Case Mod - In Progress "Upgrade" 27th September

After many weeks waiting for cheques to arrive from the insurance the time is finally here to get upgrading after I stupidly spilt a pint of orange over my case. I will be using my original TJ07 case and freshening it up ready for water cooling and new hardware.

The Specs are / will be

Asus RAMPAGE IV EXTREME
i7 3930K
24Gb Corsair Dominator GT
EVGA GeForce GTX 690 Signature
OCZ 120GB Vertex 3


Anyway I started with painting the internals of the case, primer then gloss black.








While the paint was drying I set about tapping the rads @M4 to accept the fans and drilled the holes in the base of the case to accept the triple rad.


Quick template



Some braiding next, I was going for a red and white theme to match the Rampage 4 motherboard.
PSU fully braided

I laser cut a wire spacer in work the other day for the main power connector.



Some of the water cooling stuff arrived today to it was pump assembly and braiding time.






As a wee taster this is the floor of the mobo tray, White acrylic case with a laser cut insert dragon.


Matthew

 

Just a small update as I did not have much free time today.

I first set about lasering some acrylic discs to hide the interconnects



The next job was to get the pump mounted in one of the free drive bays.








Progress so far


The rad will not fit in the roof of the case so I have three options:

Just run one rad
Put the two rads in the bottom of the case
Buy a thinner rad for the top.
 

 

Mobo blocks came in the post.

 

Amazing modding mate but I have to say I'm not really fond of your sleeving. Like so so many excellent modders, your sleeving needs improving...

 

Thanks for the comment, in the pictures the heat shrink has not been shrunk, I am waiting to get everything finished and in place. Yes some do need cut to an equal length so I may revisit it at some point in time.

Wee update

Managed to get the covers for the pipe inter connects finished.





I then worked at sorting out a shield to hide the drive bays and the pump. had to add the curve to allow it to fit with the radius on the front of the case.

 

After looking at sizes, it's clear that the rad wont fit in the roof without mounting fans externally. I am thinking or this setup in the base. Any suggestions?

 

So a couple of suggestions on the rad setup. First, most PSUs pull air in from the bottom, where the big 120mm fan is and the air then goes out the back. Second, they say sandwiching radiators will cancel out the second radiator. Theres been an experiment on this. Radiator-Sandwich-testing Maybe, widen the gap between them just a little and have them pull air from the middle of them and out the top or bottom.

 

thats a really interesting read thanks for the link to it. With it in mind I was looking around earlier and found thin radiators and i have settle on the Magicool SLIM DUAL 280 MC Radiator. with fans it takes the overall thickness to 54mm. The original dual rad was 59mm minus fans so I think I can make it fit by removing the mobo tray support tab.


Started to add some of teh fittings today and tidy some of the wires




Fitted the cover into place

 

I eventually decided on my radiator problem. I have settled on an Alphacool NexXxoS Pro II. I have had to remove the mobo support tab but I will sort another way of stiffening up the tray later on.

Anyway I modelled the rad and fans in MDF to make sure they world fit.



There were only a few mm left of clearance so I laser cut a spacer and attached it to the case. This has left me with 9mm between the mobo and the rad. hopefully there is enough room not to interfere with the mosfet water block





Threaded to M4




Next on the list was a fan guard again lasered from 3mm acrylic.

 

Gwaaaarrrrr... nothing beats the dragon.. rawrrrrr
Love it...

 

Getting closer now. Today it was time to start routing wires to places and finish off the mobo tray cover.

Spaghetti junction





Heat shrink still needs to be shrunk




Monday or Tuesday should see the the components going in.

 

Mmmm... Laser!

Looking good! And a very nice fit on the shield!

 

I must admit its quite handy handy having access to a laser cutter. Thanks for the comments Angel OD.

Anyway the planned update did not happen today, Processor is on back order.

Hopefully the slimline rad arrives tomorrow and I can get that fitted.

 

Small update, Got the top rad fitted.



Just held in place, the machine screws still need cut to size and I might move the fans to they are visible from the top. The idea being it will pull cold air in over the rad and get exhausted out the back of the case.

The rest of the components arrive later today so hopefully I’ll have a complete build by the end of the day.

 

TJ07 what else

The sleeve looks really nice, that dragon in the midplante looks perfect and the space management is simple but perfect.

Looking forward to see the next updates.

 

Thanks ziza, I appreciate your comments.


Big update. Everything arrived so I'll let the pictures do the talking.












All leak tested and good to go. I had a major air bubble in the pump which was fun to shift but other than that faultless.

it is now a wiring nightmare to get this finished. probably an ongoing process for the next week.

 

loving the design.. never one thats fond of the anti kink coil stuff but actually looks good in there. love dragons myself too.

The green on the graphics card is going right?

 

Not a fan of the coils either but they are purely functional so I just have to suck it up.


Cant loose the green logo as it's part of the card heat sink, well I could if the card was to go under water too.

So far at idle the cpu temp ranges from 24-30 degrees so I'm happy there.

 

I agree, it look nice, but I don't like the anti-kink coils either.

 

I could not get the pipes to stay in shape another way. I was looking for a clean build with the shortest loops of pipe possible. Believe you me I did try.