Newbie System Builder

[love4god]

I've just built my first system over this last month:

ASUS CUBX/PIII700/256MB Micron PC133/30GB 7200HD/ASUS V6800 Dlx/Platium Live/DVD & Burner/Enlight 7237 Case/Linksys Etherfast NIC (for DSL)/Running W2K

Here is my question. I installed all of my hardware with updated drivers, everything seems to be smoking along, I think I may actually be finished, finally. However, I have a MESS inside this thing of cables, especially the drive ribbons. It all hangs between my drives and my board. Is this the way it is supposed to be? I tried to routed everything the best I could but it is still really tangled. My biggest concern is that much of it is hanging in front of my lower front intake fan. Will this restrict airflow and make my case to warm? I'd like to try overclocking this puppy. Thanks alot for any suggestions or answers.

 

[Eeks]

Is that a full case? most of the cords should be between the drives and the mobo but above the intake fan by a good margin.. If they are blocking then intake fan area, then yes you are losing airflow, but its hard to say to what extent based on your email alone.

 

[love4god]

The case is a mid tower. Two of the cables, from the DVD and burner, kind of stop and rest about halfway down. But three cables, from the Hard Drive, Floppy, and Live Drive!, hange to the botton of the case and seem to be right in front of my fan.

 

[Eeks]

So they are hanging there? Use zipties or something to stop them from hanging. That might solve it. Silly line drive

 

[amgkid]

I just moved my system into a nice black fong kai 320 and I made it a point to keep it organized, unlike my other case, hehe.

What I did with the IDE, floppy, and my live drive cable was ROUND them. If you don't know what this is, look it up on the forums or at some case cooling sites. Basically, you gotta cut between the wires (usually around every 5) and you'll end up with mini bands of wires. Then you neatly stack them and tape them up with electrical tape or you could just use zip ties. With the ATA-66 cables, I would just twist them really tight and tape them up. That's what I did and I haven't seen any data corruption yet. I tried splicing up those on spare cables but I cut into the insulation by accident which makes them useless.

After you round all your cables, you can tape them or zip tie them to the back of the case. For instance, the live drive cable doesn't need to be messed around with often so I slipped that in the rear and taped it to the case, getting it out of the way of airflow. I also tape the power supply to the metal as I am a neatfreak when it comes to case cooling Anyway, try out these methods. For cutting apart the wires, I've heard people just using push pins and sticking them in enough so that you can pull apart the wires with your fingers. I prefer a hobby knife. Either way, good luck with your case!

Here's a link to my non-flat-ribbon-cabled case.

 

[love4god]

WOW! That's a great idea...thanks for the advice. It looks like exactly what I want to do.