Got a New Case!

The top fans/housing look fantastic Jeannie great and professional work

Stephanie said:

The top fans/housing look fantastic Jeannie great and professional work

Thanks, Stephanie!

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I didn't get anything done Sunday. A friend and I drove up to Crown King, AZ to see what it was all about. Except for the four years I was in college in Abilene, TX (the longest decade of my life), I've lived in AZ since '56 and had never gone to Crown King so when my friend suggest a day trip up there, I was all over it like stink on skunk. Once we left the interstate, it was mostly unpaved road with some "interesting" stretches where the road was really narrow with steep drop offs on one side. Crown King was a quaint little community in the pines. We ate at a curious little restaurant (the only place to eat there besides the general store, a sub shop, and the saloon, the latter two looking a bit disreputable). The place looked like a dump that had been there a hundred years (it actually was only 19 years old but was built from salvaged materials, some used rather creatively) but the service and food was excellent. I found the cutest little Vice Grip type locking pliers at the general store that were only 4" long; I bought two of them. I had had a rough night the night before so after we got home, I crashed.

I had another rough night last night (allergies and leg cramps) so I went back to bed after being up for a couple of hours this morning and didn't stir my stumps until 11 AM. I ran some errands this afternoon including an Ace Hardware run and picking up the sheet of acoustic foam I had ordered along with some more parts from my mail service.

One of the parts I got in was some black 4 pin fan connector bodies to replace the ugly white ones on the top and side fans. I broke a lug on the back fan when I temporarily installed it so I could glue the aluminum back fan plate on so I had to order another fan (and a spare). Once it gets in, I'll replace the connector body on it. Having pin removal tools certainly made life easier when swapping out the connector bodies.

After swapping out the connector bodies, I installed the top fans and grills. I had to use sheet metal screws that I had cut the tips off of so I wouldn't cut myself up reaching up in there.

Attachment 318536

This is an inside shot. I also have the fan splitter cable installed but I need to install some cable clips to keep the cables properly corralled. It's a pity the trailing edges of the fan blade don't have the chrome colored stripes the leading edges do; they give the white spinning fan blades a pearlescent look.

Attachment 318537

And another shot of the top.

Attachment 318538

I had to get some washers to finish installing the front grill and fan. The mounting ears on the fan look a little Michael Mouse but they won't show once the front panel is put back on.

Attachment 318539

This is the back fan plate I had to glue on so I could lay out the acoustic foam.

Attachment 318540

Here you can see why I needed the plate glued in place. It would have been impossible to hold it in place while laying out the acoustic foam for the back of the case. The foam will cover up all those ugly cut out edges. The plate and fan will sandwich the case so the glue won't be the only thing holding it on there.

Attachment 318542

In addition to changing out the fan connector bodies, I also needed a cable to go from the fan hub to a fan header on the MOBO. The company that made the fan hub also makes a cable for it but, at only 30cm long (roughly 12"), it was a bit too short so I bought a 60cm fan extension cable and cut it down to 38cm (roughly 15"), replacing the male connector body with another female one. I had fun crimping on new pins because they and the wires are so tiny, my eyes are not all that great, and my fingers are fat.

Attachment 318543

Although I was cutting off the end of the cable with the male connector on it, I wanted to see if I could salvage the connector body by removing the pins. I bought a set of four pin removal tools when I made the cables for my present case but I didn't know for sure what one of the tools was for. I know now. It's for removing pins from male fan connectors that have a hood over the pins (the ones that don't have a hood have the wires soldered on; you have to unsolder the wires instead of removing and replacing pins). Learn something new every day.

If I feel up to it, I'm going to tackle the foam for the back of the case. I also need to do the sides of the top of the case but I need to cut some little 1/4" thick by 3/4" square blocks to space the cable clips above the foam and make holes in the foam to clear the blocks before I can install the foam and the clips. I didn't know how big the base of the clips were going to be until I got them today. The clips have an adhesive backing that will secure them to the blocks and I'll use 3M Mounting Tape to secure blocks to the side of the top of the case.

Well, I've bored you all long enough.

Very nice job Lady! I was looking around over the net for some watercooling solutions and i saw a Kit from Koolance system.

Is that not the part number Koolance top you did used for your fans management??

Great work on foam either...I did myself spend time to apply some foam on parts back in mid-june '13 and was pretty handy to lower noisy fans!:)

Was made mostly on the plastic parts of the case and one great sheet over the left door panel of cables management.

Thanks, NoN! Yes, the shroud on top is from Koolance. I've seen versions for two, three, and four fans. Koolance also makes modules that goes between a case and a shroud to house radiators outside the case.

Nice job fitting the foam in your case. The stuff does make a difference in noise levels.

Well, I got the rest of the acoustic foam installed today . Before I could finish putting the foam in the top of the case, I had to cut some 1/4" thick by 3/4" square wood blocks to space a couple of cable clips level with the top of the foam.



The adhesive pad on the clips are white so I had to take a felt pen to the edges to blacken them and did the same to the wood blocks. I used 3M Mounting Tape to anchor the blocks to the case.

Here I have two of the clip/blocks installed with the foam installed around them and an additional clip above them stuck directly to the metal in the shroud. The clips are to corral the top fan cables. I had to rotate the top fans 90° to take up some of the extra length. I also cut off the end of one of the fan mounting screws to make getting the wires in and out easier. The fan cable splitter is already installed.



This a shot of the top looking through the 5.25" cage.



Here's the back panel foam installed on the back panel. It looks a lot better now that the ugly hacked up sheet metal has been covered up.



I also filled the tiny space behind the MOBO plate. All the holes in the back are now plugged or otherwise covered.



I'm getting closer to finishing the case mods. I have the cable grommets installed.



I still need to install the case feet and front panel. Before I do, I need to do some work on the HDD cages. The HDD trays fit rather loosely in in the cages and I need to shim the cages to tighten them up. Otherwise, I'm afraid the HDDs may rattle in there. I have a roll of 1/32" thick UHMW Slick Strips I ordered. Besides acting as a shim, this stuff will allow the trays to slide in and out freely even though I'm going to tighten up the tolerances. This will be a tedious job.

ZaLiTH said:

This is coming together very nicely now.. Awesome job!

Thanks, Andre!

ZaLiTH said:

Me thinks you should be heading up a case design department for some big PC parts company with this attention to detail. Heck, I'd most definitely buy one of those, probably even if I didn't need one...

Thanks but they couldn't afford me. I'm retired and it would take an obscene amount of money to draw me out. While I still feel the Corsair 650D is still the best case for my needs, it still bites my ample asset that the things I'm having to modify could have been avoided by just a little attention to some stupid little details by the clowns who designed it. A lot of shortcuts were taken designing this case, such as stealing parts from another case without redesign, resulting in enough unnecessary holes to drive an army through. Many of the problems could have been eliminated with a few very minor changes. I would love to have a long talk with corsair's case designers; an actual long talk before I bring out the heavy objects.

You could send all of your photos to Corsair showing them the improvements you've made.

Britton30 said:

You could send all of your photos to Corsair showing them the improvements you've made.

I seriously doubt they would care. People have complained long and hard about the idiot USB 3.0 pass through but Corsair has refused to update it even though the fix is simple with parts they already have. Besides, I suspect the case is being discontinued.