XPS 720: BTX to ATX

[GTSRboy]

As some of you may know, 'it hurts when i pee' had a topic going on this forum following his XPS 720 mod. I loved the 720 case the second i saw on on dell.com a year ago.. Well when it came time to build my own compuer, i decided to use that case. I managed to get a very good condition black 720 case off of eBay w/ the dell 1kw PSU for $223 shipped (edit: they are now down to $150 on ebay!) Boy was i exited when i pulled it out of its massive box, hmm lets fit the motherboard in...oh god...this isnt fitting. Oh no....the XPS 720 is somthing called "BTX". I quickly scanned the internet for anyone who had modded it, and came upon 'it hurts when i pee's' thread here on Xsystems. I studied it, along with somone elses thread. Anyway long story short, that was 3 weeks ago, and after lots of questions and tools and cutting i modded it. I have no experiance in electronics or modding so i was nervous. Thank god it worked out...i rreeaally wanted this case.

Here are all my ATX parts sitting and waiting


The specs- 45nm Intel Quad @ 2.5 ghz
EVGA 9800 GTX plus
EVGA 750i SLI
Arctic cooling heatsink
250Gb HDD 7200rpm
4GB of 800mhz Corsair XMS2
*This is the first computer ive built, my last (and first) comp was a Dell XPS M1210 notebook, but it was holding me back preformance wise

I sat it on my desk and stared to take it apart....damn! i need a looong screwdriver..off to sears...Here is the case totally gutted and ready for the mod.








After a few days went by, i decided to do the mod, insipred by pointguard112 saying it isnt a hard mod, and 'it hurt when i pee' saying the PSU would work except for one cable. Here you can see the pannels off and on the floor, i was wiping them down and removing fine scratches



I ordered a Lian Li PC-60 replacment mobo tray, and a 8-pin secondary power molex to fix the PSU. Using my walmart borrowed dremel & drill, i started on the cutting. I cut away as little as possible. I drilled out rivits holding the silver expansion slot and I/O pannel, it fell right out of the frame once drilled. Now its ready for the mod. Fast forward one week: i got the parts Here is a pic i took right before the install:



My roomate took his camera phone home for the weekend, (when i did the mod) so i have no pictures of me doing the mod. Sorry! Ill just tell you what i did. First, i used a staple gun grade staple to get the 20 pins out of the dell connector. They put a 24pin and a 20 pin on the PSU, and i needed to change the 20-pin to an 8-pin. Once i got back from sears (i didnt have wide staples), i pushed out the 20 pins. Then, following the pin assignments and asking some questions, i made the secondary power connector. I bunched up the remaining 12 cables. Please excuse my not only bad quality, but blurry picture.



Then i found out the dell fans (not made by dell) wernt going to work with my mobo becasue of wacko connectors. They also, according to reviews, were really loud at 48db. Back to newegg.com, and picked up two scythe 120mm fans. An 80mm fan came with the lian-li mobo tray, and i used that as a repalcment for the XPS HDD cooling fan. Here you can see i cut out a big hole in the dell fan case for better airflow. The grills on it were going to be used to hold the dell H2C cooling system:

Before:


After:


The lian-li tray was too tall for the hole i cut out by 1/4" ,which is good because i wanted it to overlap my cutting. I cut some knotches into the case, so that i could slide the tray in. It took a while to get it right. Once it was in, i drilled holes in the tray to line-up with holes in the back of the case. I bolted it on the top and left (looking at it from the back). There was no way to get bolts on the right side of it, but it was totally sturdy so i dont think i needed them. Next i wanted to install a 120mm fan inside the case, bolted up agasint the back. I drilled some holes and put it in. Of course it wasnt that easy at all, there was lots of fitting and cutting...blah blah...anyway 40 minutes later it was in. Becasue my motherboard will be upside down, (other side of the case vs ATX cases), the airflow will go like this: Into 120mm fan in front >to> heatink w/fan blowing to the back >to> rear 120mm fan. I think this nice airflow is why im getting 28 C max CPU temps. Next i cut knotches into the rear black plastic peice, so that it would go down on the tray and snug as possible. I ened up only cutting one 'rail' out, so that i could fit the monitor cable threw it and onto the video card




Next I re-built the case, the side pannel refused to go on, i had to tighten the bolts in a certain order to get it not to warp in the corners. My roomate had an idea to drill a hole in the side pannel, and epoxy a bolt onto that hole, and i could screw the tray into it. Well this idea half worked, only one of the two bolts i epoxyed to the side pannel stayed on. The top on snapped off mostly to me having torqued too much, so im pretty sure the bottom one is strong enough. I didnt feel like taking the side off and putting the top bolt back on the side pannel, so i just directly epoxied the tray to the case wall. Then, i epoxyed the rear plastic peice down becasue it was flimsy...becasue one of the bolts holding it on came off....and it came off in a totally unreachable spot.



