Time finally worked it's way around to tax season, and I finally was able to get a 550W power supply for Lie-chan, and a new case for Mei Ren.
The PSU didn't take too long, maybe about 30 minutes. Luckily both the old 750W and the 550W were both modular, and they really mean it when they say modular; I didn't even have to use the cables provided with the 550W, all the cables from the 750W all plugged into the 550W! Now that's modular! That was a nice surprise.
It took me four hours (not including the hour that I had to run and get fans) to get Mei Ren all transferred over. I had both cases open and stripped down in the room to work on it. The new case is a Cooler Master Elite 335U by the way.
Not too many problems occurred, though I did have quite a few hiccups... The metal used for the CM case is stronger than the Raidmax Thunder case, in most areas anyway; overall, it still is sturdier than the Raidmax case.
Seeing how all the PCI and 5.25" bays had the twist/bend off type covers, I took all the 5.25" covers off and a couple of the PCI ones (at first). After transferring the motherboard, I realized I didn't have space to break any of the other PCI ones off, so I put it back in the old case, and took the rest of the PCI covers off. At this time, I realized I had a couple special motherboard stand-offs that held the motherboard in place (so you don't have to worry about aligning the holes), so I rearranged the motherboard stand-off pattern a bit (I originally just screwed them all in lol). After that, transferred the DVD burners and the HDDs over and then left for the local computer store (well, if a 30 minute drive counts as local). I realized that the front and side panels had mounts for 140mm fans, and all I had was the 120 from the Raidmax, thus why I decided to run to the computer store. I made it 5 minutes before it closed (whew), but they were quite low on fans (I luckily snagged some NZXT fans for 14 a piece (there was a couple more fans that I found before I left the section, and they were a dollar more for less CFMs... Yeah, no.). I still have some space between the heatsink (Zalman 9700... I think it's the 9700...) and the upper side fan, but if I want to put a fan there, I'm gonna need a slim fan.... I'll probably just leave it open.
After I got back, I put the front fan in, and to my displeasure, the mounting holes did not line up perfectly... Luckily, the holes were just big enough to where I was still able to mount it. I then ran all the front panel wiring (which wasn't attached to the front panel and was very pleasant) and cable managed them, then I mounted the PSU and started working with those wires... I did the IDE and SATA cables before that though.
Since the PSU isn't modular, cable management and running was very awkward and a bit strange. I did get it decent enough to allow maximum airflow. Anyway sometime after this I thought I was finished... I kept remembering that I didn't disconnect the USB cable for the card reader from when unplugged everything in the old case, and I also remembered that I never really saw the lights for the card reader light up either... I looked and looked for the cable after I got all the PSU cables connected... Then finally, I decided to look a pile of cables and miscellany in the same room, and first found the cable for the card reader that connects the Firewire port to the motherboard (at this point I was relatively ecstatic, seeing that I was that much closer to finding it), and then after a bit more digging, I found the clear cable with shielding I was looking for. Success! I connected it and kinda cable managed it a bit (I didn't want to fuss any more with it since I already spent quite a bit of time doing it and I was quite tired), then put it together and turned it on. I didn't screw anything up which was good. I disconnected it and was about to move it when I remembered that I forgot to check the HDD and power LEDs... So I reconnected it and looked at it. No lights, so I flipped all the plugs and put it back together and moved it back to the room it goes into and reconnected everything. I turned it on just to look at the lights and they look nice (I just got to GRUB and shut it down from there).
So the next couple upgrades for Mei Ren is a couple of SATA DVD burners (or BD whichever comes first), and maybe a modular PSU.
Slept like a rock after I was done. (LOL)
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