Core i7 Build

[TheMainMan]

Back in the early winter I was commissioned to do a built for a customer who was replacing a very old P4 based system. As near as we could figure their old system was 7 years old and it wasn't cutting it anymore.
Old system:
P4 1.6GHz 478
Asus P4B800
512MB 133MHz RAM
ATi Radeon 7000VE
40GB Maxtor
160GB WD
17" Samsung CRT and 15" Dell LCD

New system:
Core i7 860
Asus P7P55D Deluxe
8GB Corsair XMS3 DHX heatspreader RAM
Sapphire HD5770
60GB OCZ SSD
1.5TB WD Green
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2250
OCZ 750W GameXStream
Coolermaster CM690

This is the first system I have built all at once rather than through a process of upgrades so there were a few things I was looking forward to doing. First, cable management was of highest priority and every possible wire would be sleeved (with one exception which I'll cover later). Secondly, it meant that I would get a chance to modify the case prior to putting in the hardware.

* Note * Comments are appreciated however this system has been completed and delivered to the customer so changes I can make are limited.

Here's a teaser of all the hardware.

[Starlite KNight]

I would be interested in seeing pictures of how you did the cabling if you have any.

[x88x]

Heheheh, that'll be a bit of an upgrade for them. I love the CM690; one of my favorite cases.

[diluzio91]

i love that case too... i wanted to ask, does the top pop off of the case?

[TheMainMan]

@Starlite - Since that is the only major mod to this system there will definitely be pictures and lots of them!

@x88x - Just a bit, lol. I too love the CM690 as it holds my primary system. I seem to find them nicely priced when I need them, usually around $60-70 CND which makes them even nicer

@diluzio91 - Short answer is yes it does. There are 6 clips that you push out while lifting to remove it.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I was going to put up more pics tomorrow but since there's interest I'll put some up now instead

Parts were sourced from two sources for this build, TigerDirect.ca and Canada Computers. The case was on sale at Tiger and was one I was familiar with which made planning ahead much easier. I also grabbed the RAM and BD drive from there as well due to better pricing. So about a week later I wound up with this lovely brown box at my door.

What's in the box, you say?
Maybe some RAM...

and a Blu-Ray!

The case I picked up locally due to size and shipping costs but was no less fun to open! My personal CM690 has seen some use and I forgot how nice this case looked coming out of the box.

So the first step of this build was actually counter-intuitive as it involved dismantling almost everything in the case.

The only thing I ended up using in this photo was the motherboard standoffs. No floppy here! (thank goodness they have eliminated floppy ports from the newer mobos) The case manual would be quite useful if you have never built a system before as it was well illustrated and detailed.

I don't know if this is the case for all CM690s but both that I've worked on have required tremendous force to get the front panel off. The top panel is quite easy but the pegs on the front panel haven't been slotted deep enough to allow for easy removal. I have yet to damage anything but fear I will everytime I have to remove it.

As I mentioned earlier there will be no floppy so out goes the 3.5" to 5.25" adapter. Then I removed the front indicator LEDs and power and reset switches as they will be sleeved. I also took the intake fan off to sleeve it as well.

When I purchased my first CM690 back in Sept '07 I thought that the cable organizers were a good idea. That was when modding was still a relatively new word in my vocab. Now I think they're not a bad idea but for this build they were clutter. Needless to say, out they came! While I was at it I removed the bottom fan filter/mount so that I could clean up the excess mesh and remove the fan mount tabs. The filter has holes to mount a fan so if the client needs one at some point I'll use those.

I used an X-acto scalple to remove the corner tabs very carefully by scoring then breaking them off. I then trimmed the excess plastic and mesh and wound up with a factory-made look.

That's it for disassembly, with the exception of removing case fans which I didn't take pictures for. My journey into the depths of sleeving begins in the next update...

[Airbozo]

I don't know if this is the case for all CM690s but both that I've worked on have required tremendous force to get the front panel off. The top panel is quite easy but the pegs on the front panel haven't been slotted deep enough to allow for easy removal. I have yet to damage anything but fear I will everytime I have to remove it.

It gets easier. I have that case and love it. The first dozen times you take the front or top off, it feels like it is going to break. Just go slow and eventually everything loosens up.

I HATE the cable management clips. I tossed mine out after 1 day. There is enough room behind the mother board tray to hide the cables. Mine is really clean.

BTW: I like the idea of removing the fan clips on the filter.

[TheMainMan]

It gets easier. I have that case and love it. The first dozen times you take the front or top off, it feels like it is going to break. Just go slow and eventually everything loosens up.

Thanks for the info, I figured that was the way it would happen but it's reassuring to hear it from someone else.

I HATE the cable management clips. I tossed mine out after 1 day. There is enough room behind the mother board tray to hide the cables. Mine is really clean.

BTW: I like the idea of removing the fan clips on the filter.

I think you'll like the end result of the cable management here then. Removing the fan clips was one of those "Why didn't I think of that before?" moments when I started thinking about how to clean up the look of things.


On with the update!
Now that everything was disassembled, it was time to begin sleeving. I wanted everything uniform and tidy so it didn't matter where or how long the cable I was going to sleeve it. I started with the front buttons and LEDs as this cable is the one that bugs me the most in my personal case. It's a flat, ribbon cable which is tricky to route and very awkward in any themed case due to its many colours.

After splitting the wires it looked like this and was finally ready to be sleeved.

Finally sleeved and looking good.

Those of you with sharp eyes will notice the first thing that went wrong in this build. When I was applying the heat to shrink the end with the mobo connectors I was a little to enthusiastic and left the heat on too long. Luckily, I had put the Asus Q-Connect (white) on already and it helped the connectors keep their shape.

Next, I sleeved the front and top fans so that they were ready to set aside until re-assembly.

Then I moved on to sleeving the top panel USB, Firewire, eSATA and audio connectors. It was really easy to remove the cables as the case mounts the ports to a circuit board and the cables plug into headers mounted on the board. The eSATA cable is molded and fits into a slot where it's held in by two screws. That long red cable was not acceptable to me so the entire thing is getting sleeved.

Once I had a good look at the USB cables I realised that they were shielded so the sleeving went right on over top of the entire cable. I read a variety of opinions online as to whether the shielding was necessary so I chose to play it safe since this build isn't mine.

I noticed that I hadn't done the rear fan so I did it with the eSATA cable.

This entire process was a lot more work and took more time than I expected but I'm happy with the results as it will give the case a uniform look in the end.

In the next update: Starting the installation of hardware.

[Twigsoffury]

Yea you can get some corruption if those USB cables come parallel to a power cable and they aren't EM shielded.

supposedly, grounding the shielding out will eliminate a lot of the EMI. should act like a farady cage if you did that...but don't hold me to it.

[TheMainMan]

@ Twigsoffury - Thanks for the info. They are pretty long cables so I left them shielded as there was a good chance of being parallel at some point.

A little bit of backstory before I start this update. When I was building this computer I was away at school. The system was being delivered over the holidays to the customer but before I was going to deliver it I needed to mod the case for cable management. So I ended up assembling the system and testing it while at school, then completely disassembling it, modding the case, then putting it all back together. It seems rather backward but it allowed me to ensure that everything was stable and ready to deploy immediately after finishing reassembly.

On with the update...
For those of you who haven't had the privilege of working with a CM690 the HDD cage has very simple but effective drive trays. A metal peg in a silicon insert replaces the screws that go into the side of the drive. The entire plastic tray slides into the cage and fastens quite securely. Here's a shot of what I'm describing.

I'm putting in a WD 1.5TB Green drive for storage and a 60GB OCZ SSD for the OS.

Since this is the original CM690 there is no 2.5" mount for SSDs so I used the OCZ adapter to allow me to mount it in the tray.

And here's both drives ready to go in the case.

Time to put the motherboard into the case and start making some visible progress.

Coupled with a Core i7-860.

I wish I had a chance to get the chassis painted blue so that it would accent the black I/O shield and black exterior.

No offense to Intel but this thermal paste...

...does NOT equal this thermal paste!

Cleaned and ready for some AS5.

I couldn't forget about sleeving the CPU fan wire and since I wasn't cutting or soldering on this system I folded the fan wire back on itself then put the sleeving and heatshrink on to make it the right length to connect to the mobo.

And the CPU and fan mounted and cable sleeved.

The next update will contain graphics, ram and POWER!
Muahahaha!...cough...cough

[diluzio91]

Me likey so far. Are you going to be painting the case for the customer as well?