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Ok, so I went through the trouble of measuring, drilling, grinding, etc, to end up with this panel:
That I decided not to use. I realized that it wasn’t going to fit in with the rest of the front of the case. So I scrapped that idea.
I ended up using one of the standard TT faceplates, and drilling/grinding it for the buttons and stuff instead. It was a lot easier to mount and looks much better IMHO.
Next up was stealthing the DVD drive. This went pretty easy. With a TT faceplate and some hot glue, it was done. I just had to drill a new hole in the chassis for the screw to mount it, as it sat too far back, but that was no big deal.
Tray motor removed
A few well-place snips and dabs of hot glue, and the wiring is done
Faceplate work
Open:
Closed:
Next up I sleeved the SATA cables to hide their red-ness
Then I did this neat little voltage mod to the MB that I found online. Apparently there’s a significant drop in the voltage between these two points due to a too-thin trace. So the remedy is to solder a thicker wire between them.
also while the board was out I removed the heatpipes and heatsinks. I also read that these mobos have issues with overheating due to the use of thermal pads instead of grease, so I removed the pads and used grease, then reassembled it all. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, so I didnt get any pics.
I also sleeved the power/USB cables
Then came the OCZ memory cooler. I didn’t want the blue LEDs anymore, so I started by taking the fans out
Then de-soldering the LEDs
All sleeved up
RGB LEDs soldered up
Ready to go
I also had blue LEDs on the CPU cooler as well, but for these I just put a piece of heat shrink over them
Mobo, cpu cooler, memory cooler and a pair of 3870x2’s installed
My 5 leftover RGB modules from Rockin Case
4 of these got mounted to the bottom of the case, and one to the side panel opposite the PSU.
Then I decided to do something I saw on the Dark Blade mod. I put LEDs inside the DVD drive.
Board with LEDs soldered up
And sleeved
LEDs in place, with a few snips of the plastic housing
Aw crap – the cover hits
Oh well, break out the dremel :D
Ahhh that’s better
Sleeved up and ready for install
I also got this nice little brown box from Hong Kong, and in it was this
It’s a PIC programmer. I set up my spare mobo with Windows XP on it, because it’s got a serial port that’s needed to use this puppy. As soon as I can get it configured right, I’m going to try creating my own color sequences in the RGB controller. Look out for a different thread on that later on.
And she’s done!
And set back up
And a few parting shots and a video. The camera doesn’t get the colors too well, it’s something you need to see in person, or wait until I can afford a nicer video camera lol.
I’ll post the link to the video once it’s done processing
I need a better camera. for some reason the colors on these pics all look lighter than they actually are lol
Red:
Green:
Blue:
And a vid:
looks very clean and nice! I like the usage of the original tt bay cover for the switch panel. :)
