all closed up. The blue is great and all, but it's probably best that I didn't have any case windows... eh? ;)


Up next, Azuremight v2! The bold foray into case modding. I bought all new components, including an 8800GTX graphics card, EVGA 680i motherboard, Core2Duo E6600 (which was a beast of an overclocker, mind you), and some premium OCZ 'SLI' memory... whatever the hell that meant. I also planned on getting an EK waterblock for the GPU/northbridge, a switftech for the CPU, and a Thermochill PA120.3 radiator/grill/radbox for cooling:


I did a complete teardown of the case. I love this case so much... so big, so many options on where to put things:


I actually did a little (admittedly ghetto) planning this time, instead of just throwing things at it until they all fit:


(Yes, that's an empty paper towel tube to emulate my EK-250 Reservoir and a cut up cardboard box roughly the size of my Thermochill PA120.3 radiator. I used them prior to buying, to make sure they would fit. I know. Ghetto. :P)

I benched everything pre-watercooling too... just to make sure the components actually worked, and also to get some temps to compare against, validating that all my hard work actually netted me some gain. :P



Dremel time! First, I hacked up the hard drive cages down below, where I planned on putting my Radiator. Rather than strait up removing them, I envisioned them hanging above, leaving me a place to put them while still fitting in the radiator:


Nice, totally works!

Next, I taped off the bottom of the case and used the Thermochill Radgrill 120.3 as a template for cutting fan holes:


Here's my boss, inspecting my shoddy craftmanship. What, no sanding??


Now, I fitted the Radgrill to the bottom, applied some of the sound dampening foam, and made sure the self-tapping fan screws would fit through with enough threading to hold the fans in place:


I decided to scrap the self-tapping screws in favor of some longer bolts from a local hardware store... that way, I could sandwich the whole kit (Radgrill, Radbox, fans, and radiator) together against the case, keeping it nice and snug with rubber washers and sound dampening neoprene between layers:


Awesome, totally worked... but what's this?



DAMNIT. The radiator ports line up with the hanging hard drive cage, making it impossible to hook them up. Great job self, way to measure. /facepalm. /flipdesk. Time for more dremeling. Nothing a bit of modding won't fix:

(as a side note, I patched up that hole with some certifiably ghetto electrical tape, to make sure all of my air pressure was going through the radiator, and not out of the gaping hole in the back.)

Much better:


Now, where are those tubes going to come up? Not much clearance between the ports and the mid-plate separating the bottom of the case from the motherboard section, where all the tubing needs to go. Quite a stretch to the factory-cut holes in the middle of the mid-plate too. Looking at my Lian-Li fan controller gave me an idea:


Dremel time! I marked off the holes in the fan controller with a pencil, then got to work. I wasn't too worried about the irregularity of the hole cuts, as I was planning on using some rubber tubing as an 'edge-guard':


For my reservoir placement, I actually got really lucky. I was wondering how I was going to attach it to the motherboard plate, when I noticed there was a pre-drilled hole already in about the place I was thinking of mounting the reservoir. Works like a charm!


Now that my reservoir was sitting where I previously had my pump... the pump needed a new home, and preferably not too far away from my other components to cut down on tubing. Ended up deciding on this location:


I attached it using a creative conglomeration of motherboard standoffs and thumb screws. One of the thumb screws ended up being a little close to the pump, to the point where I thought it might cause a vibrating/rattling noise, so I buffered it with an extra rubber washer I had. I know. Ghetto. ;)



Now we were finally getting somewhere. With all the components assigned a home, it was time to do some tube routing and such. I decided on a path of res>pump>radiator> and figured I would take it from there. You can see I still planned on using my Coolermaster, but now it was it's own loop, just for the hard drives and memory:

Excessive, I know, but I already had all the hardware. Why the heck not? :P

I skipped a few steps here... but I proceeded to sleeve all of my ET850 power supply (man, what a massive pain in the butt that was) and apply the water blocks to my CPU/GPU/Northbridge. For the blocks, I used a Swiftech Apogee for the CPU, an EK full cover block for the GPU, and an EK block for the northbridge as well.

Now, for the finished product:


Nice vortex going, so the water pressure must be doing ok:



Temps doing good after 24 hours of torture testing in an apartment on a summer day with no air conditioning:


And finally, some night shots to show the 'ground lighting' effects the fans give. Nifty!



In the interim between completion and now, a few changes have been made (undocumented, sadly) including:
- Overclocking the E6600 from 2.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz, stable, without topping 50C
- Overclocking the 8800GTX by about 15% without any voltage mods
- Removing the Coolermaster/HDD/RAM loop. It got noisy, and wasn't doing much.
- Replacing the coolant mixture several times, always with the same mix of distilled water and Pentosin G11 (a recommendation made here ages ago that I have kept.)


