Silverstone TJ09 - Project Log

[Chewy]

I decided to get new case, the Silverstone tj09... it offer great cooling, thick aluminum & stainless steel chassis with no front door. I also like the race car inspired side vents, they will look good under my desk.

Some modifications will be:

- Painting the motherboard tray and supports black.
- 240mm rad to the top internally and a 120mm rad externally.
- Water cooling the cpu and gpu and using 2 Danger Den CPX1 pumps.
- I might stealth mod my dvd drives, but they dont seem to look to out of place colour wise.
- Adding a Silverstone MFP51 LCD display into a 5.25" drive (when it gets back in stock and they ship it).

Heres some pictures of my case (I'll have to upload them to tpu after).




I'll be painting my motherboard tray and the support beams tonight.

[Chewy]

Primer


Painted one good coat


It still needs another coat, some of the tray looks un-even, but atleast theres no runs since I heated my spraycan up before painting, it sprayed really nicely... this is my 1st time painting with a spray can, its pretty easy just have to make sure you spray in the cracks lightly so you dont have any runs.

[DR.Death]

the only thing is u might have to sand off around your stand offs and the psu so it grounds right because thats how i fried my first board

[Chewy]

Oo cool thanks. I'll sand under my stand offs, I was going to paint my psu bracket but I forgot :P lol its going to look good still without it painted... the guy I got the idea/guide from never painted his.. I was going to paint mine just because but it really dont need to.. I'll have some update pictures soon.

[theonetruewill]

Lovely case mate

[Chewy]

I decided to go a different way to mount my 240mm rad to the top of the case than what most people do with this case.

I thought the normal way people do this would vent most of that hot air back around the top of the case and that would not be good for my rear 120mm rad that I am going to install, or overall case temps in general.


Heres the way people usually mount a radiator to the top exhaust on this case, I found there to be to much of a gap.


So heres what I did after some thinking... you can see the screws ready to screw into the rad.


here you can see it mounted.. theres not much of a gap between the rad and top fans and the fans are in thier casing so the vent the air right out of the case.


heres what it looks like from the top.. I need to paint the washers but atleast I know how Im going to install the top rad now.


If I need more support I can do something about that, but it seems strong enough to support the rad well.

Painted

[Chewy]

I Stealthed one of my drives and added the lcd drive bay thing.. the Stealthing of the drive was easy enough, will see how it opens and closes when I get the build complete.

Im impressed with how nicely it fit under the desk.. I can access my i/o ports easily, something I thought might be an issue, but I can reach a corner of the flip up i/o panel thing.






I also had mounted my rear 120mm rad with some longer screws and some weatherstripping to seal the crack.. had to have a crack for the side panel handle to close properly.

[pt]

inside pics pls
and resize them

[MrPr3f3ct]

It looks good Chewy... Can't wait to see how it progresses. Just a tip for painting mobo trays, if you have some extra case screws (Of the standard variety) screw them into the threaded holes for your standoffs with the heads on the business side of the mobo tray. Paint the tray, let it dry, remove the screws. Presto! No sanding needed.

[Chewy]

good idea MrPerfect! I wasent even sure if I needed to have them really grounded... I seen someone who had links to plastic standoffs lol.

Do I need to ground my mobo tray to the case? I dont really want to sand/grind that down too if I dont really have to... should I?

yeah Nov 6th I should have a shipment comming in with everything I need besides a graphics card.. the 8800gt had a different layout and I sold my gts.. so now Im waiting for the rev.2 GTS.. hopefully my swiftech products fit that! in the meantime I have my old 1900gt.

[MrPr3f3ct]

Originally Posted by Chewy

Do I need to ground my mobo tray to the case? I dont really want to sand/grind that down too if I dont really have to... should I?

Better safe than sorry I guess. You might want to make sure you have at least one small spot where the two make a good connection.

[jasper123]

why would it have to be grounded

[Chewy]

^^ not having your mobo grounded can cause problems and give you a headache trying to sort them out.

