Date: August 7th, 2003
Article by: Dave Crandall (Hardware Reviewer / News Poster)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner/Head Editor/Hardware Reviewer)

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Firstly I would like to introduce myself, I am Dave Crandall, previously of ReviewNation.com, which has recently shut down. I am very proud to be new member of the TweakNews team, and with me comes my most recent article, originally written for ReviewNation, entitled "Project Blue Ice". I hope you enjoy the article and having me on the TweakNews staff!


Secondly, I would like to thank the following sponsors for making this mod possible! Nexfan, ZXMods, High Speed PC, Voyeurmods, Sunbeam Tech, Mysterbyte, Crazy PC, SVC, 1CoolPC, Cable Organizer, Monarch Computer, and Jacol Tech. All of which are mentioned in the article w/ their respective donated items...

Well ladies and gentlemen; it's finally time that I am releasing my FIRST full case mod!!! Many of you may have been following Blue Ice from a few of the forums I post in, but this is the real deal… More detail, more pictures, and more depth. I'm very excited to release Blue Ice, as it has taken me a lot of time and effort, and thanks to many-a-sponsor, she's now complete!! Well enough crap… Onto the mod!!

PLANNING

When I first saw Lian Li's PC-7 case, I pretty much knew I had to have one… The front bezel had a really appealing look to it that I just couldn't resist! After looking at the case more, I knew that I had to mod it somehow if I ended up getting one, so before anything I sat down in Photoshop and modeled out (to scale) what I wanted the completed case to look like, which was a pretty clear image in my mind. After a few hours of toying around and modeling out different drives and other things, I came up with this:

After I finished modeling out the case in Photoshop, I was relatively certain that I would not be able to achieve this look with my lack of modding experience, but that didn't stop me from trying!!! After talking to the good people over at Monarch Computer (Founders of AthlonXP.com - YOU GUYS ALL RULE), they agreed to send me over a Lian Li PC-7 for my planned out mod, and after looking over the case, I decided to start off by cutting my window.