Project: Blue Shift

[MaxOC]

agreed. unless you find 3 40 fans that add up to the cfm of you 140, just open that hole up and let it breathe.

however id suggest simply making it a hole, then letting whatever your psu fan has as a fan grill be the grill for the bottom of the case as well. less restriction.

[UnWantedSoldier]

After doing the math the 40mm fans would combined only move about 15-18 cfm. Which is just a fraction of what the 140mm is capable of, so that said i'll be leaving the 40mm fans out. i may instead put a few leds in the base to give it that ground effects look i was gona get from the fans. Thx for the imput guys, much appreciated

however id suggest simply making it a hole, then letting whatever your psu fan has as a fan grill be the grill for the bottom of the case as well. less restriction.

I had considered that however i don't want to cut a huge hole in the bottom of the case, i did that with my 900 and i wasn't to happy with the look i got. Plus when i did that with my 900 the positioning of the fan was specific to this psu (i have a zalman 850w which is longer than the standard atx) meaning if later i get another psu and its a standard length the holes wont match up anymore. Doing it this way i'm hoping will give the look of factory ventilation that will work regardless of the length of the psu. Also i'm not trying to necessarily get the best performance possible (like i would from a large hole) but for something that is more balanced between looks and functionality. In other applications though that is probably the way to go but i don't think it will work right for this project, but thx for the idea.

[p0Pe]

looking good what are thoose switches? havent seen them before i think

[Kumo]

Love the mesh work. Very nice.

[UnWantedSoldier]

the weather let up just enough today to let me finish up the temp display.

i painted the unit and mounted it in the drive bay using hot glue. I also added a cap to the switch.

I finish up the wiring by adding the cable to plug into one of the psu's molex connectors.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

That pretty much wraps this project up for now. In about a week or two i should have access to a drill press so that i can drill the holes for the additional psu ventilation i need. I have one bay left to stealth but I'm out of drive bay covers and the only way to do this project right is to use drive bay covers. So until i can find more i wont be able to continue. Hopefully it wont take too long for me to find atleast one (which is all i need to do the next bay)

Tomorrow i am bringing this behemoth over to a friends house to give us a computer to use while we are building his new computer. So i will be able to get some good quality pics of this case and the mods to show you guys.

[SXRguyinMA]

nice job! looks really good in there

[Vitz¥^]

love the mesh work and stealthing +rep

[The boy 4rm oz]

Temp display turned out really well, looks fantastic.

[UnWantedSoldier]

spent last night over at a friends house setting up his new rig, gave me a chance to take the 1200 out of the house and get some pics of it. Unfortunately i forgot to grab my dads camera so i could get some decent quality pics so again all i have are crappy cellphone pics. But here is my system as is there are still mods to do but this will give you guys an idea of what i'm working with. and eventually i will get some good quality pics of this thing lol. (and yes i'm a bit of a trekie lol)

System Specs
Mobo: MSI K9A2 Platnum AMD 790FX chipset
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9950 140w 3.0ghz (OC), cooled by Zalman CNPS9500A LED
Memory: G.Skill DDR2 800 (4x2gb)
GPU: VisionTek HD 3870 512mb (OC), cooled by Zalman VF1000 LED
HDD0: Samsung 500gb sata 3.0gbs
HDD1: Samsung 750gb sata 3.0gbs
HDD2: Samsung 750gb sata 3.0gbs
ODD: Lite-on 20x dvd burner
Other: VisionTek Tv Wonder 650 PCI-e, D-Link 108mbs 802.11g wireless adapter.
PSU: Zalman ZM850-HP 850w

Here is my friends computer, since i didnt have a decent camera i didn't take any pics during the build but there will be opportunity for more of those later. He has a Cooler Master HAF case.

