Dedicated Obsession

[leik oh em jeez!]

I love case modding. If only I had time and some more cases to practice on....

[AZAZEL]

Apparently I accidentally deleted the pictures I copied to the PC, instead of the ones on the memory card, leading to the confusion. They were all still on the memory card, so here's a few pics of the assembly and the first boot up:

 

All the goodies.

 

Light cable management. I'll give it another whirl once I get the rest of my fan cable extensions and such.

 

 

Just wanted to show you this. It's mahusive and all sexy like. Very awesome card.

 

Applied a thin layer of Titan Silver Grease.

 

Up and running.

 

I received the main ingredient for my mysterious project today. I'll post pictures once my order from Caseking gets in.

 

 

[Cursed]

Looks very nice and clean in the second photo. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Edmachine]

That is absolutely beautiful ! I'd give away my phone just to get that start button! That is just amazing. Just be careful to not spill the coffee in the PC (last picture) .

[Abel.]

Great looking PC and great motherboard choice! However, why didn't you opt for a decent Core 2 Duo? Your specs are still very nice.

Other than the Pentium, we have very similar setups.

[anus]

Just wanted to show you this. It's mahusive and all sexy like. Very awesome card.

Guess you're satisfied with the card eh .

 

It's looking really awesome man, can't wait to see the final result .

 

 

[AZAZEL]

 

Great looking PC and great motherboard choice! However, why didn't you opt for a decent Core 2 Duo? Your specs are still very nice.

Other than the Pentium, we have very similar setups.

It's an easy upgrade if I should ever feel like getting a better one, though. I haven't got any apps or games that fully utilize the E5200 as it is, and I haven't even started overclocking it yet.

 

The GTX 260 gets quite hot. The back I/O plate is almost too hot to touch after a longer gaming session. Plenty of airflow and such.

[anus]

Check your temps. As long as they're under 90C under load you're fine. It's normal for graphics cards to run hot.

[Drunk Russian 9]

Any tips on personal cable management and braiding? I love the way you have yours done.

[Scorpus]

Any tips on personal cable management and braiding? I love the way you have yours done.

Twist ties are your friend

[Waste]

Any tips on personal cable management and braiding? I love the way you have yours done.

Twist ties are your friend

Zip ties work well too.

Friend of mine used small plumbing clamps on one of his builds to tie in with his "steam powered" theme.

Wish I had pics of that build because it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

[K^2]

The two black buttons weren't hooked up to anything. I ordered them thinking they were proper on-off-on switches, but they were momentary like the red one, so I never utilized them.

 

Hook them up to your optical drive eject buttons. These are momentary switches as well, and the wiring on these is extremely simple. You'd have to open up the drive cases, of course, which will void the warranty, but you don't seem like the kind of guy who'd worry about that sort of stuff. Just find the leads, and solder a couple of wires in parallel to the switch. Then send these wires to the switches on the case. Half an hour of work, tops, and you'd have a good use for these switches.

[anus]

That's actually an awesome idea. Try it for the Lian Li Az.

[jelly]

Your cable management and Lian Li is too nice. Let me crap up your topic a little.

 

 

The worst part is that aside from throwing whatever of those PSUs that doesn't work out it probably won't be any better when it is finished. The side doors will hide it.

[AZAZEL]

Get that... monstrosity out of here, jelly.

 

 

Hook them up to your optical drive eject buttons.

 

 

That's actually an awesome idea. Try it for the Lian Li Az.

 

I did consider doing something along those lines with the old Dragon, but seeing as it had that front hatch covering everything up and such, I never felt the need.

 

With this build simplicity and tidiness is key, though, so it might come in useful. I've been wanting to get one of those optical drive covers from Lian Li, to cover up the plasticity of the drive, but these back ordered, and I won't be able to get one until early June.

 

Reusing a drive bay cover and operating the tray with an external switch might be the perfect alternative. Thanks for leading me on the right course.

