I swapped cases from a Thermaltake Soprano to a Lian-Li PC65, my chipset temp's dropped a solid 15 degrees c. after 8 hours Prime chipset is at 37c, was 52+ before. Video card is in the same slot etc. Configuration wise nothing but the vapochill has changed.

arg i wanna switch my TT as well, had enough of it, baught it when i knew nothing of cooling & cases... i want a lian-li or a stacker 830
do you have more/better fans or just new case?

The thermal take had 2x120mm (1 front 1 rear) and an 80mm in the side panel. as well as an 80mm inside blowing on the PWMIC area. The Lian-Li I'm using now has 2x80mm in the front (older style) and 1x80mm in the back. It has been modded with 2x120mm in the top of the case, but i don't think these are really affecting the chipset to much because 1. I'm missing 2 of the 5.25" drive bay cover's that are closest to the 2x120mm fan's, and 2. all the wires from my PSU impede the airflow to the chipset quite a bit.

Why do you want to change your case? I have the same one you do and i think it cools really well. I love the swinging side door with 2 90mm case fans. I replaced the bottom with a TT smartfan for better cooling. Did you cut out holes in the side panel for the fans?

I think it was really lame of TT to put fans against the lexan with no access to fresh air. I took the black plastic off the side panel, plus cut another two holes for the bottom and top fans. What a job that was. Plus they both have fan filters easily accessible for cleaning. It even has a blowhole at the top.

I have no use for that fan controller though. Just too many wires, and i don't think it was meant to handle powerful fans. I had an 80mm silverstone (up to 5700rpm) @ about 3000rpm blowing on a TTpipe101 All copper, but opted for what i have now.

why? hmm, bad HDD placement, design, lame 80mm intake, lame 80mm outtake (top), both dont do nothing cause of all the air restricition TT put, the 2 side ones are totally ineffective as well, unless you take out the black thingy on teh side and put... to be frank, i dunno what you can put there, and for the buttom one, you need to cut the window (no thanks. atleast for now.)...
bad concept of the fan controller, all wires are connected badly.
no places to hide wires, totally stupid closed place behind the CD mounts.
i can go on... its just that its 9:30 pm and im still at work.
bah.
i want a lian li :|

I had "the modding bug" when i 1st saw this case, and the potential it had to become a real case with a lot of changes. It was a lot of work And i wouldn't want to to mod a case like i did again. Hope ya get something you really like. I see you have a nice setup. deserves a real good case.

Pics!

indeed!

I just got my board back in the case with all my ocz upgrades. i also got an evercool modded on the chipset. I have a digital camera all set up. I just need to install the software and I'll upload some pics. I want to make sure everything is stable for now. I need to put a fan on my mosfet-pwm ic area. After I'm done the pics will be up.

DFI LP UT nf3 250GB (2005/06/23 bios) 5.10 drivers
Evercool VC-RE (modded)
a643400+@2.2-stock (for now) 1.5V. CG.
2XOCZP4001G-EL xtc-Aeneons C die@2.5-3-2-5
Visiontek x800xt PE w/arctic cooling
Samsung 19" 930b tft lcd (digital)
Audigy2 zs P
WD Raptor 36 GB
lite-on dvd -r -RW
Asus 52x cd
Dell floppy drive
Thermalright XP-90 w/90ml blue led smartfan
(all my fans are smart ;-)
5 adjustable case fans in
TT v5000a case
OCZ modstream 520w psu
diamondaback red usb mouse
logitech z5300e 5.1 speakers
Belkin split ergonomic black keyboard

great! i wanna see those babies

I'm all set to upload them, but they are like, just a hair to big to post, so now i gotta find a way to shrink them ever so slightly, so they conform to the 100 mgapixel (or whtever) size. Mine are like 11 over. sheesh...bare with me. I'm going to try to imige shack them.

Been wanting a Lian-li for a long time. Finally I bought a V Series PC-V2000. Absolutely the best case I have ever owned, worked on. They know how to design a case!!

DFI LP UT nf3 250GB (2005/06/23 bios) 5.10 drivers
Evercool VC-RE (modded)
a643400+@2.2-stock (for now) 1.5V. CG.
2XOCZP4001G-EL xtc-Aeneons C die@2.5-3-2-5
Visiontek x800xt PE w/arctic cooling
Samsung 19" 930b tft lcd (digital)
Audigy2 zs P
WD Raptor 36 GB
lite-on dvd -r -RW
Asus 52x cd
Dell floppy drive
Thermalright XP-90 w/90ml blue led smartfan
(all my fans are smart ;-)
5 adjustable case fans in
TT v5000a case
OCZ modstream 520w psu
diamondaback red usb mouse
logitech z5300e 5.1 speakers
Belkin split ergonomic black keyboard

I'm trying find out how to get them all on one page now.



now let's see what happened...(fingers crossed)

Ooops...forgot to angle the pic right-side up.
So, anyway, these mods weren't easy. They were time consuming, and tedious. They may not look like much, but they are very effective in keeping my pc cool, and i deviated from the traditional Thermaltake look as much as possible. More pics to come. Some of their cases are a little too childish for my taste, but with some, just enough to look kinda spiffy with a little (or a lot) of work. For just over $100, i guess it was worth it. It's heavy too, which i kinda like. (I'm a little to old to do lanparties) although i do own one in real life ;-)~

your case has arms?!?

