All right, so I've spent hundreds on PC toys over the last few years but I never really took the time to do anything to my case until someone directed me over to these forums earlier this year. I had all sorts of grand schemes in mind but I never had the time. Well now its spring break and I have the time. Here we go. I decided that I didnt want to spend the effort to paint my old case because I just simply hate it. It suited my needs as it was cheap and had a lot of room for fans in my OCd system AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Asus A7V8X 1.5 Gigs PC 400 DDR 660 Gb Total HDD Space Radeon 9800 Pro Its my gaming machine and I love it to death, it also serves as a workstation and semi fileserver at LAN events. So I pretty much hate this case. I dont want anything to do with it, but I still dont want to spend a TON of money to get exactly what I want out of it soooo... Picture Time... Out with that old crap and in with this new crap. Still steel, yet cheap and premodded to just about what I had in mind when I decided I wanted a modded pretty case. First things first, that PSU Needed to be sleeved, you can see the results of my work in the pictures above heres what it looks like again incase you cant tell. I got the blue, sleeved it in blue, and now I dont like the blue as much as I did at first, but it fits my theme so I suppose I'll stick with it for now. If I get the case all together and I hate the blue then I'll rip it out and switch it up to black. Anyways heres the PSU after sleeve. Rawr. So I went out and got myself a nice black DVD CD-RW combo drive because well with a black case, nothing goes better than black drives, I only plan on having one drive so why not take the DVD-ROM and the CD-RW and throw them into one deal. Plus in the old ugly case I have neither DVD, nor CD-RW so its a nice upgrade. So I get home and whats the first thing I do? Test it out to see what it looks like because I'm like that, oh it looks nice, but oh the plans I have for you brand new optical drive yay. So I take it out and void that warranty because I told the cashier at the store strictly that NO I DO NOT NEED YOUR CRAPPY STORE WARRANTY PLAN! Anyways so cover off, insides exposed.... Go Dremel, Go Krylon Semi Gloss Black paint So now all thats left is for me to cut a piece of plexi for the window, I have 1/8 polycarbonate, but I think I might just end up using an old jewel case and cut out that window shape because its a bit odd. Also after the test fit of the first window that I cut there was some support in the drive housing that needs to be removed. All that tomorrow plus I light the sucker up with an LED, either attached to the activity light or just always on, I cant decide which. Leaning towards activity light. Okay so while im waiting for toys to come in the mail so I can fill the rest of those gaping 5.5" bays I decided that the bezel fans were just plain ugly hiding behind their black mesh. In the front pic of the case you can see what they look like. So after a trip to the homedepot and a few dollars spent I return home with some nice shiny stainless hardware to remount those fans behind some chrome grills. The grills dont sit flush so they spaced out with some grommets cut in half and then thru bolted thru the bezel with 1.5" stainless screws. I really wanted cap screws for the job but the only thing I could find at the store was flatheads, so I counter sunk the fan holes and laid them in there right nice to get this. So I kinda like that, but then I still have that piece of mesh that was there before so I lay that over the top just to see how it looks, and... So thats pretty much it for now, I mean I have done some test runs of the wiring for 6 case fans and all but I havent decided what I like, where things are to go, and best of all I'm still missing half of the stuff thats supposed to go inside the thing. Namely a Fanbus or some sort, and a real nice suprise that I have been dreaming about for days now, I just wish the UPS man would bring it along. Anyways... enjoy, many more pics to come.
not bad. how about lasercuts etc on the frontfans? would look much better i think. premodded window suxx
Nice looking case, pre-mod window sucks but you could always make it bigger and use the spare perspex for a top window with a blowhole.
Premod window kinda does suck, its not very good quality and came scratched. I have plans for that window, but its nice to not have to cut a big window into your case. Besides the paint job is nice and I will be putting my own piece of plexi in there. Anyways back to the work bench.
I like what you have so far.. and as for the window.. I think it looks great.. what color cathodes ya got?
Those are blue fans in the front, and I have a blue cathode and a UV cathode. Im not quite gettting the effect out of the UV cathode that I was hoping so I think I'll pick up either 2 more blue LED UV fans or some regular bule LED fans. I cant decide which effect I like better. Also I could always turn my current fans into UV LED fans I have a few UV LEDs lying around, hmmm maybe ill try that.
Can you post a pic of the front, with the leds on? I think that the front looks of as it is, with the mesh or whatever it is. maybe you could replace it with modders mesh or the mesh with the round holes. thats my opinion neway, apart from that nice case
