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 Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 15:32 Post subject: Cooler Master Storm Trooper [New Case for Sabin] |
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I got it this morning and the thing is a MONSTER! Nearly 14kg heavy, made out of steel with a plastic and metal top panel, it's glorious! It has tons of space, thumb-screw securing for all the bays and addons, adjustable bay positions, removable bays, it's just amazing.
.... except that the one I got has a slight defect (Sabin Luck®, go!) in that one of the thumb-screws holding one of the adjustable bays is trapped, it won't unscrew and just spins in place  I can't wrench it out of the socket without fear of damaging the chassis itself, so the only option appears to be sawing the thread off from the other side where it protrudes. Goddamn it! I can remove and switch orientation of the bottom HDD bay with the 120mm fan attached, just not the top bay. So it looks like either going to buy a metal saw, or simply having my HDDs cooled via cross-flow side to side and the bottom bay empty with the fan sucking cool air into the case, rather than both fans. Anyhow, I'll throw up some images as I go along 
~edit~
Finally! Pictures are uploaded ... they're monstrously huge (taken from wifey's Xperia Ion) so r-click and open in a new tab to view the full size ones
Side by side! The new Storm Trooper versus the old Lexa. I've removed the side panels and all the front vents, as well as turning around one of the 4xHDD bays, the bottom one. The one above is the cursed one with the thumb-screw that won't come out - so I've just left it. This one has another 120mm intake fan mounted on it just like the bay below, blowing cool air across the HDDs which is definitely needed since they're all bunched together and can get toasty warm. It also helps since the HDDs now have their power and data cables "tidied" (lol...) inside the tidy zone between motherboard plate and side-panel. Handy!
Looks great inside, so many nicely-placed grommets for cable tidying as well as oodles of space for large GPUs. Max length is 330mm (around 13") so yeah, even the 6990 fits in here with room to spare. You can also see an extra (removable) bay with 4 slots for 2.5" drives, such as laptop or SSD. Oh and DAT SMELL! I love new tech smell at the best of times, but this case is tech delicious. Yes.. wifey thinks I'm nuts too  Nothing beats new tech smell or fresh printed manuals (remember those? )
Oh it's going to be fun to tidy these .. and this is before the PSU and HDD cables. Lovely!
That cursed screw! You can even see it all lopsided and shit, taunting me "Haha, screw you.. get it?? Get it?  " Grumble. Oh well, it worked out well in the end since now the HDD cables can be tidied away a little bit cleaner. The bay below it can stay empty in order to improve airflow from the front-facing-intake 120mm.
Front view through the case, you can see the 140mm exhaust at the back... but its existence will be short-lived
It was around about ... HERE ... where I facepalmed and realised that a 140mm exhaust isn't going to work since my h80 only mounts to 120mm fans Shitfuck tittybastard. I really need to research shit more thoroughly, neh? I'm sure there were ways to bodge it, such as mounting the rad directly to the chassis and the 140mm outside at the rear, but egh.
No matter! I'll just mount it to the side panel, I'm sure my GPUs would be grateful of the extra airflow from a 140 instead of a 120.. Oh... oh seriously, come on! Side panel mounts 2x120mm fans but doesn't have holes for a 140mm Nowhere else on the case does it have a 140mm fan mount except rear exhaust, so yeah, that goes back in the box >_> I'll probably use it on the Lexa to replace the 120mm fans I cannibalised from it.
Oh well, time to get to work! There's a ton of goodies with this case, enough spare screws and spacers and cable tidies to last a lifetime and I especially like their tool-less mounts for HDDs, they bend and clip onto the sides of 3.5" drives or have screw holes for manually affixing 2.5" drive - just in case you want to remove the physical 4 slot SSD/lappy bay at the bottom of the case. The old strips you can see there are the tool-less clips for the Lexa Blackline which, unlike the Storm Trooper, even comes with clips for 5.25" drives as well. The Storm Trooper requires you screw the drives into place.
My old setup, the trusty monster NZXT Lexa Blackline. Dig that epic cable tidying ... let's just shove it all into the 5.25" bays, that'll learn it! In my defence, there's nowhere else TO tidy the cables, there's no space between the right side panel and the motherboard tray. Gurk.
Om nom dust! I'd been trying to get a can of compressed air for a while but stores over here sell them for 250kr a can(!!!!!!!) That's almost £28 for a can of compressed air ffs! Luckily MPX has a 300ml can for 129kr (£15... Jesus...) so yay!
Starting to take the beast apart You can just about see the push-pull on the h80. It works remarkably well, even with mismatched fans - I'm using my Noctua NF-P12 fan for pull and a Corsair h80 120mm stock one for push.
With the HDDs removed from the Lexa and installed into the Trooper, it's starting to look cosy! They're pretty close though so this is round about the time where I'm glad of the extra intake fan for keeping the drives cool. From top to bottom; Samsung Spinpoint F1 640GB, WD Caviar Black 1TB, Samsung Spinpoint F1 500GB and a piece of shit ancient Seagate Barracuda 250GB. In a month or two I'll be removing the 500GB and 250GB, adding a 120GB Sammy 840 EVO SSD and a 3TB Caviar Green, I'll stick the 500GB in a USB3 caddy and the 250GB can go into my Arcade project (... sigh.. it's coming along... slowly... very slowly!)
Testing the PSU fitting before mounting properly.
Holy Mary Mother of God.. check out the size difference  That's INSANE! The EVGA card is like an ickle baby! It's shorter, thinner, lighter.. just an all round midget in comparison 
More test fitting, this time the motherboard and the GPUs. The DCII really is worryingly close to the the reference EVGA board, that would be due in part to the tri-slot design of that ridiculously large cooler.. and the lack of foresight by Asus when designing the P8Z68-V. There's simply not enough room and I would be far more comfortable with an additional slot between the cards, it's not a tri-SLi board after all, there's no need to bunch them so closely. Still, it's not a dangerous thing and plenty of others have dual tri-slot cards with no gap between them - it just means the primary card will be a few degrees hotter.
Or it'll die... that's more like Sabin Luck® though
As you can see though, even with this enormous DCII there is still plenty of space left over between the end of the card and the cages. Not like the Lexa where I had to scrape to get it in and even then it was.. no... just no..
Cable tidying! Well, I mean, at least it's tidied outside of the main case area. There's a nice protruding groove on the side panel that has plenty of space for "tidying" (airquote airquote), so it leaves the inside of the case REALLY clean. Quite surprising actually I'm actually missing a couple of photos here and I have the gutting feeling that, whilst sorting the wheat from the chaff, I accidentally deleted them There were three more showing stages of tidying the cables, I managed to wrestle with the PSU's relatively short cables - and the huge downside of the PSU being inverted and at the bottom had the power cables no longer capable of serial linking HDDs. Since they only fit a certain way in SATA power slots, each plug in-line on the cable had to be twisted to fit and, unfortunately, the cables simply aren't long enough to do it as prettily as I'd like - so yeah, it's a bit ugly but it works, even if they're tight. Cable-tied the power cables, cable-tied the front panel cables, cable-tied the remaining PSU cables and it ended up looking, if not pretty, at least functional.
The Corsair PSU didn't have a long enough 12v 8-pin cable to stretch from the bottom of this huge case, round the back, and then onto the power socket for the motherboard - but luckily CM included an extender cable, which routed along the side panel grooves really nicely. Again, this was part of the three extra images I'll likely retake them tomorrow if there's any interest.
(oh and the plague on the wall? Something my aunt-in-law got me - it says "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain" Obviously me being a ridiculously chronic - and manic - bipolar depressive she thought this would fit me perfectly Lovely in-laws are lovely <3
And now we come to the finish line (still sore about the missing pictures, but oh well) - everything has been installed and routed, there's an enormous amount of free and tidy space now, far more than the images demonstrate. The cables have been routed behind the motherboard mount and through the plentiful grommets, they fit wonderfully. Even though I have no intention of using it in the foreseeable future, I left the 4-slot 2.5" bay since there's no reason not to, it's enough out of the way so as to not impede airflow and, well, it's part of the case
Heh.. how do you like my ghetto GPU support brace? This card is nuts heavy and not only was it sagging down on the PCI-E slot but it came perilously close to touching the reference 570 below it. No no no, that will not do Clarice! I strung a piece of cotton around one of the cable-tie mounts at the top of the case and held the DCII in place with that - not only does it give a bit more clearance between the cards but it also takes the weight off the PCI-E slot. Purdy!
Routing for PCI-E power, the motherboard power and - not pictured due to be covered by the behemoth card - six SATA plugs as well! Four for the HDDs, One for the DVD-RW and one for eSATA on the front panel. The front panel IO are also routed via the bottom grommet along with the PSU cables.
