Case Mod - In Progress Project King Kong- Silverstone TJ07 mod

Hi guys, this is my 1st worklog in bit-tech.net. I'm from Malaysia n I've mostly been active in Malaysian forums only so far. bit-tech is my favorite forum for worklogs though, so here I am at last. I actually started this mod on the 30th of January n it's 3/4 complete. I had to get it ready for a Silverstone LANparty event on the 25th March. So I'll post all that I've done right up to the 25th of March n from then on it will b a real time worklog of work in progress. Firstly, I'd like to thank my gracious n wonderful sponsors Silverstone, Inter-Asia Sdn. Bhd, Team Group, Arctic Cooling n E-Devices Sdn Bhd.


King Kong's sponsors :-

















Here's sum pix of how the stock standard Silverstone TJ07 looks like.
Look at how big the box is. It's humongous! It's nearly as tall as my kitchen counter if u look carefully at the pix. How tall is that? Just go to ure kitchen n imagine the box is as tall as ure kitchen cabinets.









Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, King Kong's new cage is coming out. Even just peeking out like that, u can see just how lovely that aluminum chassis is.







Front 3 quarters view. That's the most beautiful part of this case. That front panel is actually 1 whole piece of extruded aluminum starting from the top to the front to the bottom. The case consists of that single piece n the 2 side panels. Looooooovely.












Left side view.









Right side view.











Top of the case. It's got a really nice exhaust with 2x120mm fans up there. I can install a really nice 2x120mm radiator there if I ever get back into watercooling.














Rear view. Look at the bottom section. It can take 2 PSUs. This is most useful for the people who cant afford a single monster PSU.











Internal pix.







Stripped the case down to study the structure n construction of the case. This will allow me to get more ideas on what to mod n how to mod it later. There's a lot of things to study b4 really getting down to modding it coz this case is really modular. It's like a box of Lego blocks. Practically the whole case can be stripped down n removed to individual parts. So far I've only seen 3 rivets. The rest r all screws. Anyway, here's a pic of the mobo tray removed.





See how bare the case is after removing the mobo tray? That's because it's so modular. The mobo tray's rails can b removed too. That leaves just the 2 support bars standing at the back. I'm thinking BTX style conversion to show off sum monsters that I will b plugging into the PCIe slots later on.

 

Nice chassis, good ideas, but one thought.

Why would you be unable to buy a single monster PSU if you're buying a what - $300 case?

 

Well, I'm fully sponsored by Silverstone n haf no problems with getting a monster PSU as u'll c in the coming updates. What I meant was, it's good for the ppl who dont haf a single monster PSU. Or mebe they already haf a really nice 500W n can easily add another 500W instead of buying a whole new PSU.

 

I've been studying the structure n also checking out some mods on the net for ideas. I started a part of the major mods today. I'm gonna strip out everything, n I mean EVERYTHING. Remember I told u guys this case is like a box of Lego blocks? Well, it really is. Check out the stripping work below.





Started by removing the mobo tray, tray rails n the top exhaust fans n mesh mounting.










View from the top.











Sum pix of the chassis mounting joints. They're all screwed together. This 1 is a pic of the lower part of the ROM cage.









Side view of the ROM cage.











Top of the ROM cage.













After removing all those screws, the entire ROM cage structure comes out just like that.










It's now time to remove that divider plate between the mobo n PSU sections of the case. I hafta remove the USB ports at the front n sum screws on the sides b4 I can remove the divider plate.









Got down to more stripping work. In fact I stripped it down totally until nothing left.


After removing the USB ports, I removed the divider plate. Here's how it looks like without the divider.














It's already pretty bare but there's more stuff to remove. The HDD cages.














Everything is now removed except for the PSU mounting plate at the back. Look at all those parts that have been removed! It's my loooooooooovely box of Lego blocks.












Here's how the chassis looks like now. Absolutely bare except for the PSU plate. I left it on coz it doesn't affect my work on the case. Actually the 2 bars at the back n the PSU plate can b removed too. Then all u'll b left with is the main Aluminum Unibody(the U shaped part).










