Case Mod - In Progress Fractal Design R4 - BlacknWhite

Ok so here goes, I've not done one of these before But I thought I would have a stab at it!

I originally had a Tsunami dream case and was not really very happy with it, Sure it did the job but it wasn't really very nice to look at.
Picture anyway:



(OMG just realised how bad that pic is.... Oh well.)

So inspired by some of the epic sleeving jobs I have seen on here I decided to change things up but I really needed a new case.

So enter the Fractal Design Define R4. I got this baby from Pissyworld of all places. Only because they were a few quid cheaper than anyone online, and I had a £20 voucher I needed to use up!

The reviews were good on the case and was nice and quiet. I am fed up with loud cases, have done them before where more fans were better for no apparent reason! So this time, Lots of sound deadening and as few fans as I can get away with!

So the Hardware. I haven't got all the money in the world so stuck with my original hardware and just made it prettier.

As it stands:

• Quad Core Q9300 running at 3.0Ghz (2.50Ghz Stock)
• Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 Rev 2
• ASUS P5Q-E
• 8GB Corsair Ram
• 1 x 1Tb Samsung Spinpoint F3
• 2 x Maxtor 160Gb SATA
• ASUS Nvidia GTX 460

So the box arrived:



First install:




So I armed myself with some of this:



and one of these:



And got cracking.

So First attempt at sleeving the Sata cables for the hard discs didn't go so well:



But the Black and White SATA cables did match quite well.

Next go was better:



Then I did the PCI-E cables for the Gfx cards. Changed them from 6+2 cables to just 6 cables for neatness:



(this also shows the red SATA cables before I swapped them out.)

And the other ends into the PSU



Continued after the break.
-J

 

So, Next I did the Front panel connectors.
I removed the wires for the fan controller as I'm just not using them and they cluttered it all up. Then removed the front audio wires (on a plug) as I don't use them either.

Then sleeeved the wires.



The only thing I don't seem to be able to sleeve is the USB header cables, I can't get all the pins to fit down the paracord even without being in the plastic plug. Any ideas?

Also I think I might be taking the stickers off the PSU!

Next steps will be doing the main ATX wires and the extra power cable for the motherboard. These aren't modular so does mean having no pc for a day or two whilst I sort that part out!

I should be upgrading to an SSD soon too to help things out, and I have a promise of a pair of 1 TB drives to replace my smaller drives.

Let me know what you think.

-J

 

Thanks.
I have managed to cut myself a couple of times, the worst bits are the Sata pass through plugs. You really have to make a hole in the side of the sleeve to make it look good. You can see my first attempt but it did look nasty.
-J

 

You take that back! You take that back right now!

The Tsunami Dream was my first 'proper' case and I loved that door. It's still sitting under my bed and I'm looking to mod it for my next pc.

 

Same here. Love that case! Built a music editing rig for my nephew with it so its still going strong.

 

Sorry about that guys. I just didn't like it that much. It's good but not as good as I wanted.

Anyway. I still need to sleeve the atx plug and the aux wires. So onwards!!

-J

 

Tape off the pins of the USB header cable.
Pass a single wire (not part of the USB cable -- a spare bit of wire) through the paracord, connect the wire to the USB cable, and pull it back through.

Just an idea of course ...

 

Not a bad idea, I'll give it a go later
Thanks
-J

 

So I did a bit more tonight, Not the USB plugs this time, just the Mobo Aux power leads.

The power supply came with an 8 pin aux power and a 4+4, so I only needed one really, so I took out the un-needed 4+4

What was that... can't here you....



Snip snip snip...



And job done...



It also seems that 100ft of para cord isn't enough to do a whole PSU like this.... well it might be, I did waste a bit, but I only have 8 of the 24 runs needed to do the main ATX cable.

I'm going to be doing something a bit different with the ATX plug I think, maybe another colour.... wait and see!
-J