Helps on New Fans and LED Lights

Hey everyone... It has been a while since I posted as I have been frantically playing every type of game under the sun with this new rig. Here is the review that I posted when I got the rig in November - http://www.digitalstormonline.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=12810

So now I have a few questions as I would like to make this rig a little more appeasing to the eye (although it already is good to look at)...

LED Lights - I only had one set installed at the bottom of the case (which you can see in the review pictures)... So that I stick with the same type, can you just order them from DS? I've been trying to find them online but do not know what type they are? Does anyone have another source they would use? Has anyone used these before - http://www.amazon.com/Logisys-Lazer-Light-Computer-Bright/dp/B001SRGW9M/ref=pd_sim_e_5

I'm thinking of possibly going with a blue and green or blue and red lighting - So want to make sure that I get enough of them to light this case up nice and also install them so that I can turn them on/off (which I cannot do with the ones I have right now). I have never installed these on past rigs but I assume that it would be easy enough a monkey could do it - Just need to try and hide all the wires as well as the DS staff did.

Also - I have been reading a lot of posts about fans - Currently I have the std 230x30 fans and 140x25 on the back... Is there a better way to cool this and look nicer with the increase number of LEDs that I put in? Not being a cooling wiz - would more smaller fans work better? Or would they just create more noise? Clear blades? Any options would be nice!

Last but not least - I have been playing the crap out of MoH (which I enjoy a hell of a lot more than CoD Black Ops) and my video cards are getting to a max of 85-86 for GPU 1 and 87-88 for GPU 2... As they never get higher than this and having rad some posts - this seems to be normal. Thoughts?

Thanx for any help in advance!

JT

Lighting - They're not LEDs, they're cold cathode tubes. Go to microcenter, fry's electronics, whatever, some sort of decent computing store and pick up a few with switches in em (Yours should have switches too, look around the wiring on them for a little red switch). Don't forget to pick up zip ties and adhesive zip tie squares to strap them down to your case.

Fans - Multiple smaller fans is just stupid. Plain stupid. The bigger a fan blade is, the more air it pushes out with less noise. 120mm is the industry standard, 140mms are always nicer and quieter though. It is impossible to increase the number of LEDs on a fan nicely though, you would need to somehow put in more holes in a frame where you can't get the fan blades off anyways, and then wire a LED there, make a molex connector out of them, and wire it to your PSU. Tedious, and not worth it. This is why you use CCFL lights. If you're really desperate, the best you can do is get a LED light strip and strap them all around the outisde of your fan housing.

Fans continued - 230mm is a nonstandard size that the HAF series has. I dunno any good replacements for it. LED fans are not as common as regular fans btw, so the performance options are often very limited compared to regular fans. For example, Scythe GentleTyphoons and Noiseblocker fans are extrreeeeemely awesome fans, but they never have LEDs.

Pleaaase do not order comp aesthetic parts from amazon. Amazon/newegg is just a sort of offhand place to get stuff. IMO, I like FrozenCPU better, much more organized and a bigger selection.

GPUs - Yes, that's normal. The 400 series is just hot like that.

Blue CCFL
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2989/lit-20/12_Cold_Cathode_Kit_Dual_Ready_-_Blue.html?tl=g6c75s132

Green CCFL
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2990/lit-21/12_Cold_Cathode_Kit_Dual_Ready_-_Green.html?tl=g6c75s132

Red CCFL
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2991/lit-22/12_Cold_Cathode_Kit_Dual_Ready_-_Red.html?tl=g6c75s132


Edited by ablahblah - 06 Feb 2011 at 10:46pm