By: Dave (Zwolf) Joyslin 3/04/2002
Jason (Heckler) Padgett 3/10/2002

In part 1 of our ongoing article System Case Modifications Made Simple we showed you how to add a blowhole to your case. The addition of this blowhole will help to lower the internal case temps and help you to have a cooler running system. One of the things often stressed to people when discussing computer cases and air-cooling is the benefit of a well-maintained case. One of the easiest and most practical ways to achieve this is by the use of wire loom and spiral wrap.

What are wire loom and spiral wrap? Well, loom is nothing more then corrugated plastic tubing with a split down one edge, and spiral wrap is plastic tubing that has been machine cut in a spiral pattern that can be wrapped around a wire or wire bundle. Both come in a wide variety of sizes and colors. Both will maintain quite a bit of flexibility with spiral wrap generally being the more flexible of the two. These items are inexpensive and easy to purchase both online or at just about any electrical, home improvement, hobby, or automotive supply store.

What you’ll need to do this project:

• Approximately 18 inches of 3/8” split loom
• Approximately 3 feet of 1/4" spiral wrap
• Cable/zip ties
• Sharp knife or scissors

You definitely know that through SEO, your business will benefit hugely, so you have to make sure to find the right Link Building Company that can help you gain your goals SEO on lookup motor rankings, finding the best Link Building Company for your business is a lot more crucial than ever. Link building Company will help you | Simple Website Templates. Every great website and web design needs a starting place or point. Our own newly redesigned website started from a basic template that was heavily modified to suit our needs and the same can be done for you. Using our simple sea website templates on our site you can buy website templates

Okay enough of the whys and wherefores, let’s get down to business.

The first thing you’ll want to do is remove the power supply from your case, ACK what a mess!!!

I know it’s a big hassle, but you’ll thank us in the end. Trying to do this with everything installed and in the case is an exercise in futility. You can start with either the power leads or the motherboard power connector it really doesn’t matter. In this case, we’ve decided to do the power connector first. Simply bundle the wires together by using as many cable ties as it takes in order to make a tight single cable.

Next, with one hand splitthe loom, and with the other hand feed the now bundled wires into the loom.

Now we secure the loom with several cable ties. Since loom can be a little stiff, you only want to use just enough to make sure it stays on while covering the wires. If too many cable ties are used, the loom won’t bend as easily which can be a real problem trying to connect the power to some motherboards. On a side note, some power supplies like those that Enermax manufactures have a very nice nylon mesh that covers the entire power connector so you will not have to do this step at all.

With that out of the way next we will do the individual power leads. We will use spiral wrap on these instead of loom. The reason we use the spiral wraps is that it’s easier to get smaller diameter spiral wrap and it’s more flexible than loom. Once again hold the leads with one hand, only this time you’ll just rotate the spiral wrap around the leads and they will feed themselves into the wrap.

Well that’s it, here’s the finished product. Nice and neat and ready to be installed into what should be a much more orderly case and hopefully one that’s gained better airflow as well.

One of the most airflow disrupting items in a case are the flat IDE and floppy drive cables. These cables are hard to tuck away neatly and most of the time end up hanging in the path of your cases internal airflow. Below you can see a Diagram of a Standard ATX Case and the optimal airflow path.

The cooler ambient air is pulled into the front of the case and then moves through the case across the components. As the air moves through the case, it is warmed and then the warm air is exhausted out the back of the case. Flat ribbon style IDE cables can restrict the amount of cool ambient air being supplied to the case. As with anything, less intake results in less exhaust. If you lessen the amount of ambient air supply the exhausted warm airflow also lessens. You now have warm air trapped inside the case, which in turn increases the overall system temps. The best way to help promote better airflow and maintain a neat, orderly appearance inside your case is by utilizing rounded IDE and floppy drive cables. Rounded cables not only help keep down the clutter, they help promote better airflow through the case, just like loom and spiral wrap.

The two cables pictured here are only an example of what can be found on the market today. The advent of rounded cables was something that came directly out of the overclocking and case modding scene. The first commercially available rounded cables were somewhat lacking in their reliability. Soon large manufacturers caught on to the idea and started to mass-produce them. Machine rounded cables are now available in many styles, multi-device, single device, long or short and in different configurations of width and color. Rounded cables are available for all current ATA speeds as well as for LVD and HVD SCSI.

Unlike the other modifications we have shown you to this point the utilization of rounded cables is quick and simple. It’s a matter of simply removing the standard flat IDE cables and plugging in the rounded cables in their place. That’s all there is to it. Now to see what all this can do for your system, take a look below.

The picture on top is typical of most computers and the one on bottom shows our project system after the modification. As you can see, tidying up the inside of your case has several benefits. It helps to reduce restrictions in airflow and overall clutter inside the case, as well as giving it a much more professional appearance.

