Remember when you could just pop the side panel off and see everything?

I was working on a gaming rig for a client last month, a custom loop build in one of those new compact cases. The manual said the radiator would fit up top, but after I got the motherboard and pump in, there was maybe 2mm of clearance, not enough for the fans. I figured, no big deal, I'll just mount it in the front. That meant taking the whole thing apart again to route the tubes differently. The real kicker was when I finally got it all buttoned up and powered it on, the CPU temps were way higher than they should have been. Turns out, in that tiny space, I'd kinked one of the soft tubes just enough to restrict the flow. I had to drain the loop, cut a new section of tube, and do it all over a third time. It taught me that in these small form factor builds, you really have to plan the tube runs on paper first, not just eyeball it. What's the most annoying clearance issue you've run into lately?

2 comments

2 Comments

miad191d ago

Ugh, my friend's GPU wouldn't fit his case.

stella_white81d ago

Oh man, @miad19, that reminds me of the time I tried to cram a huge heatsink into a tiny ITX build.