Right, I have been working with this case for a while now and I am still really chuffed with it.

My only problem is that the CPU power connector is too short as detailed in the pics below.
I have a blown PSU which has a much longer CPU power connector, I have already cut this off the blown unit and you will see my rough proposed solution in the images below (I haven't powered the PC on as yet so don't stress too much).

I have been wrapping the cables aswell as doing some stealthing to try and keep things nice and neat.

Images below.

Basically the pictures go in sequence, problem, possible solution, wrapped cable, proposed extension point and then onto the extension stealthed and plugged into the mobo.

So what I was to know is, if I solder the stripped wires and plug them directly into the current CPU power molex plug (obviously insulated and properly secured, will I experience any problems?

Would it be better to cut this plug off and solder the extension wires directly onto these ones?
-Or-
Should I try find a female P3 Molex plug and make up an extension?

I guess another, more expensive option would be to buy another PSU with a longer CPU power plug?

Some more attempts at stealthing and neatening things up.

hmmm my friend successfully extended a psu for the antec P180 case... I should ask him how he did it or if he got a male/female extender...


ok his response was:

Thanks mate!

I was thinking of just cutting the connector off the PSU and then soldering the wires directly. The few electronics store I've been to haven't been too keen to see if they can help.

Oh well.

Fitted the H.D.D and DVD/RW last night.

I am building this machine for my MCITP (Server 2008) course. Once I am done with that I'll get some properly spec'd kit to go into the machine.

The only thing holding me back now is a lack of decent soldering iron.

Might make a trip to Communica to get one of those Magnum Soldering Stations.

Hehe

who you doing this through. I am busy looking into doing it myself.

Doing it myself mate. Self Paced learning ftw.

Bought the books from Kalahari.net for 2K and now building a decent server to learn with.
Bought the Microsoft Press Training Kit, comes with everything you need + 3 x 15% discounts on the 3 exams.

I started yesterday but I need to spend some proper time on it when I am not working night shift.
Can't learn anything when I am this tired

ahh. okay. so you doing the Server Administrator and not the Enterprise Administrator?

I also prefer Self Paced learning. I might take me a venture over to the website...

Yup, doing Server Admin first then will upgrade to Enterprise Admin later.
Also want to do Exchange at a later stage.

The main reason for building this machine is I need a machine that is up to spec for the server software. My older machine just doesn't cut it too well.

you gonna get 2xQ9775?

Nani?

Haven't made any progress on this build due to the night shift I am on this week

Will hopefully get a decent soldering iron next week (pay day ).

I really want to get a Magnum Soldering station: http://www.communica.co.za/ProductDetails....=P_001893002896

Might aswell buy some decent kit while I am buying?
Don't need anything too hectic, this one should be perfect for my needs

Hehe.

I don't yet know what the cases LED colors are, hopefully not green, I have a pet hate for green LED's - Don't ask...
I was thinking of doing my usual Blue for power and Red for H.D.D combo.
Alternatively maybe 2 x blue LED's or 2 x red LED's.

We'll see what I go with. I have tons of red LED's lying around at home.

Blue and red go so nicely with a black case. So does yellow for that matter.

Anyway, the 120mm fan on the 4 in 3 module (H.D.D carriage) is a clear blue fan. So I am eather going to stick with an all blue theme (which feels a little overdone to me at this stage) or add a bit of red to contrast things abit.

Gotta be off now, Chicago is calling

One of my other cases has a blue CCFL which I might stick into this case. Might also consider a red one.
Know of any decent models?

Looks like Power cable extensions were available at one point in time: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...&CatId=1107

Might keep looking for some in the interim. Might get lucky?

Ok so I have found a few places where I could still get these items, pity I am in S.A. and these seem to by in the U.K.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...17m7#checkstore

Some of the plugs here have given me idea's though.

Might be simpler to use a standard Molex connector and modify it a little bit. Then I don't need to cut the existing PSU's 4 pin plug off.

Best I get that soldering iron soon

I have uploaded some pics (haven't re-sized them sorry).

Right so after reading up on these connectors and getting home from my night shift a little early, I decided to take a rough bash at creating a connector from a modified femal Molex plug.

Step one was to join the respective pairs on the 4 wire loom together.

Then I needed to remove the black and yellow pins from the Molex plug.

