Post your Cable Management tips/tricks

B

Blakestr

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
1,955
After searching for a definitive thread, I find that most of the tips for good cable management are found the in "Post Pictures of" threads and not in any particular order or easy-to-find spot. With that in mind, please post tips that you have found, favorite products you use to hide cables in your desktop, HTPC, and inside your PC. Do you know of any kits, such as the classic paintable white plastic wire-hiders for use in Home Theatre setups? Though cable management seems to be just as much art as science, it would be nice to have a go-to reference on the subject.

EDIT - Also, I mean cable management OUTSIDE the case as well....
 
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You just have to take your time and be creative. The back of my case where you hide cables is a mess, but the front looks pretty good. Have a modular power supply helps a ton. One technique I use though is wrapping wires around each other.
 
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You can get spiral wrapping at any hardware store like Lowes or Home Depot, I'm guessing, a lot cheaper than a retail product. You don't get the special tool that splits it as you'll have to wrap them yourself, but that takes all of 30 seconds.

I've gone from split loom, to spiral wrap, to sleeving, and now to my latest kick, rit-dye. I posted in the rate your cables thread a long while back.

My HTPC / File Server

Sorry for the crappy pics. These were taken at night right after I finished the cables, with no natural light.

Black Rit Dye to the rescue. The Intel heatsink is temporary as I needed my Geminii for another rig while I redo the watercooling on it.

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Click to expand...

It's all about taking your time and trying different things. You generally want them either as non-visible as possible or modify them in such a way that the lines accent the rig visually. The right case certainly can help things quite a bit. And unless you are a god at cable management, there's always an angle or hidden area that isn't going to be pretty. Even the best of rigs have back side panels that look similar to mine.
 
Use all of the spaces your case has, that antec is an excellent example. I have the mATX version of the same tower and it hides cables very well. Also, zip ties are your friend!
 
I like to make sure that any unsleeved cables are zip tied nice and tight to themselves so they behave more like one fat wire than a bunch of small ones. Having everything in nice tight bundles means that they're less likely to get tangled up in eachother than if you've got loose wires hanging around. Obviously having space beneath the mobo tray is a huge plus. See the Corsair 800D for a study in how to build a case with perfect cable managment features. I love mine

This Rit-Dye stuff: what are you doing with it? just dyeing all the cables black?
 
I just got a 700d and am completely giddy and looking forward to building my system in it haha
 
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