Official Thermaltake III Case modding

[XPerties]

First off I have been taking pictures as I go and will be getting them developed.

I ordered the new Thermaltake III about a week and half ago. When it came in I was happier than a fly on sh*t. Something I noticed that I would like to share with others.

Bad Points on this case....

#1. The pci screwless feature does not fit all agp and pci cards. I had a hell of a time trying to get my Santa Cruz sound card in.

#2. For the amount of money that you pay for this thing you would think that the Temp/Fan controller LED would be lighted. Heck no. A little upset about that as it is hard to see anything at night.

http://www.xperties.net/modding/11-133-106-06.jpg

#3. The front door opens 2 ways. One way is it allows you to access the cdroms and floppy drives. The other it allows you to access the fans and you are able to install and remove cdroms in seconds but here's the thing. When the second door is latched and you open the main door ( http://www.xperties.net/modding/11-133-106-07.jpg ) the front top section catches. This is very annoying.

Modding....

Ok so anyways as most know, wire management is the MOST important thing to cooling. Common sense would tell you if you have wires or objects in the way the air will not flow properly. So yesterday I spent 5 hours wrapping and fastening every single wire in my case.

Because this case comes with 7 80mm fans you will find that there are a ton of molex connectors (the little white thing you plug into the power supply). So I cut every single one off and wired them together. So before I had 7 fans with 7 molexs connectors. Now I have 7 fans with 3 molex connectors.

Drive LEDS are normally ugly red, white or amber, so I tore all mine off and soldered all bright blue LEDS on them to match the case.

The drives themeself where beige, which look like crap in a blue case. So I went to the hardware store and grabbed 600 grit sandpaper and some all purpose spray paint and made those babys match the case color.

The case doesn't come with any lighting so I grabbed 2 sets of the new lazer LEDS as shown here...

http://www.xperties.net/modding/bluelazer1.jpg

http://www.xperties.net/modding/lazer.jpg

and rigged those up through out the case. I feed two of them and placed them in the front right behind the grill to make the pretty blue lights shine through the grilled front cover.

http://www.xperties.net/modding/11-133-106-08.jpg (front bottom)

I have always been a big fan of LED displays so I thought Id would top this baby off with the L.I.S. LED display.

http://www.xperties.net/modding/bluedeluxe_01.jpg

http://www.xperties.net/modding/bluedeluxe_02.jpg

for either the replacement of the fan controller in the case or to use the other bay drive I have.

Now your probably saying.."Wheres the dam pictures?"...Well until everything is 100% done (waiting on LID LED which will be here Tuesday or Wednesday) then there wont be any pictures.

These mods are very easy and simple but do alot for you and your case. Once everything is 100% done and the pictures are developed, which should be by the end of the week I will write a small tutorial on the ends and outs of wire management and small but fun case mods for beginners.

Now...My wifes pc.

I took a crappy $17 case and though I could add a few things to it to make her happy. So far I have cut a 120mm blowhole at the top of the case. There Will be a thermaltake 120mm fan with a filter. Now normally the top fan should be outtake, but in this case, the way it is built I have to make the top fan intake, and blowing out will be 2 themaltake 80mm.

The system she is getting is:

MSI kT4 Ultra

AMD XP 1900

256 2700 corsair XMS DDR ram

Phillips cdrw

Now she would like a window in the side and a neon, which Will be ordered this Tuesday. I am also taking pictures of this as I go and will show you the start and finish of here case.

The theme she wants is "We will not forget" from Sept 11. I have found a widow Etched decal and a nice metal fan grill about sept 11. There will be blue, red and white Lazer LEDS in the case. Once I get that finished I will once again post pictures.

[BlueScreenOfDeath]

very kewl ...im orderin a case door thats got a modded window for my case ...i need to do a better wiring job in my case...wish i knew someone who could do that cause when i was puttin it together u can only bend and fold things so much and still think to yourself "it still looks like crap lol "