For the next step, I cut the wires at the back of the male Molex plug off to give me as much wire to work with as possible.

Lastly I joined the wires and voila! Molex-to-4Pin plug almost complete.

Bearing in mind this this was a trial run I was more or less pleased with the out come. One I have got my new soldering station, some heat shrink and some solder, I can finish the job properly.

My cat Tigga was overseeing the entire operation. I found her inspection technique was a bit too "hands-on" for my liking

First prize of course would be to buy a factory built unit but I am sure this should be the most cost effective solution.
I might have a go and removing the existing wires from the 2 pins that go into the Molex plug and soldering the 4 Pin wires directly into those pins, then re-inserting the pins into the molex plug, that will look alot neater and also give me more peace of mind.

I might take my crude first attempt with me to Communica to get thier advise on the best solution.

What do you guys think?

I decided to stop gutting my old PSU for a while and continue looking for a pre-made extension...

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3235/psu...amp;id=aYA9J8BN

Voila!

Hehe, I bought a soldering iron this morning along with some farking expensive solder. I also managed to find a decent Y-Molex plug. I will post up some pics this week-end.

Basically, If I am feeling brave I will modify this new Molex connector and use that for my needs. The new connector has better cable lengths and luckily, was only R20. I'd feel alot better about modifying this one than I would working with the current one. Simply because the cable is much longer and also, the same thickness as the 4 Pin Molex plug needed for the Mobo.

Now, once I am done with the mods I will see what the out come is like and either go ahead and install it or order the pre-made unit from this website.

The computer shop where I bought the Y-plug is looking for the correct extension on my behalf, it'll be a bonus if I can get one locally

man all that effort... wouldn't it be easier to just buy a PSU with a longer connector?

Hehe, it definitely would. But then I am stuck with a brand new PSU that I don't have anything to do with.
Guess I could always sell it off?

Might swing past Computers International tomorrow morning and see if they have something that will suit my needs.

I was amazed to see that the modding scene has pretty much completely died out in S.A.

it's getting expensive... and market has moved away from the standard beige colour and new cases already look nice enough hence why the market is dying...

Right so the extension was completed last night.

It's been ages since I've soldered anything and since injuring some tendons and nerves in my hand a few years ago I was getting extremely frustrated at the way the soldering was turning out.

I only have about 70% usage of my right hand these days so let's just say that the soldering wasn't my best job

Anyway, the extension was conpleted and installed into the machine last night. I am going to buy a H.D.D and DVD/RW for it next month and then I can finally start using the machine.

Roll on my 3rd MCITP training server

So last night during an insomnia fueled burst of energy, I finished setting up my rig.

I was amazed at the light show from the ATI Fatality G-Card. Kind of irritating to have these blinking SMD's going constantly. Hehe.

My motherboard is also dotted with bright red SMD's which makes for an interesting mix of different shadows being cast under my desk.

Anyway, when I booted up for the first time I found that there was a BIOS password which prevented me from making any changes to the BIOS settings. Very frustrating. I killed the BIOS by removing the battery, problem solved

Now, I can't seem to find the 500GB SATA H.D.D in the BIOS at all. Weird.
Gonna need to play with settings a bit.

I hate being a SATA NOOB!

I'm gonna probably buy another 2GB's of RAM for the machine. I'll need all the resources I can get for the various different virtual machines I've been setting up for my MCITP.

Eish, looks like I need to download the latest drviers for my motherboard.

My 500GB SATA is only registering as a 137GB drive.

The drive is supposed to be a SATA-II 500GB but is was not recognised on the SATA-II ports on the motherboard.
I plugged it into the SATA-1 ports and the drive was picked up straight away.

Dammit all, the joys of PC's

Atleast I finally finished most of the set. Just the final tweaks here and there to get it running properly.

Well, got the latest drivers. Time for a re-install tonight.

Seems that the fix is to install WinXP Service Pack 2.

Hehe.

Wonder why my Vista Ultimate didn't work?

It was pretty damned expensive to do a mere upgrade install with it...

Dammit all!

heheheh... shame...

137 = windows XP limitation get SP1, 2 or 3 and slipstream into a new cd

Hehe, I HATE being a SATA NOOB.

( at )tleast the next machine I build with SATA I'll know what to do

Am considering getting a second 500GB drive so I can start playing with RAID aswell.