More front panel IO routing, this time for USB and HD audio, not that I'll ever use the FP audio since I have my USB headset, but still, it's nice to have it done and out the way, neh? Unlike the Lexa, there's enormous amounts of clearance between the GPUs and the PSU. You could trade the reference 570 for another tri-slot DCII and still have plenty of space. The red/black cable arcing just out of view is for the side panel 120mm intake fan. I'm going to mount another 120mm later, depending on how good/bad the temps are for these two cards, but when the side panel is on the cable fits snugly along the rim of the chassis. Oh and since the side panel is meshed and not windowed, I won't have to be ashamed by the crappy orange stock SLi bridge ... no need for a snazzy "Professional" bridge here 
All installed and seated nicely, same configuration as before - only a bit cleaner this time, compressed air is just so yummy! There's plenty of clearance between the rad, the fans, the top 200mm exhaust fan and even the GPUs below. Nicely done, Cooler Master!
DAT ASS! Maybe one day I'll invest in a "big boy" water kit, one that actually makes use of external radiators but for now, I'm quite happy with my h80. Incidentally, that vertical slot on the right is called a "StormGuard" and it's used to thread your mouse/keyboard cords through in prevent asshats stealing them at at LAN Cute idea though it's of no use to me so I didn't bother.
And this is it, the pièce de résistance! Final product, all connected up and working like a charm! <3 I gotta say, I love this case.. I really really do. It's enormous, it's handy, it was a joy to work with and I'm loving how silent it is compared to my old Lexa - and yet offering vastly improved cooling performance due to the cable management. It's great and I'm thoroughly happy with it! ^_^
Last edited by sabin1981 on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 02:47; edited 5 times in total
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DXWarlock
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:07 Post subject: |
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do you have some side wire cutters? what I do when I get screws that are stripped out..
wedge the tip of the cutters under the head, start twisting to unscrew the screw and put upwards pressure on the pliers while you twist the screw.
Kinda like using the claw of a hammer to put out a nail, but your not pulling it out wit hthe plies, your just giving it a helping hand so the screw can walk itself out from thread friction.
Usually its enough upward force to help the threads back the screw out.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
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DXWarlock
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:17 Post subject: |
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I tried wrenching it off and I've also tried tapping it back with a hammer but no go, it just spins and spins >_< It's like the threads aren't actually threads.
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DXWarlock
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:32 Post subject: |
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you tried cursing at it, and asking it "why the fuck wont you come out?" thats usually my 2nd or 3rd approach when I get things like that.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
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Werelds
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:33 Post subject: |
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I'm pretty sure Sabin's done worse than that by now
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DXWarlock
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Werelds
Special Little Man
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:46 Post subject: |
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Sorry Sabin, but it's best to take this light-hearted
I don't know how CM are warranty wise since I've never had to call upon them, but if they've taken a good look at how NZXT do it, they'll replace whatever might get damaged
Just email them, never hurts to try. If it's NZXT-quality support, you'll get a reply that says "we've shipped new shit to you" 
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tonizito
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Location: Portugal, the shithole of Europe.
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Aug 2013 16:55 Post subject: |
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Don't forget to use the saw with your system assembled inside the case and running, the metal pieces will provide an OC of >9000 
| boundle (thoughts on cracking AITD) wrote: | | i guess thouth if without a legit key the installation was rolling back we are all fucking then |
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 00:09 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 00:26 Post subject: |
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I can't, unfortunately, the way this screw is positioned it would be impossible to drill it as the front of the case is in the way; I'll have to squeeze just to saw the threaded tip off.
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 01:54 Post subject: |
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Dude seriously, dont' take any of these hooligan's advice. There is only one person on here to ask when you need to ghetto rig something.
You ask the lord all might TimeChange, master of destruction!
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 03:10 Post subject: |
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Last edited by Interinactive on Tue, 5th Oct 2021 03:07; edited 1 time in total
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ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 65078
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 03:19 Post subject: |
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Congrats on the purchase! that is indeed an impressive case . You could even hide KillerCrocker's body in there! 
But I was expecting no less from a case called Master Stormtrooper <3
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 09:53 Post subject: |
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As far as i could find out the only difference between stryker and storm trooper is the color and stryker have the esata port on the front removed.
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couleur
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 11:41 Post subject: |
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garus
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 15:11 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:56; edited 1 time in total
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DXWarlock
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Location: Florida, USA
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| Posted: Thu, 15th Aug 2013 15:32 Post subject: |
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Why use compressed air? that crap gets expensive. For the price of a 'pack' of air cans I bought a tiny 1 gallon shopvac..and use it on all the PC's I get.
Plug the hose to the blow side, point at PC, unlimited high power air thats filtered from the dust cover on the inside of the vac
Also plus side is a LOT more air coverage than a can of airs straw..I get in with the flat tip it has and blow out the heatsinks, fans, etc..then once the stubborn and stuck on dust is done, take it off and do a general overall "blow the hell out of the whole case" with the tip off.
-We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.
-Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. -G. Michael Hopf
Disclaimer: Post made by me are of my own creation. A delusional mind relayed in text form.
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