Time to remove everything. Absolutely everything!


1st thing I did was to remove the rivets holding the mobo tray's rail on the divider plate. U can c the rail on the divider here.









Turned it over so I can access teh rivets from the back.









drill drill drill n it's almost out.










The dreaded rivets r out! Begone u evil rivets. I sentence u to Ian's Dungeon of Obsolescence forever!













Now it's time to remove everything from the Unibody chassis. Removing the screws holding the rear alu pipes to the Unibody in this pix.








Closer view of the rear pipes.









The rear section is now completely removed.







Now u can c y the unibody chassis is so strong. C how the thing is actually expanding outwards instead of the normal square shape. It's pretensioned like a spring. That gives the chassis extra strength.















OK, the stripping is done. I will commence on the actual modding now.
Have any of u guys ever seen a case stripped down to this extent? Now, that's what I call a really cool case.

 

Here's the divider plate. I hafta line up the mobo tray support rail on the other side. This is so I can mark out the place to drill the 3 mounting holes.













After that, I bolted on the rail n mounted the mobo tray n voila! My BTX mod for the TJ07 is done.





View of the BTX mod from the back.









Remember how a stock TJ07's internals looks like? Here it is.










After flipping over the mobo tray to BTX style I hit a slight problem. Look at the triangular plate at the top right corner of the pic. That's gonna block the view n look ugly.










No problem. With a lil bit of Dremel lovin, it'll be nice n trim under that top window.
So I removed the mobo tray for sum cutting n here we are. A nice cut out so that it'll look good under the top window.









After cutting out the triangular plate at the top, I put the mobo tray back in and everything fits perfectly n looks nice now without that thing blocking the view. I also took the time to polish the edges of the edges of the top window to a brushed aluminum look. The standard edging is very very rough as it's extruded aluminum n the edges r pretty rough. I guess Silverstone never thought of cleaning up the edges coz it's covered by the top mesh anyway. Sry I forgot to take sum pix of the polished edges. I will be sure to take sum pix of the polished edges later when the rig is complete. I was in a really big rush to finish this rig for the Silverstone event n I snapped away in no particular order hence some missed pix of the mods it went tru.







Well, that's it for now folks. It's really late n King Kong needs his rest. We'll leave him alone so he can sit back n chill with his well deserved bunch of bananas.

 

HArdware updatessssssssssssssssss......................

Went shopping today. I just cudn resist the need to fill up my motherboard anymore. When I bought that SLi mobo, it was intended for 2X 7900GT. I bought the 7950GX2 instead coz that just came out n was better than 2x 7900GT. So the mobo was used in single slot mode. I was waiting for the 7950GX2 Quad SLi drivers to mature n then set up Quad SLi. Nvidia never kept their promise to come out with good solid Quad drivers. Again the mobo was left running with just 1 slot.

Finally! I now haf 2x 8800GTX to fill all the PCIe slots n use up all of the available 32 PCIe lanes. Here's the new hardware I bought for King Kong today.




MSI 8800GTX, Coolermaster GeminII HSF, 2x 120mm UV Vizo fans for the GeminII, n the spare 300W PSU just in case my 2nd 8800GTX needs more power.








My 2 lovely beauties.









The new MSI 8800GTX n the bundle it came with. It comes with a nice game too. Heroes of Might n Magic.










N here's the gigantic CoolerMaster GeminII. Such a loooooooovely sexay heatpipe babe! I just love heatpipes n cudn resist this beauty while I was buying the new MSI 8800GTX. I will get down to testing this baby once i get the case done n all hardware installed. Hoping for really good mobo n CPU temps with it. just look at those sexaaaaaaay heatpipes babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Lovely, absolutely loooooooooooooooooooooooovely.







Here's King Kong chilling out with his 2 darlings. Anyone for a menage a'trois?