That completes the history lesson. Azuremight v2 is still in service as of this posting, and has been performing dutifully for well on 4.5 years now. The components have grown old, and barely keep 60fps in modern games. The case is dusty and dinged up, but as functional as ever. Next post... the plans for tearing it all apart, and starting from scratch, but keeping the same old tried-and-true Lian-Li PC-v2000B.

As a teaser, here's the components list, most of which is on a truck right now on the way to my door:
- Intel Core i7-3770K
- EVGA GTX 680 SC+
- Corsair AX850 psu
- 16GB of Samsung MV-3V4G3D/US
- Swiftech Apogee HD black
- EK 680 Full nickel VGA block


Still undecided on, but deciding soon:
- motherboard - ASUS P8z77-v Pro vs ASUS Sabertooth z77 vs wait for EVGA z77 FTW vs others?
- Pumps - EK-D5 dual top (PMP-450's) vs EK-DDC Dual top (DDC 3.2's)?
- radiator - Two Thermochill PA120.4 vs Two XSPC RX480s vs Two EK-CoolStream Rad XT480? (which gives you a hint to what I am doing for cooling :D)
- controller - Koolance TMS-205 vs Aquaero 5?
- Fans - Scythe Gentile Typhoons, any other recommendations?

See you soon! ]]> Worklogs Noblesoft http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1692436 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1691234&goto=newpost Sat, 05 May 2012 22:09:34 GMT Hello All,

Been on the forums for quite some time and have built numerous computers over the years, but nothing beyond plug and play. I fell in love with the Corsair 600T white case, but also wanted to go with water cooling for my next build. This left me with no choice but to attempt my first case mods. Below is a list of parts on order/ordered and pictures of the build so far. Please don't hesitate to leave me any feedback or suggestions. Enjoy!


NEED TO PURCHASE
Processor Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge
Motherboard ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77
Memory G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) F3-14900CL8Q-16GBZM
TIM Shin-Etsu X23-7783D Thermal Compound (1 gram)
Video Card EVGA SuperClocked+ 02G-P4-2684-KR GeForce GTX 680
OS SSD Kingston HyperX SH100S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III
ODD LITE-ON Black BD-RE IHBS112-04 - OEM
Power Supply SeaSonic X-SERIES X-1050 1050W Full Modular Active PFC Power
GPU Block EK-FC680 GTX for nVidia Reference Design GeForce GTX 680 & 670


PURCHASED
CaseCorsair 600T Special Edition White
Radiator XSPC EX360 Copper Triple-Fan Radiator
Fan Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120 mm by Nidec Servo Corp. - High Speed - Sleeved D1225C12B4AP-14 x3
Pump Swiftech MCP655™ Series 12 VDC Water Pumps - With Speed Control
Pump Top EK-D5 X-TOP Version 2
Reservoir EK-Waterblocks EK-BAY SPIN Reservoir - Acetal
Fluid Distilled Water + Silver coil
CPU Block XSPC Raystorm CPU/APU Copper Waterblock - Intel




Parts so far



Case Disassembled and taped up for dremeling!


Dremeling Done


More Dremeling
]]> Worklogs Light1984 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1691234 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1691049&goto=newpost Fri, 04 May 2012 23:46:38 GMT I started this project about a month ago from the ground up. I did a custom paint job and some metal work on a NZXT Tempest Elite case. Not the fault of the case but after completing the work i just wasn't happy with the final product. Even though I'm scraping this project and moving on to a new case I thought you all would like to see what I did. This was going to contain a new 2700k with the new Asus Sabertooth mobo and some sniper ram. The CPU was going to be water cooled with a custom loop using UV green coolant to look radioactive.















]]> Worklogs Soulmetzger http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1691049 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1690245&goto=newpost Tue, 01 May 2012 21:48:17 GMT Over the past year, Ive experimented with sharpies and how they look on various things. Then I saw the Thermaltake ISGC fan and couldn't pass up the chance to do some doodleing.
Everything you will be seeing in this thread is hand drawn with no tools or projections, blah blah.
There was no way to seal the drawings themselves, with clearcoat since it would mess up the ink.
I will link all the colors when im done below.

