gobygoby

nice parts......I never get any free stuff from the egg... maybe I will on my next order coming soon!

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CURRENT MOD: PSOne LCD 1
NEXT MOD: ? ? ?
FINISHED MODS: * Painted Chassis * PSU Mod * Access Holes For WC Mounts * Added WC gear * Front Doors - Washer Mod * False wall * USB Christmas Light Mod * False Floor * Stealth DVD Drives

stargate125645

My new, UV blue cables arrived. Hopefully they will look better in the case!

Soon I will order that fan I mentioned as well, at which point I will give you all more detailed pictures on the Silverstone drive bay converter.

Edit:
It has been ordered, along with a PSU vibration dampener, just to see if I can avoid getting rid of the PC P&C. I doubt it will work but it's better than nothing and doesn't cost much. The fan vibration dampeners worked well enough that I though I'd give this a shot...
Fan: http://www.svc.com/streamliner-blk.html
Vibration Dampener: http://www.svc.com/vaposuvidaki.html

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Well, I started poking around with the A2400 door, and it didn't take me long to figure out that the acrylic can be easily removed... Perhaps I should have given that a shot in the first place.

So, in anticipation of getting a new A2400 door, I have finished modding the bezel so that it will lie flat on the glass:

Using a hacksaw, I first sawed off the two shorter prongs on the far side of the bezel. Honestly, I have no idea what they were for anyway. I already have pilot threads in the 4 longer prongs for screws, so those are the only prongs I need.

I followed that up with the file on my Leatherman, first using the coarse side to make quicker progress, then using the smooth side to get a better finish. It is now virtually flush with the edge of the bezel:

Any part that sticks out extra (less than a millimeter) won't be a problem because I will simply put that part on a side with the acrylic, as it sits a bit behind the metal part of the door.

For the door dismantling, you can see that there are little prongs with 4 pieces, and a center piece. The 4-pieced prong goes through the hole first, followed by the center piece which expands the 4-pieced prong and makes the connection snug.

To separate the metal and acrylic pieces, simply push down on the center piece until you see the 4-pieced prong close. Then push the 4-pieced prong in completely and both pieces will come out.

Repeat that process for the other 30,000 fasteners on the door, and you now have two easy, separate pieces to work with instead of one pain in the butt that will leave you with a broken heart and salty tears...


I want to test the drill bit on the metal by itself, but my roommate is sleeping so I'll be polite for now. If the drill bit works on the holes that are completely metal (not the edge holes), then I will use it on those and use tin snips on the edges, as the bezel will cover them. I still have to go to the store and get a drill bit specifically for plastic as well. (The door won't be ordered for a while still, so I have plenty of time.)

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The Silenx fan and AeroCool fans I ordered arrive Thursday. I will have updates either then or Friday.

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I did a lot of research and found the two best noise:airflow ratio fans available, and came up with these two:
AeroCool Streamliner
Silenx iXtrema Pro

I was originally going to just purchase the Streamliner after having heard a lot of negative reviews at Silent PC Review, but a fellow OCN member convinced me to give Silenx a shot, so I obliged. Pictures of them in their original packaging can be seen in the next post.

In order to determine which fan I would use, I decided to compare those two fans, in addition to the default Thermaltake iCage fan that was to be replaced. Since my default PSU, the PC P&C 1kW leaf blower, would be too loud, I switched to my Antec 350W PSU (which is/was for sale here!) which is so whisper quiet that it's ridiculous. I had to hook it up to the motherboard to make it power on, so a giant mess of cables surfaced:


From there, I hooked up all three fans at once to determine which was the loudest:

I used the flash so I could get a better picture of the fins in action. I love the look of that Streamliner - it is definitely the best looking of the bunch! From left to right: AeroCool Streamliner, Silenx iXtrema Pro, Thermaltake iCage fan.

