I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - Printable Version

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I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-06-2006

Yes, ideas, e-pinions on a new case for my comp. I'll keep it simple, and I'll ask the mods to keep the BS outta the thread, please :) Computer-related discussion only.

Requirements:

ATX or E-ATX
Tool-less drive bays
Minimum 1 rear exhaust fan, 1 side intake fan. Opt: 2 side intake fans or in addition/replacement of sides, 1 front intake fan.
4 -5 internal 3.5" drive bays

Options:

Side window
Top blowhole exhaust fan (currently have one, only marginally impressed with it)
2 external 3.5" bays that don't detract from internal capacity
Front USB ports, IEEE1394 (FireWire), SATA/power ports

Not required:

Power supply (I already have a nice, stout 520W)
Other gimmicks or crap - LED fans, LED grilles, Cold Cathode or Liquid Neon anything
Vinyl or painted graphics

A picture (slightly blurry) of the "old hotness", all lit up:

Since then, only 2 LED sets remain... new top fan and PSU fans.

The entire case was gutted Tuesday night and re-wired, wires re-routed. It's a big improvement over the way I got it.

Cases currently being considered:

Sunbeam Transformer case - http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...facture=Sunbeam
Sunbeam Evil Eyes - my wife's comp is in one of these cases. It's rather easy to work with. I can't seem to find it at my fave haunts so far :(
Sunbeam Trio - I don't know why, I just like their stuff - http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...facture=Sunbeam
Coolermaster Stacker - only 1 external 3.5" bay... might have to flip to the rear expansion slot rheostat for the Venus 12. The Stacker's a seriously nice case. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...re=COOLERMASTER

Post away, all ye who consider yourselves computer guys/geeks. :)

EDIT - just saw this in the new NCIX weekly sale - http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...31&promoid=1015 - not too shabby! Simple, yet effective.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NefCanuck - 04-06-2006

Just a question, how much hardware are you running inside the case?

Because unless you're running multiple 10,000RPM HD's, two DVD burners and a dual core CPU, I honestly can't see the requirement for that many fans.

I kept it simple when I bought my computer. A well built aluminum ATX mid tower so that I could move it around without relying on a hoist :P

NefCanuck

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-07-2006

Opteron 170 dual-core @ 2.5GHz, single LG DVD DL burner, 2 Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 SATA1 80GB HDs in RAID-0, Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 PATA 133 120GB (scratch / swap file).

I love my computers running cool, even at the expense of a bit of noise. Even overclocked my Opteron idles at 31-32C and peaks at 46C with both cores loaded.

I'll be expanding my drive allotments soon, and adding another array so that when I re-image, I'll be playing with XP-64 on a separate array as well. I'm also doing a VMWare testing run at home and will likely upgrade to 2GB of DDR500 or so when feasible.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NefCanuck - 04-07-2006

NOS2Go4Me,Apr 6 2006, 09:00 AM Wrote:Opteron 170 dual-core @ 2.5GHz, single LG DVD DL burner, 2 Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 SATA1 80GB HDs in RAID-0, Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 PATA 133 120GB (scratch / swap file).

I love my computers running cool, even at the expense of a bit of noise. Even overclocked my Opteron idles at 31-32C and peaks at 46C with both cores loaded.

I'll be expanding my drive allotments soon, and adding another array so that when I re-image, I'll be playing with XP-64 on a separate array as well. I'm also doing a VMWare testing run at home and will likely upgrade to 2GB of DDR500 or so when feasible.
[right][snapback]179386[/snapback][/right]

:blink: Wow, no wonder you need to look at some serious cooling. Having all that stuff in one case running simultaniously would probably be hot enough to boil water :ph34r:

NefCanuck

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-07-2006

I ordered the Trio :D

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...facture=Sunbeam

I read another review for it on the net and was impressed by it - not by what they said or did, but by the fit and finish and the number of drive bays. The extra PSU is a bonus. I would have paid that price for the Trio alone.

http://www.ocia.net/reviews/trio/page1.shtml

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - habmann - 04-07-2006

Nice looking case. Are the gauges on the front functional?

I would have a case that looks like that but my fan controller wouldn't fit behind the door on the front.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-07-2006

Yeah, you can control one case fan with the volume-style dial on the lower right-hand side of the case. The others are functional as well (SPL and ambient temp), not sure how functional though. The one last review I posted or another I forgot to link said the ambient temp one worked fairly well.

