Case Mod Alienware Aurora ALX-XL

[kier]

The Alienware Aurora ALX-XL

Sometimes you get a chance you can't say no to, so that's what happened to me.
After some discussions and exchanging ideas with Dell, I am very happy to announce to you a build with a super case. It's allready beautiful But I'm gonna give it a try

The Alienware Aurora desktop.

And not only the case, but a complete configuration with the following components:

- CASE : Alienware Aurora ALX 875W-chassis (Matte Black)
- PROCESSOR: Intel® Core i7-3820 (4 Core, 10MB Cache, 3.60GHz)
- OPERATING SYSTEM : Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64-bits
- GRAPHICS : 1 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 555
- MEMORY : 16GB (4 x 4 GB) 1.600 MHz Quad Channel DDR3
- HARD DRIVE : 256 GB SSD
- OPTICAL DRIVE : 8X Blu-ray Disc-rw-station en 24x dvd+/-rw-station

Before I start, first I want to thank all the great sponsors for making this build possible.

Alienware, for the system.



Nvidia to deliver GPU upgrade (more on this later)



And EKWB for the watercooling components



There will be a lot of pictures again in this build. What is new is that I now going to add videos, think this will be a nice addition.

First contact with an alien:



Always a great feeling to receive packages Once everything is dragged into the living room to have another great feeling ..... unboxing





The Aurora is certainly well packed, they have given this some good thought.



A box in a box





Clips to unlock the cover



Almost







The Alienware Aurora















Nice shapes







Front also beautiful and clean











One touch on the Alien head and the panel slides down.



If the PC is turned on and you activate the sliding panel, the lights which illuminate the optical drives will turn on







Acrylic part what looks very nice ... especially when it is enlightened





Power button



Behind this is a pushpanel to the front I / O. containing

(2x) Hi-Speed USB 2.0
(1x) SuperSpeed USB 3.0
(1x) Mic
(1x) Headphone



At the rear is the handle to unlock the side panel.





Pull the last vent





To unlock the sidepanel





The PSU (Alienware™ 875-watt) is also swappable and modular







Another great gadget is the enlightenment on the back. Activated with a push button.





Also a great gadget is the Alienware Active Venting.







Next box. With keyboard and other accessories







The Alienware tactx keyboard with two-zone lighting setup











The Alienware mousepad



Some documents



Drivers and utilities



Cables



And two Alienware 3D avatars



Not finished yet ..... a monitor, the beautiful Alienware OPTX AW2310



Specs:

•Connections Dual-link DVI (with HDCP), HDMI, 4 x USB
•Viewable Screen Size 23.5in
•Maximum Resolution 1,920 x 1,080
•Contrast ratio 80,000:1 (dynamic), static not quoted
•Brightness 400cd/m2
•Response time 3ms (grey-to-grey)


















Back to the Alienware Aurora .... the inside



First looks without sidepanel



And again a nice gadget: when the sidepanel is removed, the inside is illuminated without the power on.





Powered by rechargeable batteries



Very handy!!!

The caps for the airflow and coverup are very nicely designed and printed









Cap for the GPUs is rotatable and removable





Beautiful swappable, tool-less and cable-free hard drive bays











Also well thought about is the power suply for the side panel (Lights)
On the side of the powersupply are contact points which provide this





For now a Nvidia GTX555 is installed, but this will be exchanged for two Nvidia GTX680



Cooler motherboard



And the beautiful Alienware CPU cooler





Personally I really like this one, so it stays in this build (perhaps modify)



What cable management is concerned, everything is provided. But it looks a bit messy.
This will be better









Module for lighting, fans and other applications





This will be a lot of work, but a very exciting thing to do.

The first change that I'm going to do is swap the Nvidia GTX555 for two GPUs Nvidia has sent me.

Again thank you Nvidia



For sending me two Nvidia GTX680's

Engine Specs:

- CUDA Cores: 1536
- Base Clock: 1006
- Boost Clock: 1058
- Texture Fill Rate: 128.8
- Memory Speed: 6.0 Gbps
- Standard Memory Config: 2048MB
- Memory Interface Width: 256-bit GDDR5
- Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec): 192.2

Unboxing again









The beautiful GPU's























with one Dual Link DVI-I, one Dual Link DVI-D, one HDMI and one DisplayPort





And installed the new GPU's

[kier]

And now it is time for some modding

First a window in the Alienware Aurora. And maybe two, one on both sides.
But this is for later... first one.

