InWin Q500 Case Mod's

     The InWin Q500 Full tower case came, and within 15 minutes of being in my possession, I had it hacked, cut and modded!! What started out as a regular run of the mill case with 300 watt power supply soon became my Frankenstein.
        The case is huge. Enough for 5 hard drives, 5 5.25 drives, but only one floppy. So, I decided to leave the floppy out, and put a 250MB Zip drive in (not yet...).
 

The first thing I did to make the case "Mine", was to install my CP-Vue Dual thermometer. While not the greatest product in the world, it did leave me with some idea's to "fix" it later. I will be adding a rotary switch to 4 different thermistors to monitor case, CPU, graphics card, and hard drive temperatures.
      I used a dremel tool to cut a hole, using the 5.25 bracket hole for a template, then I flush mounted it into my case. Looks real good, does a good job monitoring case temp, easy to see, but still need to monitor more...

Next I busted out the dremel tool (jigsaw not available...), and cut my AGP blowhole. I had to buy a small piece of galvanized steel to make a bracket for the fans to stay attached, cost me about a buck. This is probably the best thing I have done. It give me more stability in overclocking the Diamond Viper 770 Ultra, and keeping the overall case temperature down. Once I get my other parts in, I am going to put the grills on them. The fans are 80mm generic fans. I am upgrading them as well to Sunon fans with the highest CFM rating ASAP!
    

Then came the paint. I painted... and painted... and painted... then I sat down for a while and watched my hand for about half an hour... : )
I used automotive Midnight Blue paint, which looks really good. The pictures don't do it justice!

Once I get more parts, I will be updating this guide/article. I am going to be adding some tips on how to make these mod's as well, keeping it in the guides section!

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