The art of neat chassis cabling

[Taz]

I've read a few reviews of cases and several have mentioned the routing of system cables 'around the back'. That is over the other side of the case - the side that the motherboard is attached to. Now, i'm no expert on building PCs but i've built a few over the years. As far as I am concerned you get a bunch of cables from the PSU and the case itself and you plug them in somewhere. Excess cables are tucked into a spare drive bay, out of the way. Occasionally i've tied a cable to a beam or tied a bunch of cables together to make the cabling look a bit neater.

Could someone explain in more details the art of routing cables behind the motherboard side of the case? I can see that this would lead to neater cabling but have never seen this done or read up on how to do it.

[merple]

Basically, its as it says on the tin.
The fat psu cables and other stuff are behind the motherboard. So you have less things in the way of airflow in front of the board.
You will need a case with space behind the board though, otherwise you will have trouble putting the panel on.
Pics in this thread should help:
silentpcreview.com | View topic - My new PC! (P182 + Seasonic + Nexus)

[this_is_gav]

Yeah, it's only gonna happen if you have the space (and sufficiently long cables). My Lian-Li PC75 only just has enough of a gap for the PSU cable, and it makes it a touch tougher to slide that side back on. I can't do this with my case at work (~£30 Antec something or other), and it's not a very deep chassis either, so it's a nightmare to route cables anywhere. It's frankly impossible to manage cables in it.

[peterb]

....... but i've built a few over the years. As far as I am concerned you get a bunch of cables from the PSU and the case itself and you plug them in somewhere. Excess cables are tucked into a spare drive bay, out of the way. Occasionally i've tied a cable to a beam or tied a bunch of cables together to make the cabling look a bit neater.

.

I recognise that description! The problem is that most PSUs have cable long enough to suit all but the most extreme situations, which means that they are too long for the majority of uses. The only real solution is to cut them to length and re-terminate them, but that isn't a trivial task, and then means the PSU can't be used elsewhere. Drive cables are another poblem - eased by SATA, but again unless they are cut to length and routed properly, they still dangle, and ribbon cables (IDE, floppy, SCSI) are even harder to manage. (Although the ribbon cable formed into round sleebing helps) There are other aids like spiral wrap or mesh sleeving that can help keep cable together, as do tie wraps to keep a wiring loom together or fasten to some kind of (usually self adhesive) tie down.

The cases where cable management is built inn (or at least considered) seem to offer a better solution, but then the danger is that the PSU cables are too short to reach round the back of the mobo and over the top. (The coolermaster CM690 looks quite a good case for cable management, reading the Hexus review)

So there isn't an easy answer to the question, unless you are prepared to start making mads to the PSU power cable, and getting custom cable made for connecting ther internal components.

[Colossous]

You could also shorten and sleeve + heat shrink your fan cables and then theres creating stealth covers from something like acrylic or aluminium mesh as i did with my last build (between the 3.5" bays) :-

[Gordy]

This a good guide a bit old now, but has some great ideas for cleaning up cabling:



Its a big pdf but well worth the download.

[Funkstar]

This a good guide a bit old now, but has some great ideas for cleaning up cabling:

PDF

Its a big pdf but well worth the download.

Linking of PDFs is a bit broken with the new vB code as it can't pull a header tag from them. URL fixed in the quote

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Linking of PDFs is a bit broken with the new vB code as it can't pull a header tag from them. URL fixed in the quote

link still dont work

[Taz]

Some great advice there. I shall try out this method of cable management when I get my new bits from Scan.

[Funkstar]

link still dont work

Looks like VoodooPC have changed their URLs.

Try this one

[Gordy]

The new vbb code for links is awful. It makes posting them a nightmare. I tried to link to an image the other day and gave up.

[mountainmachine]

Carefull planning of what connectors are needed and where you want things before you put in the mb, so stuff can go behind it etc. cable ties et are a usefull tool.

[dymodan]

I just used some Black Spiral Cable Wrap and used Cable Ties on some of the shorter cables.


To mount the wrapped cables to the case chassis I used Self Adhesive Cable Tie Bases and i'm quite happy with the results.

I included links to the shop i bought em from above which was cheaper than going to a computer shop to get them so hope this helps y'all.

[matty-hodgson]

right.. i dunno the rules on asking questions on other peoples threads or anything.. so if i'm in the wrong here let me know. but what i was wanting to know is;

does anyone know any good cases to buy, and a good PSU to go with this case that would make wire routing very easy.

i believe i have done quite a good job of routing the cables in my current case but my present cables aren't long enough to let me route them very well and the case is also very, very small

[staffsMike]

right.. i dunno the rules on asking questions on other peoples threads or anything.. so if i'm in the wrong here let me know. but what i was wanting to know is;

does anyone know any good cases to buy, and a good PSU to go with this case that would make wire routing very easy.

i believe i have done quite a good job of routing the cables in my current case but my present cables aren't long enough to let me route them very well and the case is also very, very small

Corsair 520W (or 620W) HX whisper + antec P182

Everything routes around the back of the motherboard tray and then feeds back in through select holes to their respective sockets.



You can (and I now have) routed the mobo power cable round the back of the mobo to I just hadn't figured it out at the time

If you fancy just having the sheer amount space to work with and plent of places to hook cable ties then the Akasa Eclipse is very good.



Thats with an OCZ gameXstream but you could use pretty much anything.

[matty-hodgson]

i believe my dad has that top case, the Antec 1.. it's massive, how much would 1 of those cases cost? and is the airflow good through that case?