Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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jack_aubrey
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 5:27 pm
Location: USA

Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Post by jack_aubrey » Wed Dec 05, 2012 3:20 am

I'm going onto my 3rd PSU in the same Antec Solo case (stock PSU: burned out; replacement: gradual fan bearing decay -> too noisy). In this case it's a colossal pain to swap in a new PSU, because the fixed rail design means either the CPU heatsink, or the entire motherboard must be removed to make a path.

Since I'll have the system partially opened up anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has case mod ideas for making this easier in the future? Cutting the support rail that goes across the open side of the case would be one way, but seems to have some risk of the PSU falling down into the case. Searching turned up one suggestion of "drilling out the rail rivets and replacing with screws" but I'm not sure which rivets are being talked about, since there was no more detail provided. Has anyone done something like this and could provide details, perhaps even with pictures? Thanks!

Image

(n.b. this is not my machine, just an image from a review website showing the blocking rail to good effect).

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Post by edh » Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:36 am

Use a LianLi PSU mounting bracket and cut out a suitable hole in the back of the case to allow the PSU to be fitted from the rear:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... tAodUS4Avg

jack_aubrey
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 5:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Post by jack_aubrey » Wed Dec 05, 2012 1:51 pm

edh wrote:Use a LianLi PSU mounting bracket and cut out a suitable hole in the back of the case to allow the PSU to be fitted from the rear:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... tAodUS4Avg
Have you done this? Looks like fairly major surgery to cut out that much of the back, but I can see how convenient the result might be. Thanks!

edh
Posts: 1621
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:49 pm
Location: UK

Re: Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Post by edh » Wed Dec 05, 2012 2:26 pm

I haven't done this but I have an old LianLi case and it works very well as a PSU mounting solution. To convert the solo to the same you would need to trim the PSU surround with a dremel cutting wheel and then drill out some holes to fix the bracket to. A precision job no doubt but perhaps simpler than drilling out rivets (rivets tend to be hard material!) and rescrewing.

noee
Posts: 44
Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 3:38 am
Location: Free Union, VA, USA

Re: Making PSU replacement in Antec Solo easier

Post by noee » Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:30 pm

Drill the rivets if you want to remove the x-bar. There are only five of them: 2 in the back, 2 on drive cage in the middle and 1 in the front.

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