It was determined that the Silenx fan was actually the loudest out of those three, even though it was rated at the quietest. I will delve into my theory as to why later. This left the other two fans to duke it out:

Notice how the Streamliner's fins are still visible, even though no flash was used (so the exposure was longer, meaning the fins should be blurred). This is because it has such a low RPM compared to the others, so the fins are easier to capture "unblurred" while in motion.

Between those two fans, the Streamliner was actually quieter, despite being rated as louder than the iCage fan. Thus, the final results for noise (loudest listed first):
Silenx > iCage fan > Streamliner
This is the exact opposite of their noise ratings (14 dBA, 17 dBA, and 19.6 dBA, respectively). However, in terms of airflow, the Silenx fan won hands down, followed by the Streamliner, with the iCage fan in a distant 3rd, as would be expected given their airflow ratings. For the record, I did add the 120mm converter to the Streamliner (which is 140mm) to see if it added to the noise, but no discernible changes in the noise level occurred.

Given the results, one would think that I would choose to replace all my fans with the Streamliner, but I actually chose the Silenx fan as my favorite. Why? Well, the Silenx fan is so well designed, that you really cannot hear the air being moved by the fins - you hear the motor only. This give the impression that this fan is the loudest, but in all honesty even at maximum RPM, you cannot hear it from 1m away, so why not pick the fan that blew the most air? For the record, the AeroCool Streamliner sounded like air coming out of a vent when the air-conditioner is running in your house, so it had a low, smooth tone to it with little to no noise from the motor, making it sound quieter (the air noise drowned out the motor noise?). The iCage was somewhere in-between.

I have subsequently ordered 2 more 120mm blue LED 72 cfm Silenx fans from CyberDruid to replace my other two 120mm fans, and I will be using a circular file to increase the 90mm fan mount to 92mm to fit the 92mm Silenx fan.

I think a lot of the negative reviews on the Silenx fan come from the fact that people compare them with their ears right up next to the fans, and since the Silenx fan is so aerodynamically designed, you hear more motor than air so it sounds louder, as I explained above. Is the 14 dBA rating correct? I don't think it is, no, but it isn't far off. Perhaps upwards of 20 dBA would be more accurate, but sitting 1m away you can't tell the difference between that and the Streamliner. In other words, if everything is quiet and/or barely audible, then the best option is to pick the one with the most airflow, and that happens to be the Silenx fan (72 cfm), with the AeroCool Streamliner coming in second at 54.6 cfm.

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With the fan replacement going on, I also received my new UV blue cabling. Since the UV red cables were more pink than red because of my blue LED fans, I ordered replacements cables. I also decided to purchase shorter cables for the floppy drive and DVD burner to help with cable management. As usual, everything posed for a picture on my bed:

Notice that the cables are clear and not blue. I decided to get clear ones that react blue to the UV light so that they looked silverish when under natural sunlight (with the UV light off), in case I decide not to buy another UV light.

In addition to the two fans mentioned in my previous post, I also bought a PSU vibration dampening kit from SVC (which I will use when I get my Ultra X3 modular PSU later), and some heat-shrink tubing and a 1/4" to 1/8" headphone jack for my amplifier from Radio Shack. The headphone jack was a side-purchase, and has nothing to do with this case mod, so I'm not sure why it wanted to pose with the other items for the picture, but I didn't argue.

A close-up of the two fans tested above:




The heat-shrink tubing was purchased because I needed smaller tubing for my current sleeving operation on the Thermaltake SmartFan fan controller being used on my Silverstone FM121 fan, which is in my Tuniq Tower 120. In my previous internal case pictures, you can see the wiring being wrapped around one of the rear 120mm fans:


With the new clear UV blue cables, and the sleeved fan controller, you can see a nice improvement in the cable management and overall quality of the setup:


This cable management masterpiece is documented with the following pictures:

You can see the supplies I used, including the hair dryer that I utilize to shrink the tubing. It isn't as instantaneous at shrinking the tubing as a hot air gun would be, but it gets the job done and doesn't cost me a thing so no complaints here. My Leatherman also came in handy again: it saved me from having to get up and go into the other room to get scissors!

