Thinking Outside The Box, Major Case Mod w Pics

[4Ryan6]

My Silverstone OP1000 is so huge compared to a standard size P/S that I modded my case (Cheiftec Dragon Mid Tower), to mount it outside my case, opening up an airflow chimney literally to my dual 140mm blowholes, it wasn't an easy modd but the end cooling results are quite amazing!

#1 The P/S is intaking outside air not preheated air from inside the case.
#2 The chimney effect from the P/S removed from the inside of the case exhausts the CPU air in a solid airflow and pulls air over all the other components, thus supplying and effectively exhausting all the CPU airflow needs.

If anyones interested in pictures I've ordered 2 replacement (No Fan Holes), side panels for my machine since the old side panels had previous fan holes in them, and will be continuing the surgery remounting to the new right side panel, which is where the P/S is presently located, with pictures to follow that remodd if anyones interested.

Otherwise this is to put a bug in your ear that this kind of thing is possible, and very effective! Ryan

 

[Sengoku]

Pictures?

 

[sailer]

This sounds interesting, being that I also have a Cheiftec Dragon case which is starting to get a bit crowded.

 

[4Ryan6]

This sounds interesting, being that I also have a Cheiftec Dragon case which is starting to get a bit crowded.

Hi Sailer, How the heck have you been doing? Long time man!
I have seriously modified my dragon and intend more modifications, she now has 2 140mm Sharkoon fans on the top and 1 140mm Sharkoon side fan at the video card area, the reason I mentioned the fan name brand is because its not the first 140mms I had bought but is the best as far as air CFM, the 140mms aim toward the quiet side but I needed a might more airflow than most all marketed 140mms produced, an expensive lesson learned the hard way.

CrazyPC is the only distributor I could find that carried the Sharkoon fans, and even they didn't carry the fan grills for the 140mm fans, they might today I'm not sure, but the 140mm fans I'm using exhaust all the air I need them to and are quiet to boot, even at max RPMs.

Moving the P/S to the outside opened so many different possibilities, turning it into a chimney straight to the blowholes, there is literally no heat buildup in my case at all, the fan controllers allow either super quiet for internet surfing like right now, or maximum cooling for gaming giving me more OCing headroom, I should have done this a long time ago.

The Cheiftec Dragon is an excellent case well made and solid, I've kept it all this time because I've been able to do everything to it I wanted, I have more mod ideas but thats what the pictures to come will be covering, when I get it completed its going to blow your mind at what can actually be done with this case, since you have one yourself!

Take care man! Ryan

 

[Shadow703793]

Pics?

 

[sailer]

Hi there Ryan. I got a Thermaltake 120mm fan for the top of my case to go along with the 80mm on the side and a fan venting out an expansion slot. I measured the case for the new 3870 X2 cards and it seems a bit close, but it should fit.

I had a little problem with my heart a while back and got to meet some nice nurses in an ICU ward. They got me patched up and I'm looking forward to spring. Way too much snow this winter. Been gathering parts for a new build and updating the OS to Vista 64. Not sure about that. But like the old Chieftech, I keep chugging on.

Good seeing you.

 

[4Ryan6]

@Sailer, Glad your heart problems were fixable, and you're doing OK now!

I just had Laser eye surgery for a torn retina, the doc said it wouldn't hurt much, be still, they strapped my head in the restraints to start the laser surgery, first time that laser fired my rear end bit a chunk out of the chair, every fiber of my body was screaming out to get away from the thing, but I knew I had to endure it and get the tear repaired.

I had drops of sweat pouring off of me, the doc said it would take 5 to 10 minutes, thats the longest amount of time I'd ever experienced, I don't see how young children could ever get through that, they must have to put them under to do it, got to go back tomorrow for a follow up, I hope the tear is completely taken care of, I really don't want to have to go through that again.

Case wise, I did away with my bottom HDD carriage and moved the HDD to the Floppy carriage, since I had previously done away with a Floppy anyway, (I have a USB 2.0 Floppy Drive anyway just in case I need it.), there was plenty of HDD mounting area, which completely cleared my video card area I've got 2 7800GTX in SLI and they span the entire M/B and they seriously blocked the lower front intake fan, with the carriage in place.

Also modded the lower front intake fan and changed it from an 80mm to a 120mm, that made a big difference right there.

 

[4Ryan6]

Pictures will come later after I replace the side panels and complete my final modds, (As I previously stated), I have more modd ideas and will show it all as a finished project, not a work in progress. Thanks for your patience, or as Windows says Please Wait while the Installation is in progress, but you really don't have a choice anyway.

Should get parts Friday, and this will be modd weekend!

Pics will follow, unless I die first, if that happens Goodbye.

 

[4Ryan6]

Thread update,

Power Supply mounted Outside Case
HDD Carriage Relocated
Floppy Carriage Gone
Front intake fans changed to 120mm
Rear exhaust fan changed to 120mm
2 140mm Blowholes
1 140mm Side GPU Exhaust
I 120mm CPU intake accelerator fan
1 60mm CPU exhaust booster
Power Supply hole plated over and others
GPU to CPU baffle plate added to separate the heat from the GPU area adding to CPU area
All fans controlled with fan controllers except M/B Chipset

Pics are 2 full days of case fabrication and modding, I'm after maximum air cooling efficiency, pretty can come later with possibly a good overall paint job, but I'm not finished modding yet.

 

[FrozenGpu]

nice, very nice.

 

[Kamrooz]

That setup is AWSOME. I'm always anal about cooling as well, and if I had the knowledge/tools to do so, I would go in a very similar fashion. I love the compartmentalized segments, having the graphics cards in their own section with a intake fan at front, and having them exhaust in the rear. Kinda hard to tell from that picture, but are the pci slot vents open to allow the excess air to escape? Doesn't seem like those cards are a dual slot venting solutions.

