Case layout

[Apokalipse]

I just finished soldering my SATA power cable together:

It's much thinner than any other SATA cables, and still works fine.

There's the other end, with the blue molex connector.
The white molex connector originally only had one fan header coming out of it. It came with the case, with six others.
I cut the wires out of one, and soldered them into this one, so I could have two fan headers coming out of it.

Each of those fan headers attatch to another cable, that splits into four more fan headers (for a total of 8 fan headers)

All of the fan headers, and the molex plugs in that picture will be hidden behind the motherboard tray.
*edit*
like this:

You can hardly notice the new SATA cable, except that it's got green sleeving (I didn't have any other colours)
the fans don't look as bright, because of the flash.

 

[Pdawg]

Looks awesome man. Can't wait to see the finished result.

 

[Apokalipse]

I found out the pinouts for the EPS 8 pin connector, which is very simple. All it has is 12V on 4 pins, and ground on the other 4:

So what I think I'll do is remove the two molex plugs from the 4 pin to EPS 8 pin connector, and just put some short wires to bridge the 4 other pins.

People often say that you need a dedicated EPS 8 pin connector for it to give a proper amount of power.

But honestly, I don't think they realise that a dedicated EPS connector only gets power from one of the +12V rails anyway.
If I modify the EPS connector to only use the +12V coming out of the P4 connector for all 8 pins, it'll just perform the same as a dedicated EPS connector would anyway.

And it would make for significantly cleaner wire management.

 

[krazyq]

hardly? i cant see them at all.
your still doing great.

 

[Apokalipse]

I've modified the EPS connector so it only needs the P4 connector to power it. It's much easier to hide the cable now:

plus, with the black cable sleeving, it blends in with the motherboard.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

yeah, i was about to say, what cable? had to look closely to find the bugger.

 

[Alexinator]

Glad to see another owner of the fantastic Thermalright 03Plus! Have you had a chance to check out the temps on it yet? My GTX is running 8800Ultra Superclocked Edition speeds.. it's amazing ^^ Plus, it's only running at about 41°C Right now

BTW I'm loving the set-up so far. I really like tjhat case... If I didn;t love the look of the Armor so much I would have gotten that one.

 

[Apokalipse]

Glad to see another owner of the fantastic Thermalright 03Plus! Have you had a chance to check out the temps on it yet? My GTX is running 8800Ultra Superclocked Edition speeds.. it's amazing ^^ Plus, it's only running at about 41°C Right now

at the moment, there is no fan on it, and my 8800 GTS 320MB is running at 57-58ºC idle - which is still better than stock
at night, it usually runs at about 50ºC without a fan

With a fan from a stock AMD heatsink, it runs at about 44-48ºC idle (depending on the time of day)

I may end up watercooling it along with the CPU, but I'm not sure it needs it.
I can just get a 92mm fan for it, and use the watercooling for the CPU only

 

[krazyq]

at the moment, there is no fan on it, and my 8800 GTS 320MB is running at 57-58ºC idle - which is still better than stock
at night, it usually runs at about 50ºC without a fan

With a fan from a stock AMD heatsink, it runs at about 44-48ºC idle (depending on the time of day)

I may end up watercooling it along with the CPU, but I'm not sure it needs it.
I can just get a 92mm fan for it, and use the watercooling for the CPU only

why dont you just get the gtx?
im not sure how much of a gamer you are, but since your build is gonna take some time and its not worth upgrading after your build is complete cos of all the re configs you gotta do.

 

[Apokalipse]

I've made basically a giant leap forward today.

Using a drill, a jigsaw, and some files, I cut the holes in the motherboard tray:

and installed my PC:

And now I have a pump mount:

credit for the pump mount goes to my dad.

Before I install my watercooling system, I still need a few things first.
I need a Y splitter, so I can put in a fillport
I need some new water additive
I need a fillport

why dont you just get the gtx?

well, it does cost money.

though my GTS runs every game I play on max settings, or at least close to max settings.

im not sure how much of a gamer you are, but since your build is gonna take some time and its not worth upgrading after your build is complete cos of all the re configs you gotta do.

After I've finished this, it'll be much easier to put in new CPU's, video cards etc...