This picture is of the sleeving partially complete. The fraying of the mesh always perturbed me, but it ends up getting covered up by the heat-shrink tubing so all is well.

Slowly sliding the cables into the mesh reminds me of a snack eating something, but maybe that's just me... It is kind of a pain to have to slide the cable all the way through the mesh, but as you will see in the next picture, it's worth the effort!

And finally, the finished product:

You can see on the end with the 2-pin plug that the cabling looks like it gets thicker as it enters the heat-shrink tubing. This is because I had to triple up the cables in order to make the heat-shrink tubing snug on them when it was exposed to heat. I would have liked to have used smaller tubing, but then it would have fit around the 2-pin head. Regardless, the result is good so I'm pleased!

The next (and final) sleeving project will be for the Kama Meter fan controller. This will be done when my shipment of Silenx fans arrive and are installed later this week. A bonus of the Silenx fans is that their cables are clear and glued together so no sleeving is necessary and the blend into the background well.

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P.S. You can all help me continue this project by visiting my For Sale threads!

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I have made two more entries into my case mod log. There should be another update later this week.

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On a random browse through Performance PCs, I noticed they had the OCZ XTC RAM cooler on sale for $18.99, so I decided to give it a shot and ordered it last weekend. It arrived yesterday and I was able to find time today to dissect and install it.

First, the packaging:

I absolutely abhor this type of packaging! It always requires placing C4 charges around the perimeter to open the damned thing up...

The first thing I noticed after clearing away the debris from the explosives was that they give you two sets of mounting brackets. I am not exactly sure what the point of that is, but now I have spares...

It also comes with two white washers, a pair of thumb screws, and a pair of regular screws in case the thumb screws are too large to fit in your case. Glad to know OCZ thought ahead and I won't have to do any modding when I get my HD 2900XTs! Despite the appearance, the cooler is actually made from steel, as it is magnetic. They probably plated it with nickel to make it shiny.

I was curious as to how they have two fans powered by a single 3-pin connector, so I decided to take the XTC cooler apart.

As I had suspected, OCZ spliced the two fans together, which means no fan replacement is possible without also splicing those or using two separate fan headers on the motherboard. I should also note that only one of the fans sends RPM signals to the header.

The fans are only 10mm thick, with another 10mm or so between the mesh and the fan itself. If you were to purchase a thicker fan to replace these, the noise would increase significantly because of the turbulence created from the void now being taken up by a fan, much like the noise of a fan increases when placing a filter or mesh in front of it. These fans are rated at 21 dBA each, and they each blow 16 cfm. They are no louder than the Silenx fans (which I reviewed here), so I would say that the sound rating is accurate. I can feel the air being pushed by these fans as well, so I would imagine the 16 cfm rating is pretty close to the truth.

After putting it back together, I installed it in my case, as the next two pictures show.
With flash:


And without flash (please excuse the foot that sneaked into the picture...):

The lights look very nice, and the off-center placement of the LEDs is a nice touch in my opinion as well. I can only imagine how sweet it would be if those were UV fans, though, as that would light up my SATA, floppy, and IDE cables nicely.

You might also notice that I have extra cables present in the case compared to my last entry. This is because my Kama Meter died on me, so until I get the new fan controller ordered (I am going with a Vantec Nexus 205B), I have to use 4-pin Molex connectors to power my 3 Silenx fans.

I did take apart the Silverstone CFP51-B bay to do a detailed analysis of it, as well as a detailed log of my fan installations, both of which will appear on my next installment. I'd do it now, but Stargate is on shortly so it must wait for a little while at least...

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With my other two fans arriving from CyberDruid, I now have all 3 of my 120mm fans replaced with Silenx ones.