I had to order a 1kw power cable from the dell hotline, and decided to buy the stand for it off of ebay, to avoid any capsizing of the system. I put my parts in the case and turned it on...opps..the system shorted out. After walking in circles for an hour, i figured it might be becasue i bunched up those 12 spare PSU cables...yup, i wrapped them individually and it booted up!!! What i nice sound. The fans move alot of air but are very quiet, about 32db at their max and move 87..uhhh 'air units'. Next vista didnt want to load up..after more walking in circles my roomate realised it was because i had 4GB of RAM in. Here is the case on its side as we tired to get it fired up:

It works!!!



I have since put a fan guard/ cover over top of that crappy 120mm cutout so you cant see it. Id recommend either keeping the hole small, finding a way to cut a perfect circle or covering it up


















Next issue to tackle was getting the power button to work, my roomate did all kinds of things and got the dell one to work. Had to figure out what wires do what (composed of a ton fo black wires, some controlled power and most were LED wires) and got it to work. It is green when the system is on, and flashes yellow as HDD activity.

Next i tackled the front LED issue. My roomate had the idea to use 3 on off buttons to activte red/blue/green, and by pressing multiple buttons you get the mixed colors like white/yellow/purple..ect. The 3.5" drive bay had a black plastic peice in it, im not sure what it was for, but i used it to mount my buttons. I used a spare 12v coming out of the PSU to power the lights.

And here it is on the computer, since we wired it wrong its really dim. It should be very bright







Also the 720 stand came today (those silver fins in the back). I ordered a media card reader, that does audio/usb/ cards, because i gave up trying to get the dell stuff to work.
It scored 14,000 on 3DMark06, and upgrade from my old comp which scored 846

Thanks to "it hurts when i pee" 's thread which i used as a guideline.

Other thoughs: My motherboard tray came with a small openeing in the back for a 90ish mm fan. I personally cut out the hole to fit a 120mm, but its hard to do. I would recomend just keeping the hole as it is and putting in a 90mm fan. On my computer, if the rear fan is shut off altogether, temps dont reall go up that much due to the size of the case inside, so a 90mm fan in the back should cool it without a problem. If you have to means of cutting a perfect 120mm circle, go ahead.
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Finished!




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This is how i got the LEDs to work without using a spare 4-pin molex connector as power. Colors are activated via buttons, which i mounted on behind the door on the front of the XPS case. If this image wont load for you - PM me for the diagram.


This is how i have my Power Button wired.

[GTSRboy]

I cant get the pics to work for now, i used imageshack.us and posted them like this >> [img]*link*[/img]

???

[GrossmeisterB]

You used the wrong links, yours are something like "http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=computer009gr7.jpg", but that's not the direct link to the pics!!

The direct link would be e.g. "http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/3306/computer009gr7.jpg" - but why don't you use the imageshack's allready pre-definded clickable thumbs???

[GTSRboy]

Ok i got the pics to work and edited my text a bit. Imageshack moved the 'direct link to image' so i was posting the wrong one

[Janno]

hottest OEM case ever
nice work, buddy

[GTSRboy]

i wish i had a dig. camera. All my pics are lame. I just got the LED's to work and its looks pretty badass! Im emailing freinds to see if they can let me use their camera. arrggg

[PowerSlide]

pics are ok just resize them for easy viewing

and good job

[it_burns_when_i_pee]

you forgot to mention the first rate tech support i provided via my friends youtube account

glad its up and running, black looks awesome. re-check your led wiring like i said in my last email, mine are only on 5v and are nice n bright

time for some absolut .... friday just isnt the same without it, nor is any other day for that matter

[RaZz!]

there's just a grid on the front? this thing must be sucking in dust like hell :F

[GTSRboy]

Actually i have noticed some dust on the fan edges already...what do i put some kind of mesh on the front to stop dust? I new to building computers, so suggestions are welcome. I got all the wiring figured out on the front LED's, its on a 5v and are alot brighter than in those pics.

And yes thank you 'it hurts when i pee' for the 24/7 tech support, me and my roomate were running in circles not knowing what to do for a while. We thought ever cable on the PSU was wrong initially :0

[it_burns_when_i_pee]

happy to help

you can get a mesh or foam type filter for the front, mine has gathered alot of dust but i vacuum in there about once a month, doesnt effect temps much.

i had a lian li pc65 once, the mesh filter on the front of that worked well, maybe there are better alternatives, im yet to look into it fully

[Earzz]

Good job man, really got a lot of respect for people like you putting so much time and effort in just a case.
I would have already smashed the case in half after the first problem, thats why i would never even start stuff like this .

