Hi guys, and welcome to this thread, my build log (and this time, I took pictures!). I'll apologise in advance, I'm using my phone's camera. It's not the best, but when scaled down to appropriate sizes, the pictures aren't too bad. Any camera does injustice to the new case I got today, so without further ado...
The first part of my evil plan was executed today, when the Bitfenix Shinobi Window turned up:
Upgrading from the OcUK Galaxy III, which, let's be honest, was a cheap and cheerful case that did it's job, but was nothing to brag about, this was a very new feeling. It was larger, heavier, the textures were nice, smooth plastic and hardened aluminium, really nice feel to it.
Insides of the case were already painted black, which was one of the reasons I bought it over, say, an Antec, because it looked nicer inside.
Then, of course, the box o' bits (Tasty post-build tangfastics not included by Bitfenix):
Well, enough of admiring that case. I have work to do! First, a shot of the old case, how I was using it (I was looking at modding the side panel, so that's why that's not there.
Then, extracting most of it onto my bed:
The old case, looking very bare, and the DVD drive I forgot to take out:
And now to begin putting stuff in the new case. First off, I installed the motherboard standoffs (They don't come pre-installed, but there is a very handy system of letting you know which holes to use, which I helpfully figured out AFTER I'd worked it out manually.), and then the I/O shield (I swear, I didn't have to take the motherboard out again, or anything!). The CPU, cooler and RAM were already installed from the previous build, no need to take them out.
Installed the PSU, graphics card, and tried to work out how to get the adaptor (Top 5.25" bay) out.
Finally figured out I needed to take off the front and top bezels, and screwed the M4 into the adaptor. It's a pretty nifty device, I like the idea of it.
And then...well. Some technical issues. Basically, after I'd "finished", I realised that my cable management was awful. The CX600's 8-pin CPU power fell short of tidy cable management by about 2cm (you can see it on the left hand side of the bottom-most pic) so I'm just thinking of picking up a couple pieces of the Alchemy extensions, or possibly trying to do some sleeving on my own. I guess we'll see.
If anyone can link me to where I can get one of those tweezer-like tools that are suited for the job, could you reply and let me know where I can pick one up?
So, on the list is:
- Pick up some Alchemy extensions/figure out sleeving
- White LEDs
- Figure out why I didn't have the forethought to go for the all-black Gigabyte ATX motherboard
- Take more pictures of stuff
- Proper CPU + Cooler. This is a big one, but I want to try and get an h50/70 in there. I don't think I'm ready for a custom loop yet. Scares me.
Thanks for reading guys, I'll update as much as there is to update!
The first part of my evil plan was executed today, when the Bitfenix Shinobi Window turned up:
Upgrading from the OcUK Galaxy III, which, let's be honest, was a cheap and cheerful case that did it's job, but was nothing to brag about, this was a very new feeling. It was larger, heavier, the textures were nice, smooth plastic and hardened aluminium, really nice feel to it.
Insides of the case were already painted black, which was one of the reasons I bought it over, say, an Antec, because it looked nicer inside.
Then, of course, the box o' bits (Tasty post-build tangfastics not included by Bitfenix):
Well, enough of admiring that case. I have work to do! First, a shot of the old case, how I was using it (I was looking at modding the side panel, so that's why that's not there.
Then, extracting most of it onto my bed:
The old case, looking very bare, and the DVD drive I forgot to take out:
And now to begin putting stuff in the new case. First off, I installed the motherboard standoffs (They don't come pre-installed, but there is a very handy system of letting you know which holes to use, which I helpfully figured out AFTER I'd worked it out manually.), and then the I/O shield (I swear, I didn't have to take the motherboard out again, or anything!). The CPU, cooler and RAM were already installed from the previous build, no need to take them out.
Installed the PSU, graphics card, and tried to work out how to get the adaptor (Top 5.25" bay) out.
Finally figured out I needed to take off the front and top bezels, and screwed the M4 into the adaptor. It's a pretty nifty device, I like the idea of it.
And then...well. Some technical issues. Basically, after I'd "finished", I realised that my cable management was awful. The CX600's 8-pin CPU power fell short of tidy cable management by about 2cm (you can see it on the left hand side of the bottom-most pic) so I'm just thinking of picking up a couple pieces of the Alchemy extensions, or possibly trying to do some sleeving on my own. I guess we'll see.
If anyone can link me to where I can get one of those tweezer-like tools that are suited for the job, could you reply and let me know where I can pick one up?
So, on the list is:
- Pick up some Alchemy extensions/figure out sleeving
- White LEDs
- Figure out why I didn't have the forethought to go for the all-black Gigabyte ATX motherboard
- Take more pictures of stuff
- Proper CPU + Cooler. This is a big one, but I want to try and get an h50/70 in there. I don't think I'm ready for a custom loop yet. Scares me.
Thanks for reading guys, I'll update as much as there is to update!