 

B4 I start this next update, I wud like to say thanks again to my wonderful, wonderful, fantastic n ever supportive sponsors Silverstone n Inter-Asia Sdn Bhd. They provided me with this fantastic power supply called the Silverstone Olympia 1000W today. I had sum problems powering up my rig with the new 8800GTXs in SLi last night. I then relayed my problems to them in the morning n voila! By 6pm on the same day, I had already received this fantastic Power Supply Unit to fully power up King Kong. I can't thank them enough.

Now, on to the hardware update n pix pix pix.

The PSU comes nicely packed in a big huge box. It's as big as a shoe box. Humongous! Check out the specs on the front of the box. Absolutely fantastic specs. 80Amps 12V single rail. Continuous 1000Watts at 50C! Can u spell F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C ? With the 12V single rail at 80Amps, we no longer haf to scratch our heads n calculate if each individual rail is enough for the things we're plugging them into. Just plug everything u haf into it without worrying. Now, that's what I call a great PSU.







The behemoth is out of the box. I've put my standard ATX sized 300W PSU next to it to show u guys just how big this OP1000 is. It comes in a really nice matt black finish for the proper King Kong look too.







Look at the power cords. Take a guess on which 1 belongs to the OP1000? Look at how fat it is. Big giant PSU with big giant wires to make sure u never haf problems. :thumbs:







Not only is the PSU a fantastic PSU, it's even future proofed. Look at all the wires that comes with it. Lotsa molex n SATA plugs. 4x 6pin PCIe for 8800GTX SLi, it also comes with 2x 8pin PCIe plugs in anticipation of the ATi R600 which is supposed to use 6pin n 8pin PCIe plugs on 1 card. It even has 2x 8pin ATX mobo plugs for server mobos. It's all nicely labeled to make sure u dont use the wrong plugs.








Well, dats it for now. I just spent the last 2 days testing my 8800GTX SLi installation n also to check on the power requirements. Now that I have the OP1000, my power requirement nightmare is solved. It's now time to start finishing up the rig in preparation for the Silverstone LANparty this Sunday, 25th of March. Hopefully I'll haf sum time to make full use of this wonderful PSU. If there is spare time b4 the LANparty, I'll start playing with my BIOS settings again n overclock everything nicely. I had to reset all BIOS settings to default this morning, in order for my rig to run with the 600W PSU I had. Hours of BIOS settings gone just like that. Thanks to this King Kong PSU, I'll be able to overclock everything to the sky again. :thumb






Moving back to the case mods. This is the brushed aluminum plate I'm using for the custom front ROM intake plate.










All marked out n ready for the choppity chop.










Chop chop chop. Drill drill drill.






Cutting out the intake mesh area on the front plate.







Rough cut for front intake mesh is done.







Marking out the ROM slot cover.








After the front plate I moved on to the internals. In these pics u can c the ROM intake fan plate n false floor plates.










After that I moved on to finish the front intake plate. I cut out the 2x120mm blowholes n mounting holes. Also made sum brackets so I can mount it to the ROM slots.






Painted the plate silver.









Fans mounted on the plate for a test fit.

 

Mounted the brackets onto the plate.







Test fitting the fan plate in the ROM slots.







After the test fit. I decided that the brackets were just too ugly n I cudn stand the looks of it. Those acrylic brackets just dont look right. So I remade sum new 1's out of aluminum to gif it a true factory look. Here's how the new brackets look like. Much, much better looking now dont u think? I'm actually pretty happy with how the acrylic fan plate looks now. BUT, I reckon it'll look a whole lot better in brushed aluminum. I'll be making another plate for it in brushed aluminum later.












I then made the same type of brackets for the front intake mesh mounting.








The completed front intake mesh n ROM cover plate. Time to mount it to the case.







Oh ya. I forgot to show u guys how I sleeved the PSU coz I was rushing n forgot to take pix. I haf sum pix of how I sleeved the PCIe plugs though. As u all know the 8800GTX requires 2x 6 pin PCIe plugs. That means 2 wires per card. I haf 2 cards meaning 4 wires! That'll create a right royal mess of wires especially with my BTX style mod coz the wires r on top n cant be hidden below. Here's what I did.

