the blue oyster

[xr4man]

eventually i want to build a full scratch built case, but for now this will have to do.

basically, i have this old case that i got with an old computer that took a dump but i like the all blackness of it compared to my current case that has a bunch of silver on the front panel.

compared to the amazing work i see from other members here, this is going to be a minor modding project. well, for now at least. we'll see how it evolves.

here's a few pics of the case.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00961.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00961.jpg)

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00962.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00962.jpg)


obviously the first thing was to rip into it and strip it down. it's mostly a tooless case ecept the side panels and the psu.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00963.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00963.jpg)

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00964.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00964.jpg)

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00965.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00965.jpg)


my plans are to change out all the fans for blue led fans. this should give me a nice blue glow from the mesh on the side and the fan grills. i'll replace the front panel leds with blue leds as well. i'm thinking a nice fan controller to keep noise down should be on the list and some blue led feet or possibly just adding some blue leds to the underside of the case to get a nice blue effect from the bottom.

the hardware will be ripped from my current rig. asus mobo, athlon 2 2.9ghz chip, 4g ocz ram, 580 w ocz ps, front panel goodies.

[slaveofconvention]

Just a quick head's up regarding LED fans and fan controllers - fan controllers basically work by adjusting the amount of voltage sent to the fan itself. As a result, turning down the speed of the fans will substantially reduce the brightness of the LEDs - unless, that is, you mod the fans ;)

[xr4man]

hmm, very good point. i hadn't thought about that. i'm sure i would have found out real quick the first time i fired it up and got pissed that my leds weren't working properly.

i guess that means i'll be changing that portion of the plan then.

on a similar note, i'm not real familiar with fan controllers. now, obviously what i want is something that will automagically control the fan speed based on temperature. i'm assuming that the fan controllers with eth manual knobs will not do that.

does anyone have any suggestions of what a good fan controller that will accomplish what i want would be?

[MrGoat]

This is what I use in my Entertainment center and its automated like you are thinking,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811992005&cm_re=fan_controller-_-11-992-005-_-Product

The drawback is however that with extra temp probes comes extra wire to manage.

[xr4man]

AND LET THE MODDING BEGIN!!!!

i found this
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=72_107_839&products_id=20976
at performance-pcs.com and thought it would do nicely to make the glow from under the case. then i thought about what i do for a living and decided to build my own.

first i needed something small and cup shaped and black.

a plastic bottle cap from a coke zero was just right.

i also needed 4 blue leds, a 27 ohm resistor, and some wire.

here's all the components

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00967.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00967.jpg)

i forgot to get a picture of the cap cut in half, but here it is with the holes drilled for the led leads and the wires to pass through the center. the plastic piece that was inside was removed and will come into play later.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00969.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00969.jpg)

here is the positive leads soldered and a wire connected. then i placed the plastic piece in position to separate the positive from the negative leads on the leds.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00970.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00970.jpg)

here's everything soldered together on the bottom side.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00971.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00971.jpg)

and the top side.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00972.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00972.jpg)

next i soldered the 27 ohm resistor in place on the hot lead. i plan on taking power from the 5v line. with 4 leds and the 27 ohm resistor it should pull 66.7 mA. i don't think that should have any adverse effect on anything. but correct me if i am wrong.

here's the pic.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00973.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00973.jpg)

the first test with it hooked up the power supply that came out of this case.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00975.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00975.jpg)

and a pic with it just shoved under the case. hopefully, once i actually mount it and aim the leds better it will have a nice glow from underneath, otherwise i'll have to add more leds.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/th_DSC00976.jpg (http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/?action=view&current=DSC00976.jpg)

more updates when i figure out how i want to light the interior.

[xr4man]

ok, can someone tell me how to put the thumbnail image in my post so it doesn't open up the whole photobucket page and just opens the picture?

[SXRguyinMA]

use the IMG tag from photobucket :up:

And I've got that NZXT Sentry 2 (see my Tempest SXR mod) and I LOVE it, it's awesome. I keep all fans at 40% on manual for quiet/normal use, but switch it to full auto when gaming, and it works perfectly!

Routing the extra temp probes isn't hard as they're just small 2-wire ones, but it does require some extra time and planning. Each probe runs each zone, Temp 1 for fan 1, temp 2 for fan 2, etc etc.

[xr4man]

i was avoiding using the IMG tag due to the size of the pictures, but of that's acceptable on this forum, then i'll do that.

i like that nzxt fan controller. i was checking it out the otehr day when it was suggested and it looks like it will fit the bill, other than it doesn't have acompletely blue screen.

i do have a question about the temp probes. do they mount directly to specific components or are they just sort of "placed" in a general area that you want measured?
also do you use one for the processor or let the mobo control the processor fan speed?

