DD's Cooler Master Cosmos S

[mrw1986]

Originally Posted by DanishDevil

Will do once I'm actually at home with the case

And I've got a motherboard on RMA, sold my RAM, two pairs of RAM on the way, traded my video card for another 3870, and am buying a new PSU. Needless to say, I won't be up and running for a little while, so my focus for now shifts to finals, and in two weeks, it's all the Cosmos S, baby

Too many combinations of "R", "A", and "M" AHHHH

[DanishDevil]

I know! The worst part was that when I first typed it, I fumbled on like every one of those!

Come on guys, let's hear some suggestions for me! Anyone have any ideas? I'm toying with replacing all the mesh on the case with hex, but I don't know how that would look...

[MKmods]

Here is a shot showing the metalic black on my modded 8800GTs mounting plates (originally were chrome)


PS: careful using the mesh, the small hole version you have only lets about 41% of air through (the modders mesh I use is 79%, looks like more but only 79%)

[mrw1986]

Wow those black Accelero S1 look amazing! Its a shame I ordered the silver iandh custom ramsinks...otherwise I would have painted my accelero's black!

[MKmods]

Originally Posted by mrw1986

Wow those black Accelero S1 look amazing! Its a shame I ordered the silver iandh custom ramsinks...otherwise I would have painted my accelero's black!

they are 10X nicer than the silver versions.

It took a bit of work to clean off the coating on the fins first. If you do paint like this make sure to use a VERY light coat of Lacquer paint (much thinner than enamel)

[DanishDevil]

WOW. That color is absolutely amazing. That looks like exactly what I'm looking for. And the S1s look sweet!

[SirKeldon]

More mods, more pics ... MORE!!!!

Looks good dude, keep up the good work!

ps: sure you heard that "more" recently

[intel igent]

Originally Posted by mrw1986

Wow those black Accelero S1 look amazing! Its a shame I ordered the silver iandh custom ramsinks...otherwise I would have painted my accelero's black!

could be a nice contrast the silver/black

[MKmods]

My lighting sucks, outside or with proper lighting 9not fluorescent) they really look sweet.
Add a couple of coats of clear (I didnt use clear) and they really stand out

[DanishDevil]

Sweet. You think it's a little much to paint the interior with?

What I might do is do all of the interior and bare alum with it, and do some coats of semigloss or dull clear on the inside of the case, and accents like the PCI brackets with gloss.

[intel igent]

Originally Posted by DanishDevil

Sweet. You think it's a little much to paint the interior with?

What I might do is do all of the interior and bare alum with it, and do some coats of semigloss or dull clear on the inside of the case, and accents like the PCI brackets with gloss.

i painted my complete rig with that kind of paint personally i love it.

@ Mk : i found this stuff in a spray can at canadian tire that you spray on the paint and it dissolves it almost immediately, i used it to take the powdercoat off of my edelbrock performerRPM, works mint! only problem is i dont recall the name insta-strip or something like that good show painting the pci brackets

[MKmods]

Originally Posted by DanishDevil

Sweet. You think it's a little much to paint the interior with?

What I might do is do all of the interior and bare alum with it, and do some coats of semigloss or dull clear on the inside of the case, and accents like the PCI brackets with gloss.

I am modding another Rosewill case (for my personal comp) I went with flat black interior with the metallic black for accent pieces (AC Freezer top, tops of the acceleros and PCI plates), so far it looks pretty cool.

[DanishDevil]

Time to tear down the case!

After undoing the rear thumbscrew and removing the top panel, which I already modded a bit, two screws later and you can remove the entire front panel ports and power plate:



Then, I began removing the tool-less 5.25" doo-hickys. They are actually extremely easy to remove. You just slide them to the side.

This is how they look from the back:



They consist of quite a few little parts. The two springs make sure that the lock disengages. The blue piece has metal pins in it that are depressed into where screws would normally go, and the housing is smoked:



The white thing you saw in the middle is a type of gear mechanism that makes the audible clicking sound when engaging or disengaging the lock:



Once you take that out, you have the actual button assembly:



Which consists of the button and a spring:





Here are a few shots of the entire assembly and how it is put together:





I plan to take all of the blue pieces out and paint them with UV Orange spraypaint. The buttons will glow brightly, and the blue piece with the pins will glow softly under the smoked housing. It will hopefully turn out really well!

Once I had the top completely removed, I wondered...



Yes, it is possible to fit a quad radiator up top, but you would have to completely modify the top ports and on/off switch.

Now that my curiosity was settled down, I removed the top and bottom handles/feet and was pleasantly surprised to see that each was labeled with where it belonged:



Now for a few pictures of what's left so far:





Now came the most frustrating part of the teardown. The plastic side pieces. They are all held to the aluminum bare frame by tabs. You know, the ones that you had to pry open with a screwdriver on your friend's Dell to get the front panel off...