I combined the 2 top wires into 1 so it's nice n neat. This picture shows the default 4 wires n 4 plugs.





Here it is after I sleeved 2 into 1.







While I was sleeving, I also did the SATA wires.







The hardware thats going in. All cooled by looooovely sexaaaaay heatpipes.





Now look at these sexy RAMs. So nice n blingy in gold. Ali G pimpin style!





Not only is it bling bling, it performs really well too. Look at the specifications of the RAM. This is good stuff. King Kong will b taking them to the OC gym later for sum serious overclocking.








Now it's onto the heatsink install. B4 that I need sum thermal paste. For that, I use Arctic Cooling MX-1. It's really good. Totally non conductive so u dont hafta worry about it shorting out anything if there's overflow. This paste used to b loved by those who bought Arctic cooling heatsinks coz it only came with AC coolers. The performance is fantastic but it wasn't available for sale. They're now available separately so, gogogo get them.


Look at the operational lifespan. 8 years!. I doubt any1 of us is gonna use it for 8 years but it's really good to know it wont degrade over time under serious overclocking usage.






It's extremely easy to apply too. Just put a blob of it on top n put the HSF on. That's it.





The heatsink is on. Very nice fit n clearance to surrounding compnents unlike the XP120 I had which was an extremely tight fit. Look at all the space around it in these pics.

 

Best thing about this HSF is that it cools the entire mobo n it's surroundings too. In this pic u can c how it cools my RAM too. No need to use hideous clip on fan solutions. I like the RAM like that so we can show the bling bling of the lovely RAM without covering it with fans on top like how those clip on things do. I will be needing lotsa cooling on these RAMs as I will b pumping in 2.9Volts into them n OCing them for daily use.











After all the hardware was installed. It was time to haf sum fun. So I made these stickers for my 8800GTX darlings. They're made of reflective white vinyl.








I stuck them on n installed the graphics cards. This is how it looks with the stickers on. NICE. I love those stickers so much.










Here's the making of the Silverstone Snowflake logo on the side panel.

The panel is masked n marked. All ready for cutting.










Drill drill drill. I really like this picture. It just reminds me of fireworks exploding with the pattern of the metal flakes n the pattern of the window.










Here we go with the powaaaaaaaaaaaa tools. Choppity chop with the jigsaw.








Almost there.................









Off goes the panel n we haf a roughcut of the side window.







Here's the side window all ready for final detailing work.









The Silverstone Snowflake window is done.

 

OK. King Kong is 3/4 complete now. I took it to the Silverstone event with the mods done so far. Top window, BTX style mod, front intake mesh, front intake fan plate, Silverstone Snowflake window.

I like the case so much now that I decided to put it on my desktop when I returned from the weekend event. However, my Workstation uses a glass table n that will definitely break under all that immense weight of King Kong n my 2 heavy monitors. So I tore down my whole workstation. Went to Ikea for sum shopping n came home with lotsa stuff. As I'm a modder n never like to buy ready made stuff, I bought 3 tables n lotsa shelfs n cabinets so I can install n mod them to my liking.




Putting the table together. The shelfs on the wall r new too. I forgot to take sum pix while installing them coz it was really messy work with the cement dust flying everywhere while I was drilling the wall to install the wallmounts for the shelfs.








2 of the tables being put into position as an L shaped workstation.









More stuff going back on top as I go along. Monitors all ready for King Kong's presence.









King Kong has arrived back from the Silverstone event. Time to put him in his new home. This is the 1st time I'm taking King Kong out since the LANparty.









King Kong's on the table now. Preliminary positioning coz I still need to do the cable management for my desktop.









