Chenming to CoolerMaster 690 II Advanced

[Makaveli]

Took about 3 hours doing the case swap last night. Which included using compressed air on everything and trying to keep the build neat.



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This was the longest part of the night with all the cleaning while swapping :banghead:






I thought I did a pretty decent job internally on the first try the back is quite the mess tho, that will be a work in progress.



Think I will need to order some extension cables from NZXT to clean up some the extra cables.



The default thumbscrews that come with this case do suck I must say they will be replaced soon. First you need cyborg strength to remove them the first time and I just don't like the look of them.



Will update when I replace all the stock fans so far loving this case. Don't think you will find a better one for $90 :rockout:

 

[Zap]

How much weight did you gain? :awe: The Chenming case looks like an aluminum version. Also, how much more quiet is it now that you don't have a case full of 80mm fans? :biggrin:

The default thumbscrews that come with this case do suck I must say they will be replaced soon. First you need cyborg strength to remove them the first time and I just don't like the look of them.

I've encountered plenty of cases like that. It is probably because they likely use a powered screwdriver/drill to put those in. No matter how cheap labor is in China, a manual screwdriver is just too slow for high volume work.

Will update when I replace all the stock fans so far loving this case. Don't think you will find a better one for $90 :rockout:

For pure number of features... nope. I haven't done my case swap yet (will go to water cooling at the same time) but I bought a CM690II Advanced for myself and have looked it over. There are other cases in similar price ranges which are really nice but don't have all the features. For instance some of the Lian Li Lancool cases are the EXACT same chassis as their more expensive aluminum versions, but made using steel and mostly costing around or just under $100.

BTW did you get the version with the side window?

 

[Makaveli]

The weight gain was noticeable but it only abit heavier and it feels solid not cheap.

lol yes good to be rid of all the 80's had 5 in there plus the 92mm up top

This is the non window version, already looked at some the panels online going for around $24

Seen some really good setups with water in this case should be a nice build.

 

[zagood]

Looks good! I never bother with organizing behind the mobo tray unless it bulges or something...probably because if I organize, I'm going to want extensions, and if I use extensions I'll have to sleeve, and if I'm sleeving I'll want to match the molex, etc...

Then I'll never use the machine.

Some good extension options here, most with free shipping.
http://www.svc.com/fan-cable-adapter.html

 

[Makaveli]

Replacement Parts finally showed up UPS sucks!











Things left to do...

Extension cables and thinking of replacing all the SATA cables with black ones.

 

[Chocu1a]

Just color the reds ones with a black permanent marker.

 

[manimal]

nice clean work and wiring.

 

[Makaveli]

Just color the reds ones with a black permanent marker.

hmm i'm not sure how good that will look.

 

[Makaveli]

nice clean work and wiring.

Thanks I still have more to do but will take my time as I go.

I think i'm also gonna ditch the S1 and pick up a Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro tomorrow. In the new case for some weird reason its giving me high temps even tho I have a 120mm side panel fan on it. Think it maybe my X-fi card right below it not giving it room to breathe. I cannot move that card as that is the only PCI slot available at sometime next year i'm gonna pickup a PCI E version.

 

[Piano Man]

Bah, S-Flex F's are too fricken loud. I replaced all of mine with E's and the difference in noise is night and day. Then again, you got a fan controller, so they'll probably be fine

 

[Makaveli]

They can get fairly loud I was using a 1900RPM one on my cpu alone which is now the exhaust fan. I can notice abit of a difference with the 1600RPM fans. The E series fans are even quieter looking at the specs but I prefer having manual control of all fans sometimes you can't trust their db ratings

I bought the fan controller a few years ago so I've forgotten its output per channel and was abit worried about splitting the 1600 RPM fans to one channel but seems to be ok, think I will also split the two xigmatek fans up top to free up a channel.

 

[Rhezuss]

I got this case a couple weeks ago replacing my V770 case.

It's so nice to work with the CM690 II Adv, lots of room, great cooling power, big but nothing extreme, look neat, cable management.

You made the right choice! Enjoy!

 

[zagood]

replacing all the SATA cables with black ones.

Sleeve them.

 

[Makaveli]

Sleeve them.

That sounds like an idea.

As I mentioned in my previous post I decided to ditch S1 because I found my idle and load temps on the GPU were unaccepable 60c idle and 90-100c full load. Which is very strange because in my Chenming case I wouldn't break 50c idle or 85c load. That case had a slim 80x15 fan flowing on the S1 while the advanced has a 120mm blowing on it.

I thought about slapping a fan on the S1 but it would block 3 slots in my rig so that was out of the question. The only open PCI slot was being used by my X-fi Music, so I picked up the an Accelero Twin turbo pro today after reading some reviews on it last night which claim it only blocks 1 additional slot.

So I get home install the thing and it blocks 2 1/2 slots and I can't keep the x-fi installed with the cooler I blame Xbit review on that one

So now i'm going to replace the x-fi with a PCI E version which I can install above the videocard to solve this issue. I wanted to do this eventually but this has forced me to do it sooner.

Here are some pictures of the swap will post more tomorrow.





I decided not to use any of the heatsinks that came with twin turbo because if you look at the picture the 4890 already has stock heatsinks covering the VM's only thing not covered is the memory.







Now if you focus on these last two pictures you can clearly see there is plenty of room for the ram sinks under the new cooler. However, I choose not to install them because they don't fit under the stock cooler and as much as i've enjoyed this card she will be replaced probably with a 6870 and I need to sell it with the stock cooler on. So for now ram sinks will stay off.

 

[Zargon]

lookin good

 

[Makaveli]

lookin good

Thanks dude i've been enjoying the project. I got lucky this year and have lot of time off this month so figured this would be the best time to do it.

Seems to be a new challenge everyday lol.

 

[Makaveli]

Swap now completed.

Had some issues with the Creative drivers anyone surprised lol.

It seems with the X-FI Fatality Pro PCI-E card you have to make sure windows doesn't auto detect and install drivers automatically. It kept setting it up as an HD audio device which worked fine for sound but I was unable to use any of the X-fi specific features. Once I made that change it then took the drivers.




With everything now up and running i'm very impressed with the performance of the Accelero Twin turbo Pro.