CatTech

His Royal Highness
Project log: February to April 2009

I decided to give my first computer case modification a try by doing a cable management mod to my Thermaltake Armor case, install a second intake fan, over clock the CPU and GPU and paint the interior of the case. This completed log will cover the project from start to finish.


Here is a shot of my computer that I built in April of 2007. It’s been running great but I really wanted to change things up a bit. Everything was stock at this point, nothing special.

After putting some painters tape down, I roughly marked where I wanted my cable management holes, then disassembled the system. Once the motherboard was removed, I drew more accurate holes to be drilled/cut.

My tools of choice.


I thought I took some shots of the case after I had drilled, cut and filed, but it doesn't look like I did because I can't find them. Oh well, I have some shots later that should be ok.

I plan on over clocking the CPU and GPU at the end of this project, so I wanted to add an additional intake fan to increase air flow in the case. I ordered a second iCage from Newegg in order to do this (original steel on left, new aluminum on right which I already sanded with 400 and 600 grit sand paper). After actually holding both of the two cages (original steel cage and the new aluminum iCage), I realized that the steel cage was insanely heavy. The Thermaltake Armor is a heavy case to begin with because it's almost entirely steel, so I decided to ditch the original cage and figure out an alternative method to house the second intake fan.

Time to make a new fan mount for the front of the case. A small sheet of aluminum will do the trick along with my card board stencil that I made.

A few Quick grips and my 4 1/2 inch bimetal hole saw are ready for action



I used my jigsaw to cut the outline.

Ok, I needed a way to make a good clean 90 degree bend on both ends of the aluminum sheet. With no break on hand, I made a quick and cheap one out of some plywood and hinges I had laying around the house.

I just used my Dremel to countersink the hinges.

I then used my level, since it was right next to me and it had a good straight edge and clamped it down with some C-clamps right where I wanted my 90 degree bend to be.



It actually worked well, though the aluminum was pretty thin.

There is the finished product, though it will sit further back when the fan is mounted to it.

After I cleaned, sanded and cleaned again, I began priming all the case parts.

Yep, I cut up a card board box and used cloth hangers to make some drying racks. It actually worked pretty well.

More case priming.



Here is where the project log title comes into play. I couldn't really think of a cleaver name, so I just stole the name of the color I chose to paint my case, Dupli-Color Royal Blue. I really liked this color, it came out beautifully.

Here you can see the cable management holes pretty well. The long hole for the 24pin power cable was cut entirely with the Dremel. I didn't have the step drill bit at the time to make the holes at each end and just cut straight lines with the Dremel. That is why it didn't come out as nice as it could have.





Here are all the parts sanded, primed, sanded, colored, sanded and clear coated. The Royal Blue color is actually deeper than what these pictures show. I'm not sure why they came out as bright as they did.






Here are my cable management holes with grommets and c-channel in place.


* This Worklog post was generated using WorklogCreator - Version: 1.0.1.0
* Free Download: http://www.mod2software.com/worklogc...logcreator.zip

CatTech

Now for the fun part, putting it all together!

Parts, parts, parts...

Here is the intake fan mounted ready to do.

Cable sleeving of the power and reset buttons, power and HDD LEDs and the speaker wire.



I did a quick mod to the iCage I bought so I could mount the two hard drives backwards to hide the cables.

This picture didn't come out well, but you can see the aluminum that I cut out and put c-channel over so the SATA cables could be mounted correctly. I also had to drill new holes for the HDD mounting screws as well.

This is what can be seen inside the case. Nice and tidy.

The next obstacle I ran into was that the USB cable for my card reader was way to short to be routed behind the motherboard tray.

Since I wasn't planning on using the USB ports that came on the top of my Thermaltake case, I cut those off (the two black wires). I then cut one end of the card reader's USB cable (grayish colored cable) so I could splice these together to make the overall length longer.

I soldered each of the wires together and individually shrink wrapped them.

Shrink wrapped the whole thing together and then sleeved the cable, but it looks like I forgot to get a picture of that.

Starting to put things together.

The hole on the bottom left has the HDD power and data cables along with the two intake fan power cables. The top hole (I ran out of large grommets, so c-channel had to be used here) was made for the optical cables, card reader and power/LED cables.

Showing the new fan mount installed.

Behind the scenes.

Everything installed.





Done!


The over clock went pretty well. I was hoping for 3.50GHz but had trouble getting past 3.43GHz. I was satisfied with this though, it'll be a nice improvement over the stock speed. I called it stable at about 20 hours.

Temperatures:
Idle: 29 degrees C
Full load: 58 degrees C
Ambient: 22 degrees C







I over clocked my 8800GTS G92 a little as well. Stock speeds were 650/1625/972 but I was only able to get 766/1915/1051. This is on stock cooling and no volt mod. However, I read that people with these same conditions got much higher results. I suppose I'll have to continue tinkering around with it.


Well there you have it, the project has been completed and I’m enjoying the new spiffy look!

Final thought: The longest part of the project…waiting for the paint to dry.

Let me know what you think.

* This Worklog post was generated using WorklogCreator - Version: 1.0.1.0
* Free Download: http://www.mod2software.com/worklogc...logcreator.zip

ImmortalKenny

Holy cow, that's some nice cable management!

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Adrienspawn

Love how clean the front is. And nice cabling!

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It's "I couldn't care less" (Because you don't care)

Afrodisiac

Much better compared to stock

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[OCN] -iceblade^: you must teach me the art of the troll

1, 2

xXDarkenSoulXx

Lovely. Everything is nice and tidy!

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Mdtboner

Looks good I just repainted my Armor as well that I purchased in March of 2007. Its uncanny how similar our hardware is.

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My Thermaltake Armor Repaint

CatTech

Thanks for the kind words all. It was a fun project to work on and I learned a lot doing it.

Of course now I just want to start another mod!

psycho12345

Very nice job. I got similar setup as yours. your log will provide helpful pointer s when I get around to doing the same stuff (cable management), my current arrangement is not very clean to say the least. Like the blue color, and it looks so damm clean.

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We Are Gr33n Machine

CatTech

Thanks psycho12345 for the comments!

I'm glad you'll be able to get something out of this project to take back to your own. The case has a lot of potential because it is pretty large. I just wish it wasn't constructed of steel, it makes it so heavy!

I was going back and forth at the start trying to decide which color to use for the interior, but I'm very happy with the blue.

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His Royal Highness - A Thermaltake Armor case mod
My computer room set up