Love the aspect of the intake directing air to the zalman CPU cooler. Honestly, this is a damn great modification for temperature control. Love what you've done with it, keep the pics coming ^_^.

 

[4Ryan6]

That setup is AWSOME. I'm always anal about cooling as well, and if I had the knowledge/tools to do so, I would go in a very similar fashion. I love the compartmentalized segments, having the graphics cards in their own section with a intake fan at front, and having them exhaust in the rear. Kinda hard to tell from that picture, but are the pci slot vents open to allow the excess air to escape? Doesn't seem like those cards are a dual slot venting solutions.

Love the aspect of the intake directing air to the zalman CPU cooler. Honestly, this is a damn great modification for temperature control. Love what you've done with it, keep the pics coming ^_^.

The graphics compartment is being fed with air from the front 120mm and exhausting air out the side panel 140mm, the open PCI slot covers are actually intaking air, the DFI M/B design of this particular M/B puts the graphics cards extremely close together for SLI setup, but as tight as they are the Zalman coolers keep the GPUs around 42c under gaming load, they would cool even better if there was more room between them, its really tight.

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[4Ryan6]

nice, very nice.

Thanks!

 

[Kamrooz]

The graphics compartment is being fed with air from the front 120mm and exhausting air out the side panel 140mm, the open PCI slot covers are actually intaking air, the DFI M/B design of this particular M/B puts the graphics cards extremely close together for SLI setup, but as tight as they are the Zalman coolers keep the GPUs around 42c under gaming load, they would cool even better if there was more room between them, its really tight.

Thanks for the compliment!

Anytime ^_^, considering the effort and setup you got going there, it's well deserved =P...I really wish I had the time/experience/tools to go through modifications of this sort. Considering I want to OC the crap out of my next rig, it would be great to be able to go about something similar. I guess I'll go about learning it, my bro does have a few tools I could use, dremel and such. But what did you use to go about modding everything? Sorry if you already covered it, but I saw the title with "Pics" and I skipped through pretty much everything...LOL...and too lazy to read all the posts =P. Laziness ftw (another factor which forbids me from modding =P).

 

[4Ryan6]

@Kamrooz, Well various tools were used Dremel included, but the most time saving and quality of cut tool I used was a pneumatic (air driven) sheet metal nibler,(cutting shears), which saved so much time in fabricating cover plates and such as that.

Also hand shears, drill and cutting bits, beltsander, metal bending handtools, and air compressor to power shears and blow out loose metal filings, and riveter, it takes quite a bit of tools to do something like this, but fortunately with my profession I have these tools at the ready.

Even with less tools you can still do the same thing, you just have to come up with a design plan to change what you have and determination to see it through no matter what you encounter.


Edit: One of the most important things you probably need to know is you need a good solid case to work with, a cheap flimsy case will not endure much modding at all.

 

[FrozenGpu]

that's way better than getting a dell :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Shadow703793]

Nice mod . Post it here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=31&post=237619&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=3&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

 

[Shadow703793]

Edit: One of the most important things you probably need to know is you need a good solid case to work with, a cheap flimsy case will not endure much modding at all.

Agreed. Antec Sonata III 500, Antec P182, LIAN LI PC-60USB B2, and the like are great cases for modding.

 

[sailer]

That's the reason that I've loved my Cheiftec Dragon so much over the years. Its good solid steel that takes a beating, can be reconfigured (modded) without falling apart, and best of all, has plenty of room to work with. Or maybe the best part is that I can get new case panels when I screw something up.

I'm presently trying to make a good stencil of a Viking ship for one side, so when I finish the cut and backlight it, it will have a blue cathode for the water and different cathode colors for the hull and sails. I've made a couple stencils, but they haven't looked quite right. One of these days, I'll get it right and then get to cutting.

 

[nachowarrior]

your computer looks like it was modified by han solo and big wookie! haha, no seriously... the first thing i thought of when i saw the outside was "star wars" you should totally glue a hot wheels sized millennium falcon to it. haha. anyway, that psu IS pretty big, and how are you liking your new harddrive placement?

 

[4Ryan6]

@Sailer, The Dragon or any Cheiftec for that matter are solid good modders, I have a second blue side panel I'm planning on installing a clear acrylic window in, www.directron.com has the side panels on sale right now for $4.99, when I ran across that deal I couldn't pass it up!

 

[4Ryan6]

@nachowarrior, I was thinking more on the lines of a Transformer beginning to change into something else, pictures don't really do it justice in 2D, its actually pretty impressive looking.

The new HDD location has the HDDs directly in the rear blowhole fans airflow path, they never were getting cooled good where they were located, so that has to be a serious plus benefit right there.

 

[4Ryan6]

Heres an updated picture of the GPU chamber plate, that separates the GPU and CPU section, this mod by itself is a serious air cooling performance boost!
When I changed to the AM2 ASUS Crosshair II Formula M/B the chamber plate had to be remounted, but it fit in place nicely without even having to recut it.
It has a slight angle to it now but that works great with the 140mm GPU side exhaust fan.

Additionally re-modded and changed the rear exhaust from the 90mm to 120mm.

 

[werxen]

damn thats sweet!! question though, how loud does it get?

 

[4Ryan6]

damn thats sweet!! question though, how loud does it get?

All the fans are controlled by fan controllers so I can make it extremely quiet if I need to, however its not that loud when all the fans are at 100%, and of course when I'm gaming I don't hear the computer at all, and its at ear level on my desk.