System Specs
Mobo: MSI K9A2 Platnum AMD 790FX chipset
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9750 125w 2.4ghz
Memory: Patriot DDR2 1066 (2x2gb)
GPU: Sapphire HD 4870 512mb
HDD0: Samsung 500gb sata 3.0gbs
ODD: LG - 20x dvd burner
PSU: Zalman ZM850-HP 850w

We haven't done much with the case yet other than some sleaving, but he has a second 4870 coming and one of the new 9950 125w processors coming in next week. There aren't to many plans for it as far as mods go He wants to add a few fans to it but overall its gona look pretty much like most HAF out there.

[UnWantedSoldier]

On a side note though I was considering both of these cases for my upgrade from my 900 and I had decided on the HAF when my Girlfriend surprised me with the 1200 as an early Xmas gift. And I have to say that after working with both the 1200 is (at least for my purposes) the superior case. Both cases have their pros and cons. (I thought I would include a little review of both cases here for anyone who is interested)

HAF

The HAF has a lot of cool little features, like the tool assembly, locations to mount lots of fans, the option of adding casters (that are included)

The tool-less expansion bay is very nice. When locked it holds the cards very firmly in place with very little effort. And since it seems like no one can design and expansion slot area that is easily accessible by a screwdriver this is a really nice feature. However I wasn’t nearly as impressed by the tool-less drive bays. My last experience with cooler master tool-less drive bays was on a old Centurion (about 4 years ago) which used a slide to lock tool-less system that added a lot of friction to the side of the drive and secured quite well. This never push button systems leave a lot to be desired in my opinion. Will it does prevent the drive from being removed it allows for a bit of play. The only way to eliminate this is to use screws on the opposite side to secure the drive which effectively renders the tool-less system useless. The hard drive system works better, you simply pop the drive into the tray and it’s held relatively secure by 4 vibration isolated pins. My only complaint with this is that the plastic the trays are made out of fells kind of flimsy and the locking mechanism seems like it could be broken pretty easily but only time will tell on that.

There are tons of fan locations on this thing. It comes with 3 230mm fans as cooler master designates them, but really they are the exact same size as Antec's 200mm big boy fans. Since the fans are not completely round I believe cooler master is measuring theirs along the long way while Antec measures the short way. One fan is positioned as an intake in the front, one as an intake on the side and one in the top as an exhaust. There is also a 140mm fan on the back panel for exhaust. On the top you can replace the 230mm with 3 120mm or you can keep the 230 up there and add a 120. You can also add two 120 mm fans externally/internally in the bottom. And the 230 in the side can be replaced with 4 120mm fans. While the options for fan placement is pretty extensive I was disappointed that there is no way to mount an additional intake fan in the empty 5.25 drive bays (I feel a mod coming on here) Also I was disappointed by the performance of the 230mm fans. I must have been spoiled by the Antec 200mm because I expected this thing to levitate when we turned it on but the actual air output from the 120's is about 20 cfm lower than the Antec. Additionally they are at a set speed (I really like the variable controls on the tri-cool series of Antec fans, like I said I think I’ve been spoiled by them). But all that said the rig is very quiet compared to what I’m use to. And while they 230's move not quite as much air as Antec’s they do, do it much quieter (under 20dBA). Lastly there are no fan filters on the intakes in this case.

One of my favorite features of this case is probably the fact that it comes with casters. They look nice and are easy to put on and lift the case about 1 1/2 inches of the ground. Not to high but not to low either and it allows you to easily move the case around.

The Cable management system is pretty good on this case but not the greatest. One good thing is you do have the option for mounting the PSU either at the top or the bottom and in both locations you can position the PSU fan (if it has a top fan) so that it is drawing air from outside the case rather than inside. As both the top and bottom of the case are perforated for ventilation and the adding of fans. I like to flip my psu over so that the cable bundle is closes to the mobo tray this makes it so that the cable can reach better (which can be a real issue in a full tower) and it reduces the amount of cable clutter on the visible side of the mobo tray. This case has a nice big hole for the PSU cabling to go though so there is no issue there but a few things I didn’t like is that the mobo is pretty close to the psu when it’s at the bottom so hooking up connectors at the bottom of the mobo can be difficult (recommend doing those before you install your psu so you can hide them behind the psu). This case does include an 8pin CPU power cord extension which is great except the mobo we are using only needs a 4 pin. So we cut off the excess and I used an extra 4 pin connector to convert it for our needs but it was really nice that this included one (the 1200 does not). There are plenty of holes to route everything behind the mobo but unfortunately there is a sever lack of included tie down points. There are plenty around the openings but none directly behind the mobo. Which is usually where I like to hide my excess cabling. Additionally most of your cabling ends up in a rats nest behind the hard drive racks as since the racks are sideways, when you have the window side panel off you can easily see the mess. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as when the case is all buttoned up its invisible, but it just bugs me when I cant arrange my cables as neatly as I would like (But I'm a bit ocd when it comes to cable management).

