"Trick Or Treat" 230T Build Log

Recently we launched the Graphite Series 230T case in three different colors; black, "Battleship Grey," and "Rebel Orange"...yes that's right ORANGE! When I heard we were going to offer a case in orange I was a little skeptical about it, but when I actually got to see the case, I have to admit, I liked it. Black cases have been very popular for a while, and while the occasional white or grey alternative added some excitement, the orange stands out like nothing else and has gotten quite a lot of positive feedback from people that I have talked to.

With Halloween right around the corner and orange cases on my mind, I thought it would be fun to see if I could build a whole system with an orange theme. Starting with the Rebel Orange 230T, here was the lineup of parts I decided to use:

Case: Graphite Series 230T

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z87X-OC

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K

CPU Cooler: Hydro Series H75 (with custom painted ring, and orange LED case fans from a scrapped 230T)

PSU: RM650

SSD: Force GS 240GB (with custom painted housing)

Memory: Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9 16GB (4x 4GB) 1600C9

Graphics Card: Zotac GTX 760

Below you can see my custom spray painted Force GS and H75 center ring, along with the spray paint I used. A light coat of primer and a few light coats of orange, and everything turned out pretty good. Just make sure you let the paint dry before adding additional coats.

The first step is to mount the CPU into the motherboard, and then the motherboard into the case. Unfortunately I could not locate the rear I/O shield for this beautiful orange Gigabyte motherboard, but I was not going to let that stop me from building this orange monster, so you will notice the I/O shield has been left out.

After the motherboard is installed, I like to install the PSU.

Next, I connected all the cables from the front I/O panel. It's much easier to do it at this stage since there is not a bunch of hardware in the way.

Next, I started preparing my H75 cooler. The ring is easily removable with a flathead screwdriver, and painting the ring was so easy that anyone could do it to customize their system. It actually turned out better than I expected! For a detailed installation video for our H75,

The backplate for the H75 has adjustable metal pins, so it's easy to line it up with your CPU socket.

Secure the backplate from the other side using the provided metal standoffs.

Backplate and standoffs are mounted.

To be honest, the fans that come with the H75 (black housing with grey fan blades) are going to deliver better performance than the orange LED case fans I scavenged from a scrapped case, but orangeness was my number one concern for this build.

When setting up a Hydro Series Cooler for push / pull, I like to mount one of the fans before installing the unit inside of the case. I will be installing the cooler in the rear exhaust area and the fans will be exhausting air outside of the case.

The H75 is now ready to be mounted to the rear exhaust fan mount. Make sure that your fans are both blowing air in the same direction, and then use the mounting screws to secure the 2nd fan and radiator to the case.

Now, line up the holes in the mounting bracket with the standoffs we installed earlier and then secure the cooling unit with the provided thumbscrews.

One more step before our cooler is fully installed, power! There is plenty of slack on the power cables for the fans and pump unit, so a trick I like to do is to use a screwdriver to coil the wire before plugging it in. Doing this will make your case look a lot neater, without having to zip tie the cable out of the way.

The H75 comes with a "Y" splitter cable so that you can plug both fans into the same motherboard header. When using the included PWM fans, and plugging them into the CPU fan header on the motherboard, your fans can be controlled based on the CPU temperature.

Cooler is now fully installed and looking oranger than ever!

SSD installation in the 230T is super simple with the dedicated tool-free 2.5 inch drive cage. Just slide it into place!

Just a few more parts to go! Next up comes the graphics card from Zotac with wonderful orange fans.

Remove 2 of the PCI-E covers and then line up the pins with the PCI-E socket and firmly press the card into place until the locking mechanism on the slot locks into place.

With the graphics card is installed, it's time to run the rest of our power cables.

I intended to install Corsair Link and a lighting node right when I got the idea for this build, since it would allow me to light this system up like a pumpkin! The Corsair Link commander has a single internal USB connector which plugs right into a spare internal USB header on the motherboard.

The Corsair Link Lighting Node can be used without the Corsair Link Commander module, but only has support for 6 different colors in that configuration, and orange is sadly not one of them. So we needed both the Corsair Link Commander and the Corsair Link Lighting Node in order to shine some orange light inside the case.

With all the hardware installed you can see that the cabling is quite a mess. Both the case and the PSU come with plenty of zip ties, so after a few minutes of cable management, things were looking much better.

Neat and tidy means good looks and great airflow.

Time to power this thing up for the first time and make sure my orange monster is functional!

A few more glamour shots!

I hope you enjoyed this build as much as I did, definitely one of my favorite builds I have done in a while! After all this I have an incredible urge to eat an orange. Maybe I'll get a tan too.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here are a few more bonus pictures, where can you imagine the 230T?