Well, the computer case that I got for christmas was cool, but it didn't stand out enough. There is no reason to buy a pre-modded case and not do anything to it. If you don't change the case, you might as well stick with a big ugly beige box. Also, I had some problems with airflow that needed to be corrected. So without further ado, I present my case mods.
The case that I got for Christmas came stock with a few interesting features. It has a window on the left side and top of the case, each with a blue LED fan. It also came with 2 blue LED fans in the front of the case which were behind a screen. Here's how it looked.
That's pretty cool looking, but it needed some work. In the top bay of the case is a 4 fan controller, followed by another fan controller specially made for the custom CPU heatsink. From my last case I had a special fan holder that fit into 2 of the bays. As you can see, the bays are all full. So the first thing I wanted to do is free up 2 bays. The thing is, I needed the fan controllers or else the case would be louder than a jet engine.
With the purchase of a USB key, the floppy drive in the system had officially become useless, so I could easily remove it without feeling any remorse. Now with both floppy bays open, I had room to move the fan controllers. With a little creative work I had the controllers exactly where I wanted them.
And with that, the whole wiring problem went away because the wires could be run behind the hard disk drives.
With the 2 bays open, I was able to now install the fan holder. First, I had to get a cool fan. The fan I found is really cool, the fan blades were painted with shiny chrome paint and it has 4 blue LED lights. The cool thing is that the fan blades shine the blue light out the front of the case, so it can light up a room. Then to keep stuff out I added a chrome grill.
The next problem was with the screen that was in front of the 2 front fans. It was choking the fans and therefore generated a negative pressure inside the case (you want a slightly positive pressure for optimum performance). I then added a couple of chrome grills to keep stuff out.
Here's what the front looks like at this point:
Then I re-wired the entire PC to clean it up. What will follow are a bunch of pictures.
The side of the case both with and without light:
Here are the before, after, and dark pictures:
Now, you might be asking what's next. Well, I have some plans.
1. Add 1 or 2 blue neon lights to the inside of the case to brighten it up and
accent the custom heatsink.
2. Attach some casters to the bottom of the case to raise it up about 2 inches.*
2a. Add some blue led track lights to shine down below the case.
3. Stealth the cd-rom drives or paint them to match the case.
3a. Relocate the eject buttons on the cdroms into the hidden USB door.
4. Change power and IDE activity lights to blue LEDs.
5. Replace northbridge heatsink with something better.
* This one is dependant on wether or not i attempt the next major mod
Major Mod:
Add an RC car (well, RC off-road truck) suspension system. This would really
make the computer stand out, but there are big problems. A majority of the computer
components attach to the right side of the case, thereby making it unbalanced.
Also, a majority of the weight is toword the top of the case, making it very
top heavy. I'm just crazy enough to design one, the problem is building.