[MrPr3f3ct]

Originally Posted by Chewy

^^ not having your mobo grounded can cause problems and give you a headache trying to sort them out.

That's not to say that it absolutely will give you problems, but like the above post states, better safe than sorry... There is a reason mobo companies put some bare metal around the mounting holes. You'll notice there is just enough to contact the head of a standard mounting screw. Some people rely on the power supply to ground the system but if the wiring in the house is older and doesn't provide a seperate ground wire to the outlet, well, you see where this is going....

[wtf8269]

Originally Posted by MrPr3f3ct

That's not to say that it absolutely will give you problems, but like the above post states, better safe than sorry... There is a reason mobo companies put some bare metal around the mounting holes. You'll notice there is just enough to contact the head of a standard mounting screw. Some people rely on the power supply to ground the system but if the wiring in the house is older and doesn't provide a seperate ground wire to the outlet, well, you see where this is going....

I was going to bring up that the PSU does the grounding, but you've brought up a good point mentioning older houses.

The case is looking awesome Chewy! This was one of the cases I was considering getting for my new system.

[Chewy]

Im working on ordering more stuff.. m a perfectionist type person so its difficult lol

I think Im going to get the enermax galaxy 850 watt for $200 after MIR.. because my only other option that Ive come down to is the seasonic m12 700 watt which is $200 + taxes.

the galaxy has alot of rails though I wonder if that will be good for overclocking.. I mean its nice to have the power there for future upgrading, but I'll prob just get a quad core with Nv 9800 graphics card and overclock it.. not sure if a 17 amp 12v rail is enough for overclocking a high end graphics card.. dont the card draw power though the motherboard via 5v rail?

for only a bit more trouble (MIR), I can get the sexy Enermax galaxy.
http://www.enermax.com/english/produ...y1.asp?PrID=59

[MrPr3f3ct]

OK, I'm a little confused. You said you were thinking about getting a nVidia graphics solution but the above link for the power supply is Crossfire (ATI) rated. I would think if you were going with nVidia you would be looking at SLI certified PSU's? Please explain....

[pt]

certification is marketing bullshit, it will give you 0 performance increase in any setup just for being certified

[MrPr3f3ct]

Originally Posted by pt

certification is marketing bullshit, it will give you 0 performance increase in any setup just for being certified

So, a Crossfire certified PSU would power a SLI set-up without any problems?

[pt]

yep
like using a ati card in a sli mobo
no problem at all

[wtf8269]

Have you considered PC Power & Cooling's 750w PSUs? This is the PSU that I will probably be getting.

[Chewy]

yep lol, thanks for the imput though but Im a very picky mofo.. I want the psu to draw air from under my case.... humm picky aint I lol. well my case has enough exaust fans.. Ive looked at them all man :P some dont have ideal sata connectors to my liking elc so far the enermax 850 is perfect cosmetically and with its cables. if I could get a seasonic m12 600 watt in stock I would just get that.. the s12 does not have the right configuration of cables for me... picky picky picky! lol Ive looked at them all, hardly anything is ever perfect to me.

ps: I really was going to get that psu initially.. been looking at it for months and finally hit a time to upgrade.... its on for a great price around here too.. like $170... great price for such a great psu.

[Chewy]

Finally I have just about everything for this build, the rest is in the mail.

I installed sound dampening material throughout the case.. took me all day lots of measuring and fitting.


I'm not doing behind the mobo tray because I want space to put wires back there.

heres the top, it was the 1st part I did.


I also did the front panel and in between that front fan and the harddrive bay to help dampen the sound from my harddrives.


Overall Im happy that I bought this sound dampening stuff. I still have one sheet and lots of little pieces left.. might be enough for a med tower case with side window, if not than a matx case.

[Fitseries3]

awesome case man!!! im getting one soon. how hard would it be to put a 360 rad up top? i know you'd have to mod the case, but other than that, would it fit?

[Chewy]

Ygpm