 

Oh, and a sneak peak of what my future plans will include:

 

 

 

 

[Tommy-Vercetti19]

Damn, That cover is hotness!

 

 

I'm doing my upgrade in the summer since i'm getting my money from my exams.

 

I'm going to need a lot of help though. First complete upgrade ever. Most i've ever done was change the RAM and put in a new GFX card.

 

 

[Daint]

 

Damn, That cover is hotness!

 

 

I'm doing my upgrade in the summer since i'm getting my money from my exams.

 

I'm going to need a lot of help though. First complete upgrade ever. Most i've ever done was change the RAM and put in a new GFX card.

Aye, pretty much same here. All my sh*t arrives tomorrow, but I guess aslong as I'm not a retard, and I'm careful, things should be okay. Wish I could be bothered to mod my case, but I reckon the Antec 1200 is nice enough looking for now . Funny though, half my specs are identical to Azazel's .

[anus]

The 1200 is f*cking badass. Lovely case. What are the PC's specs?

 

Oh and what's happening with the mod Az ?

[AZAZEL]

Oh and what's happening with the mod Az ?

Not a whole lot, to be frank.

 

I've been immensely busy at work, and the time I have had to ponder over my mod, I've scrapped some ideas, had some new ones, and you know how it goes. Kill your darlings, as they say.

 

I probably won't be using those speakers after all. My plan was to mount the gauge where the actual speaker was, alongside a power button, utilizing the speaker housing as an external 'pod'-sort-of-thing.

 

Scratched that, and I'm not working on doing something similar, but incorporating it into the top of the case. I'll post some pics as soon as I get some of it done.

[Drunk Russian 9]

Still no updates?

 

 

[Waynio]

Good to see some modding here Looks a nice case:D .

I'll post my next worklog in the tech & pc chat section, virtually finnished designing my v2 on google sketchup and should have my alluminium this week hopefully .

Been using my prototype since january and it is very good, but have some tweaks here and there to make it better as well as making it more sturdy.

[AZAZEL]

 

Azazel continues like there was no delay at all.

 

Since it has been ten months or so since I posted the last update, be sure to check the previous pages if you've lost track of where I'm at in this little project of mine.

 

As you may recall, I spent quite some time decking out my old IDE DVD burner, but I soon got tired of the messy IDE cabling, and threw it in the bin. I replaced it with an LG drive, which is nice and all, but quite ghastly, so that needs correcting.

 

 

Instead of modifying it much, I'll stealth it using a spare drive bay cover. It'll receive a squirt of paint at some point, but it's currently too cold out to paint. With the drive bay cover covering the front of the drive, I'll be moving the eject button to the top of the case.

 

 

Relocating the eject button requires some soldering and whatnot, so I removed the casing to get a good look at how LG had put this thing together.

 

 

Turning the drive around you can see the small PCB that holds not only the eject button and the LED, but also the motor that powers the drive tray, so that'll have to come out, too.

 

 

I'll pick this up later. I'm currently running my PC with no disc drive, which I'll probably get tired of quite fast, so chances are that I'll finish this part of the mod in the nearest future..

 

Next up (probably tonight), some shopping and cable sleeving.

[AZAZEL]

I'll allow myself to double post, hopefully not getting anyone's panties in a twist.

 

Here's a short list of what I've purchased for the mod recently:

 

From MDPC-X International:

• 10x Cable Management Clip MEDIUM - BLACK
• 10x Cable Management Clip SMALL - BLACK
• 40x UNC 6-32 Screws Black-Oxide Button-Head
• Pin-Remover Tool
• 1m Heatshrink SATA - BLACK
• 1m Heatshrink SMALL - BLACK
• 10m Sleeve SMALL - BLACK
• 30x Rivet Dome Head - BLACK

This guy has some awesome, clean modding supplies, and he draws these cool doodles on your parcel:

 

 

From Caseking:

• Cooler Master 120mm Fan R4-L2R-20AC-GP
• 1x InLine SATA Adapter - Angled up
• 2x InLine SATA Adapter - Angled down
• 3x InLine SATA Cable - Transparent
• 20x LianLi Thumb Screws - Black
• Bitspower Thin Temperature Sensor
• LianLi Plug Covers - Black
• Sabotaz Spray Paint - Signal Black
• Sabotaz Spray Can Caps - 14cm spread

 

 

Not sure how good this paint is, but I liked the look of the can, and the interchangeable spray caps.

