Why you shouldn't go cheap on PC case?

Today we will talk about PC cases. I sometimes scroll through some groups and messageboards, where people ask for help with making a parts list for their new rig. And there's a lot of "good guys" ready to "help out" dropping their lists like crazy. And I look at those and wonder if I should burn my eyesockets inside out, or just disconnect from the Web forever. "But why?" you ask? Well, about cases that are in those setups. It looks like Zalman Z3 Plus is just a perfect case for every rig out there. Don't get me wrong, Z3 Plus is a decent chasis. In it's price point. In line with the budget for a rig. But it's not a good choice for a 5 000 USD setup! And that kind of "advice" are all over Polish web, everyday! 

Zalman Z3 Plus [zalman.com]

I think that those "advisors" have their low-end rigs in those Zalman cases and that's the only case they know. Apart those before-2005 grey bricks. And there is nothing wrong with their rigs. Case is matching the rest of parts, they got something of better quality than before, so they recommend it. They are happy with it, after all, so why not to recommend it? In the same way, if someone drove a falling-apart, old car for most of their life, and now got a Smart, they will recommend a Smart to everyone. They like driving their new car, it has it's perks - so it has to be the best car ever, right? And here's the core of this issue, because when he gets into a real car ;) it will open his eyes. I think it's the same with computer cases.

Anyone still has one of these? ;) [overclock.net]

Therefore in situation I described here, we have parts for a lot of cash put into a 30$ case. Most expensive part will be a GPU, for sure. And the most surprising about it, is the fact it's the fastest part to age. But things that will age longer and you should invest your money in is usually ommited. Quite literally, becasue when you look at those part lists, you will see that the case is on the end. Usually there's 25-35 bucks left in the budget, so they slap that Z3 Plus or plastic Gladius M20 and post it, the faster the better, because there is bunch of "helpers" like that, who might post a part list with a GPU from a manufacturer I don't like! 

Corsair Graphite 760T Arctic White [corsair.com]

So why you should care and invest into better cases? I'll start with a point I have mentioned already - you will have to swap your GPU once per 2-3 years, to keep up with new games. CPU? Once per 5 years, maybe longer. Similar with the RAM. Storage drives? PSUs? You can use them as long as they don't show any sign of incoming failure. Especially PSUs - some come with 7 years warranty, for free. And today's post hero - a case. That's a piece of hardware that won't get used up, if it's decent quality. Worst case scenario - case fans will fail and you will have to swap them. But, truth to be told, first thing to do when you get a Z3 Plus, you will have to dish out 15-30 bucks to get some decent fans. Unless you want to piss off your family a bit with the noise. 

Corsair Carbide 900D [corsair.com]

I won't get deep into aesthetics - it's a matter of taste. Everyone will like something else. One thing is universal - the better quality of materials used, the better case will look like. And that's a fact. 

The easiest flaw of cheap cases is building comfort. I built rigs in Gladius M20, Z3 Plus. I've built some in Fractal Design Define R4 and Define S. I had some better SilentiumPC or Corsair cases in my hands. There is a lot of detail, which will make building a rig in a cheaper case a horror. Things like location of cable grommits, space behind motherboard tray, way of assembling some parts or cable management elements.

NZXT H440 [nzxt.com]

Other topic is build quality and durability. It's simple - some cases will bend when you put parts in them. A 100kg guy fell on my friend's Define R4. They glued the front panel back in place (hooks broke off) and... he got back to using his PC. Steel structure and thick steel sidepanels protected his rig just fine! 

Fractal Design Define R5 Black Window [fractal-design.com]

On top of all those points there are details that have impact on the overall work comfort with your PC - case stability, sound dampening, anti-vibration. You won't find those things in a cheaper case, and it's hard to appreciate it, if you haven't experienced it before. 

To sum this up - buying a better case is basically one of the best investments you can make when you buy a new rig. A good case will serve you for years to come. For example, it's better to rather take that 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB, but get a better case, instead of having to replace it in two years. And you can always get more RAM with the next paycheck! ;) Sure, that advice is not applicable if we're talking about low-end systems. There are limits of performance-per-dollar which you should not cross, especially for lower end systems. In those events you will have to save some money on a case for example. Just be considerate and keep a healthy performance-per-dollar balance :)

How to make your old laptop work faster?

