My Wire Management Documented - Overclock.net

gohandbz88 · 10-12-06

As I was looking through my case, I thought to myself that I could do a little better on creating a cleaner looking wire management setup. Since I was going to redo the wiring, I thought that I should share my experience with everyone. I hope that this can motivate you guys out there to get down and dirty and wire up your case nice and neatly. My end result is not super clean like Sladesurfers case, but it's more of an inspiration for you guys. Hopefully this can be a guide for some of you. Also, I did not remove any hardware from the case. So if your lazy, this will work for you too.

To avoid some confusion, when I say backside of the case I mean the side that is underneath the mounting base for the motherboard.

Well, let's get started.
Tools that I used:
4" cable ties
8" cable ties
cable tie mount base (next to impossible to remove once stuck on)
Scissors

This is how my case looks before I got started. I've done some wire management prior to this but I just wanted to see if I can improve on it anymore.

The first thing you want to do is to unplug all the cables. It's easier to start from scratch then try to work around things. Sorry no pictures here, but we all know how it looks when wires are hanging everywhere.

After unplugging the cables, the first cables I plugged in are the SATA cables for the HDD. Since my mobo was still attached, I did not route it underneath. Instead, I just ran it inside the hdd bay and cable tied it to the side.

The next thing I plugged in are the 24 pin and 4 pin cables. Initially I wanted to run the 24 pin around the back side of the case but, I wouldn't be able to put the cover back on so instead, I cable tied it against the horizontal bar you see in the picture. The 4 pin was also tied to the horizontal bar.

Next thing I did was run power to the HDD using the supplied SATA power cables on my psu. Running it through the backside of the case proved to be the cleanest way for me.

Now its time to run the IDE cable and the power cable for my optical drives. The IDE cable's were flat cables that I sleeved following the instructions on this forum. Since I wanted to showoff the IDE cable, I did not try to hide it. As for the power cable, it was very long and It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to hide it. Anyways, this is what I ended up with.

That about covers all the wiring I needed for the components on my PC. The last thing to do was to tuck away the unused cables. I had an additional power cable, SATA pwr cable, and a PCI-E pwr cable. I hid them all on the backside of the case. this is probably the best way to hide the extra cables unless you have a case that has clear windows on both sides.

Well, here are a few pictures of the end result of my wire management. This project took me about 1.5 hours to complete.

Here is a picture of the case in action.

In closing, there are a few tips that I would like to provide:
- Plan ahead. Try to develop a mental picture of how you want your case to look like. With a good plan, the project will go much smoother.
- Use the scissor to cut off excess cable ties.
- Look at other people's cases to help you with your mental picture of the case.
- Not all cases are made the same, so don't get frustrated if a certain method don't work for you. Find another way to do it.
- Lastly, go home, rip your case open and start cleaning up the spaghetti wires you have in your case.

The Fury · 10-12-06

Nice one. Good wiring!

Fury

EDIT: Why have you got that massive yellow wire?
Couldnt you get a smaller one and run it down the rear corner of the case?

gohandbz88 · 10-12-06

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fury

Nice one. Good wiring!

Fury

EDIT: Why have you got that massive yellow wire?
Couldnt you get a smaller one and run it down the rear corner of the case?

Well, it was just extra sleeve I had laying around and my exhaust fan had a really really long wire, so I decided to sleeve it and run it around the case to give it a more bling look.

The Fury · 10-12-06

lol...

ando2k6 · 11-02-06

nice suppose it helps airflow a lot through the case with no obscructions

question?

about your 120mm fan i got one setup in exact same place except the label of the fan is facing outside what way is best for best airflow have a 80mm fan below my grfx card to keep it that bit cooler but also i have the label facing upwards

alexisd · 11-02-06

Nicely done.

tankman12 · 11-02-06

Very nice setup. Looks real clean and uncluttered. That gives me some ideas for mine. Thanks

BenHagerty · 11-02-06

Nice

noob510 · 03-15-07

Nice wiring...but yeah thats a PIMPING looking case though.....im thinking of buying a new case and your case has the highest airflowing potential

11-02-06	#5 (permalink)
ando2k6 Windows Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 6 Rep: 0 Unique Rep: 0 Trader Rating: 0	nice suppose it helps airflow a lot through the case with no obscructions question? about your 120mm fan i got one setup in exact same place except the label of the fan is facing outside what way is best for best airflow have a 80mm fan below my grfx card to keep it that bit cooler but also i have the label facing upwards __________________ MOTHERBOARD ASUS P5VDC-X (latest bios) CPU Pentium D 2.80GHZ DUAL CORE RAM 2x 512mb Hynix Matched Sticks DDR PC3200 HD Samsung Spinpoint 160Gb SATA GRAPHICS MSI NVIDIA FX5200 PSU 550WATT QTEC

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My Wire Management Documented

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