The sharpies :)

testing with a metallic on a battery charger

preliminary drawings with green






* This Worklog post was generated using WorklogCreator - Version: 1.0.1.7 ]]> Worklogs usrebmot http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1690245 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689441&goto=newpost Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:58:17 GMT I know it has been done before, but I am taking a shot at making a watercooled desk :) First day progress: Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0272.jpg Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0273.jpg Lid attached on hinges Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0281-1.jpg Test fitting Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0295.jpg Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0296.jpg Image: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c300/gokou340/IMG_0297.jpg Everything fit really nicely, I might turn the radiator around. Trying to find a Dual 5.25 bezel to go around the reservoir, to cover up the crappy jigsaw cut I made :). Got the power button and the fan grills in today, and will be looking to get it painted this weekend, and then going to order the glass! I know it has been done before, but I am taking a shot at making a watercooled desk :)

First day progress:


Lid attached on hinges

Test fitting




Everything fit really nicely, I might turn the radiator around. Trying to find a Dual 5.25 bezel to go around the reservoir, to cover up the crappy jigsaw cut I made :).

Got the power button and the fan grills in today, and will be looking to get it painted this weekend, and then going to order the glass! ]]> Worklogs |-Goku-| http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689441 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689016&goto=newpost Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:02:08 GMT Had this case just collecting dust and it was just asking to get some holes cut.

Only modding I did to this was 3 holes cut, and some switching around of the panels. This is the result.

This was the mach up of the panels being swapped around and put on it's side.





Took my drill and 3 minutes later.



Tossed some stuff on it and POOF!









Total time of modding was about 45 minutes. But it's pretty slick I think =)

I also talked to lian li and they are going to send me a PCI bracket from their test benches so I can mount it up. ]]> Worklogs EQWoody http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689016 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688758&goto=newpost Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:11:46 GMT Once again I have been bitten by the mod bug. While technically this is not a PC, I thought I would still post my work log here so you guys could see how this project turns out.

The concept is simple. I have both an X-Box 360 and a PS3 that my kids, my wife and I all play on. And while we live in Tennessee, both of us are originally from Florida. So since both of us have the majority of our families there we make multiple trips every year down for visits and vacations. Well when we travel we always take both consoles, which include all the controllers, cables and power cords for both.
On top of that, I normally only play FPS games on the PC since I cannot seem to get the hang of using those two damned joystick things to move and aim with. But I have fixed that problem by buying a Xim 3 controller. I can now hook up my Logitech G13 gamepad and Razor Imperator mouse to either console and really tear up some FPS action on them now.
Maybe you are starting to see the problem with all of this. When we travel we are carrying an extra suitcase worth of consoles, cables and accessories.
So to resolve this problem I have designed a mod that will house the X-Box and PS3 as well as my Xim 3. It will also only use one power cord, one Ethernet cable and one HDMI or component cable (some of the places we stay do not have HDMI TVs).
Thus the X3 name. (X-Box 360 / PS3 / Xim 3)

My best friend, Road, and I first had to custom build a case for all of this to fit into.
We decided on using 1 1/4” steel angle to build the frame (strength), an aluminum motherboard tray (lightweight) and sheet metal as the skin (very easy to paint or powdercoat). Once we had the idea and sketches down, it was time to start the project.

Road cutting the angle for the frame.


Prepping the metal for welding.


Me MIG welding on the frame.


Me grinding flat all the welds.


Finished frame


This is a better detail shot on how we cut our corners to get the best possible strength in our welds.


‘Motherboard’ tray cut to size and placed in the frame.


Planed component layout on ‘motherboard’ tray.


Cutting out part of the frame for fans



Now that we had our basic frame built, it was time to start mounting hardware. First we had to mark where our standoffs were going to be, then mod the ‘brick’ power supply for the X-Box so it would fit inside the case with everything else.
I also needed to find a solid 12v power source on each console to feed power to the fans. Each console was going to have to power two 120mm Nexus Real Silent case fans (1000 RPM, 22.8 dBA, 36.87 CFM), one intake in the top of the case directly above the mobo, and one exhaust in the center, rear panel.
So I broke out the trusty multimeter and started tracing power. Once they were located all I had to do was solder some leads on them that I would later run to quick disconnects once everything was mounted.
X-Box 12v power


I also needed a way to trigger the little ‘wireless search’ button on the X-Box so it could find and connect to wireless controllers and peripherals. Once I attached leads to the button on the mobo, I would simply run the leads to a momentary contact push button on the rear panel.


After tearing apart my X-Box and PS3 I knew that I wanted to remove the heat sinks from them and put them back on with some good quality TIM. I used Prolimatech PK-1.

X-Box slim mobo striped down.




Cutting away all the metal sides on the power brick.



Mounted PS3


I had to mod the nuts I was using to hold down the PS3 optical drive. There was not enough room between the mounting hole and the optical face for the nut to screw onto the bolt I was using.



Once all of the hardware was mounted on the mobo tray, we cut away some of the angle on the rear of the frame to allow the tray to slide in and out while still being supported by the angle inside the case.
We found out the hard way that the mounting screws were in the way of the mobo tray sliding all the way forward in the frame. So out comes the dremel once again to the rescue.



