Rated: 95.29% (34 votes)
Loading ...Micro ATX Case mods
didyman
This is a little project that ive been working on couple of months now on and off. Im making a micro atx pc to take to uni but i didnt want it to be boring. The case i chose is a silverstone TJO8 which cost around £60 from scan.The case itself is really well built and i highly recommend it. From stock it has really impressive cooling and it can accomadate a full size psu, which were the main reasons that i chose it. It also has enough room for a big graphics card aswell.
The first mod that i did was a window mod, unfortunalty i lost all the pictures of me actually cutting the window but it resulted in this:
As this pic also shows, i will be watercooling the case rather than relying on the stock cooling.
The next thing that this case needed was a new paint job. i started with the side and top panels as i will mod the front panel more before painting it. I started with a roll of curved masking tape which cost £4.99 from halfords. This tape is a bit more “bendy”than normal masking tape which allows me to make tight curves:
Using this i set about making my design on the case side panels:
I then decided that i didn’t need a warranty on my psu so i went ahead and voided it 
i then put flames on the psu casing aswell:
with all the flames masked out i then went and lightly sanded the factory finish paint to help the new paint “bite”:
I used 3 different spray paints for the case, primer, gloss black and smooth green:
3 coats later:
i also sprayed the interior gloss black:
I tested the watercooling loop outside of the case first to test for leaks:
When i was happy that it wasn’t going to leak i put it inside the case:
I also discovered that whilst swiftech smart coils are really good (no kinking at all) they do break quite easily when wrapped around the tubes. With the water cooling in the case i put the side panel on. Still a long way to go but i can now imagine what its going to look like when its finished:
ive put a small window in the back of the case at the bottom so to show the level of the reservoir (and yea i know i wont see it when the pc is up against a wall) :
To mod the front panel i will be putting an 80mm fan in the front where the 3.5″ drivebays used to be. I started by using loads of car body filler to fill the drivebays then sanded it down with a belt sander. I then finished it with some wet and dry paper so that i had a smooth finish. Using a 76mm hole saw i cut a hole in the front panel for the fan:
Using the same green spray paint that i used for the flames i sprayed the front panel, again using 3 coats. At the same time i removed the front cover to my dvd drive and sprayed in green as well.
For the fan i started with sharkoon silent eagle fan (as recommended by CPC). I then took a nose cone from a model airplane and using some epoxy and some more car body filler, attached it to the fan. The fan was then sprayed gloss black:
Now the parts have all arrived from scan, its time to start putting it all together. The motherboard is an ASUS PK5-VM which - despite the terrible colour, is a really good M-ATX motherboard especially for overclocking :). The first change that i made to it was to rip off the crappy little heatsink that asus think can cool a northbridge and replace it with a Noctua NC-U6 heatsink. Its about 3x bigger than the asus heatsink with a much larger surface area. it is quite big, however i managed to fit it on a M-ATX mobo without it interfering with any of the other components.
ASUS apply thermal grease with a bucket apparently.A lot of cotton buds later, i finally had the new heatsink fitted. I then fitted the CPU and ram. For this pc im using a Q6600 and 4gb of CorsairXMS2 ram. I will be using 64 bit vista as well, so i can actually use all the ram 
I’m using an 8800gts in this case because, ironically, even though a GTX would fit in the stock case, my modifications have slightly reduced the room inside the case - so now it wont! EVGA also have a great love of thermal grease and like ASUS have taken the, the more the better approach. this used most of the remaining cotton buds and took about and hour! once id removed all the crap EVGA has smeared all over my GPU i applied some of my own, i used a nice thin coating of Arctic Silver 5. I also discovered that the ram heatsinks do not stick using just the thermal pads provided. I solved this by applying a thin coating of Arctic Silver 5 which is apparently acts like superglue to a heatsink as they haven’t fallen off since.
once id fitted it all in the case and wired it up i was left with quite a lot of cables to hide - a bit of a challenge in a M-ATX case. the best place i could find is crammed in behind the drivebays!
in the front of the pc i have created an acrylic window where the fan intake used to be. behind which i have mounted a western digital raptor x. although i toyed with the idea of making my own windowed hard drive, i cant really afford to lose all my data if it breaks a few months later!
Behind the hard drive i’ve fitted a hard drive cooler which i spray painted black with luminous yellow fans:
The next step was to spray paint and fit the front of the DVD drive and the drivebay-mounted fan controller.
i also went around the outside of all the flames that i had painted, with a blue paint pen to make them stand out a bit more:
water loops all fitted:
all working!
front intake fans:
its place in my uni accommodation.
finished at last!
Overall im pleased with the finished pc, although i had to rush some parts of the building process and theres still a few things id like to add. comments and feedback are appreciated!!!!
Looks awesome - Swiftech kit / dye matches perfectly
Nice work - I like what you’ve done with the RaptorX, and good use of the curved masking tape, too
thanks alex, we met at i31 btw! i though it would be a waste to have a windowed harddrive that no one can actually see! it looks best when you boot up, the needle goes crazy!
This is a really nice mod - look forward to seeing it in the mag if CPC pick it up!
Didyman, Didyman… does whatever a Didyman can! And now we know.
Dood… that’s awesome! Nice job.
SSM_Wimp
The 22nd SAS Rgt.
Nice work m8, wanna paint my car for me ?
I’m still scared of water near my PC.!!! i think it prefers alcohol. ohh well , if this goes into the mag , i’ll purchase a copy.!
Impressive work mate, very impressive.
Amazing job mate!
