Saint Louis Cardinals theme case! - Haswell CPU

A Mod for my Wife!!

The case I'm using is the Fractal Design Arc Midi

I need to tear it down for painting. The first to go is one of the drive bay cages. I will not be putting it back in either because I'll only have two drives and there's room on the bottom

Next, comes everything else that's not part of the base steel frame

Can you believe this thick filter was on the top? Why the hell would they use such a thick filter over an exhaust fan??

The front comes off too with it's lone fan

There she is....the frame

I start painting with a light red coat

The front and top mesh pieces are painted white

and the front and top panels are painted red

Once dry, I reassemble the top without the thick mesh filter

The front will obviously have a mesh filter, so that's where I start

There will be two 140mm intake fans

under the completed bezel

I need to paint the panel controls and ports area too

And put it back on the case

Once the frame is dry, all the fans and accessories go back in

Now that the top panel and front bezel are on, they go back on the case

I added a matching DVD burner

The right panel finally gets its top coat

I just slapped a BIG decal on the right side because that's what the wifey wants.

It looks good anyway

and then I started painting left side and ran out paint!!

I intend to use the other 5.25 bay for a light controller. The NZXT Hue is great little toy, but it's not gonna match like this

So I strip it down to the core components

The top piece, which is the largest will be white. The under layer will be red, when I get more paint...

I got the Specs lined up:

i5 3570K

Asrock Z77 Extreme 6

EVGA GTX 580 DS Superclocked

8GB DDR3-1866 Corsair Dominator Platinum & OCZ Vertex 3 240GB

Corsair H110 Cooler

Dude. You could really teach a modding class.

Wow!

I picked up some more red paint for the mesh

And then reassembled the panel

Then I painted some thumb screws to match

Now the bays are back together

I put the balls on the knobs

I don't know if I like it, what do you think?

I want an STL logo on the front of the case and tried ordering it through a metal cutter. The problem is that it's a copyrighted symbol and no one will cut it for me!

So, here I go:

I slowly widdle it away

Till it's done

I just have to strip, sand, paint, and then mount it

*cue lame puns*

Seriously, though, I'm on the fence with you. Clever, but I'm not sure if I like it.

I'm gonna wait till the logo is on the front and I mount the baseball bat on top before I rush to judgement.

So, I admit it, the ball knobs look stupid. I've decided to use them as feet instead, but had to order one more

On to the top of the case. I have special nut that lets me add a screw without having to go through the panel

Then I ran a bolt through the bat

And added it to the top of the case

And I used a thin wire to secure the bottom of the bat to the top of the case. This will be for decoration only and NOT a handle.

And I'll need to use a wood filler to cover the bolt

But first I used my dremel to make the screw in the bat a little more concave

It's only gonna take an hour to dry, but I'm giving it 24!

Yep. Using them as feet instead makes it look a lot better.

You just know someone's gonna pick it up by the bat.

Well it'll only be in my office.....

I decided to up the ante and go from the i5 3570K to the i7 3770K

Overkill? Most certainly!!

And I won't be using the Dominators I posted earlier, because I got these red and white Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 LP's.

Is 16GB of RAM overkill?. Indeed it is!

I sanded down the filler to make the bat's surface flush

Then I cut out the mounting holes in the STL logo

After I cleaned up all the rough edges, I painted the logo

I also painted the screws and sleeves that will go under the logo

Another change to the specs.

Since the new Haswell's are just about here, I'm going to get her the new i7 4770K and a new board (I think the Z87-UD4H). Also, one of my GTX 580's is bad, so I'm selling the good one and upgrading to an MSI Twin Frozr GTX 680 4GB!!

I put the STL logo on the front of the case with spacers

After several spec changes, I'm making another. I got a new Motherboard that just came out today! The Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H, socket 1150.

And the new i7 4770K!

I just need to fix the paint on the left panel. It's been giving me a headache

I got the new motherboard in the case with the new i7 4770K processor

I'll be using Corsair Vengeance Low Profile RAM with two white and two red sticks, 16GB total

I really wanted to use the Corsair H110 closed loop cooler, but it did not fit on the top of the case! So, I'm going with an old favorite instead: The Cooler Master S524 air cooler

As usual I only use this cooler with a 140mm fan. I have these really nice Gelid fans with NanoFlux bearings, but they're the wrong color

I popped off the fan blades for a repaint. I wanted to use red, but I'm all out! So white it'll be

While it dries I put the 240GB SSD in

And now it's all in. I just need the video card....

After tons of fun painting the left panel, it's finally done. First up, add the applique I ordered from CrazyPC

I've been meaning to add a real baseball to this case and not just the little feet

But first I have to drill a hole through one

And feeding an acrylic tube through it

Then I just had to drill the drive bay to hold it in

I got rid of the light controller and now I'm using the NZXT Aperature for the front panel. I like having a card reader and a couple more USB 3.0 ports available

I need to disassemble it to paint

Red and white like the rest

It only takes one night to fully dry

My 4GB MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr arrived

And it works!

The last thing I had on order for this project was these red and white PCIe cable extensions

I've made the red and white theme pretty obvious, but still like the 24 pin in just white. Now all the cables are tied off behind the motherboard.

Besides what is already connected by default on the power supply, all I need is a single line for the two SATA devices

Needs a white blackplate on that GPU.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TLHarrell

Needs a white blackplate on that GPU.

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Or red or possibly black, but it definitely needs a backplate.

You guys read my mind! But first, I needed to use a little astro turf that I got for FREE as a sample size

The video card looks odd. It needs to look like it belongs in the same theme

I use a thin cardboard backer to protect the PCB

Then I cut the mesh and painted it red

And I finally painted the pole white

Once the mesh was dry it went on the back of the card

Just updating with the final pics

COMPLETION!

Specs:

Intel i7 4770K
Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H
16GB (4GB x4) Corsair Vengeance LP
MSI GTX 680 4GB Twin Frozr
240GB SSD
850 Watt PC Power & Cooling
Fractal Design Arc Midi

Is that backplate just sitting there loose? Also not going to lie sports themed mods don't really do it for me but great work with all the painting. At 50 odd plus mods you've gotten pretty damn adept with your use of a rattle can haha

Now back to the dwemer mod that's really got me intrested