The sidepanel





Contacts for lighting has to be kept in mind



And the shapes / curves must be maintained



Everything is pretty easy to disassemble. Black panel removed and drawn the line for cutting





Disassambled the remaining parts





RGB strip for color effects



Detached the Acrylic carefully





What's left...a piece of iron



This is what we gonna use for cutting the window in the plastic panel



After some sawing and filing





Excess plastic also removed with my dremel to place the window (later)



first fit



Next step. We use the jigsaw



Removed the reinforcement strip and drawned the hole slightly larger than the window in the plastic panel



And saw it (and some filling of course)



The points which seem to be thin will be reinforced



Furthermore, it's still a strong frame



And placed everything back. The gap inside between the plastic and iron needs to be filled



And the window is almost finished





A big start topic with a lot of pics and vids, but hope you like it.

Until the next update!!!

Grtz.

Kier

[Gtek]

Nice kier, this will be epic

[l3p]

Really curious where this is going Richard
Congrats on the cooperation with Dell and Nvidia!

[hangar_15]

Great start!

[kier]

Originally Posted by Gtek

Nice kier, this will be epic

Thank you Gtek

Originally Posted by l3p

Really curious where this is going Richard
Congrats on the cooperation with Dell and Nvidia!

Thanks Peter, im curious also

Originally Posted by hangar_15

Great start!

[KoSoVaR^]

Looks great Kier!

[whyte]

Wow! So cool already. Looking forward to seeing this. KayinBlack's log has been awesome, so these cases seem like they will yield some cool results.

[KayinBlack]

Careful what you do with that name, apparently it's a summoning spell.

Great start, let me know if you run into any problems, I've got my Area-51 case able to do just about everything short of walk the dog now. I've been able to get the ESA working with third-party boards, as well as getting GPU clocks tied into the deal.

When you get into cable management, have fun with that nightmare. Also, if you'll pull the PSU I can tell you if it's a straight swap with the 1100W Delta that came in mine. I can also show you where to get those dirt cheap, if need be.

[Jipa]

Oh gawd the metal parts of that case look so rubbish...

Good luck with that one!

[Attila]

Originally Posted by Jipa

Oh gawd the metal parts of that case look so rubbish...

Good luck with that one!

You're right! But kier will make them nice.

It's looking better already with that window cut. Good luck.

[kier]

Originally Posted by KoSoVaR^

Looks great Kier!

Thanks

Originally Posted by whyte

Wow! So cool already. Looking forward to seeing this. KayinBlack's log has been awesome, so these cases seem like they will yield some cool results.

Thanks for the tip, didnt saw KayinBlack build before... sorry Kayin

Originally Posted by KayinBlack

Careful what you do with that name, apparently it's a summoning spell.

Great start, let me know if you run into any problems, I've got my Area-51 case able to do just about everything short of walk the dog now. I've been able to get the ESA working with third-party boards, as well as getting GPU clocks tied into the deal.

When you get into cable management, have fun with that nightmare. Also, if you'll pull the PSU I can tell you if it's a straight swap with the 1100W Delta that came in mine. I can also show you where to get those dirt cheap, if need be.

Hi KayinBlack thanks, your doing a superb job my friend subbed for sure. the PSU is fine for now but thanks. About the cables.....hmm the cables, dont want to think about now

Originally Posted by Jipa

Oh gawd the metal parts of that case look so rubbish...

Good luck with that one!

Thanks

Originally Posted by Attila

You're right! But kier will make them nice.

It's looking better already with that window cut. Good luck.

Thank you Attila

[nagyizom]

Pure awesomeness! I'm very excited about this mod. Sub'd inmediately

[[ZiiP] NaloaC]

Huzzah! Another build by Kier to drool over

[alain-s]

The design of the sidepanel is fit perfect with the case very nice Kier. Looking forward to the next update.

[Vetalar]

after hours of new XCOM i'll shoot it if it moves
interesting mod! i'll watch!!!

[kier]

Originally Posted by nagyizom

Pure awesomeness! I'm very excited about this mod. Sub'd inmediately

Thanks

Originally Posted by [ZiiP] NaloaC

Huzzah! Another build by Kier to drool over

After this on vacation

Originally Posted by alain-s

The design of the sidepanel is fit perfect with the case very nice Kier. Looking forward to the next update.

Thanks Alain

Originally Posted by Vetalar

after hours of new XCOM i'll shoot it if it moves
interesting mod! i'll watch!!!

Shoot my Alien ???

[Vetalar]

Originally Posted by kier

Shoot my Alien ???

yeah!!! with my trusty heavy plasma

[Mankz]

Definitely looking forwards to this!

[kier]

Originally Posted by Vetalar

yeah!!! with my trusty heavy plasma

Originally Posted by Mankz

Definitely looking forwards to this!

Thanks