It took me a good hour to get both of them off. I swear they try to make it as hard as possible. I really don't have any tips for how to get them off either, except to take off the top screws, bottom tabs, front tabs, then back tabs and slide it off.

I was much too frustrated to take pictures of that process, although if I were recording video of it, I'm sure you would have all gotten a nice kick out of it.

Here's what's left:



From the front:



Right side:



From behind:



Bottom of the case:



Also, it is worth noting that the front also has its own separate plastic piece which contains the little clicky tab-catcher things (I bet you don't know what they're called!) to secure the "wings" that the bay covers click into. Here's that part with all the tool-less modules and a piece that is used to screw the handles into for strength:



Here are the side panels finally off:



And a few shots of the tab that I snapped off because I had to use such force to get those dang things off:





Next, I took a closer look at that center front plastic piece. They used a piece of mesh on the area below the last 5.25" bay to keep the look consistent. There is actually space behind this, and you could very easily mount an MCP355 or a HDD here (although there isn't any airflow in this area):





It's just laid over plastic. I might cut out that plastic and just have the mesh there...I'm not really sure what I can/should do in that area.

Moving onto those side panels, there is also a similar mesh styling on the back ends of them:





These were tough to get out. The way Cooler Master inserts these is with small tabs that go through little minuscule holes, and are then bent beyond reach:



Only way to get these out without damaging them is to try to use pliers to bend the tabs straight, then pull the entire piece out like so:



This is how messed up the tabs become:



And what you'll do to the plastic when you try to get them out:



I've got a good plan for these areas. I am going to mask off everything but the area under the mesh, and use the same UV Orange paint here. Either that, or I'll cut the area out, and maybe a bit of the UV Orange fans' light will shine through.

As far as other plans, I am trying to decide whether or not to cut out the hex for where the fans are, and am toying with the idea of painting more than just the bare aluminum. One thing I will not paint is the side panels, as they are a dark gray brushed aluminum.

I want to incorporate a metallic dark gray, probably on the interior. UV Orange paint will be used for a few accents, and UV Orange fans will be placed throughout.

I have a Black Ice Xtreme Triple Radiator "on order" with fitseries3 for me to put up top.

I want any and all of your suggestions, thoughts, concerns, and questions! Cutting plans begin tomorrow!

Also, this case is inspired by/will be done around this:

[DaedalusHelios]

That disassembly looks like it must have been time consuming.

[DanishDevil]

Took me probably four hours to get it down to just bare metal. I didn't cut myself once, though!

[tzitzibp]

looks like a canvas ready to paint on....
keep us posted...

(I think I ´ll strip mine down and start over!)

[DanishDevil]

Not painting quite yet. I'm going to be doing some cutting first

DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS arrived today:

[DanishDevil]

Stuck it in the bare Cosmos S.

Red rectangles are places that I plan to cut. Probably closer to under the motherboard, though.

[tzitzibp]

COOL looking board.... I'm sure it performs even better!
As for the layout, and cutting you have everything well planned..... Cable management should be perfect!

[DanishDevil]

Thanks man! Just wait until I get some pictures of this thing under UV lights

I'm hoping for somewhere around 400+ FSB out of it. I'll see.

I hope the PNY XLR8's are D9s, too.

Also, my plan for the 8-pin and 24-pin:

Sleeve individual cables until they're behind the motherboard tray with UV Orange. Then, once they're behind, sleeve every 4 wires so it's not a huge snake behind the tray, since there isn't a whole lot of room back there.

Also, what should I use to cut holes like that? I don't want to warp the alum...

[tzitzibp]

maybe you don't have to drill square holes.... or you can drill along the path of the rectangles and then just file down the pointing edges...

another way is to use a hard nail to puncture enough holes around the space you want removed, so it easily breaks off and then file the rough edges down...

I am sure you'll figure something out, though!

[Master_of_Time]

Nice work man! I removed the the plastic mesh from the top like you did and now I'm planning on replacing the mesh with plexi, but with mounting and vent holes for the big fan. It's not too loud for me so I'll keep it. I think I'll paint it in UV green/red and the sleeving of my my PSU. I won't cut the mo/bo tray because I feel that the holes are enough, at least for me. Again, nice work! When I start modding my beast I'll make a thread and I *hope* that I'll have some decent camera by that time. Again, nice work!

[DanishDevil]

Thanks man! I should hopefully have some more pictures up soon. My DTek Fuzion and BIX240 should have shipped today, and I went paint hunting today...I need to find a local hobby store, though...

[Master_of_Time]

Check in an specialized artist/painters shop or whatever it was called. Try to imagine my face when I saw A.C. Ryan UV paint in a shop like that - "supplies for artists"...

[Eclecticos]

Great job with the mesh. . Has the clean look
Can't wait to see more.