[slaveofconvention]

If your images are too large, the forum will automatically resize them down anyway but it doesn't look the best having big red boxes around your images - trying to stay under 800px wide will avoid that happening - it's pretty much up to you - as long as they arent so huge that they grind the page to a halt, it should be ok

EDIT: Yeah 2048 wide is a bit on the large side for direct posting - I'm not 100% sure on if that'll fly but I'm sure one of the Admins will be along at some point and give you a nod or shake a finger :)

[SXRguyinMA]

the temp probes come with little strips of non-conductive tape, so you just tape them wherever you want that fan to control. I've got one taped to the backside of the processor socket, and that controls the CPU fan. Another taped to a stick of RAM, and that controls my ram cooler. #3 is hooked to my HDD spindle, and controls the HDD intake fan. like I said, once you get an idea of your layout it's simple to route them, and the wiring is plenty long enough on them as well

[xr4man]

cool, thanks.

[xr4man]

not much going on right now. i decided that the inside of the case needs to be painted just in case i decide to put a window in rather than stick with the mesh.

i also had an epiphany and decided to look into my bios and found the built in fan control settings. i don't know why i didn't think of this before, but it looks like i will not need a fan controller despite how cool it would look.

i am going to reuse my asus M4A89GTD-Pro mobo. it has 4 fan connectors. 1 cpu, 2 case, and 1 pwr fan.

the last one is confusing to me. what is the pwr_fan used for?

edit: i just found out the pwr_fan is for psus with a connector for monitoring the psu fan.

[xr4man]

ok, so i decided not to put a window in the side and therefore there was no need to get fancy with sleeving or lighting. this of course was a mistake, but i'll get to that later.

first here is all the hardware installed. it actually was pretty amazing to me how easy everything fit and how easy it was to get to everything when you actually put a bit of thought into cable management. in the past all my cable management consisted of was tying all the cables in a bundle so they didn't get caught in the fans. i like the ways i've seen on here much better, makes things look so much cleaner even without all the fancy stuff.
anyway, here's the pic.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/c7d64f31.jpg

next up is the blue led lighting installed on the bottom of the case.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/4f81d5be.jpg

here's the offside behind the mobo tray. not much to go here since i have a modular power supply and there aren't really any cable management wholes in the mobo tray.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/285e1636.jpg

this is the rest of the wiring at the bottom tied up all nice and neat. also the wires from the bottom leds have been soldered to a connector and plugged in. they are the twisted red and black wires at the very bottom.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/60ed9e54.jpg

and here is the finished product. well basically. i still need to replace the front panel leds with blue leds. but otherwise done.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/689ede11.jpg

and a shot in the dark. this is were my mistake came in. without any internal lighting, there isn't enough blue glow coming though the mesh on the side. the rest looks pretty good though. i probably could have used more leds on the bottom to make the glow more even, but oh well. this is good enough for now.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/6bfd648a.jpg

now i can move on to my next project. it will be a mini-itx based htpc. that one will get some much better good stuff. i will call it.........mini-oyster. hahaha

[slaveofconvention]

Don't put your work down too much man - we all start somewhere and first mods are always on the basic side. At the end of the day, you took something stock and improved it, so no matter what you think, you modded it! heh - now what you do is you take what you learned this time, along with any comments, and use it next time to make the new mod even better, and so on....

[xr4man]

haha, what i have learned from this... quit buying the cheapest case i can find and start looking at quality, although this case was free and it was ten times a better case than the one i pulled the guts out of.
i also learned i have more ideas than time or money. but i'm sure that's about 99% of the people on here.

[xr4man]

just when i thought this was done, i tried replacing the failing 70mm processor fan with a 80mm blue led case fan with a 70mm to 80mm adapter. this was a total fail since at idle the cpu was running at 147*F. that was just while in the bios. so that would not do.

on to newegg i went and picked up this baby.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/a129c14b.jpg

installed it and cpu temps are a few degrees cooler than i had before the 80mm fiasco. so at least it works; that's all i really needed.

installed on the mobo. and now it's done.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/134c7fc4.jpg

[xr4man]

and just when you think it's all over, something happens and more mods need to be done.

my dos machine kept freezing up on me while i was playing hexen so i had to go find a new game. i downloaded NecroVision, but my onboard radeon hd 4290 with it's 40 stream processors just isn't cutting it. so, i had to go and buy a new video card. it will be here tomorrow. i decided on a radeon hd 6870. i think 1120 stream processors should cover me. i hooked up a killa-watt to see how much room i had with my ocz 500w power supply and with both cores running 100% i'm only using 120W. so that should be plenty of headroom for the new video card. anyway, here's teh trusty blue oyster all opened up again.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c369/xr4man/pc%20mods/598bb577.jpg