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Date Posted: December 4, 2001

In the past, nobody really cared about the exterior of a PC, much less the interior. I was once content with my beige medium tower, and didn't bother taking an air gun to clean up the dust bunnies inside. This has changed over the years, and now looks are pretty much a big part of the buying decision. At the same time, a clean interior, other than looking nice, has an additional benefit of keeping ambient temperatures lower. is a prime example of interior cabling done right.

I'm sure most of you are pretty good with cabling. With the popularity of case windows and such, it'd be kinda embarrassing to to show off your interior if all you had to show was a months worth of dust on your heatsinks and fans, and an assload of cables and wires hanging all over the place. In order to reduce clutter, many enthusiasts have taken to rounding their cables. This has become such a popular concept, that many companies started to sell machine rounded IDE cables. It's been argued that these cables are useless, and to an extent, I'd agree. If you're neat, round cables won't help your PC run any cooler, nor help it run any faster. At the same time, they do look prettier than sliced up grey IDE cables with zip ties around them.

Originally, I was inspired to try a few tricks after reading the Voodoo PC article in MaximumPC. Though a few things are common sense to most users, I thought it'd be nice to show a few step-by-step pictures of what I've done when recently upgrading my PC. This guide is geared more towards novices, directing those who have either not taken the time to tidy up the interior, or those who weren't sure where to start. Maybe some more experienced readers may learn a thing or two. Although I'll use a rounded IDE cable or two, you don't need to spend a lot of money to do this. The point is to clean things up, for let's say, ...10$, and not using much more than scissors and a screwdriver. This guide isn't perfect, as the case I've chosen for this project makes things a bit challenging. Hopefully, this will give you a few ideas, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to send a shout out.

I'm using the Antec SX1030B for this guide. What makes this case particularly difficult to work with is the fact that it's huge. Not overly large mind you, but making cables stretch won't be too easy. I won't be using oversized cables or modified power supply connections. You'll see what I mean as we go on. Part two of this series will be with the much smaller Lian-Li PC60, which will present different challenges.

So, let's get on with it...

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