Marker #1 ready for duty, completely OT but note the CCFL UV tubes I've yanked out :blink: Yeah, BE sucks, but the mask was free.

Wires? What wires? Deconstruction in progress the other night... time to blow out the HSF again! :lol:

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NefCanuck - 04-07-2006

NOS2Go4Me,Apr 6 2006, 04:57 PM Wrote:Wires? What wires? Deconstruction in progress the other night... time to blow out the HSF again! :lol:

[right][snapback]179469[/snapback][/right]

Nice case choice, boy dissasembling a computer... I'd rather eat ground glass :ph34r:

NefCanuck

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - darkpuppet - 04-07-2006

NefCanuck,Apr 6 2006, 06:35 PM Wrote:Nice case choice, boy dissasembling a computer... I'd rather eat ground glass  :ph34r:

NefCanuck
[right][snapback]179477[/snapback][/right]

it's easy, all you gotta do is hold the case down with your left hand, and turn the screw driver with the right... :ph34r:

it's fun to tear apart.. what you should do adam is paint the interior... it'd be like painting a clear polycarbinate R/C body, come out supa glossy and pimp.

transparent is so March 2006

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - Aka - 04-07-2006

I love tearing my computer apart, cleaning everything, and putting it back together and trying to route the wires just perfectly for maximum airflow.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-07-2006

Actually I sold the Lexan case to a buddy. It's a pimpin case, but when it takes 12 flat brass screws and the removal of 2 of 8 major panels to get the drive stack out... no way. It was enlightening the first time, cool the second cause I did it in less than an hour... but that's it.

Removing a DVD drive or adding another 5.25" drive? Half an hour, round trip. Removing or adding a HD? Same deal. That slightly off-kilter drive stack is held together by ALL the drives. The stack itself is just two equal-length slabs of Lexan with 4 top and bottom-facing screw holes per end between them. To properly add something you need to unbolt all of one side. fun :rolleyes:

So I unpimped my case :D

I'll take a pic of the final, cleaned-up state before I switch cases.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NefCanuck - 04-08-2006

darkpuppet,Apr 6 2006, 06:08 PM Wrote:
NefCanuck,Apr 6 2006, 06:35 PM Wrote:Nice case choice, boy dissasembling a computer... I'd rather eat ground glassÂ :ph34r:

NefCanuck
[right][snapback]179477[/snapback][/right]

it's easy, all you gotta do is hold the case down with your left hand, and turn the screw driver with the right... :ph34r:
[right][snapback]179483[/snapback][/right]

Uh, yeah... maybe THAT'S why I don't like doing that stuff anymore :P :rofl: :rolleyes:

NefCanuck

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - scoobasteve - 04-08-2006

Just get a nice lian li case...

That will be my next computer purchase...

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - Aka - 04-08-2006

^^ I find them too expensive for what they are.

I like my Antec P-180. Nice and quiet. Though it's a bit interesting to route wires the first time you see it. My friend hates the case cuz he found it too hard to work in, but like's how it looks and how quiet it is.

If only I could get a case like that for my fileserver. Nice EATX cases are hard to find.

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - microbunny - 04-08-2006

YEAH WELL

I got a super hyper mega dark stealth case, 1000W psu (not available to the public), with 2 dual-cores, 5 HDDS, 11 dvd burners, 17 fans (and 5 fans running even when the comp is off to maintain ultra cool internal status!) external media bays, internAL media bays, usb3.0..(Im the only person that has this), 4 graphics cards (running dual SLIs and jumped together to make quad GPU) -->(I am also the only person to be doing this in THE COUNTRY...umm theres a bunch of other stuff that is too advanced for you rookiez,,

Man...time to go do some gaming..its been 2 minutes,,,

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - dBlast - 04-08-2006

Now this is bling!!

[Image: abacas.jpg]

check out those brass corners!

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - microbunny - 04-08-2006

dBlast,Apr 7 2006, 09:59 PM Wrote:Now this is bling!!

check out those brass corners!
[right][snapback]179732[/snapback][/right]

s***!!

how many rows on that bad boy?

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - habmann - 04-08-2006

dBlast,Apr 7 2006, 08:59 PM Wrote:Now this is bling!!

check out those brass corners!
[right][snapback]179732[/snapback][/right]

Thats a quality computing device right there.

But i think it needs some bling bling light up fans or something. :lol:

I De-blinged My Clear Case At Home - NOS2Go4Me - 04-09-2006

s***, I was gonna sacrifice my dash EL for that! :lol: