Project: Industrial Zalman

Mr. May

Mr. May

Mr. May

Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2009
Posts
3,473
Location
Derby
Hi all and welcome

So here goes iam not much a off a writer i've just bought a new case to store my old htpc (btw if this aint suited in this area can one off the dons more it please) and the spec goes as follows

Zalman Z 7 Plus
E5300 @ 3.7
Asus Rampage Formula x48
2x2gb 1066mhz corsair dominators
Zalman CNP9700
Sapphire HD4870 512mb < (soon to be upgraded to a 4870 X2)
Thermaltake Toughpower 650w
1 x 74gb Raptor HD
2 x 200gb Western Digital HD
2 x 250gb Western Digital HD
1 x 500gb Seagate HD
3 x Zalman Fan Mate 2

to begin with iam taking all this out off these old case






and this case was getting to small as you can see and had no space for my 6th hard drive



so i recived my case to day and the 1st thing i did was take it apart for sparying which went a bit wrong but show some promising results hence the name sorry ive got no picture off un packing i was to excited to get started lol





Then on to spraying









and when they where dry they looked like this





which looked great well happy really deep matt black but this is where every thing went horribly wrong as i started to put this back in i noticed the paint was just sratching off really easy and quicky looked a mess :( so i though to hell with this went and got a refund on the paint and demanded i wanted some free wire wool which i got and came back home to take the paint off which left a very intrestinf finish its like a industrial gun metal kinda reminds me how the mech on mechwarrior would look close up as a kid lol i am going to keep it :D











what do you think people shal i leave it as is or go get some hammerite which i normally use and is knowen and trusted for an all black finish like in my 1st case(btw i got that case for £20 new when i was 13 and is 7 years old lol )
 
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i know thats what i was thinking was a lot of graft though and my hand as stained black now lol it was heat resistive paint just in the process off gettin all the iron fillings out off my case and cleaning up and going to get it built up tonight and see how it looks going to change the graphics card (which will be all black unlike the blue and red one atm :D)so if i dont like it ill spray it all then
 
done a bit more got the HD's and ODD's in and the two front fans which are high powered server fans very loud and powerfull also got two to go on the side talk about possitive pressure :D so on with the pics ive just got all these





into these



do you like my straight 5 block ? intercooler might be a bit over kill :D



then in to the case at last





going to crack on with the motherboard and psu now be back soon
 
i did think about doing it white but most of the componants are black so trying to keep it dark was thinking of spraying it a brushed copper finish to go with all the copper on the mobo and bif zalman cooler and use some amber fans but wasnt to sure on that
 
just finished all the cable managment and everything is plugged in been a nightmare with so much stuff and no cable managment oh well what do you expect for £40 lol so here are the last off the internal shots before i plug it in and see if it works lol (praying)









 
Well ive plugged it in and worked perfect 1st time also the case is that cool inside even on the lowest setting the fan is off on my HD4870 and is at 38degrees on idle that is so i must say iam pretty impressed over all

Thoughts on the case was good value for money every thing feels very well made apart from the HDD cage but that might of been down to me trying to get all the paint off with wire wool and pressing on very hard but it with stood it so fair play i cant see why any one would chose any other case with below £50 budget the antec 300 just looks boring and not as good ventalation the only other case i would go for is the Xigmatek Asgard its got the same number of fan intakes it pre painted internally and is £22 cheaper nearly half the price keep your eyes peeled because ill be doing a build with that case next week for a freind so i can give you my opinions because i find not many people do reviews on these little cases and answer the questions people really want to know which is wierd as there the most bought lol
 
yer i know the 4870x2 should make it look a lot better but at the end off the day it was only ment to be a cheap htpc and for little lan games but got a bit carried away with it lol i think some metal braiding would look good then spray it with the balck paint give it the same effect as the case that would look very indutrial but then at the end off the day more exspense and if i was to do that i would get a better psu
 
i might spray all the exterior silver and tarnish it and the mesh on the front to match and leave the plastic black and new but it lives under neither a silverstone RV01 so it wouldnt match, then again iam happy enuff with how its came out ill do some more pictures tommorrow and also when my 4870x2 arrives as that will looke great in there what do people think to 6 new silver sata leads ?
 
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just thought i would post a few pic's now the x2 is in sorry about the poor quality camera is playing up :( got a few more up grades to do, going to change the harddrives for some bigger one's raid them and some new new sata leads put 4 new Scythe Kaze Jyuni 1900RPM Slip Stream's



 
Just an update on this as i changed all the componants to a water cooled i7 set up with a 470 then a 480 as it only cost me £10 to upgrade frm 470->480:D

heres some pictures of the build stripped back down to the bare case









Now on to the hardware i lapped this i7 before it was on air so dug out a picture off it its amazing now its lost its shine as its only had tim on it :eek:



all the part where second hand off MM or free bee's like the s775 heatkiller which fitted this asus board :)



As you can see with the 2 sets of mounting holes for LGA 1366 and LGA775



And heres the block before going on still in really good order all parts where washed down with IPA before fitting





A bit of left over tim will do just the job here



And on she goes apply equal turns all the way round for good even contact one reason i alwasy like to put the cpu cooler on out side off the case.



Got these for £35inc and and will match the rig a treat



In they go...



Heres the water cooling iam going to be using, Had too ruff the rad up to match the indutrail look and was only £10 anyways. I did have it installed before taking it out again and pleaseeee dont remind me how hard it is to braid water tubes took hours for 3 bits :o





As this is going to be a HTPC it needs to be as quite as possible so notice the rubber washers ?





In it all goes allowing for the bay res/pump to pull forward to allow to be refilled.





In the end the braided tubes reall add to the Industrail effect of the machine









Now time for the 4x HHD's to be installed.



peices of rubber where used to lower the fan noise



Starting to get a bit tight now



After a little modding with the tin snips and hammer the case was ready for another intake fan







On goes the front really want one of them zalman black aluminum fan controllers but the will have to wait





Time to wire the hard drives for give the black marker i had no heat shrink to hand and if your wondering why i left the red, its to go with the red Sata leads











The 470 is quite short compared to the 480 but this the 470 with a zalman cooler in green





Here is the finished product with the 470 Installed







Since then i had added a SSD and a zotac 480 AMP edition which has a black zalman cooler on it and looks so much better i think and only cost £10 to swap it :D and here is the final product





















Thanks very much for looking and hope you enjoyed it feel free to leave comments and check my other build log in sig with will soon be going tri-sli with 3 rads :cool:
 
i know what your saying if you look when I 1st put the case together, it had a none modular psu and was a nightmare to cable. Also when you go modular you can alter any of the leads that arnt hardwired to your psu without voiding your warrenty. so worth the money 100% in my opinion

If you get a good one it will last you though many builds. I would say get a minimum 850 for any system if you looking to upgrade as 850 is normally be enough to run most high end sli/crossfire system like 470's and 6950's i had my other 850w toughpower well over 4 years only reason it got swapped is because i want tri sli it never ends :o lol
 
i know it looked dire to begin with but pretty happy with the results now i might change the motherboard still for asthetic reasons yet for some thing a little less colourfull
 
Lol only just saw these comments from last year and the paint I used was fire place paint I thought it would stuck better than it did lol and brought it due to that it could with stand high heat but it wasn't ment to be touched once applied which was no good when installing hardware, and I use hammorite now.

The case shouldn't off needed any prepping it was bare steel on a brand new case the user error was buying the wrong paint! :D


Any way sorry to revive an old thread again :p
 
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