Hi all,
Figured here was a good a place as any to document the process of putting an itx build underwater in a cerberus-x. Forgive the first day, as I was too busy being giddy over the new case to remember to take pictures. Will be much more thorough as we go through the process of custom cables, bending tubes, and putting it all together. So for Day 0, we have one 'the PC turns on' picture and the rest will be contemporaneous notes.
For the overall plan, see this fun tinkercad mockup.
Day Zero - Arrival
Unboxing
Pretty standard fare here, with the expanding-foam pads at each corner to provide support to the case, which was wrapped in a plastic covering. If it were plastic or brushed aluminium I'd be worried about scuffing, but the powder coat on these panels feels like it's quite hard. and my fears were unfounded. All the gooey fun bits (handle kit, SFX mounting kit) were put inside the case. I also didn't get the PCI-slot cover that a bunch of other people are worried about, but this has been addressed - see quote.
Case
[Todo: glamour shots of all the panels, including the dreaded notch]
Very happy with beige color of panels, not quite the gross smoke-tar-film uv-degraded pukey white from my memories. Which is good. As I said above, the powder coat is robust. It's quite thick and coarse. These things feel industrial or military, and have a satisfying metallic plink when you flick them. Issues - I'm not the only one to note this, but my side panels have a distinct and surprisingly sharp notch (probably from cutting) along their edge. To be honest I only looked because I knew to look for it from a previous thread.
After removing the panels, the interior frame was laid bare [Todo: frame pictures]. Very nice black everywhere, smooth matte finish. Rounded corners! No sharp edges (and I tried to find some). Overall really high quality. However, there are always complaints!
Firstly, I was missing a screw(!) in my case. It comes assembled with many countersunk holes already filled with these delightful tiny little screws. So I used one of the screws provided to make sure my case wasn't going to fall apart on me.
Second, I am worried about the amount of flex in the rear of the case before IO panel, rear adapter (psu or no psu) and GPU are installed. Specifically at the top end of the PCI slots, right underneath the IO/rear adapter. My case was a little bent there out of the box. Perhaps a target for revision or packing support. It's fine now that there is hardware installed which add rigidity to the rear of the case.
Third, some of the the ball-pin things are loose, but they can be hand-tightened back into place. I don't expect them to cause any issues but it's a bit of a downer that they are so loose.
That's all I can remember now... taking requests.
Building [todo - LOTS OF PICTURES]
Due to the lack of sharp edges, ability to remove all the panels with ease, and the lack of any top panel in the frame, building in the case was really quite easy. But I'm new to the SFF world, and some lessons were learned.
Lesson 1: If using the SFX PSU adapter which includes the short fancy power cord, you must first thread the entire cord through the rear cutout. I had it all setup before I realized I had done that out of order.
Lesson 2: Install the handle plate / handle last. If you do what I did in lesson one, you'll need to remove the cord from your PSU and pull it out. TURNS OUT, you cannot do this when you have the handle plate installed. The gap between the SFX PSU and the handle plate is too small to remove the cord.
Lesson 3: Those tiny ass screws are too damn small. I consider myself pretty diligent, but I lost one, and because I had to use another one to fill in the missing frame screw, I was then down two screws. They don't give you extra, and as of right now I can't screw in and secure the rear power plug.
Lesson 4: I knew this and ignored it when planning, but the motherboard standoffs are very firmly affixed to the tray. I'm using an ITX build and don't really need the extra ones. if they start to get in the way of radiators and what-not, I'll have to try and rip them off. I hope it doesn't come to that. Remains to be seen.
Day 0 End
I'm very tired and wanted to play some videogames with friends tonight. I expect to have time for fitment and a dryrun of watercooling this weekend/next week. Will take loads of pics then. For now I leave you with this (shoutout to @MarcParis who loves LEDs). The CM Hyper 212 is hilarously large, and until I set up all the waterblocks I won't be able to close the side panel. Forgive the dust, this guy has been sitting on a cardboard mat on the floor of my room since June waiting for this case. I'm so excited!
Day 1
Hoo boy, am I glad you guys provided a CAD file for me to test fit things... It's quite snug! Today was fun, as I spent the afternoon shoving all the watercooling bits inside the case. Additionally, removing stock heatsinks, throwing liquid metal on everything, and slapping on the waterblocks. Haven't tried turning it on yet because it's near midnight and if I see a problem now I'll be up until three fixing it.
Actually I'm super exhausted so instead of a novel like Day 0, have an imgur album.
Once again building in the case is a pleasant experience since it is so dang open. I've added several shots of how bendy the panels can be - check the WIP imgur album. I can only hope that work fatigue of the powder coat / panels themselves is not something I will have to worry about during the lifetime of the case.
Todo:
Custom length/sleeved cables, either myself or paying to avoid the hand cramps.
Find a few missing screws for GPU backplate and case power
Wash out rads and blocks
Bend tubes (hurk)
Leak test
Acquire side panel window (lookin at you @KSliger)
Finished?
Day 25??? Ho Ho Ho!
So the end of the year always ends up being a flurry of work and I have little to no time for recreational pursuits like this monster. A few spare moments in the last few weeks were spent bending, but I ended up throwing most of my gear in my car and taking it to the parents' house.
The Todo above has been remedied - mostly because I was really tired of having no primary pc to putz around with. So all the dreams of custom sleeving and nice bends and what not are delayed! I plan on redoing everything with nicely sleeved cables and cleaner bends after we see how great the noctua sterox fans are in january.
With these ugly bends and only 2 fans working out of three (I forgot to bring my fan cables!), this thing is dead quiet and I have yet to get my GPU over 40c (ambient temp ~27). Merry Christmas!
