Soldato
So, I have been planning to do a case mod for about 18 months, but time hasn't been plentiful so nothing got done.
I originally intended to take a couple of mid atx cases and smash them together and add new external panels and fascia to finish (there is a post here somewhere outlining the ideas, unfortunately its a dead project
). This would be massively time consuming and time just isnt something I have a great deal of these days.
I happened upon an NZXT Switch 810.
Its a decent size case with some nice features and I am almost tempted to just transfer my aging kit into it. However, it does have some draw backs and design decisions that would, over time, annoy the crap out of me. Because of this I am going to mod it. Nothing major, nothing too in depth. Just enough small bits and pieces to make it more acceptable to me.
I know you are all familiar with this case but here are a couple of pictures of the default item;
My issues, a 360/420mm rad can be mounted directly to the roof. Sounds nice but imo this is the wrong place for a rad, it should be drawing in air from outside the case.
The 5.25" drive bays, wth? if you arent familiar they are constructed in two sections and screwed together, which sounds OK but immediately disallows anything bigger than a single 5.25" bay high being installed at the top. this will not do either.
To rectify the former I have two ideas, one is to strip the thing right back to the bare skeleton, flip it and then remount all the panels and components. This will put the rad at the bottom and the psu at the top. Ideal. It would also make the case sort of pseudo BTX, not an entirely bad thing either, for a reason which will become apparent much later. Or I could cut the back end and top (metal, not the visible plastic) to mount the psu at the top (old skool) and mod the floor to accept the rad.
As for the latter it will be a straight up chop and reinforce job.
I haven't made a final decision as to which method I will use to change the position of the PSU, I will need to make a complete strip down of the case at the weekend. Whatever happens the drive bays need tweaking (why oh why oh [spells yoyo] did NZXT not put the USB panel as a movable item in a 5.25" bay since it is screwed to an inaccessible bay anyway, it would have been a much more flexible arrangement).
A rough idea of where, imo, the PSU and rad need to be.
Watercooling with be made up of some of the EK kit I won here last year (excellent kit!) so a 360xtx, DCP 4.0 (the CPU block went into my boys machine), Cuplex Kryos, a Phobya dual bay res and an Aquagrafx full cover GPU block. The actual computer hardware is fairly irrelevant (not least because it is old as dirt and will begin to get upgraded once this is over).
Once I do the strip down I will be able to see whether or not I can get away with 2 * 360mm rads.
Things I need to get;
Possibly another rad.
Epoxy
Tubing
More fittings
Lots of cut off disks
Oh and a fan controller!
Feel free to comment, offer advice, berate etc.
I originally intended to take a couple of mid atx cases and smash them together and add new external panels and fascia to finish (there is a post here somewhere outlining the ideas, unfortunately its a dead project
). This would be massively time consuming and time just isnt something I have a great deal of these days. I happened upon an NZXT Switch 810.
Its a decent size case with some nice features and I am almost tempted to just transfer my aging kit into it. However, it does have some draw backs and design decisions that would, over time, annoy the crap out of me. Because of this I am going to mod it. Nothing major, nothing too in depth. Just enough small bits and pieces to make it more acceptable to me.
I know you are all familiar with this case but here are a couple of pictures of the default item;
My issues, a 360/420mm rad can be mounted directly to the roof. Sounds nice but imo this is the wrong place for a rad, it should be drawing in air from outside the case.
The 5.25" drive bays, wth? if you arent familiar they are constructed in two sections and screwed together, which sounds OK but immediately disallows anything bigger than a single 5.25" bay high being installed at the top. this will not do either.
To rectify the former I have two ideas, one is to strip the thing right back to the bare skeleton, flip it and then remount all the panels and components. This will put the rad at the bottom and the psu at the top. Ideal. It would also make the case sort of pseudo BTX, not an entirely bad thing either, for a reason which will become apparent much later. Or I could cut the back end and top (metal, not the visible plastic) to mount the psu at the top (old skool) and mod the floor to accept the rad.
As for the latter it will be a straight up chop and reinforce job.
I haven't made a final decision as to which method I will use to change the position of the PSU, I will need to make a complete strip down of the case at the weekend. Whatever happens the drive bays need tweaking (why oh why oh [spells yoyo] did NZXT not put the USB panel as a movable item in a 5.25" bay since it is screwed to an inaccessible bay anyway, it would have been a much more flexible arrangement).
A rough idea of where, imo, the PSU and rad need to be.
Watercooling with be made up of some of the EK kit I won here last year (excellent kit!) so a 360xtx, DCP 4.0 (the CPU block went into my boys machine), Cuplex Kryos, a Phobya dual bay res and an Aquagrafx full cover GPU block. The actual computer hardware is fairly irrelevant (not least because it is old as dirt and will begin to get upgraded once this is over).
Once I do the strip down I will be able to see whether or not I can get away with 2 * 360mm rads.
Things I need to get;
Possibly another rad.
Epoxy
Tubing
More fittings
Lots of cut off disks
Oh and a fan controller!
Feel free to comment, offer advice, berate etc.
