My First complete sleeve/liquid cooling - in progress.

[WTFBOOM]

I haven't been posting a ton on these forums, mostly due to inexperience. I have been messing around with little* sleeve jobs off and on lately. I have been building the courage to take on a full sleeve/cooling mod for a while, and recently just purchased all the sleeve and tools I need to get started. After the sleeve is complete, I am still trying to land on a good rad/pump setup for my system, as well as a possible GTX680 or two - Upgrade (with waterblock). Any advice would be awesome, as I am pretty new to the mod world of PC's..

BTW, if this is in the wrong category I apologize, please redirect me to a better thread. I tried to find the best one, but I cannot find a sleeve only category, as I have not embarked on the liquid cooling quite yet, its all developing as I go.

I'll start from the beginning..

Starting with a basic/messy Silverstone Raven RV02-E:
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/562850_10150882717766209_711931208_11903859_194623 9358_n.jpg

Side View:
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/580579_10150882717146209_711931208_11903857_218908 668_n.jpg

Naked...
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/564290_10150854629436209_711931208_11814834_750968 969_n.jpg
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/541979_10150854629946209_711931208_11814838_168190 3597_n.jpg

Then the Sleeve Arrived. Thanks to FTWPC.com.
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/550128_10150830433921209_711931208_11760363_111037 6840_n.jpg
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/555570_10150830434446209_711931208_11760366_130177 488_n.jpg
Need the Beerz
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/561171_10150830435396209_711931208_11760368_142842 0634_n.jpg
And the Pins
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/318179_10150882721166209_711931208_11903874_180179 3386_n.jpg
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/575304_10150854626591209_711931208_11814809_280180 376_n.jpg

First thing I sleeved was the easiest, the front I/O and PWR Buttons etc..
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/545960_10150854647891209_711931208_11814881_168273 1241_n.jpg
Measured and crimped the cables all to the same length, way cleaner.
Before:
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/546417_10150854628976209_711931208_11814830_516404 295_n.jpg
After:
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/292209_10150854634286209_711931208_11814857_705895 994_n.jpg

The 3 180mm intake fans were next. The sleeve got a little tricky with the 5V/12V switches, but a little solder made it easy.
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/578581_10150854633801209_711931208_11814854_205645 751_n.jpg
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/574700_10150882723381209_711931208_11903884_121344 5127_n.jpg
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/578825_10150854635516209_711931208_11814861_562646 933_n.jpg
First Fan Installed..
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/580370_10150854636096209_711931208_11814862_197462 424_n.jpg

The most time consuming part of this up to the 24-Pin Power, was the Hot swap bays. I purchased silverstone Hot-Swap modules for the Raven case, and Most sleeved Ravens that I have found, don't appear to have sleeved hotswap bays. I wasn't going to sleeve these, but after benchmarking my SATA3 SSD's in RAID0 and getting full SATA3 throughput with these (1006MB/s) I saw no reason to get rid of them. The cable management gets tricky in this area of the case, especially with the Hot-Swap modules. Here are some of the things I was trying..
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/532725_10150882722061209_711931208_11903881_194286 3822_n.jpg
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/389334_10150882772316209_711931208_11904101_210409 538_n.jpg

I finally landed on 4 of the 5 Hot-Swap modules, with longer spliced cables.
*Its hard to see in this image, but 2 of the 4 are done, and extended to the PSU area. You can see the 2 Molex-Males ran adjacent with the Fan cables.
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/156255_10150854648316209_711931208_11814883_199871 2665_n.jpg

So far:
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/574632_10150881628391209_711931208_11900981_194115 3436_n.jpg


Next is the 24-Pin and 8-Pin pwer cables... I hated this part.
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/532889_10150864013156209_711931208_11851066_183334 8733_n.jpg
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/306246_10150864013631209_711931208_11851067_136905 4199_n.jpg
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/561265_10150864014491209_711931208_11851070_201676 772_n.jpg
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/533880_10150864015076209_711931208_11851071_738878 612_n.jpg

PCI-E Cables:
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/548441_10150873941476209_711931208_11876554_113376 6398_n.jpg
I am close to finishing..
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/380348_10150873943221209_711931208_11876557_781822 427_n.jpg

Next step is sound proofing:

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/522319_10150873945261209_711931208_11876565_206692 5261_n.jpg
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/564335_10150873946036209_711931208_11876567_217685 562_n.jpg
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/578635_10150873946636209_711931208_11876570_513389 379_n.jpg

[stren]

Yeah you want to be in the subforum of this one called "liquid cooling worklogs"

[arkadur]

very nice work, i liked it.
what about WC the GPUs?

[WTFBOOM]

Yeah you want to be in the subforum of this one called "liquid cooling worklogs"

Thanks Stren, What should i do to repost?


very nice work, i liked it.
what about WC the GPUs?

I have found some GTX460 waterblocks that I am very interested in,
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-39083765508394_2201_19134415

I really love these cards, and in SLI these are a breeze to OC, but I am thinking of maybe a GTX680 SLI setup with the Classified Hydro Copper GTX680. Worth the Graphics boost? I would be able to drop in my Liquid cooling setup way faster, If I just waterblock my two 460's, but I am rocking X79 and feel like I am skimpy on the graphics.

[Conumdrum]

Ask a mod to move it and don't post in this thread anymore. Open a new one about your GPU issue.