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Hello everyone!
This will be my first major casemod, unless you count the simple side panel window I built for my case a couple years ago.
Let's get right to it with the components:
Lian Li Rocketfish full tower case
Core i7 970
Prolimatech Megahalems
Asus Sabertooth X58
Sapphire HD6950 unlocked
3x2GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3 1600 C7
2x WD Caviar Blue 640GB in RAID 0
Lite-On DVD burner
Seasonic X-650
Bunch of Xigmatek XLF-F1253 orange fans
Here's what I'll be modding:
1) Sleeve the power supply, USB cables, front panel cables, and fans using MDPC-X sleeving. The sleeves will primarily be black with some UV orange highlights here and there.
2) Cut cable management holes into the motherboard tray.
3) Sandblast the interior of the case and spray paint it black. I may also consider anodizing. Right now I'm undecided/need to do more research on this. Suggestions are welcome.
4) Cut a hole in the top panel to fit a 360mm radiator for my future WC setup. I'm planning on using my Xigmatek fans on the rad in push/pull. Should go very nicely with the orange/black sleeving.
5) Figure out a good way to get balanced UV lighting within my case, probably with LED's. Possibly also paint the red stripes on my HD6950 UV orange.
6) Buy a new side panel so I can redo the window entirely. My hope is that I'll be able to cut a clean rectangular window that will allow me to mount a piece of smoked acrylic on the outside of the panel.
7) Stealth the DVD drive and remove ugly stickers on front panel (not sure what I was thinking).
Here's a fairly recent picture of my setup before any modding:
I've only recently started sleeving the PSU. Being a newbie to sleeving, I found it to be a true test of my dexterity as well as patience when I began. De-pinning the cables is by far the most annoying thing I've ever done with my computer. Heatshrinking is also pretty difficult to get perfect.
Here are a couple pictures of what I've accomplished so far:
I'm too embarrassed to take close-ups of the heatshrink because I did just an awful job. I'm going to redo it this weekend probably. I'll post more pics then.
More pics of current state. You can see how badly my case needs cable management holes. I plan on sleeving the two Kaze Masters' temp probes too if I have enough sleeving.
Here are a couple macro shots of the sleeving on my 8-pin CPU power cable. The heatshrink is sooo difficult to get perfect. I may end up redoing it later on.
Finished about half of my 2nd pair of 6+2pin PCIe power cables. The heatshrink was done much better this time and the de-pinning took WAY less time. Practice makes perfect!
Finished sleeving the 8-pin CPU power cable. No cable management holes means I have to route it across the entire motherboard. I'm almost done with my 2nd pair of 6+2 pin PCIe cables. Then I'll probably work on the front panel USB cables and fans.
2nd pair of PCIe cables done. I really, really hated sleeving the PSU side because there are pairs of ground wires that have to fit into one hole in the connector. Trying to use heatshrink designed for a single wire on two wires is really hard. The sleeves popped out of the heatshrink like a billion times so a lot of heatshrink was wasted. Take a look:
The graphics card side turned out decent though:
Got my Lian Li C-02B 5.25" Bezel today! Looks pretty slick IMO.
Empty packaging.
Looks great installed. Aluminum finish matches the case.
Uh oh... the two "bumps" on either side of the bezel are too steep for my drive to slide over when closing. So the drive just gets stuck there, tries closing a 2nd time, then gives up and opens again. It's a not a big issue since I hardly ever use the DVD drive. I only got the bezel for its looks.
Note: everything I've posted up to this point has just been copied and pasted from the worklog I posted on overclock.net. From now on I'll continue updating both threads separately.
This will be my first major casemod, unless you count the simple side panel window I built for my case a couple years ago.
Let's get right to it with the components:
Lian Li Rocketfish full tower case
Core i7 970
Prolimatech Megahalems
Asus Sabertooth X58
Sapphire HD6950 unlocked
3x2GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3 1600 C7
2x WD Caviar Blue 640GB in RAID 0
Lite-On DVD burner
Seasonic X-650
Bunch of Xigmatek XLF-F1253 orange fans
Here's what I'll be modding:
1) Sleeve the power supply, USB cables, front panel cables, and fans using MDPC-X sleeving. The sleeves will primarily be black with some UV orange highlights here and there.
2) Cut cable management holes into the motherboard tray.
3) Sandblast the interior of the case and spray paint it black. I may also consider anodizing. Right now I'm undecided/need to do more research on this. Suggestions are welcome.
4) Cut a hole in the top panel to fit a 360mm radiator for my future WC setup. I'm planning on using my Xigmatek fans on the rad in push/pull. Should go very nicely with the orange/black sleeving.
5) Figure out a good way to get balanced UV lighting within my case, probably with LED's. Possibly also paint the red stripes on my HD6950 UV orange.
6) Buy a new side panel so I can redo the window entirely. My hope is that I'll be able to cut a clean rectangular window that will allow me to mount a piece of smoked acrylic on the outside of the panel.
7) Stealth the DVD drive and remove ugly stickers on front panel (not sure what I was thinking).
Here's a fairly recent picture of my setup before any modding:
I've only recently started sleeving the PSU. Being a newbie to sleeving, I found it to be a true test of my dexterity as well as patience when I began. De-pinning the cables is by far the most annoying thing I've ever done with my computer. Heatshrinking is also pretty difficult to get perfect.
Here are a couple pictures of what I've accomplished so far:
I'm too embarrassed to take close-ups of the heatshrink because I did just an awful job. I'm going to redo it this weekend probably. I'll post more pics then.
More pics of current state. You can see how badly my case needs cable management holes. I plan on sleeving the two Kaze Masters' temp probes too if I have enough sleeving.
Here are a couple macro shots of the sleeving on my 8-pin CPU power cable. The heatshrink is sooo difficult to get perfect. I may end up redoing it later on.
Finished about half of my 2nd pair of 6+2pin PCIe power cables. The heatshrink was done much better this time and the de-pinning took WAY less time. Practice makes perfect!
Finished sleeving the 8-pin CPU power cable. No cable management holes means I have to route it across the entire motherboard. I'm almost done with my 2nd pair of 6+2 pin PCIe cables. Then I'll probably work on the front panel USB cables and fans.
2nd pair of PCIe cables done. I really, really hated sleeving the PSU side because there are pairs of ground wires that have to fit into one hole in the connector. Trying to use heatshrink designed for a single wire on two wires is really hard. The sleeves popped out of the heatshrink like a billion times so a lot of heatshrink was wasted. Take a look:
The graphics card side turned out decent though:
Got my Lian Li C-02B 5.25" Bezel today! Looks pretty slick IMO.
Empty packaging.
Looks great installed. Aluminum finish matches the case.
Uh oh... the two "bumps" on either side of the bezel are too steep for my drive to slide over when closing. So the drive just gets stuck there, tries closing a 2nd time, then gives up and opens again.
It's a not a big issue since I hardly ever use the DVD drive. I only got the bezel for its looks. Note: everything I've posted up to this point has just been copied and pasted from the worklog I posted on overclock.net. From now on I'll continue updating both threads separately.