Do you have an old laptop lying around, but using it is just a pure nightmare? OS boots up long enough so you can grab a dinner? Everything works slowly and you can't just enjoy using your laptop? Usually it's not the fault of older and less powerful hardware. Sometimes it just takes a little upgrade to make it less painful to use it. I'll show you what I did with my Wife's laptop :)

I upgraded an old Lenovo Y550 (Intel T4200, GeForce GT 130M and 4GB of RAM). Apart from laptop :) you will need a few other things: an SSD drive (such as Crucial BX100 250GB), a drive caddy for second drive, some thermal  paste, thermopads, isopropanol, microfibre cloth or coffee filter, a can of compressed air, a screwdriver.

Main things needed to speed your laptop up :)

Step one - swapping your HDD for SSD. Difficulty: your five year old can do this. 

You will only need a screwdriver and an SSD for this step. We're going to do a really simple thing. Turn your laptop over, take out the battery and open up a small panel where the HDD is hidden. Usually it's somewhere on the edge, has it's own compartment. Now just move the drive to the side, disconnecting it and take it out, swap the drive in the bracket for your brand new SSD and put it back in the slot.

Thats how disconnected HDD looks like. Please, don't mind the rest of the hardware :P

Now just assemble it back. You will have to install a new OS on the drive - you can do that with a DVD drive if your laptop has one, or install from a USB stick. I'll install Windows 7 Pro x64 with a pendrive. It's good to have all the drivers somwhere around for the OS you want to install. You will find those on the manufacturer's website. You can just copy them to separate folder on a pendrive with OS installation on it and just use them after the installation.

SSDs are a lot faster than old platter HDDs, especially if you compare them to those lower end drives that are installed in laptops. You will notice a considerable shorter boot time and all of your apps will launch faster. Overall comfort of using your laptop will be higher.

And that's how a new SSD looks in laptop's drive bracket

Step two - putting the old drive back into the laptop. Difficulty: Your five year old will need a hand. 

Okay, we swapped the old and slow, but higher capacity (320, 500, 750 or even 1000GB) HDD for a faster, but smaller SSD. Currently the most cost effective are 250GB SSDs. So how do you get more space for your files? How to preserve the files from the old drive? We will put it back into the laptop, of course, but in other place ;). There is a DVD drive in a laptop which you can see on pictures in this post, but it stopped working a long time ago. We don't need it. So we will put our old HDD in that place. 

To do that you will need a laptop drive caddy, which you can get in some PC hardware stores. I got mine from online auction for just a few bucks ;) Small note - those caddies come in two thickness, depending on the DVD you have. Just be sure to measure it beforhand - it's either 12,7 or 9,5mm. Be sure to check the connections too - both the one that connects the drive to caddy, and caddy to laptop in place of the DVD. In most cases it should be a SATA - SATA interface, but it's better to avoid making a mistake :) In my case I needed a 12,7mm caddy. Put your old HDD in the caddy, make sure it's connected properly and you can screw it into place. 

Old HDD in a caddy

Now you will have to take the DVD out. Take the panel covering main compartment off (in some laptops you will have to find the panel closest to DVD) and find a single screw that holds the DVD bracket in place. Unscrew it and use your screwdriver to push the DVD out of the bay. Now take that small holding piece off the DVD and put it on your caddy, put caddy in the place of DVD and screw it. Usually you will get a masking frame for the caddy, so it won't look like your laptop got smashed ;D You can now format your old OS partition.

You've got two drives in your laptop now - fast SSD for your OS and apps and slower, but with more capacity HDD for other files. If you want to finish up on this step, it's a great time to clean the cooling fan. Grab a can of compressed air and dust off the fan. Just be sure to hold it in place so it won't spin around.

Step three - changing thermal paste. Difficulty: Find your five year old something else to do.

The next step usually needs you to completly disassemble your laptop. If you don't know how to do it, but are willing to learn - look for a disassembly video or a guide for your particular laptop model. Many laptops will be similar to disassemble, but there usually are some differences, that are good to know before you will want to throw your hardware out of the window.

When you finally get to the cooling system, you will have to unscrew it from motherboard. Take notice how the screws are numbered - it's the order you should screw them. Unscrew them in the same order or backwards. In case of laptops that are few years old, you will find some kind of fossil that was a thermal paste once.

Fossil on cooling system

Use a coffee filter or microfibre cloth and isopropanol to remove the old paste from CPU and GPU. Now do the same with copper plates on cooling system elements.

