Crys1s_Gam3r

First I should say that this is my first gaming rig. I built her in March of this year, without any real care as to how it looked. I mean I wanted the cable management to be clean, and I bought the nicest looking case I could find -- but I wasn't willing to spend much time on the aesthetics. Fast forward to September and I've become obsessed with making my rig neater, cleaner... and of course damn sexy.

I started out by tidying up my cables, making them less of a focal point. (Yes, I realize it looks awful, I was oblivious to it before)


Well then, naturally, I wanted to actually *see* my components, so I took out the mesh on the side panel, got some acrylic, and installed a side window.



Sometime soon after I learned about cable sleeving. I figured I might as start with my 24 pin atx connector. Took a while but worth it. I got some blue cold cathodes too.


Sleeved the chipset fan too:


About this time I realized ("appreciated") that (1) my cable management actually kind of sucked, and (2) my case's insides were grey! A couple rigs here on EVGA really inspired me, especially azma's (in the Cable Management Rating game thread). So I decided I'd tear up my Cosmos S, paint it black, and cut out some cable management holes. Which is where I should have started, considered my thread title.

Unfortunately I forgot to take some before pictures, but you didn't miss anything exiting.
Anyway, this is the bare metal chassis painted black with some cable management hole cut out: (while the paint IS somewhat textured, the camera really exaggerates it with the flash)



I cut out holes for the 24 pin atx, PCIe, SATA, fans, and front panel. And most noticeably, a hole to make un/installing the CPU heatsink a heck of a lot easier. I'm hoping this hole will not need to be modified with my next motherboard upgrade.

This is with some u-channel I got from frozencpu:



With 3/4 handle bars installed:



Top with the mesh:


And finally with all the components installed and running. I didn't have enough spray paint to finish the two doors on the front, but I sanded them down anyway. I like the contrast, but I'm thinking I'll probably paint them black later on.



The 24 pin atx into the grommet:



The neked bottom (beware, partial nudity):



...and, finally, completely exposed:



You like? Let's do a little before and after, shall we...

Before:



After:



Thanks for looking! Any and all feedback is very much appreciated... please post comments, criticism, suggestions, hate mail....

-Martin

 
Where can you find replacement Cooler Master 1100 S 24pin cables...? I don't think you can use a regular exstention because of the power botton cable.. any help would be great..

Crys1s_Gam3r

Email CM's customer service department about getting a replacement. You might need to pay for shipping, but otherwise it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. I've had pretty good experience with them, my front panel audio wasn't working so they sent me a new front panel, free. I didn't have to send the old one back either. It took them about a month to get it out to me though.

Thanks for the info! +1

Sick sick man. Im digging these clean rigs. Just changed from a haf 932, to a micro atx tower and cable management just became more than aesthetic

Im not really feeling the red exhaust fan? the only thing that I would change

Thanks for the comments. It was originally supposed to be more of a two-tone, with a slight lightsaber-purple (!) glow. Didn't turn out that way, go figure.

I'm thinking about switching out all the fans with some Coolermaster R4's, and a fan controller.

t77snapshot

@ Crys1s_Gam3r

Hey did you remove the outer plastics to paint the case?

This is how I remember it:

1. Take off top mesh and side panels.
2. Unscrew front panel, gently pull front panel cables. Take it out.
3. Remove front doors by prying down the partially uncoiled spring on top, then pulling them out. Also take out drive bay covers.
4. Unscrew all the handles. Take them out.
5. There are 4 screws on each of the plastic frames -- two on top, two on the bottom.
6. Unscrew them.
7. You should see around 3-4 tabs on each of the frames. They are connected to the case next to the inside corners.
8. Laying the case on it's side, use a screw driver to push the tabs up and away.
9. One by one, push tabs and pull frame (it's actually quite flexible!).
10. Work your way around, I found it easiest to start at the top-back corner.
11. When both frames are out, take the black plastic that holds the drive bay covers out in the same manner as the frames.
12. Done! This should have taken you the better part of an hour.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you need some steps in more detail.

yeah those fans i like better than the sythe ones i got.  Plus the fan controller actually slows those fans down.  The sythe on the same controller does nothing.  Highly recomended fans there.

Be careful with those R4's, they seem to die at random.

I have 8 of them (5-blue, 3-red) and two bit the bucket so far, yesterday the second one that I use for the side panel of my Antec died. both were in different systems as well. They were both red though...

hot. very hot :)

Thanks for the compliments (talk about crazy old thread revival! )

I'll post some new pics once I finish sleeving with the good stuff.

Thanks! I see you have a Cosmos S as well.

And can i ask a question/ where did you get the sleeves that you use for single sleevings?

nice sleeving and case