 

 

This was the state of the innards of my system before I commenced this overhaul. I didn't like that LianLi grill on the rear exhaust fan, nor the fan itself, there was too much cable clutter, and those red SATA cables stuck out nastily.

 

The first thing I did to resolve these issues, was to replace the rear exhaust fan, and get rid of the grill.

 

 

I chose a fan that was somewhat identical to the one cooling my CPU. I wasn't able to get one exactly like it, without LEDs, so I settled for one with some subtle dark blue lighting.

 

 

The cable had a fugly brown connector, so I replaced that with a black one.

 

 

I could have added some heat shrink, like illustrated in the background, but the sleeving sat quite snugly on the wire, and close to the connector, so I kept it clean.

 

 

That helped a bit. You can see the new fan's been installed, and I've replaced one of the old, red SATA cables with a black angled one, which is for the DVD drive in the top of the case. I have also removed the two empty hard drive trays, mainly to improve the air flow from the front intake fan. And I'm sorry for the poor pictures, but it had gotten dark outside, and the lighting in my room is sh*t for taking pictures.

 

 

This is a massacred SATA power cable, which was too long, and had two additional connectors that I have no use for. It will be powering my DVD drive, but before it'll be allowed to do that, it needs a makeover.

 

 

 

The final product.

 

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll get more done during the weekend.

[Star-Lord]

Great stuff man.

 

That purple case is off the chains. Probably one of the best case mods I've ever seen.

How long did it take you?

[Cursed]

Would look even better if all the PSU cables were sleeved and if that 4/8pin could be rerouted/extended.

[AZAZEL]

Great stuff man.

 

That purple case is off the chains. Probably one of the best case mods I've ever seen.

How long did it take you?

Thanks mate. I'm not sure how long I spent building that. It was the first casemod I ever did, and my goal was to enter it in the Mod of the Year contest on TweakUp.dk, but I wasn't able to make the deadline, sadly. The main part of the manufacturing was done during my summer break... 2006, I think, but by then I had probably been planning and experimenting for a year or so.

 

 

Would look even better if all the PSU cables were sleeved and if that 4/8pin could be rerouted/extended.

 

Then it's a good thing that my plan is to sleeve all the PSU cables, then. It's a lengthy process, though, and I'm running out of sleeve, so it'll be a while before I'm done. And the 4/8-pin cable has already been extended and rerouted.

[AZAZEL]

PICTURE UPDATE!

 

Just a few shots to show the current state of affairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[uNi]

Looks damn neat!

 

That photo of the open case and the coffee just there gave me the shivers. I've spilled all sorts of stuff on the desk, mostly

bottles of beer.

[AZAZEL]

@uni:

 

It's actually tea.

 

I've been focusing mainly on the minor details so far; cable sleeving, drive stealthing, fans and whatnot. The main reason for this is that with the cold and wet weather we have here currently, I can't get any painting done, and it's not ideal for various sorts of fabrication, either. But when the weather does come around, I need a plan of sorts, so I sarted sketching something up in SketchUp. This is what I have so far:

 

 

 

The big, round, blue blobs are supposed to be those gauges I took from the Cooler Master Musketeer I disassembled in one of the previous pages, and the idea is to have them working as buttons. They'll be recessed in tinted acrylic mounted beneath the top plate, and the 'reset', 'power' and 'eject' text will be back-lit.

 

Not sure what to do for the side. A window of sorts, maybe. Any ideas?

Edited February 27, 2010 by Azazel

[Campo.]

Looks nice. But, why THE HELL a pentium?!?!?!?!