Tell jcap to post his desk, and post yours too! [JCAP POST YOUR DESK]

[Nero]

Love how clean your setup is!
Sweet CPU water cooler.

[Amit]

Some of the other guys (Cortexian, Zeph, Jcap, etc. ) here put me to complete shame when it comes to cable management. My lack of a modular power supply leaves me with a sloppy job at best. I forgot to pull the front panel and pci-e cable more behind the motherboard so that's a bit of a mess there. The CPU power cable isn't long enough to go behind the motherboard, come back out at the top right cut out, and then reach across the top to the CPU power connector. So, I just deicded to run the cable under the gap at the front of the GPU. Ugly, but it works.

[Cortexian]

I was mainly going to ask about your motherboard auxilary power cable, is it to short to run behind the motherboard tray and snake in from the top? Everything else looks about right, it just needs to be wrangled up and tugged behind the motherboard tray a bit.

[Amit]

If the top of the case allowed for a slit running along the top, then I could just run it straight up the left side of the case behind the motherboard and do what you said. Unfortunately the case doesn't have one so the only other way for it to get up to the connector is by running it straight up to the connector on the front side of the motherboard. I don't like how close it is to the heatsink of the CPU cooler. That won't be an issue after I put in the H60, though. Actually, I could take the motherboard out, run the cable to the top and then place the motherboard directly over top of it. That would work, but it's definitely not an option since the standoff placement is a bit off in relation to my motherboard. They seem to be in the right places, but it took like 40 mins for me to get all those fuckin' screws in. That was probably the most difficult part of transferring all the components if you can believe it.

I checked online for any people who have trouble with the standoffs on this case but I saw nothing, so I'm just guessing my motherboard doesn't like to play nice with cases. Only 6 screws secure my motherboard to the chassis, yet there is this one random 7th one just to the top of the PCI-E cable plugged into the GPU. On the three cases that this MB has been in, not a single one has a hole to place a standoff where that mounting hole is on the motherboard.

I was going to take a picture of the right side of the case so you guys could see the nightmare of cables on the other side of the motherboard, but you'd probably cringe. I did a little less than my best to keep everything flat enough without using zip ties to get the right side panel back on. The Side panel is only dented outwards at a maximum of 20mm so there's not a lot of room to work with behind there, but there's just enough. My main gripe is with how long my SATA cables are. That's really the only thing that bothers me because they take up so much damn space. I'll fix it up a bit more once I put in the H60.

[Cortexian]

If the top of the case allowed for a slit running along the top, then I could just run it straight up the left side of the case behind the motherboard and do what you said. Unfortunately the case doesn't have one

Sounds like a good excuse to bust out a dremeland start case modding to me.

So the only other way for it to get up to the connector is by running it straight up to the connector on the front side of the motherboard. I don't like how close it is to the heatsink of the CPU cooler. That won't be an issue after I put in the H60, though. Actually, I could take the motherboard out, run the cable to the top and then place the motherboard directly over top of it. That would work, but it's definitely not an option since the standoff placement is a bit off in relation to my motherboard. They seem to be in the right places, but it took like 40 mins for me to get all those fuckin' screws in. That was probably the most difficult part of transferring all the components if you can believe it.

Unless Antec is really dumb there should be a gap between the very top of the case and the motherboard tray/panel. You could try feeding the cable behind there and up and over.

And yeah, standoff placement is always dumb and terrible.

I was going to take a picture of the right side of the case so you guys could see the nightmare of cables on the other side of the motherboard, but you'd probably cringe.

Probably not. I don't give any shits about that side of my case at all. If I can force the side-panel on it's good enough!

My main gripe is with how long my SATA cables are. That's really the only thing that bothers me because they take up so much damn space. I'll fix it up a bit more once I put in the H60.

Anything SATA related has ALWAYS been a pain for cable management. Worse if you're running an expansion card for RAID or just additional SATA ports. Lots of the expansion cards have retarded connector positions.


I decided to take a stroll down memory lane... Oh how far I've come:




You can see what I mean about the SATA cables in that picture. Technically those are "mini-SAS SFF-8087 x4" cables but they're basically SATA for all intents and purposes.

[Amit]

Hahaha, oh jesus. Well I got some 99% Isopropyl Alcohol just now so I'm gonna grab some coffee filters and go to town on that thermal paste. Hopefully I'm not clumsy enough to let any damp area of the filter touch anything other than the top of the CPU. If everything goes to plan, I should have my Corsair H60 up and running in an hour or less. I'm always the super cautious type of person so It may take a bit more time than the average tinkerer.

[Donut]

you have a 2.5" HDD in a desktop? i wasnt aware those existed
E: i mean, i knew they were in laptops, but i figured that was a laptop thing and 2.5" drives in desktops would all be SSDs
E2: planning on doing some dusting today... i should get some pics for you gentlemen

[Amit]

you have a 2.5" HDD in a desktop? i wasnt aware those existed
E: i mean, i knew they were in laptops, but i figured that was a laptop thing and 2.5" drives in desktops would all be SSDs
E2: planning on doing some dusting today... i should get some pics for you gentlemen

Yeah, laptops get old and slow, but laptop HDDs never go out of style. They are slower of course, but hey, an extra 200GB drive is always welcome, is it not? In my previous case all three 2.5" drives (including the SSD) weren't actually mounted in the HDD cage because there wasn't space for all three (only held three 3.5" drives) and I didn't want to spend money on 3.5"-to-2.5" drive bay adapters. The Antec One case has two built-in 2.5" drive mounts. One way at the top and one on the bottom. The 2.5" HDD below the SSD is unsecured and sitting on top of an unused (but mostly filled) 3.5" HDD. I still don't want to buy a drive mount adapter so I figured sitting the 2.5" HDD on top of the unheated 3.5" drive is safe enough.

Alright, here's the pics of the Corsair Hydro H60 installed:

CPU current idling at 40 Celsius (13 degrees below my stock cooler idle temp.). I haven't put it on load yet so I'm going to go play some BF3 and see how it goes. And Jesus Mary Joseph I love how quiet my case is now. Currently, the rear fan is an intake that blows cool air onto the radiator and the top fan is an exhaust that blows case heat up and out of the case. I'm thinking of using one of the side panel, bottom, or front fan mounts as an exhaust as well. I just can't decide which. I only have one more system_fan connector left on the motherboard, so I must choose wisely.

EDIT: BF3 Strike at Karkand Conquest with 64 players: hovers around 51 Celsius. That's way better than my 63 Celsius with the stock cooler. And it's still pretty quiet. I'll have to download a CPU benchmark to really stress test it. I'm only using the pre-applied thermal compound right now so I might replace it in the future with some Arctic Cooling MX-4 to see if it drops temps even more.

[Limited]

Turns out I forgot to post my pictures

Heres my rig, I think I need to get an extension on the CPU cable, as its too short to wrap it behind the backside of the case.

[BobtheGreatII]

Going to be installing a new water cooling loop. I'll have pictures up hopefully tonight.

Edit: How's the 670 treating you? Any issues with the fan? I'm hearing that there are a lot of problems with it. I want one pretty bad... but will hold off until they get the faulty ones narrowed down.