This is the 3rd table I bought. It's for the other side of my workstation. This is where I do all my designing, drawing, soldering, sleeving. U can c that this table has 5 legs. This is because I added 1 more in the middle to make it stronger. After I put King Kong on top of the tables on the other side, the table started to sag! That's how heavy King Kong n the monitors are. So for this 3rd table I added 1 leg in the middle to avoid the sagging problem when I put heavy rigs on top to work on them. Now all 3 tables haf been modified with the extra legs in the middle. All sagging probs solved. Those cabinets r also new. I use them for keeping all my modding stuff. Spare PSUs, wires, sleeves, lights, etc etc.






Nice bright lights for the table for designing work at night. I need really bright lights to make sure my drawings r totally precise. I've tried drawing my designs without a table light. Let's just say they weren't too accurate. Coz when the light isn't bright enuf u tend to draw with shadows of the ruler on the paper n it badly affects accuracy. All those designs n sketches I did at night last time had to be thrown away coz they weren't accurate. I can now do my drawing n sketching at night with full accuracy.







Lotsa work still going on right now to clean up n rearrange all my stuff. The pix above is just so I can get King Kong up n running again. More updates coming soon. Next update will be of the completed Workstation n also complete n detailed pix of King Kong as it appeared at the Silverstone LANparty.


OK. This is where the previous work ends. From now on the worklog will b real time. All previous postings were backdated. Watchout for more updates soon. I'm taking pictures of the 3/4 complete King Kong right now n will update ASAP.

 

Very nice start you have here. Gone watch this one closely!

 

There seems to be too many legs on those tables

Nice project, got to love working with aluminum and having 8800GTX SLi. Also I started wondering about the dual-PSU stuff. How are they connected if there's two of them?

 

@ antiHero Thanks for watching. It's about 3/4 done based on my original plans. I didn't haf enuf time to complete everything in time for the Silverstone event so I had to make do with 3/4. Oh well, 1/4 is still a long way to go so I suppose u guys will still haf lotsa stuff to c after this.



@ Jipa I need those legs. King Kong weighs in excess of 20kgs. The case itself is already 13kgs. My 30" Apple monitor is another 12kgs. The 20" is about 7kgs. Just imagine all that weight on the tables.

Bout the dual PSUs stuff. The Silverstone TJ07 comes with a harness for u to connect the 2 PSUs together. That harness then plugs into the mobo. The 2nd PSU gets a trigger from when u switch on the main PSU n then starts up so both the PSUs start up at the same time. I'll get sum pix of the harness later when I'm taking detailed pix of King Kong for the next update.

 

Very nice, but just one thing, if you can afford 8800 GTX SLi , why not only get one card and upgrade from 939 to say AM2 or 775 LGA?

Otherwise it looks great.

Jipa @ You either have to start them up seperately with one shorted out, or you can buy special cables, i know Lian Li sells them.

 

Well, I do haf a 775 mobo n an E6300 which is highly overclocked. I tried that. Compared the game benchies I got with the Conroe n X2 n they're both about the same coz I game on a 30" monitor at 2560x1600 resolution n maxed out gfx options. At such high resos n max options, the CPU doesn't make much difference. It's the SLi that makes a big impact at 2560x1600.

 

I thought for SLI the cards had to be the same make, etc..., not just the same type of card.

 

That was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when SLI 1st appeared. U needed the same exact card n even same exact BIOS IIRC. Now u can use any brand as long as it's the same type of cards.

 

Very nice start, will definatley be checking regulary for updates.

Nice Start

 

Yeah I guess nvidia's current statement is that the chip has to be the same, so you can use even card with different overclocks and so on. I personally tried a basic 7600GT with MSI's crazy HDMI-output-monster with entirely different PCB and so on and it worked.

And still about the tables: I had no idea there's Ikeas in Malaysia and secondly: My own table (seems to be about the same thickness, can hold my weight(~70kg) with ease, I've stood on this when attaching curtains etc. This is 180x80x3 cm and has four legs. Ofc safe is safe, but I just had to add that

 

Wow this is a very impressive project, very clean and cool. Love that case and the hardware. nice