Next thing to do is swap old thermopads, which will help to move heat from the chipset and power delivery components of CPU and GPU. Look how they are arranged on cooling plates and compare that to elements on your motherboard. Use alcohol and fibre cloth/coffee filter to clean those elements. Cut out pieces of thermopad from a fresh strip (use scissors) and put them in place with tweezers. Now remove old pads from cooling plates, and clean those spots with alcohol. Last thing to do is to reapply thermal paste on CPU and GPU and put the whole cooling system back together :) It's a good time to dust off he cooling fan or radiators too.

Shiny! :D

Summary

After all those steps you not only sped  up OS booting, apps launching and you have more disk capacity in your laptop, but you also improved it's thermals and made it quieter by reapplying thermal paste and removing all the dust from cooling system. There is nothing else to do but brew yourself a cup of tea or coffe or open a beer and just enjoy your rejuvenated laptop :)

Nothing makes me more happy than clean and functioning electronics :)

Those are not the only things you can do to make your laptop feel like a brand new one. You could swap out or put more RAM sticks in there. I didn't do it, as this laptop has both of it's memory banks occupied, and it doesn't support more than 4GB anyway. This is even simplier to do than swapping the HDD to SSD, but be sure to check for compatibility and get the right RAM sticks. In many cases you can even swap the CPU. It is cost effective if your laptop has a lower end CPU from it's gen. You could increase it's efficiency or find a similar CPU that draws less power, so it will generate less heat. Every laptop is uniqe so if you're looking for a new CPU for it, make sure you know what motherboard and chipset you got and be mindful about cooling efficiency your laptop can provide. Lower end laptops usually have CPUs soldered to the motherboard and you will not be able to upgrade it.

It all comes down to cash you are willing to dish out for upgrading and what expectations towards your hardware you have. If you own an older high or mid end laptop, it will usually be more cost-effective to upgrade it rather than get a new lower end one.

Cable management - excessive pedantry or a good practice?

Cable management is one of those particular discussion topics among PC users. Especially when it comes to the insides of a case. And cable management inside of a case is the topic of this short article.

When a discussion about cable management starts somewhere in Interwebz, two sides form up almost instantly. One is showing off their cable managed systems and the other says how much they don't care about it, that it's a waste of time and generally that it's just bollocks not worth their attention. I'm not gonna lie here - I'm mostly in the first group ;) 

So what speaks for spending a few moments to arrange your cables in the case? There are a few points actually and effects can be surprising sometimes. 

Airflow

In most cases, the way in which parts are arranged in a PC case, places where power connectors are, makes it that when you connect your power cables via the shortest route, you will end up with a massive cable bundle just in the center of your case. Exactly in the spot where the stream of air is coming from the front case fans. It's a great way to block that airflow, which is needed to deliver room-temperature air to all your components and push the hot air out of the case. If you try hard enough, you can block the airflow and raise those under load temperature of parts by a few Celsius degrees. Higher the temperature is the more trouble it means. On top of that, this web of cables is just perfect for dust to settle on, which will block your airflow even more. 

My first attempts at cable management, and effects are already showing :)

Ergonomics

Have you ever wanted to pull your hard drive or optical drive out of the case but cables blocked it? Or you couldn't plug a new drive, because entangled and ziptied cable couldn't reach it? And that's just the tip of an iceberg. Cables winding everywhere around your case makes doing any work inside of it a real drag. If your cables are neat and out of the way, you can easily find needed plugs to install a new hardware and it makes it easier to dust everything off. 

Aesthetics

Bundles of wires don't look pleasing at all. It usually matters only if you've got a window in your case side panel, but even if your beast's belly is hidden most of the time, it's good to make it look good for just that few moments when someone will look inside of it ;) 

So where to start?

So how do you actually go about cable management inside of your case? For beginners, the best option is to think about it as soon as you start picking your parts. Pick a case that allows you to easily  arrange cables and a power supply that has long cables. Bonus points if it's modular. Even if you just hide your cables behind the motherboard tray, it will be a gamechanger, and that's just the beginning of the long way to cablemanaged zen garden ;]

It doesn't mean that you can't cable manage a rig that isn't perfectly adapted for it. You will gain the skill and experience eventually, and guys (& gals ;)) that are really good at it can even cable manage those old IDE straps ;) I strongly encourage you to make some research on the Internetz - you can find awesome work, which might inspire you to how to go about cable management in your rig. 

It was harder back in the day ;) [Source: techwarelabs.com]