Project: Taking my sweet time (A+ Black Pearl)

[Jonni Nitro]

Let me start of by saying that I am taking me time on this project. I have a 4week old at home and so life is busy at the moment. So, there may not be a lot of updates. When I get some things done I will post more. I dont think that this case will be perfect, but hopefully it turns out decent. I really wanted one of these cases for a while, but wasnt willing to pay the price. I finally scored one at Fry's on clearance for 80 bucks.

I didnt take any stock photos but you can find them yourself if you dont already know what it looks like.

Goals:
Make a clean, simple system that isnt too flashy.
Be able to controll some of the noise.

First I wanted to be able to control the majority of the fans in my case in an attempt to control the noise while the system is idle. So I picked up a Sunbeam rhoebus and will be modding it into the from panel where the temp display and stock fan controller was. I am also relocating the HDD rack to the 5.25" bays to save room in the bottom of the case.



I will be using most of the bottom of the case to house my water cooling system. I havent worked out all the details yet, but I have a Swiftech MCR320 and a 320 Stacker. The cpu and nb will be the only items in this loop. I decided to air cool the mosfets. I am not going really extreme on the hardware, just whats in my sig. My wife has a friend that she introduced me to that has a really cool machine shop. He was able to make some cuts on his waterjet machine for me. I am pretty happy with the results. I plan to add some mesh behind the slots and maybe some foam behind that for some good filtering. I be replacing the side mesh window with a smoked acrylic one. The inside will probably be lit with some clear LEDs or CCFL.



I am going to try not to screw this case up so I dont have to paint much. I would like to keep the original finish of this case. The air for the radiators will be drawn in from the window side and exhausted through the motherboard side. This will keep all of the major heat exchaging components on the bottom of the case. I havent decided if I will be building a costum enclosure for the rads in the bottom. Also, I have an MCP655 already and I still need to find some place to put it.



So let me know what you guys think. If anyone has some ideas or advice feel free to chime in.