We also found that for some reason the tray would occasionally bow on one side or the other causing the optical alignment with the front plate to go to hell. So we decided to weld in some mobo hold downs in the front of the case using just some small 1/2” steel angle.



Frame with front hold downs and fans put where they will be mounted in the end.


Now that the easy part was over with, it was time to start modding all of the cables that would be going into this bad boy.
I knew I needed to shorten the X-Box power cord by a long shot and mod the incoming AC to the power brick so that I could connect everything to a quick disconnect.




Now to mount it. I used old nylon motherboard standoffs with #6-32 nylon nuts to hold it in place.


This thing has a crazy amount of USB cables running through it, most of which I had to custom make.

I needed to bring the USBs from both consoles to the front panel, as well as the two from the Xim. But I needed the XIM to plug in to one USB on each console as well. So I bought these two little micro USB hubs and then trimmed off all the extra plastic from around the USB plug so it would fit between the console USB and the front of the case.


I then had to make the USB extension cables. I used old USB mobo extensions and just cut the ends off and soldered on ends I had cut from extra USB cables I had laying all over the house and garage.




I also knew that I needed to get an HDMI switcher. It had to be auto-switching and it had to support 3D signals from my PS3 to my new 3D plasma TV.


Next was power for my Xim 3. It normally gets its power from the USB on either the X-Box or PS3. But since I have like 5 miles worth of USB cables and hubs, I was worried that the Xim would not get enough power to run stable. Since it has an external jack for 5v power, I bought an extra PSP power cord and cut off the 2 prong AC plug and ran it to where I would be making all my AC input quick disconnects. I also wanted the ability to turn off the external power if i was playing a game with two or more people and was not using the Xim. So I cut into the 5v power lead and added a switch that I will be running to the front of the case.


I already had a 'spider' cable for my consoles (a cable that can plug into the X-Box, PS3 and Wii, then output video through component video and analog audio). And since most of our families' do not have HDMI inputs on their TVs, I needed the option to run through component connections. So I took my cable and broke the casing on the ends to help save room in the case and bought a wall plate that has both HDMI and component audio/video pass-throughs. This will be mounted to the back of the case.



Since both consoles would be hooked up through either the component cable or HDMI, I needed a way to make sure that only one console was turned on at a time. I made an extension that had a 3 way switch on it that would go to the front of the case, and ran it to my AC in the back of the case. I also made sure that it was set up with quick disconnects in case I ever had to remove the mobo tray.



Now that I have the majority of the cables made, I started fitting it all inside the case. That is when I realized just how little room I am going to have to try to get all this to fit.




Once I got it all mounted to the mobo tray, I slid the whole thing into the case and realized that the entire tray has about 3/4" of free side-to-side movement inside the case. This of course will not work. The opticals will have to line up PERFECT with the cuts in the front of the case, and it will have to do it EVERY TIME. So we drilled holes through the mobo tray and frame, then taped the frame hole to match the thread of PC thumb screws. Now when I slid it in and out, it will always go back to the exact same position.


Next it was time to start working on the skin of this baby. One thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want screws showing or pop rivets. So we decided to go with a hidden inner screw through the frame to a low-profile nut that was JB welded to the skin.
First we drilled holes through the frame at the places we wanted the screws to be. These holes were about twice the diameter of the nut so we would have room for the JB Weld around it which allows the skin to sit flat against the frame.


Then we placed the panels on the frame and used a marker to trace the holes onto the skin plates. Once we had the hole pattern marked on all of the skin panels, we started JB Welding the nuts into the marked areas. To make sure that they did not move on the top plate while we did the front plate we used painter's tape to hold the nuts in place.


Me using the dremel to knock down any burrs left from drilling the holes.





We let it all sit overnight and the next day this is what we had;




Now that the skin had the nuts in place it was time to start laying out the back plate and cutting out all the sections.


Rough back plate with all cutouts done. Now I just need to touch up the cutouts and start mounting all the hardware on it.


Well, that is the progress so far. I will be going out of town for work on Monday, and will not be back until Friday, so I won't get a chance to work on it again for about a week and a half. But I will update this thread as soon as the work starts up again.
Next is getting the backplate finished with hardware mounted, draw and cut out the front plate, design and cut out the front and side 3D pieces, and getting it all put together.

I am also going to have to carve out of foam the top piece that the Xim and the X-Box controller sits in. Once I get it carved out the way I want it I will make a mold of it and start making it out of fiberglass. It will be hollow on the inside to give someplace to hide the Xim cables and X-Box controller cable.

