[1ceTr0n]

Well I wasn't happy with the original wiring job and I had some new fans to install so I set back to work tonight to make everything interior wise better.


As I said, the stock Cooler Master 120mm fans do move good air but they are loud as hell and its nothing I can stand with this case sitting next to me and try to web surf, email, work and listen to music with those twin turbines spinning. So, out they went and I replaced with with the now rare and no longer made AP-13 from Gentle Typhoons. Good airflow and MUCH more quieter at their stock 1150 RPM. I had to look all around the web for a single extra AP-13 as they are now discontinued, sad day.





As stated earlier, I wasn't happy with out loose my optical drive was in the tooless drive bay in the XB so I wanted to see if I could do anything about it. The snap on adapters come off easily so you can screw drives or adapters into that side, but the other side has no attachment point.




Anything you put into the 5.25'' bays is held by nothing but tension bars from the steel cage itself on the right side. Well, with a moments bit of thinking, I simply flexed them inwards more by about 1/4'', put bay toolless clips back on and slipped my optical drive back in and now it fits very nice and snug, no modding required!







In case you were wondering/worried about my HDD sitting on that bare steel surface, I'm using a trick I thought up a few years ago for my old case. Using some very soft silicon grommets from my old Antec Sonata 2, I use heavy double sided tape and attached to the bottom of drive. This all but eliminates any noise and vibration into the case itself and works just as well in the HAF XB.






Some day im gonna have a fully modular PSU so I have no excess cables to deal with ever again. But thankfully, the XB with all its awesome crevices, nooks and wire tie downs, I can deal with it.




Again, the ability to make clean wiring in this case is just beyond easy and simple. I decided to route my GPU power leads into the front for a cleaner appearance instead of the mobo tray. Also redid all the SATA and fan cabling for cleaner look and this case makes is so easy, its actually fun to see how clean you can make your cables with this sucker!





The outside steel amazingly is a finger print/oil magnet on this case, so i'm constantly wiping it down after handling it. I decided to continue with my ROG color theme for now and added some simple outside bling to the case. I'll later be installing a window on the top panel and possibly more lighting along with painting some parts and adding plastic washers to the thumbscrews. I may look into replacing the Dark Knight for the new Night Hawk edition or possibly a Corsair H80i for the fun of it. The case is MUCH quieter with the Gentle Typhoon AP-13's and I dont bother removing the front benzel to dust, its a pain. I just use a swifter duster every other day and wallah, no more dust on front panel! I have other others floating in my head but for now, i'm a happy camper!