1200

Unlike the HAF the 1200 doesn’t have as many cool little features, what it does have is a lot of practical design elements that make this a great case to work with.

Unlike the HAF there is no tool-less features about this case. Everything is held in its place by screws of one kind or another. While this makes the install a bit more tedious as well as any hardware swap outs. It does leave you with a very sturdy system. Everything is locked firmly in its place. This said there is one major drawback to the 1200's non-tool-less approach.

The 1200 included intake filters on all of their intake fans. A great idea to cut down on the dust that collects in the system, However 3 of the 4 filters are located at the front of the hard drive cages. And the only way to get them out is to remove the 8 screws that hold the cage in place and slide it forward about 2 inches. In order to clean all the filters (side and 3 front filters) you have to remove 28 thumb screws, 4 for the two side panels and 8 per drive bay cage. This is a bit excessive and Antec should have spent a little more time on R&D for these things. The picture above is what my filters looked like after about a week of having the computer on constantly (and the fans set to High) This right here can become a pretty laborious task is it has to be completed more than once a month. I know I will be trying to come up with a mod to fix this issue.

The stock cooling on the 1200 is quite nice, 3 120mm intake fans all with rotary style fan controllers built in, 2 120mm exhaust with 3 position fan speed controller and a 200mm exhaust with a 3 position switch controller and a switch that turns the LED on and off. There is room for 2 more fans one to be mounted on the back side of one of the HDD cages and the other in the side window. I used my fan holder out of my 900 to mount another fan to the back of the other available HDD cage, for a total of 9 case fans, in my rig. These fans can move a lot of air but does it at the cost of making your room sound like its next the tarmac of an airport. Truly the sound isn't that bad and with the external fan controls it’s easy to turn the fans down when you’re not gaming or running intensive apps.

The case is a dream for cable management as it has lots of holes and plenty of anchor points behind the mobo tray and there is about and 1 1/2" of room between the PSU and mobo making it easy to attach and remove front panel connectors that are along the bottom of the mobo. However there are a few things lacking from this design. One is the ability to properly flip the PSU there is no ventilation in the bottom of the case however the psu sit on top of 1/2" rubber standoffs that give it some room to breathe when upside down but not as much as it should (Hence the mod I have planned to fix that) and the hole for the PSU cable to go through is the same size as all the rest of the holes, this makes for a very tight fit for all the cables you have to run through this one hole. Also (both cases suffer from this, the 1200 more so) there just isn’t quite enough space behind the mobo tray. They should have given a few more millimeters back there. You can get it to work but you end up with a slight bow in the side panel that's not to noticeable but a little annoying regardless.

Both cases have a lot going for them but in the end I feel that most of the HAF's major features come accost gimmicky. There are way too many plastic parts in it that to don't feel like they will stand the test of time and the stock cooling while seemingly impressive with its misrepresented fan size really doesn't deliver. The 1200 while having its draw backs is a solid case (this is emphasized by its weight my rig is over 50lbs) There are very little plastic parts, just the top and the front bezel along with the fan front fan shrouds. This case has the feel of something that will hold up over time. And what you get out of the box is a very stylish design that is well complemented by the all black interior and the included fans provide a good amount of light so you can see your components without having to go out and buy a lot of extra gear.

(continued in next post)