So there is still a long way to go on this project. ]]> Worklogs cloudkat http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688758 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688672&goto=newpost Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:03:03 GMT An investment company in our area moved offices, and in the process got all new computers and monitors. The old stuff got posted on bookoo.com (disclaimer: I work for bookoo), with 17" LCD monitors going for $15 apiece.

I talked my bosses into sponsoring a build to stick a whole bunch of monitors on a wall. So a huge shout out to http://www.bookoo.com/ for sponsoring this build.

Unlike a lot of builds, I'm not looking for high performance--most of these monitors will be showing static (periodically-refreshing) web pages. Cooling won't be a major issue, so no water cooling, although with six video cards, I might have to do some creative things to keep them cool...

Here's what I'm starting with:
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 - got it for $86 at microcenter--it was on clearance and I got a $40 discount for getting it with a....
AMD FX-4100 Black Edition
8GB Corsair DDR3 1600
1TB Seagate HDD
Some cheap wireless card - Tenda brand
OCZ ZS 750W power supply
LG 22x DVD burner
Windows 7 Pro 64bit



As for the case, I cheaped out and pulled an ancient but like-new Antec SLK2650-BQE out of storage.

For the video cards, I got an HIS Radeon 5450 for the PCIe x1 slot, and a pile of these for the x16 slots:


All the cards are low-profile, not that it matters for this application.

Down to business. It's been a while since I've put together a computer from scratch, and never with this caliber of hardware. First, the PSU. It sure looks nice, weighs a lot, and has a lot of connectors that I'll likely never use. But I wanted to put it in first, so I could get the whole chassis grounded. Static builds up in this office like you wouldn't believe. I got a 1/2" spark between my hand and the light switch this morning. No joke.



The little platform blocks a portion of the PSU's monstrous fan, but that doesn't bother me much. The motherboard goes next, although in hindsight it might have been better to insert the RAM and CPU first. Ah, well, it fit anyway.



Six x16 slots FTW! I don't care if half of them are x4--I don't need much performance. I won't bore you with the CPU and RAM installation. We all know how that goes. But now I ran into my first problem: the PCIe x1 card doesn't fit in the slot. Or rather, Gigabyte decided to put the NB heatsink in the way.



Great. Just great. I'll see if I can find a PCIe x1 extension cable of some sort. In the meantime, I can get Win7 up and running with one of the others.



And now to add the other cards. I kinda like how they look, all nicely lined up.



All well and good, except that none of the cards will drive a VGA monitor through a DVI-to-VGA adapter. I thought it might be because I hadn't installed the drivers from AMD yet. So I installed them and promptly got a BSOD on every boot. Much debugging later, I learned that CCC was causing the crash, and I could install the bare driver to avoid the BSOD.

But still I had no VGA-from-DVI. After a couple more hours of googling, it turns out that this specific video card doesn't have the analog signals hooked up to the DVI-I port on the back of the card. Grrr. Back to newegg they go.

Replacements are on the way. Once they arrive, i'll get to (hopefully!) hook up the 10 monitors to five cards. ]]> Worklogs Mohonri http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688672 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688290&goto=newpost Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:17:59 GMT Hey everyone!
This is my first time doing a build log and also my first time watercooling. I got the white Switch 810 as an upgrade from my HAF 932 Advanced, and while I'm using a few parts from my old build, like a few hard drives, this will pretty much be a brand new build. This will be my first build in 4 years, as it's time to dump my old, crappy system, which I'm moving to a new build for my dad. (no point in putting that up as a log haha)

I'm switching from the following:
Q6600 @ 3.0 GHz
4GB XMS2 RAM
2x GTX 260's
EVGA 680i SLI (yes, that old)

To THIS:
Ivy Bridge (cant decide i5 or i7 yet)
I'm between MB's - looking for an Asus Max. V Extreme, but heard a rumor it wasn't a planned product???
16GB Vengeance Low Profile RAM
DT 5Noz Water Block
2x GTX580 Classified Hydro Copper SLI
Koolance PMP-450S with 24V controller
14x Monsoon Compression Fittings
FrozenQ Reservoir (White/Blood Red)
X-Fi Fatal1ty Sound Card
128GB Samsung SSD
Black Ice SR1 360mm Radiator
GTX 140mm Radiator
Black Ice Pro 120mm Radiator

I'm going to be home this coming week for spring break, so i will have pics and test fitting of my watercooling gear then.
I'll have the next few spots reserved for the build/pics.
Feel free to ask any questions, I'm no expert but I'll try to help or explain as best I can!!

Thanks,
Enjoy!!


