This project has been in the works for over a year now,in fact it was in the beginning of August 2012 when the case and board/cpu were purchases so as to have a PC up and running for Guild Wars 2 at the end of that month. However the components ended set up on a "test bed" for nearly a year and it was only due to moving in with my girlfriend that it was stripped down for transporting, and as she will not tolerate what was in effect a mess of jumbled up cables and PC components laying over the table I have been forced (not actually a bad thing) to get the project finished. Some of the parts have been transferred from my old PC and some have been bought, but the budget was small and costs needed to be kept as low as possible, although due to time from initial purchase to actual building this budget has been stretched a little. The new parts that were purchased originally Lian Li PC-Q11B Aluminium Mini-ITX Cube Case - Black ASRock H61M-ITX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 M-ITX Motherboard Corsair Value 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMV8GX3M2A1333C9) Samsung SN-208BBBEBE Slimline 8x DVD±RW SATA Drive - OEM Intel Core i5 3450,1155, Ivy Bridge 450W Silverstone Strider SST-ST45SF Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Scythe Slip Stream 120mm Slim Case Fan 2000rpm : SY1212SL12H x2 EK Supreme LTX CPU Waterblock for Intel 2011, 1366, 1156, 1155, 775 : The parts that carried over from my previous PC Asus GeForce EN8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) EK-FC88 GT/GTS (G92) (EK-FC88GT) Black Ice® GTS240 Black EK Multioption Res 150 Rev. 2 Alphacool LCD-Display 240x128 Pixel Blue neg (Silver Frame) for 5.25" 12V Laing DDC-1T Pro 10W (13900) I'm not intending an Overclock the water cooling is more for quieter running and the fact I already had most of the parts sitting there doing nothing, but enough with the waffle and on with some modding. The case, striped down to it's bare shell I took the case round to a friend's so as to get some welding done, an Alphacool LCD screen will be fitted into the larger gap, and welded to small spacers to create the correct size for the drive. It's not perfect but could only put a few small welds due to the heat causing warping, won't be a problem as a little filler will clean it all up. I also took advantage of my mates break press to bend up this drive by mount... ... and this cable guide which will be used to hold the wires for the motherboard power cable. With the cable guide completed I got underway with cutting the motherboard power cable to length, a task that took a little longer than I was expecting. I've been awaiting delivery of these so as to be able to finalise the tubing run Unfortunately my initial plans have been scuppered due to the tubing from the res running straight across the sata ports, I have ordered some more parts to see if i can mount the res in a different position and hopefully that will work. This pretty much sums up the whole build so far planning then re-planning it has been a little frustrating as I can't get underway with anything meaning full until every part has been planned and finalized as changing one thing usually results in half the case being changed.
Having know received the parts I ordered I was able to figure out how to mount the res My original plan The parts for plan two Won't be using these now, although it could have worked out with using them, it just didn't look right This is how the res is going to sit The tube run down to the res is not ideal but will be hidden behind the PSU so will look acceptable it would look clener if I was to use rigid tubing and I am considering it. Temporary fixing Still to make a decision on a permanent clamp, may well just go with zip ties it'll be a simple solution but it all depends how they look. This is where the hard drive will be placed, I'm hoping to purchase a SSD and will fabricate a mount for it to sit above the HDD How everything will fit once finished, the ruler is only there to stop the radiator falling out (and as a bonus giving the correct offset for the radiator brackets) Now that all the planning is finished I can start drilling holes and making brackets and hopefully start to see some real progress.
It's been a busy few weeks with the run up to Christmas, what with extra hours at work and shopping it's been difficult to get any substantial modding time, fitting a few minutes in here and there but progress has been made. Holes drilled for the pump and HDD The DVD drive bay fixed in place Front view along side the LCD Next a couple of holes, the first in the top for a fillport And the second at the bottom of the rear Then a quick skim over with some filler All sanded and given a coat of paint Far from perfect finish but doesn't need to be anything special as I'm vinyl wrapping the case. More to come....
I've finished wrapping the case, wasn't 100% on the chosen vinyl when purchased but after finishing I think I made the right choice. Top Front Side Holes... Holes... And more holes After all the holes cut and touched up with some black paint the case is looking very nice and I'm really happy with the results from such a simple product to use. So on to the next task, which is to fit some LEDs hopefully I will get them done in the next few days.
My only criticism would be that LiteOn do a slimline slot loading drive for maybe £20, but that's a minor gripe. Interesting way to tackle watercooling in that though.
