Rated: 85.71% (7 votes)
Loading ...And for my next trick ;)
didyman
Ok so ive got bored of looking at the same boring old (CPC readers drive winning) pc for nearly a year now… so ive decided to design myself a new pc! Im going to be using most of the same internal componants from my last mod, except i’ll be getting a new graphics card after killing my 8800 
Anyways this is the design that ive come up with, it may change a bit as im building it tho… 
So…yea feel free to leave feed back, what do you think of my design? More images will follow when i can be bothered to render them! Im intending to construct the case mainly from fiberglass, MDF and car body filler to get it nice and smooth 
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The big grey blocks are actually supposed to be white :p, there actually reflecting the grey background around it….i’ll try and put some renders on with a different background colour to show what i mean!
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Ok heres some more renders:
There should be room for one double or triple radiator on each side of the lower compartment.
I will probably use blue led fans in the case aswell.
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Cheers for all the comments so far, its all appreciated and considered! The two compartments will essentially be totally separated apart from a couple of small holes for power cables. This way i can ensure that heat wont really transfer from the bottom compartment to the top one. I agree however that heat does indeed rise and that the motherboard my be a few degrees cooler in the bottom section. It would be pretty difficult to see it however as i am intending to put the PSU in the middle section so that the cables can reach into both sections - it was either that or run 2 PSU’s with one in the top and one in the bottom (or extend every cable in my PSU - which i may still have to do for a few of the wires anyway!). This would block the view from the top to the bottom sections. The position of the PSU my change if i can find somewhere better for it mind!
I think my next step is to try to make every thing fit in the case so i’ll do some working drawings to scale soon. As i found with my last pc, trying to cram lots of high end componants into a small case with watercooling is pretty challenging! Anyway keep all the constructive comments coming!
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Rated: 84% (5 votes)
Loading ...Tips and Tricks
didyman
Ok this blog is set up to allow pc builders and modders to share their knowledge of pc building. Basically if you have any tips or tricks on the subject post them below in the comments section! If people have any questions that need answering then post them in the comments aswell.
Rated: 95.43% (35 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!!!!