Wow nice work mate. Didn’t have a clue what you were on about half of the time, something bout grease i think, still i want one!!!
Nice one didy looks awesome
Nice work their Didyman you can do my pc any time 
Nice Mate, Took me a while just to do the mod to my case so that must have taken ages nice job hope to see it at the next i-series.
Awsome job mate!
dude that is awsome, puttin that much care and attention to detail into a project, you deserve a medal, nice work
I think I saw pics of this at I31, impressive work, but now your at Uni no more, you are surrounded by female students ok!
That is amazing, it’s inspired me to do something with my new build.
Congratulations and good luck at Uni!
Bonzo
thats a pretty impressive case you got there
the hdd mod is quite cool especially when it boots up,
1 thing though..why did you git all the watercooling parts togethor before you got the parts ??
otherwise its a pretty impressive machine!!!
Nicely done and looks like you’ve put alot of time into it but I’d say the only thind I don’t really like about it is the colour. I don’t know it because of the pictures but i would have gone for a more deeper acid green like whats on your mousemat but nice work anyway!
Retyped–
Nicely done and looks like you’ve put alot of time into it but I’d say the only thing I don’t really like about it is the colour. I don’t know whether its because of the pictures but I would have gone for a more deeper acid green like whats on your mousemat but nice work anyway!
yea the colour is slightly darker than it looks in the pics. To be honest i would have liked 2 find an exact match in colour to the mouse mat. Unfortunately i didn’t have a lot of time to do the mod as i was about to go to university so i just got it as close as i could. @ i_am_bored: the reason that i did the watercooling before i had the rest of the components was firstly because i already had the watercooling and needed time to figure out how to fit it all in to a M-ATX case, no small challenge considering i have two radiators in there. I was also waiting for as long as possible before i went to university before i bought the components as theres nothing worse that a pc becoming obsolete in just a few weeks. As it happens this also let the price of some of the components drop dramatically e.g. the Q6600 dropped from £300 to £170
Hey dude - nice looking mod, good to see some mATX stuff happening. Can you drop me a line? We’d be up for featuring it in Reader’s Drives in the mag! Cheers, Alex (alex [at] custompc [DOT] co [DOT] uk)
Nicely done, excellent concept and well put together.
I feel a project coming on. lol
Quick tip to everyone, if you want to remove tim or anything simliar i use a bit of tissue or kitchen towel with paint stripper, a couple of wipes and its clean and spotless all of about 10 seconds to do.
Just got the March Edit of CPC and you’re in loved the make and you’ve inspire me to do something similar before i go to uni…
Laptops are allright but what you’ve got there will outlast any laptop for sometime
Also cool colours!
Laters
Klass mod think of do an m-atx mod myself
how do we contact u didyman for questions?
I have a ton but don’t want to spam the comments lol.
thx!
Ok ive set up another project blog called tips and tricks, basically its for everyone to share their experience on pc building and you can ask me questions about my build there. This way everyone can benefit from the answers! So by all means spam the comments on it
Hi im 14 and i’ve just built my own rig consisting of Q6600 etc…and was wondering about modding my case its the coolermaster stacker 832. Are there any tips on modding you can give me ? Anyway sweet mods.
^^
Hmm well the case that you chose is huge for starters. Did you go for one with the mesh side panel? If you did i think the first thing i would do is replace it for a clear window so you can see all the cool bits inside apart from that i would probably do some sort of paint job on the case, both inside and out. With a case window you can see straight into the insides of your pc so you could paint the insides a cool colour, something that will really standout. If you paint the case you really need to make sure that you take your time and don’t put too much paint on at once. Make sure your in a well ventilated room (but not windy!). Start by coating the case in several thin layers of primer and allow it lots of time to dry. If you do it in the morning and then leave it until the next day that should be enough time. You can make cool designs on the paint by using either curved masking tape like i did or (better) use thin line masking tape. Its the stuff they use on customized cars to put flames down the side etc. The best advice tho is to plan your mod, don’t rush into it. Do some drawings first and wait a while to see if you still like those ideas after a day or two, or if you can come up with something better in that time! Lighting is also pretty important in the case mod, it doesn’t have to be really bright ,in your face, type lights. Subtle lighting can make your pc really stand out from the crowd aswell. Some times its easier to design a case mod if you have a theme, e.g something that you really enjoy that may not have anything to do with computers. It really can be anything from sports and hobbies, to films and games! Anyway i hope this helps, if theres any specific advice that you need about doing a mod then feel free to ask!
good work m8, good spray work, im aiming for a desk mod. if anyones got any good ideas email me @ Jordan.S.Dean@googlemail.com
chrs
a good read !
nice work.
I was really impressed with how much you managed to squeeze into this case! Its so small afterall! I like the Raptor display also, would do something like it with myne but no room unfortunately.
Keep up the good work
PS. Any suggestions on myne?
http://custompc.co.uk/blogs/lippy/
just my 2 cents but wont the spit nose cone make the fan very noisey after a while but it a nice mod m8 also when i asked for curved masking tape i just get blank looks dumb shop monkeys lol
The spitfire nosecone doesn’t increase the noise at all as far as im aware, if anything it should increase the aerodynamics of the fan and make it less noisy, its worth noting however that i am using sharkoon silent eagle fans here which are pretty much silent anyway! I found the curved masking tape in halfords, its made by duck. you can also use fine line masking tape which works just as well, if not better. eBay is probably your best bet if you cant find it in the shops, theres loads of it on there and its pretty cheap aswell!!