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The Freeman
n00b
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2009
- Messages
- 17
I did a search through the forum and found a few threads on cable management, but they all seemed to be geared more toward specific cases and what-not. So I decided to try starting a thread where we could all throw up pics of our own cable management jobs to give others ideas on how to better hide their cables in their own cases.
PLEASE, This is not a thread to post "I need help with my cable management, here are my pics". Please try to avoid that. I want this to be the place where people who have those requests can easily find their answers.
So, without any further ado, here are some of my pics after a good 5 hour cable management spree:
I took out the fan and it's mount from the bottom of the case, I put it above my two DVD-RW drives which I moved to the two bottom-most drive bays.
This is just another view of the inside, just to give more of an idea of where all the cables are headed. Also, what you might not see is the 4-pin ATX +12 volt power cable which I have going from the top of the PSU, going under the sound and two graphics cards (8800GTS @ 640MB each) and plugging into the motherboard right over the top of the SLI bridge, you should see the black, blue, and two yellow cables, that is it. And I have my back exhaust fan plugged in directly over that as well.
In this pic you can see the fan that was removed from the bottom of the case was put into the drive bay area, blowing air directly towards my CPU (I never got a big heatsink because I will be moving to Intel soon and it would be a waste of money imo). I kept the plastic mount from the bottom to have something to stabilize the fan a bit better, and because it now matches the fan grill of the one that is on the bottom-front of the case (Yay for symmetry!). The power cable for the pictured fan runs between the DVD drives (you can see it on the to the left of the SATA power cable on the top DVD drive).
This is just to give you a general idea of where the majority of the cable mass is going.
This is to give you a better idea of how the cables are arranged. I specifically wanted to show the modded molex connector. As you can see the power from the PSU goes into the two hard drives and the last connector on that line plugs into the green fan on the top of the case which plugs into the green fan on the front of the case. I reversed the molex connector so that the two fans connected to it would run as 5 V instead of the usual 12 V. Some people have made it so their fans run at 7 V, but I did not do that as it does not ground them because both cables would be plugged into power (the 12 V and the 5 V). Plus, the fans had a pretty good CFM and they were WAAY too loud for my liking anyway.
And more cable management ideas:
-Use zip ties, and do not try to be thrifty, you will go mad.
-Zip tie cables that are going in the same direction (see my SATA cables from the mobo)
-If the 24-pin cable is too fat for you to get the left side panel back on you can always cut a section of the cable wrap and flatten the cables in that area (this is if you do not have a dremel to make the room for it (this might be case specific, but not always).
Well, I think that about sums up all that I have at the moment. Let's get this show on the road then. Please send in pictures of your cable management, and a brief description if you feel the need, for those who would like to have some more ideas on how to better their own cable situation.
If anyone has questions on how I did something (if my descriptions were inadequate) then just ask away and I will try my best to answer. Please try to keep this to a minimum though, as I want this thread to have plenty of pics in it.
Also, if anyone was going to ask, the pics were taken with a Nikon D90 (unfortunately the lighting was bad as it was afternoon so these pics do not do the camera justice, there was not enough light).
Thanks a lot,
The Freeman.
PLEASE, This is not a thread to post "I need help with my cable management, here are my pics". Please try to avoid that. I want this to be the place where people who have those requests can easily find their answers.
So, without any further ado, here are some of my pics after a good 5 hour cable management spree:
I took out the fan and it's mount from the bottom of the case, I put it above my two DVD-RW drives which I moved to the two bottom-most drive bays.
This is just another view of the inside, just to give more of an idea of where all the cables are headed. Also, what you might not see is the 4-pin ATX +12 volt power cable which I have going from the top of the PSU, going under the sound and two graphics cards (8800GTS @ 640MB each) and plugging into the motherboard right over the top of the SLI bridge, you should see the black, blue, and two yellow cables, that is it. And I have my back exhaust fan plugged in directly over that as well.
In this pic you can see the fan that was removed from the bottom of the case was put into the drive bay area, blowing air directly towards my CPU (I never got a big heatsink because I will be moving to Intel soon and it would be a waste of money imo). I kept the plastic mount from the bottom to have something to stabilize the fan a bit better, and because it now matches the fan grill of the one that is on the bottom-front of the case (Yay for symmetry!). The power cable for the pictured fan runs between the DVD drives (you can see it on the to the left of the SATA power cable on the top DVD drive).
This is just to give you a general idea of where the majority of the cable mass is going.
This is to give you a better idea of how the cables are arranged. I specifically wanted to show the modded molex connector. As you can see the power from the PSU goes into the two hard drives and the last connector on that line plugs into the green fan on the top of the case which plugs into the green fan on the front of the case. I reversed the molex connector so that the two fans connected to it would run as 5 V instead of the usual 12 V. Some people have made it so their fans run at 7 V, but I did not do that as it does not ground them because both cables would be plugged into power (the 12 V and the 5 V). Plus, the fans had a pretty good CFM and they were WAAY too loud for my liking anyway.
And more cable management ideas:
-Use zip ties, and do not try to be thrifty, you will go mad.
-Zip tie cables that are going in the same direction (see my SATA cables from the mobo)
-If the 24-pin cable is too fat for you to get the left side panel back on you can always cut a section of the cable wrap and flatten the cables in that area (this is if you do not have a dremel to make the room for it (this might be case specific, but not always).
Well, I think that about sums up all that I have at the moment. Let's get this show on the road then. Please send in pictures of your cable management, and a brief description if you feel the need, for those who would like to have some more ideas on how to better their own cable situation.
If anyone has questions on how I did something (if my descriptions were inadequate) then just ask away and I will try my best to answer. Please try to keep this to a minimum though, as I want this thread to have plenty of pics in it.
Also, if anyone was going to ask, the pics were taken with a Nikon D90 (unfortunately the lighting was bad as it was afternoon so these pics do not do the camera justice, there was not enough light).
Thanks a lot,
The Freeman.