BTW dont worry about the pics, they are fine.

[GTSRboy]

@Jackmanfred in reference to getting the power button to work

First off, youll need to cut off the dell connector, that only works with dell motherboards. Youll end up with 6 wires. You need to get a 9v battery, and start hooking up ends to it and find out which cables control what. The 6 cables do LED, On/off, and reset i think. On your motherboard there will be a spot where youll need to plug in wires one by one. There is a space that controls on/off, reset, and HDD activity on your motherboard, look in your manual and it will ell you which pin does what. I used spare wires and molex's to hook the wires in one by one, as you can see they will end up going in randomly, and no 1 plug can be used. Youl need to strip wires and twist/solder them toghether and cover with electrical tape.

Here are pics of what ive done
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Here you can see i used spare wires to simply extend them so they reach the motherboard


And here you can see how i have it hooked up to my motherboard. I had to do it individually, using cut up connectors. Look in your motherboards manual to find out what pin does what


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Getting the power button to work is kind of a 'wing it' job. If you have any questions just ask. Got any pics of your build's progress?

[jackmanfred]

GTSRboy, Thanks for the photo's and the explanation, however i'm no electrician do you think if i posted a picture of my switch you could tell me what wire to connect where?

sorry to be a pain

cheers

j

[GTSRboy]

GTSRboy, Thanks for the photo's and the explanation, however i'm no electrician do you think if i posted a picture of my switch you could tell me what wire to connect where?

sorry to be a pain

cheers

j

Assuming that the order of the 6 wires is the same on both of our systems, i can tell you which of my 6 wires do what. (ill post in a bit)

Once you know what wire does what, youll need to know wher to plug them into your motherboard. What kind of mobo do you have? In teh manual it will show you exactly what pin does what, so youll know where to plug stuff in.

Also, youll need to find a way to physiclly plug those individual wires into your mobo, i cut apart a spare 4pin connector and used the wires as an extender and the connector to plug it in
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so just tell me exactly your model of motherboard and that should be enough info to know where everything goes, then youll just need a way to physiclly plug them in

[jackmanfred]

GTSRboy, your the man for helping me out, mucho appreciated.

i've got an ABIT IP35-Pro, i've posted the mobo header here: http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...nfred/mobo.jpg

i also post a pick of my dell switch so we can get the right wires hooked up.

cheers

j

[dj.oxa]

sexy case idd

[GTSRboy]

GTSRboy, your the man for helping me out, mucho appreciated.

i've got an ABIT IP35-Pro, i've posted the mobo header here: http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...nfred/mobo.jpg

i also post a pick of my dell switch so we can get the right wires hooked up.

cheers

j

Here is a little diagram i made. This all is assuming our 6 wires on our XPS cases are in the same order. This is a diagram of the hookup to MY motherboard btw



As you can see the 2nd and 6th wire hook up to the to pin 6 and 8 on your motherboard. The 2nd and 6th wire hook up to the power on and off on my motherboard, and the on off on your motherboard is pin 6 and 8 according to your diagram. Im not sure if 2 goes to 6 or 2 goes to 8, youll have to plug em in both ways to see which one turns on your computer. The same applies for everything else, the 3rd and 5th wire control Hard Drive LED, so plug them into the HDD (pin 1 and 3 on your mobo)

You wont fill all those spots, just ON/OFF, HDD Acticity LED, and power LED. If you hook it up right, it should be one color when you turn it on and flash orange when the HDD is accesing info

[jackmanfred]

GTSRboy, that was spot on, my wiring is exactly the same as yours.

Now i've got everything wiring side sorted apart from the firewire which i'm not sure i'll bother with? i'll start the cutting of the case i'll post a few pictures to let you see how I'm getting on.

Man i can't wait for this case to be finished. Do you recommend putting the mobo tray outside the case or in the case?

Cheers again

J

[GTSRboy]

I didnt bother try to get the firewire working. Infact i dont have anything from the front I/O pannel hooked up. I just put a media card reader in on of the 3.5" slots thats behind the hatch on the front to do all of that.

Id recommend putting it outside of the case, mostly, because this will cover up and overlap any cut marks you may to the grill. Make sure you have a dremel and a drill. If you get stuck or have a question just post

Here is the thread i followed when doing my mod btw http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=186919

[The bum]

im doin the same mod and this thread is a big help thanks

[Kingcarcas]

Always liked those cases, but all that work isn't worth it...