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MOD #5 - CLEANUP PROJECT - 4/29/02 |
Some spare time, some
spare cash and a desire to cleanup the innards of my box has led
to this little project. You'll note below, that while case windows
are amusing, they can also be quite the source of embarrassment.
And removing the side panel just tends to make things even worse.
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Power Cables and Ribbons, oh my! |
Note how the mess is, well, everywhere. |
Uncovering even more shame. |
Rather unsightly, I must
say...fortunately, there's plenty to do to make things look a
little better. A quick trip to the
heatsinkfactory.com, Dor quickly finds himself with some new
decorative toys. Namely 2 silver mesh rounded IDE cables, 1
silver mesh rounded floppy cable, 1 ThermalTake Crystal Orb, 1
ThermalTake Active Memory Cooling Kit, 8 tin-coated copper
heatsinks and more thermal goo than you can shake a Dremel at.
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3 new cables and two new ThermalTake cooling toys |
The Crystal Orb, heat sinks and Arctic Alumina adhesive
(smells great!) |
The Active RAM Cooling product.
(Note the scary double side adhesive that'll take your flesh
off) |
Okay, I admit it...the ThermalTake products are a
bit gratuitous and not really needed for a cleanup project...I
guess I just got a little click happy when ordering the
cables...seemed a shame not to cram more in to the shipping costs.
As you might have guessed, the Crystal Orb is destined for my
video card....a lowly LeadTek WinFast GeForce 2 Pro card, but
hey...it gets the job done and it could use a little overclocking
anyhow. Note the before and after pics below. The
stock HSF pops off right easily and the Crystal Orb (all 20 pounds
of it) fits perfectly in it's place (but not before adding some
Arctic Silver 3, of course). And after some adhesive fun,
there are now 8 shiny RAM sinks on the card too. Matches the
Lian-Li rather nicely I must say.
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Before...
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....After (oooh, shiny! and heavy!)
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A simple mod that just plain makes you feel good
about overclocking your graphics card...simple, affordable and
tastes great.
In my haste of new toys, I forgot to take pics of the RAM
cooling kit...rather boring though...two plates, some adhesive
and a fan...pretty straight forward, just be sure to stick
things together the right way the first time. I don't want
to think about how much of a pain it's going to be to free that
poor DIMM someday.
So, we slap the video card back in, toss in the RAM and add some
spiffy round cables...
Argue for about 2 hours with the power cords, remaining ribbon
from the SB Live! Drive and we have the finished product below:
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Naked... |
....All Dressed Up. |
A totally aesthetic romp through mod-land, but fun
none-the less. Now I just have to find a good switch for the
cold-cathode that's hiding in there.
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