The only thing I ask of you guys is to give me some time with this. I am new to watercooling, and I'm still doing my parts shopping. Also, after this week of break, I'm back in school for a month, so in that time, there won't be many images or build updates, just the occasional post to answer questions, etc. I just want you all to keep in mind it will be a little bit before completion


A MORE IN DEPTH LOG IS ALREADY ON OCN, AND CAN BE SEEN
HERE ]]> Worklogs crazyg0od33 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688290 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688119&goto=newpost Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:23:31 GMT [H]owdy all. I've got a new system, freshly built. And yes, I'm going to be cutting it up, just like I do with every other case. Lot's of firsts for me on this one: first Intel chip (wow, I know), first serious mITX (I have an E350 also for htpc) and first Shuttle.

Here's a run down of the hardyware:

1. Intel i7 2600K (yep, everybody and their brother just picked one of these up)
2. Shuttle SZ68R5 (bad ass, google it)
3. Crucial C300 128GB SSD
4. G.Skill 16GB (4GBx4) Rip Jaw memory
5. MSI HD6870 Hawk 1GB GPU
6. Seagate Barracude 1TB HDD

The Problem to Address:
After repairing a bend pin in the socket I got it all together and running nicely. However, under the load of gaming, the fans really wind up and make this little SFF a real toaster. So, there in lies the mod in question. MORE AIRFLOW! The 6870 is starved for cool external air, and the non-reference style cooler is just circulating hot air around the case, only some of it escaping through the CPU's I.C.E. cooler (make it hotter).

Prototype
So here is my lovely ghetto prototype, testing my theory of adding a larger GPU side intake and blowhole. The fan on top is an Antec 3 speed fan I pulled from my box-o-goodies and fastened down with drywall screws (ha!)


Prototype Results:
I must say, it made a BIG IMPROVEMENT. Idles temps on the GPU went from 42*C down to 32*C. CPU down a little from 36*C to 33*C. And under load the GPU went from balmy 77*C down to a more comfortable 66*C. CPU didn't change but a few degrees. I am VERY pleased. Even at 66*C, the fans on the 6870 don't spin up very loud.

Parts on order:
So, since my prototype has proven to be somewhat successful, I'll be putting the stock case cover under the knife. On order for this some black aluminum hexagonal modder's mesh. Also, for better and quieter cooling I've ordered a couple Scythe PWM fans. One 92mm for the I.C.E and one 120mm for the blowhole.

And here is how she's sitting now (fan now mounted internally with a grill), awaiting the side panel surgery. I'll keep you posted. :)
]]> Worklogs cmadki4 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688119 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688045&goto=newpost Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:09:46 GMT Excerpts from an Aperture Laboratories Employee, circa 2012:
[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]

9 March 2012:
I've become a fan of older Aperture hardware it seems. Working on the latest Aperture Laboratories Portable Testing Unit, I discovered the following images in an old service manual:



I've managed to dig out these parts, and intend on resurrecting this machine from Aperture's early days. With the ongoing lockdown in the labs, I have some free time to complete this project. I'm still trying to find any form of literature regarding the unit's external design, will log those images as soon as I discover them.

This post brought to you by:


Note: This worklog is in no way connected with vALVE or related companies. This is just a mod made by a fan of the Portal game/world.
[END TRANSMISSION]


[BEGIN TRANSMISSION]
Sunday 22 April

After a lot of planning (and interruptions, damn that Wheatley, useless pile of [REDACTED]) I have started to work on this project! First I have grabbed a power supply from the reverse engineering plant, seems they were looking at this Silverstone Essentials Series 500W unit in preparation for the reverse engineered Aperture Science unit to supply power for our next generation of Aperture Science Single-user System.

Disappointingly, the pinout of the connectors is all wrong! How inefficient is a motherboard when it needs to be supplied all these different voltages?! Seems the ASPTU uses a more efficient combination of 12v and a standby 5v supply. Much nicer.

So, I've had to remove all these unnecessary wires. See below:

Seen above is a quick size comparison of the PSU and the ASPTU board.


The unit in its correct location in the system


The opened unit (OOC: Warranty? BAH!)


Removing the unnecessary wires - the ones to the left are about to be removed


That's more like it. 26 wires in total, rather than the 40+ that existed before. Don't worry, the wires will be sleeved for a more uniform look.


The remaining ends - the plugs you see are for the Aperture Science Singular Board Unified Televisor Translator (seriously the marketing dept needs a shakeup!)
The loose wires will be inserted into a 20 pin plug for the board.


A selection of the removed wires. Some of this (approx 10-20cm) will be saved for powering disk devices and cooling apparatus.

I hope to pass on more work on this project soon, barring any more interruptions.

[END TRANSMISSION]

OOC:
A few more pics over on LOSIAS.net :)

Specs so far
2x Intel Xeon L5420 2.5GHz (according to Passmark, the pair have 90% of the performance of a stock clocked Core i7-2600k. I render a lot as well as game so need 'moar REAL cores'. I also have a trick or two up my sleeve. Passmark says 3GHz 5400 series Xeons have similar performance to the core i7-2700k or i7-3820.. considering what I paid for this hardware it's a steal)
4x 1GB DDR2 FB-DIMMs (going to purchase another 4 soon enough, for real quad channel bandwidth)
Supermicro X7DWT motherboard (I believe I'm the first modder to use the Half-SSI style form factor.. I could be wrong. The board is designed to be paired with a twin inside a single 1U server, hence the funky power input. Seriously, read the thread here: http://www.losias.net/showthread.php...o-X7DWT-thread! )
XFX GTX285 1GB (I wanted something within budget that had decent performance and was long, to suit the motherboard)
500GB WD Blue
2x Deepcool Ice Edge Mini coolers (going to be custom mounted)

Chassis will be made from 1mm alu sheet, with some steel reinforcing and whatnot. ]]> Worklogs confusis http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1688045 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1687974&goto=newpost Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:28:38 GMT 9-pin RGB adapter for Amiga 1080 CRT monitor -Possibly replacing the IDE cables if I can track down 100% black rounded ones (still without shrouds) -Also possibly replacing the front panel wires with black ones. -Possibly adding a window or large grill sections.]]> If you've been perusing the 3DFX thread, you may recognize this. I posted there a few weeks ago when I first started the build, but now i'm finally getting around to giving it a home of it's own so I can post some updates.



Right before I pulled the trigger on a massive dual LGA2011 build just for fun, I took a step back and thought about what I was really doing (usually a step I skip). It was only then that I noticed how terribly I was missing the point. I realized my motives had become too heavily weighted in the pizzazz of fancy parts and crazy core speeds, and not nearly enough about the true appreciation of the hardware. Hell, I rarely even push my OC'd 2600k up to capacity, and I have no clue why I have 32 gigs of RAM.

About that same time, I also became inspired by cmadki4's "Arcaic" case mod. I was also already getting nostalgic, tinkering with Amiga and N64 emulators. So it was then decided that my new project would not be a wasteful over-the-top powerhouse, but instead a vintage gaming machine combining original hardware with plenty of age-old memories of software and games alike.

I began this project about mid-March when I dusted off this old Celeron MMX 433mhz board. It had 64 RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and Intel 82810-DC100 integrated graphics (3MB).



I've had the computer laying around in closets for about 5 years, after I upgraded my grandparents to XP and received this as my thank-you present.





She lives!

Next step: make it cool.

What's cooler than the first ever SLI graphics cards? I picked up two Orchid Righteous 3DFX Voodoo2 12MBs, along with the SLI cable and pass-through all together in a pretty solid ebay deal.









Now it's time for some new memory. 512MB PC100 to max out the motherboard.





I guess it's time to stick it in a case. It's only temporary though. A new one will be arriving eventually. And yes the CPU heatsink has a fan just sitting loosely on top of it! Got a new CPU cooler coming from Taiwan though...



At this point I began setting up some software.

When I was starting to install 3D games and troubleshooting issues, I went through numerous testing rounds using various Voodoo2 drivers and Glide/DirectX versions. I went from DX6, to 7, to 8.1, to 9.0c, then back to 8.1 all while also swapping graphics drivers (probably about 20 Voodoo2 re-installs in total). There are loads of third-party Voodoo drivers that claim to be faster and more compatible, but to be honest I noticed zero difference.

After enough testing and research, I landed on DirectX 8.1 and the latest actual manufacturer's drivers v3.02.02. I’m sticking to the stock 3DFX drivers because frankly, I saw no performance gain from FastVoodoo 4.6. Plus I feel more comfortable sticking to the manufacturer’s drivers rather than going third-party. If the FastVoodoo drivers can’t even manage to display the System Info panel correctly, they have already lost my confidence!

However, at that point I realized I had probably made a real mess of the system files with all this back-n-forth. I had used DirectX Buster to remove versions I did not want, but there is still no way to guarantee it is clean. The only way to have absolute confidence that the system is as clean and solid as possible is to do a fresh re-install. Not to mention it was still running off of the same factory install it came with in 1998. I had cleared out most of the Gateway junk, but who knows what else could be lingering around. I went ahead and re-installed Windows 98SE, and here are some specs just after completing that:





-----------
(about 2 weeks later: )


As you may know, the Voodoo2s are 3D accelerators only. They rely on a third, more traditional graphics card for 2D display. I decided to go with the Matrox Millennium G200 because it is known to pair well with Voodoos, and I am also intrigued by the uniqueness of it's memory expansion capability. I spent extra time tracking down the specific version that had 8MB of onboard memory and also the expansion module with an additional 8MB. Finally got an chap in the UK to send me one for a very fair price.

Matrox Millennium G200 w/ 16MB total (8 + 8)


Unfortunately though it is the SDRAM version, as opposed to the slightly faster SGRAM variant. However I am happy to live with that, as my research leads me to believe that the SGRAM was only ever applied to the AGP version of the card. I don't have AGP on this board, but Tom's Hardware circa 1998 says AGP doesn't really matter in comparison to PCI anyway, so I still feel cool :cool:




Alas, a new case. This is the only part of the build so far that is not 1998 authentic. Old cases are far too bulky and limiting. I chose this Silverstone SG-02 because it is compact but also very airy. I want to show off the Voodoo2s as much as possible, so something horizontal and open like this seemed fitting.

I will probably be modding windows into the panel of the case. Or just making new panels all together, depending on how things come together visually later on.





First step of the transplant is to tear everything down. Here it all is laid out.



Here’s a recap:

Intel Socket 370 Bryant Motherboard R1

Intel Celeron MMX 433mhz

512MB PC100 RAM

10GB Fujitsu + 20GB WD HDDs

Matrox Millennium G200 8MB SDRAM + 8MB upgrade module (16MB)

2x 3DFX Voodoo2 12MB in SLI (8MB frame buffer, 16MB texture)

Linksys EtherFast 10/100 PCI

Some old CD-ROM

Some old 3.5” floppy drive

1x 60mm fan for HDDs

2x 80mm fans for GFX cards

Unknown Taiwanese brand aftermarket CPU cooler w/ 50mm fan

PSU as pictured is a 90W (yes, ninety watts) Newton Power NPS-90AB, but have since upgraded to a 300W Seasonic SS-300SFD.




Finally time to swap out that CPU cooler. The old heatsink was a real sucker to get off, and I can see why. This ancient thermal paste was hardened into a puddy.



All cleaned up, 433mhz of shiny beautifulness...



The new stack...





Just out of principal, I cannot let those Voodoo2 cores go totally un-cooled. There is not much space though, so just one step up from no cooling would be some passive cooling heatsinks. Unfortunately they are also a tad small, but better than nothing:







Wrapping it up. Gonna need a PSU conversion bracket.


The rubber shrouds of my new rounded IDE cables were total crap in this circumstance. It is so cramped and the thickness of the rubber connector shroud was so thick that I couldn't make the bends I needed to without totally displacing the shroud. So I just saved a headach and chopped them off.

Let all the raw guts just show themselves!

Notice the bent up HDD cage? That is in part due to the poor cage mounting design of this case, but really it was caused by a jammed factory installed screw that was holding in one of the HDD trays. Had to disassemble the whole sliding cage assembly to get the screw unlodged out.



This 80x25mm fan proved too thick to clear the SLI cable so much so that it would be impossible to attach the fan bracket. I have since swapped it with a 80x15mm fan instead and it clears just fine.














Updated spread:

Windows 98 SE, Intel Celeron MMX 433mhz, 512MB PC100, 3x 3DFX Voodoo2 12MBs, Matrix Millennium G200 16MB, Ethernet, 30GB HDD space (10 + 20)

And finally, the current fully operational selection. Collection is still very WIP and will always continue to grow.


Some accessories already in place but not photographed:
-Microsoft Sidewinder
-N64 Controller USB adapter

Future accessories to be implemented:
-2x NES controller ports on case
-2x N64 controller ports on case
-9-pin adapter for Commodore Mouse 1351
-VGA -> 9-pin RGB adapter for Amiga 1080 CRT monitor
-Possibly replacing the IDE cables if I can track down 100% black rounded ones (still without shrouds)
-Also possibly replacing the front panel wires with black ones.
-Possibly adding a window or large grill sections. ]]> Worklogs toddfx http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1687974 http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1687895&goto=newpost Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:18:22 GMT hi all i started to build my new pc this week ....



Corsair 600t Graphite....



Removed the mesh from top of case . That mesh was thick, so much harder than the usual mesh to cut. Definitely good quality stuff. Anyways, now my H100 is much more silent, especially at startup. I'm glad I made those holes, the airflow is much better as well....



Removed the stock top 200mm for dual 120mm fans with green leds ....



The break down for paint ....




Parts for painting ....






The new custom airbrush work ....



Also did the armor on my Asus P67 Sabertooth mobo ....



The finished parts ....





The case back together again , i also did the inside on the case with carbon fiber ....



System back in the case ....





Some night shots of the case so you can see the leds in the fans , i also changed the leds in the front 200mm fan from white to green ....

thats about it for now i have a few more ideas to do to the case and will up date soon .... ]]> Worklogs fatrix http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1687895