I am not a big fan (no pun intended) of Thermaltake's plastic mounting system for the case fans. They are a bad enough to take off, but to put back in place is even worse. After about 10 minutes of fidgeting, I managed to take the old rear 120mm fan and clip off:


I wanted to give the rubber grommets supplied by Silenx a chance as well, and they obviously wouldn't work with the clips. I also decided to put a rubber vibration dampener between the fan and the case for added acoustic insulation. With the grommets in place and the dampener applied on top, the fans look like this:

This fan was mounted as shown directly onto the rear 120mm fan spot.

To mount a Silenx fan onto the iCage using the rubber grommets, a little bit modding with a drill bit had to be done because Thermaltake's screw holes are much too small for the grommets to fit into:


To widen the holes, I used my roommates power drill. Luckily he wasn't home, so I didn't have to ask. I had an aluminum iCage and a steel iCage, so I chose the aluminum one to experiment upon since it would be easier on the drill bit. I first tried a 5/32" drill bit, and although the hole was wide enough for the grommet to fit through, it left some sharp shavings along the drill hole edges because Thermaltake used a shaft for the screw threads instead of a hole. I widened each hole to 3/16" and the sharp edges went away so I felt it was safe to assemble the fan the same way as I did with the rear 120mm fan spot. As you can see, it worked perfectly:


And for those of you who think the grommets wouldn't hold the fan on well enough, this should prove otherwise:


Finally, it was on to the Silverstone CFP51-B drive bay that houses my 4 Raptors.

It looks crowded in there, but my drives stayed at about 35 degrees C with the default Silverstone fan. Ambient temperatures were around 25 degrees C.

The CFP51-B is very well designed, with two "fins" that support the actual bay housing on either side, but that are isolated via rubber supports so that vibrational transfer from the HDDs to the case is minimized.

In the above photo, you see one of the fins lying next to the HDD housing.

Taking off the front panel/bezel was quite simple; it only required unclipping the 2 tabs on each side.

Two of the tabs can be seen extending beyond the black front panel over the housing.

Now that the front panel is removed, you can see that the stock fan comes with a grill, and that the bezel has a plastic mesh that is curved inward, presumably to mitigate turbulence created by the air moving around the aluminum, logo-bearing bezel that can be seen when looking at the CFP51-B from the front of the case when it is installed.


The bolts used to attach the fan to the HDD housing are a bit odd. They are similar to the ones that Thermaltake uses on the Armor case doors to attach the acrylic to the metal in that they have 4 outer prongs and an inner shaft that pushes the prongs outward to latch them into place.

You can also see the 4 pieces of meshed aluminum that are held onto the HDD housing by two mall pieces on each side. I decided to take those off (this decision was made after most of these pictures were taken) to allow for better airflow to the HDDs. In doing so, I realized that Silverstone skimped on the quality of the aluminum on this part of the casing since it doesn't support much of the HDDs' weight - it is quite ductile and easily deforms if you are not careful!

I was happy to see that I didn't need to remove the HDDs to place the grommets into the holes, and also pleased that Silverstone didn't use small screws like Thermaltake so no modding of the housing was necessary. The grommets and vibration dampener were applied like with the other two Silenx fans:

I wasn't about to try to hold the fan onto the CFP51-B housing with the HDDs inside. The bottom of the HDD housing has holes for ventilation, but it would have liked to have seen the same at the top as well.

From there all 3 fans were placed into the case... Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I noticed that the vibration dampener was causing the fans to be off balance so a clicking noise would develop every so often in one of the fans. I eventually removed all 3 vibration dampeners and haven't had any problems since then. My HDD temperatures dropped 2-3 degrees C with the new Silenx fan and removal of the 4 aluminum mesh pieces. Unfortunately no flowrate was given for the default Silverstone fan - I only noted that it ran at 1100 RPM before my fan controller died and tried to take my system with it.

Future upgrades planned:
Vantec Nexus 205-B Fan Controller (which I will sleeve)
Ultra X3 1000W PSU (replacing my leaf blower)
2 x HD 2900XTs

Stay tuned, folks!