Now for those of you that are up to a real challenge, we have another looming job you can do but be warned it is a good bit harder and time consuming. The following looming modification was performed by Jason (Heckler) Padgett one of our forum moderators.

Where would we all be in this world without options? In this section we will explore yet another wire covering material. I’m sure many of you have seen the material used to surround the ATX power cable on Enermax power supplies. It’s a material called Expando sleeving, short for Polyester Expandable (Braided) Monofilament Sleeving. That’s a mouthful isn’t it? It expands up to 3 times its relaxed size. It is available in many different sizes and colors including neon. I have seen a couple mod e-commerce sites that sell the expando at a premium price. I would contact your local electrical supply company and have them order it for you. It will be under half the cost. This is an excellent material for covering fantails and power supply leads. I recommend using 1/8” expando on all fantails and audio cables, ¼” expando for power cables. One-quarter inch expando will work for fantails but it produces a bulky appearance.

I can easily push this precision screwdriver through a piece of ¼” Expando sleeving.

Before we get started I may warn you, this is a very time consuming modification. It will take hours to complete this mod properly, but if you want a clean cable look it’s well worth it.

Essentials

• Utility knife
• Expando Sleeving ¼” approximately 15 FT. (Better a little extra than not enough)
• Heat Shrink Tubing 3/8” approximately 3 FT. (and a heat source of course)
• 4 Pin Molex Extraction tool (Highly recommended, it can be purchased at Radio Shack)
• 4” Zippy ties (grab a 50 pack)
• Wire cutters

Our system to be modified, what a mess!!!

This is one of those modifications where you just have to throw yourself into it. The first step in the process is to remove the Molex connector on the power cables. Each wire/pin is held in place by two tiny tabs. This is where the 4 Pin extraction tool comes in handy. I have seen other people use items such as a dental pick or paper clip to remove the pins, but honestly the extraction tool works the best and is a good investment if you work with cable a lot. Basically you want to push the tabs in toward the pin in order to release them from the plastic housing. To remove a 3 pin connector use a small precision screwdriver by simply placing the blade in the slot on top of the connector and apply pressure down and back. You will need to bend the tabs back out just like the 4 pin connector before you reinsert the pins into the housing.

Be careful, the tabs are very weak and break easily. If you do break a tab, you have two options at this point: run down to your Radio Shack or local electronics store to pick up the replacement pin or hold the pin in place where it needs to be and apply some super glue from the back side of the housing. This will hold the wire securely in place.

The next step is to cut the expando sleeving to length and then slide it over the wires. If you have to go over many sets of wires to seat the expando in the proper place, I recommend cutting it a little long. The ends of the expando have a tendency to fray and you will need to trim them once in place, or just be careful when you are squeezing them over your cables. You also may want to cover the pins with tape before insert them into the expando sleeving. The pins have a tendency to get caught.

Once the sleeving is in place you will need to cut two pieces of 3/8” heat shrink, 1” in the length and slide them over the wire as well. At this point I reinstall the molex connector. In order to do so, you will need to bend both tabs out on each pin so they will lock securely back in place when inserted into the housing. I use a very small flat blade precision screwdriver to do this. The molex housing is mark with numbers 1 through 4. The yellow wire always is inserted to pin housing #1 and the red wire into pin housing #4. Obviously the black (ground wires) are inserted in pin housing #2 and 3, it doesn’t matter which pin goes where since they are both common grounds.

Now that you have reseated the molex connector it is time to lock the expando securely in place with zip ties. You will now need two 4“ zippy ties, one for each end of the sleeving. You want to stay away at least 1 ¼” away from the connector. This allows some play if you need to swivel the connector. Once the zippy tie is locked down VERY TIGHTLY trim the excess tail as close as you can. Next trim the excess frayed expando. Below is what it should look like so far.

The last step is to cover the zippy tie with the heat shrink. You want the zippy tie centered in the middle of the heat shrink. Be careful not to burn the expando when applying the heat. If you are not using zip ties you may want to “melt” the heat shrink and expando together to prevent sliding. If you don’t, the heat shrink could slide over the expando forcing you to take everything apart again and redo the heat shrink tubing.

The finished product looks like so.

At this point it is a matter of repeating these steps for the rest of the fantails, audio cables and power connectors. Below are pictures of our case before and after the modification.

Although this modification is both time consuming and tedious, it is well worth it. The above picture doesn’t due this modification justice. I hope this brief how to guide has given you some incentive to try it. These modifications will benefit us later when we dive into a more serious case mod. In part 3 of our series of Case Modifications Made Simple we will focus on fans, connectors and how to manually pin them out for monitoring.