If that's what you want to call them. I call 'em vents. And as funny as they may look, they do work very well. I built them 2 summers ago, when it was 90° almost every day. my pc kept locking up, so i came up with this, and lo and behold, i was on my way to the end of halflife2, smooth as butter with nice temps. Don't forget i told you i ducted the filtered vents to the cellar where it's nice and cool. Cement floors (no humidity problems). Downstairs i have an 80mm Silverstone 5700cfm inside the duct really pushing the air up, and another quiter fan upstairs helping to pull the air so it can feed my 2 hungry case fans connected to ducts from inside a fairly airtight metal box i made out of an old pc. (i'm not showing anybody pics of THAT ;-) People that come to my house and see my set-up think I'm nuts ats it is :confused:

If you want to know what i did to the evercool, i explained it in this section, near the end, trying to be of some help to a guy named Sidpaul. THAT was a lot of tedious filing and filing and drilling and measuring and filing some more.

More pics to come later. I'm starvin'...didn't realize how late it is. Ill take some in the dark with everything inside all lit up. No big deal...mostly just blue led fans, and the evercool. Like soundx98 says...he thinks of the lights as the "heartbeat" of his system.

Do I sense a flicker of sarcasm?

I guess cases boil down to a matter of taste. I was just looking at a bunch of cases from Lian-li and Antec, and wasn't very impressed. Most of the nicer looking ones were
1.designed for watercooling (which i don't use),
2.Don't even have a side window, unless your ready to fork out at least $300.
3.Very few even HAVE a fan on it's side, or a blowhole.
4.Are very plain looking, black or silver box-ish style.
5. I don't like the idea of my psu being on the bottom of the case, unable to aid in the dissapation of warm air, and hiding the nice blue led light from most ocz (or equivalant) psu's.
My case is big, Has controls for all fans, a big side window with 2 powerful fans, one blowing right into my cpu fan, and the other cooling off the mobo, feeding the evecool fresh cool air also. I reversed the front bottom intake fan to suck cool air over the hard drive cage and out of the case. I have no air restriction problems. I just have to add 1 or 2 small (maybe 40mm) fans for pmw ic-mosfet area for when i start oc'ing. I read these areas got quite hot.
The pmw ic fan will also cool the protruding side area of the heatpipes on my xp-90, which won't hurt none. All said and done, Cases are just a matter of taste. I like big cases. You have more modding options for better cooling with them. (air or water). But to each his/her own.
Sometimes I wish I'd bought a srever case instead of this, but this was bigger than i expected, and has more room than i can utilize, so...no complaints here. It could be a little quiter though. 8 fans in all (including evercool and Arctic Silencer), it is a tad loud.

But when I'm gaming, my speakers drown out or distract me from the sound.

__________________
DFI LP UT nf3 250GB (2005/06/23 bios) 5.10 drivers
Evercool VC-RE (modded)
a643400+@2.2-stock (for now) 1.5V. CG.
2XOCZP4001G-EL xtc-Aeneons C die@2.5-3-2-5
Visiontek x800xt PE w/arctic cooling
Samsung 19" 930b tft lcd (digital)
Audigy2 zs P
WD Raptor 36 GB
lite-on dvd -r -RW
Asus 52x cd
Dell floppy drive
Thermalright XP-90 w/90ml blue led smartfan
(all my fans are smart ;-)
5 adjustable case fans in
TT v5000a case
OCZ modstream 520w psu
diamondaback red usb mouse
logitech z5300e 5.1 speakers
Belkin split ergonomic black keyboard

_________________________________________
Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing it's idiot.

One thing I had to do to my PC-65 to better hide and route wires was cut a hole through the right side of the Powersupply mount area to be able to route my PSU wire around the back of the motherboard tray. It's still a mess in my case afterwards, but it's A LOT better then it was...

If it's the best case you've ever owned, "They know how to design a case!!:-)", why did you work on it, and what did you do? Pics?

I have a space in between my motherboard panel and the case side i can tuck spare wires into. Also i can stuff unsightly wires behind the drive cages. Not much i can do about the psu and drive cables, except get round ones (which i did). I prefer the silver-ish mesh emi prevention ones over the bright yellow dfi or any bright color ones.

Also i try to hide fan wires in bottom inside spaces on the side of the case, but they still stick out a bit. I guess i could tape them in there, but I'm not that much of a neat-freak. I kinda like not-so-flashy insides for my case, as i would be staring at my case instead of paying attention to savin' my butt from gettin' fragged during gameplay.

Besides, it's not like i'm 19 anymore. Just hit the big 5-0 in August. and i get a pleasant surprize happy b-day wish from DFI. Now THAT impressed me. Re-assured me that buying a dfi board was the right thing to do. Glad to see ocz has a big presence on the forum too.
I like the Bleedin' edge forums also. Lots of good info and helpful members there. Full of friendly official support staff that respond just about immediatly to your posts. Ok..ill shut up now.