Figured here was a good a place as any to document the process of putting an itx build underwater in a cerberus-x. Forgive the first day, as I was too busy being giddy over the new case to remember to take pictures. Will be much more thorough as we go through the process of custom cables, bending tubes, and putting it all together. So for Day 0, we have one 'the PC turns on' picture and the rest will be contemporaneous notes.
For the overall plan, see this fun tinkercad mockup.
Unboxing
Pretty standard fare here, with the expanding-foam pads at each corner to provide support to the case, which was wrapped in a plastic covering. If it were plastic or brushed aluminium I'd be worried about scuffing, but the powder coat on these panels feels like it's quite hard. and my fears were unfounded. All the gooey fun bits (handle kit, SFX mounting kit) were put inside the case. I also didn't get the PCI-slot cover that a bunch of other people are worried about, but this has been addressed - see quote.
Case
[Todo: glamour shots of all the panels, including the dreaded notch]
Very happy with beige color of panels, not quite the gross smoke-tar-film uv-degraded pukey white from my memories. Which is good. As I said above, the powder coat is robust. It's quite thick and coarse. These things feel industrial or military, and have a satisfying metallic plink when you flick them. Issues - I'm not the only one to note this, but my side panels have a distinct and surprisingly sharp notch (probably from cutting) along their edge. To be honest I only looked because I knew to look for it from a previous thread.
After removing the panels, the interior frame was laid bare [Todo: frame pictures]. Very nice black everywhere, smooth matte finish. Rounded corners! No sharp edges (and I tried to find some). Overall really high quality. However, there are always complaints!
Firstly, I was missing a screw(!) in my case. It comes assembled with many countersunk holes already filled with these delightful tiny little screws. So I used one of the screws provided to make sure my case wasn't going to fall apart on me.
Second, I am worried about the amount of flex in the rear of the case before IO panel, rear adapter (psu or no psu) and GPU are installed. Specifically at the top end of the PCI slots, right underneath the IO/rear adapter. My case was a little bent there out of the box. Perhaps a target for revision or packing support. It's fine now that there is hardware installed which add rigidity to the rear of the case.
Third, some of the the ball-pin things are loose, but they can be hand-tightened back into place. I don't expect them to cause any issues but it's a bit of a downer that they are so loose.
That's all I can remember now... taking requests.
Building [todo - LOTS OF PICTURES]
Due to the lack of sharp edges, ability to remove all the panels with ease, and the lack of any top panel in the frame, building in the case was really quite easy. But I'm new to the SFF world, and some lessons were learned.
Lesson 1: If using the SFX PSU adapter which includes the short fancy power cord, you must first thread the entire cord through the rear cutout. I had it all setup before I realized I had done that out of order.
Lesson 2: Install the handle plate / handle last. If you do what I did in lesson one, you'll need to remove the cord from your PSU and pull it out. TURNS OUT, you cannot do this when you have the handle plate installed. The gap between the SFX PSU and the handle plate is too small to remove the cord.
Lesson 3: Those tiny ass screws are too damn small. I consider myself pretty diligent, but I lost one, and because I had to use another one to fill in the missing frame screw, I was then down two screws. They don't give you extra, and as of right now I can't screw in and secure the rear power plug.
Lesson 4: I knew this and ignored it when planning, but the motherboard standoffs are very firmly affixed to the tray. I'm using an ITX build and don't really need the extra ones. if they start to get in the way of radiators and what-not, I'll have to try and rip them off. I hope it doesn't come to that. Remains to be seen.
Day 0 End
I'm very tired and wanted to play some videogames with friends tonight. I expect to have time for fitment and a dryrun of watercooling this weekend/next week. Will take loads of pics then. For now I leave you with this (shoutout to @MarcParis who loves LEDs). The CM Hyper 212 is hilarously large, and until I set up all the waterblocks I won't be able to close the side panel. Forgive the dust, this guy has been sitting on a cardboard mat on the floor of my room since June waiting for this case. I'm so excited!
Day 1
Hoo boy, am I glad you guys provided a CAD file for me to test fit things... It's quite snug! Today was fun, as I spent the afternoon shoving all the watercooling bits inside the case. Additionally, removing stock heatsinks, throwing liquid metal on everything, and slapping on the waterblocks. Haven't tried turning it on yet because it's near midnight and if I see a problem now I'll be up until three fixing it.
Actually I'm super exhausted so instead of a novel like Day 0, have an imgur album.
Once again building in the case is a pleasant experience since it is so dang open. I've added several shots of how bendy the panels can be - check the WIP imgur album. I can only hope that work fatigue of the powder coat / panels themselves is not something I will have to worry about during the lifetime of the case.
Todo:
Custom length/sleeved cables, either myself or paying to avoid the hand cramps.
Find a few missing screws for GPU backplate and case power
Wash out rads and blocks
Bend tubes (hurk)
Leak test
Acquire side panel window (lookin at you @KSliger)
Finished?
Day 25??? Ho Ho Ho!
So the end of the year always ends up being a flurry of work and I have little to no time for recreational pursuits like this monster. A few spare moments in the last few weeks were spent bending, but I ended up throwing most of my gear in my car and taking it to the parents' house.
The Todo above has been remedied - mostly because I was really tired of having no primary pc to putz around with. So all the dreams of custom sleeving and nice bends and what not are delayed! I plan on redoing everything with nicely sleeved cables and cleaner bends after we see how great the noctua sterox fans are in january.
With these ugly bends and only 2 fans working out of three (I forgot to bring my fan cables!), this thing is dead quiet and I have yet to get my GPU over 40c (ambient temp ~27). Merry Christmas!
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