If you’ve read my review of the Eye-T Ecute PC case then you’ll already know that I think highly of this case. However it does have its quirks and there are things that I’ve learnt that I would like to share with you all. That’s what this article is all about…

Introduction

If you are unfamiliar with this PC case then please read my review of it first – Review: Eye-T eCute Small Form Factor Case. I bought the case as a Small Form Factor case to build a dedicated portable LAN gaming PC. The case is small and cube shaped and it comes with a convenient inbuilt carry handle on the front. All in all it is very well designed and as such it received a good review on mods-n-clocks back in May, however being SFF makes it more difficult to work with and as such I have suggestions to make owning one a little easier.

Note that some of my suggestions involve modifying the case or other components, this will invalidate the warranties of those components and is performed entirely at your own risk.

Installing expansion cards the easy way!

First off is a little bit of advice that requires no actual modifications but may not initially be obvious. Due to the case design, the PSU sits directly above the expansion slots (PCI, AGP or PCIe) of the motherboard. This means that the cards cannot simply be lifted up and out of the slot. Most people realise that a small card can be squeezed in sideways after removing the side panel but this is not suitable for larger cards like graphics cards. It also will not allow you to fit a securing screw for the card.

This leaves you with the option of sliding out the motherboard tray which would be OK except that you’ll need to bring it out a distance equal to the length of the card to be installed and it’s unlikely that all the cables to the motherboard will stretch that far. These cables may be unplugged but by this point you’ve nearly dismantled the entire PC just to add a card and if you’ve applied any sort of cable management all this will have to be re-done on rebuilding. What a load of hassle.

So what’s my solution I hear you say. Well it’s pretty simple really, rather than moving the motherboard, just move the PSU. I’ve bought some case thumb screws from a suitable PC supplies outlet and replaced the PSU holding screws with some of these. I decided to buy this pack of 50 from Maplins but there are loads available from other places in all sorts of colours and designs.

The only cable you need to disconnect is the one from your house mains socket to your power supply the rest should be able to stay in place if you haven’t tied them down too tightly at the PSU end. Once you’ve removed the PSU mounting screws all you have to do is lift the PSU away and find somewhere to rest it. If the cables reach far enough the top of the DVD drive is a good place. You should now be able to access the expansion cards with no problem at all.

Pointers for neat cable management

As with all SFF cases, cable management is a bit of a black art. There really isn’t a lot of spare space to work with and the motherboard has probably been laid out with a tower ATX case in mind. Add to this the fact that this case has three windows and all your mess of cables will be visible from at least one direction if not all three.

If you haven’t yet bought the components to go inside the case or you have some money available to spend replacing some of what you do have this will definitely benefit you. For a start having a modular power supply will help immensely. If you don’t have a modular power supply then you could do what I have done and chop off any connectors and cabling that’s excess to requirements. The problem here is that you can’t put them back on again and you have to be extra careful not to have exposed wires remaining as these could short out against something. I cut mine down to size close to the final required molex connector and then used some superglue to cover the ends and act as insulation. If you find at a later date that you need more connectors, then you could add extenders such as these ones from Hiper.

To aid your cable management further try to avoid the use of IDE connections as the flat IDE ribbon cables and even the rounded cables are much bulkier than the preferred SATA cables. Also try not to fit more hardware in the case than you actually need. If you can factor in buying a motherboard that has good inbuilt BIOS fan control features then you can avoid needing to fitting a fan controller. If you can manage with just one optical drive and one hard drive then that too will also help. I’ve even taken this further by putting my hard drive in a 5.25″ adapter so that I don’t need the right side 3.5″ caddy at all. I think right angled SATA cables would be of benefit here too.

Your motherboard connectors for the front panel (Audio, USB, Firewire and LED/Switches) should be able to be routed underneath the motherboard for tidiness. Just unscrew the motherboard lift up the edge and slide them underneath. Alternatively if space allows you may be able to neatly route these cables alongside the motherboard edge. If you don’t need front mounted Firewire then you can remove this cable completely from the case fascia, just unplug it and put aside for storage in case your plans change.

Your HDD and Optical drive power cables don’t have to travel very far from the PSU in this case, so you can bundle these wires up to keep them tidy. The main 20/24 pin motherboard power and the SATA data cables can be routed together and will be highly visible so make sure at least the 20/24 pin cable is braided or wrapped and the SATA data cables are at least of the same colour, preferably have a case colour theme.

Finally there’s available dead space just under the power supply on the processor side and any cables that can be bundled here will be a little hidden. There’s also potentially some dead space under the 5.25″/3.5″ drive bays depending on what you have installed in the bays.

Colour Co-ordination for the best look

I’m assuming that you’ve bought or are interested in a windowed case like this because you want it too look good. After all this isn’t an introvert in the PC cases world, some won’t like the design but all will admit it’s anything but boring.

So lets maximise its potential with a bit of colour co-ordination. It comes with a blue LCD temperature display but I’ve already shown that can be replaced – see my article Modding: LCD Temperature Display for ecute uATX case. These replacement LCD displays come in a range of colours so take your pick.

Then buy some LED fans of the same colour, one to replace the 120mm at the rear, one to fit in the spare bay in the front and even one to replace your PSU fan if you’re feeling brave. I did this with my PSU for this build and I’ll try to get around to writing an article on ‘how to’.

If you are feeling in a really co-ordinated mood then follow my lead and get a motherboard of the same colour and some memory with appropriately coloured heatspreaders. Soon I’ll be adding a red graphics card with a red LED heatsink and fan just to top it off!

Enhance the cooling potential

This is one that is mostly theory to me as I haven’t had a chance to try it out myself yet. My graphics card when overclocked (7900GS @ 580/860) reaches 94°C but when I remove the side panel this drops to 76°C on the same torture test. So I suspect that putting some ventilation holes or slots in the side panel will help bring the temperature of a graphics card down substantially.

This ventilation mod has now been completed – please see following post Modding: Ventilating the Eye-T eCute case windows

The other place where ventilation is lacking in this case is at the front. The 80mm intake fan really struggles to bring fresh cool air into the case from the front. My plan here is to remove the handle and cut out the area behind it, finally fitting some aluminium mesh to finish it off. A new handle will probably be added if there’s still space as I do like having a handle.

Popularity: 6% [?]