My HAF912

maro

Gawd
Joined
Aug 27, 2006
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My new PSU arrives tomorrow and I've been considering moving my stuff back into my old HAF912.

I'm currently in a Corsair 175 and I like the tempered glass side, sleek front panel and edgy black painted insides and the 'PSU tunnel' that lets me hide cables and my storage HDD. I don't like the lack of 5.25" bay and fairly poor airflow.

Today I stripped her down and threw some flat black enamel on the inside. Turned out ok for a minimal effort dusty garage job. It doesn't have to be a showroom finish, just dark.
Before:

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and after:
IMG_0772.jpg


Before any of you go rushing to praise my amazing spray can paint skills, I'd want to remind you that the lighting has been kind and is not showing you all the lil dust boogers that are scattered throughout. I may sand it a little and throw another coat on tomorrow but this IS a minimal effort job.
The other problem is using the flat black. I think in hindsight I wish I used a matte finish instead of the chalky and sometimes fingerprinty flat. I may go over it with a coat of matte clear coat, but again it starts to stray from the minimal effort/cost goal I've set.

But wow what a big difference the paint made!

I'll be messing around with this the next few days and if things look ok enough I'm going to follow through and throw my stuff back in it. I'll post some more pics as things progress.
 
Is your driveway dusty? If it isn't why not try rattling it in your driveway?
 
Driveway is not dusty but it does rain here. I've been ready to spray this since Monday, but weather is a factor and I got impatient and finally decided to just do it in the garage. Frankly given the lighting and the res of pic I thought it came out pretty decent.

Having said that what looks bad?
 
I get it no one uses optical drives anymore but I never understood getting rid of the 5.25 bays. I haven't bought a new case in 10 years because of this. My everyday PC has 3-5.25 bays 2 filled with Monsoon dual bay D5 and the other one is filled with XSPC 5.25" Bay Temperature Sensor Dual Display Mount. More than efficient use of space but a proper mounting point and great aesthetics. I cannot understand why they gimp cases in this way the versatility of the 5.25 bay is endless for example upgrading your I/O to say USB-C or Hot swap drive bay or Fan Controller and if you think about it the possibilities are endless but nothing can be done when eliminated. I painted my interior too Alien Green and it lights up nicely with DarkSide CONNECT Dimmable Rigid LED Strip-UV. I admit the distro's look sweet but I'm not giving up the ability to convert and adapt because who knows what coming down the road.

 
Not much to show, the enamel still smells so it's banished to the back room for now, but I've started slowly reassembling. The 850 P6 sure seems tiny! Regret not getting the 1600 P2. Eventually I'll swap fans, board, and other bits in, maybe this weekend sometime. I'll update with a couple more pics then.
IMG_0777.jpg
 
Everything has been swapped over!
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I didn't like the way the bottom air intake obscured about 20% of the PSU fan, so I opted to flip it.

Don't laugh too hard at my Cougar fans - they might be ugly but they're quiet and move air. Also, that's not a drink coaster my storage HDD is sitting on! It's a precision engineered neoprene disk... (ok fine IS is a drink coaster :p).
I originally planned on fabricating a simple cover to hide the PSU, cables, and HDD but scrapped that idea when I decided to flip the PSU. It isn't a windowed-side so you can't see it when the cover is on anyway.

I'm satisfied with it for now, it turned out ok for zero $ spent, though I did previously pay $30 for the additional front USB panel. Maybe eventually I'll find a new case I like. I'll giving the Corsair 175R to a friend so we can build his son a new 'puter.
 
Turned out really nice looking. I keep my PSU with the fan face up like that in my Lian-Li case also, I found it stays cooler that way and sucks in less dust and cat hair.
 
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looks good. i rock one as well! though much much messier and jam packed to the brim and overflowing. i wish i had had hit it with flat black when i got it
 
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I found my box of Artic F12's and swapped out the grey Noctua up front. The Cougars will stay until they die or start making noise.

This is the reason I ditched my Corsair 175R - here is a stiched-together pic of before and after temps after similar light gaming sessions. If you're not familiar with HWMonitor I'd be shocked, but the columns are current/min/max.

1661802314186.png
 
I still use them, so I'm a no one LoL!
I don't write discs much anymore but I still use them for ripping movies and music
I also still use them on occasion but I did switch to an external one so I had more choice is chosing a new chasis.
 
it's a laptop style Asus zendrive 8x, rips audio cd's reasonably fast.
I have a UHD "friendly" Blu-ray drive that I hacked the firmware to make it read 4K discs it is an LG WH16NS40 (NS50) the small drives are way to slow for me to do movie rips with.
 
I have a UHD "friendly" Blu-ray drive that I hacked the firmware to make it read 4K discs it is an LG WH16NS40 (NS50) the small drives are way to slow for me to do movie rips with.
I did forget to mention it does use 2 USB plugs I assume 1 is for power only.
 
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