ULTIMATE Cable Management Guide
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,451 words · ~7 min read
0:00
in our very popular and not at all infamous series the workshop we did an
0:06
episode where we demonstrated that cable management tucking away all your cables
0:11
in most cases pun intended has no tangible effect on performance or even
0:17
cooling so then
0:20
when we set out to do this cable management guide sponsored by our
0:24
buds over at cablemod we figured well hell if deep down it's just about
0:30
the looks let's make sure it looks as good as it can so here
0:35
is how to cable manage like a pro
0:46
the first thing we needed was a test subject so we borrowed our triple headed
0:51
vr project machine it already
0:54
looked reasonably clean from the front but as for the backside
0:58
well ivan's excuse was
1:03
i was russian
1:06
now in fairness to him though this machine has six hard drives
1:10
seven RGB fans with individual leads to
1:13
their respective light controllers and to make matters worse its older style
1:19
900d chassis has no power supply shroud
1:22
so there is a visible rat's nest down at the bottom to tame the overgrowth then
1:27
we'll need some tools we recommend a pair of side cutters a set of small and
1:32
large zip ties and some double sided tape
1:36
and also some basic cable mesh or sleeving goes a long way
1:40
next you need to visualize
1:44
remember guys to have your wiring looking its best you need to avoid any
1:48
diagonal lines and try to minimize crossings
1:52
so you can't just start tucking things away without a clear end goal in your
1:57
mind's eye in fact this is so important
2:00
that if you're having trouble i would legitimately suggest that you draw it
2:04
out in paint if you need keeping in mind of course that due to
2:09
small variances it is likely that you'll end up having to make a few tweaks as
2:13
you go next assuming that you're working on a system
2:16
that's already built begin by yanking out the larger cables completely to get
2:21
them out of the way and cleaning up the small ones with your small zip ties
2:26
you should use existing case crevices to hide these small cables and you can also
2:32
use that empty cavity behind where dvd drives used to go remember those ah
2:37
that's so that's a good spot to hide the extra length of front i o cables
2:41
on the motherboard side use memory slot lines to hide your runs and then while
2:46
you're at all of this keep in mind where your thicker runs will go
2:50
you can use those to hide your thin runs later on
2:55
planning pro tip number one leave the SATA cables
3:00
for last because the drive side connectors in particular are really
3:04
flimsy and they are surprisingly easy to accidentally break off while you're
3:09
running or tightening something else pro tip number two sometimes rotating a
3:14
fan can give its cable a cleaner run pro
3:18
tip number three label your fan connectors this makes it
3:22
easier to reconfigure your airflow and your RGB patterns once it's not obvious
3:27
anymore which cables belong to which fan
3:30
pro tip number four if you have a modular power supply
3:34
hide your unsightly power supply side modular cables in the cavity behind the
3:39
psu tip number five if you can't hide a thin
3:43
cable run some basic wire mesh makes it look a lot more professional and
3:49
flattening the run beforehand helps to avoid
3:52
snake meal mesh bulbs tip number six
3:56
replace your existing double-sided tape on things like your RGB controllers it
4:01
might still be residually sticky but it is much more likely to fall off after a
4:07
re-application than not hot glue is also
4:10
a pretty good one here if you've been following along so far
4:14
you're well on your way but you've probably run into some situations
4:18
where you have no choice but to commit a cardinal sin
4:22
sometimes your stock cables are simply too short to avoid diagonal lines ah
4:27
what will you do so one way around this is to use the
4:32
area between the motherboard and the case's motherboard tray wherever
4:36
possible this technique is also popular for making the front i o cables look
4:40
cleaner on the motherboard side just make sure you don't put anything too
4:43
bulky in there flex is not good for your
4:47
motherboard as for your graphics card you've got a couple of options here you can run the
4:52
power cables from the top down for a
4:55
little bit of sag support or you can run them from underneath for
4:59
a cleaner look we opted for the straight down method
5:02
since the extra two pci express power pins ended up looking really ugly
5:06
otherwise there is also the new option by the way
5:09
of using a vertical GPU adapter but
5:12
these are for single card setups only they are somewhat reliant on case
5:16
compatibility and the last issue our machine has more than
5:21
one GPU so a time lapse later and using all the
5:26
tips that we just gave you you can behold then the fruits of our labor our
5:31
system looks way cleaner both from the front and from the back
5:36
so thanks for watching no actually i'm just kidding this wouldn't be much of an
5:39
ultimate guide without some custom cables from cablemod would it now for
5:44
many people only frontside looks are important so cablemod extensions are a
5:49
quick easy and relatively inexpensive way to spruce up your machine's looks
5:54
you only need a few of them to make a noticeable difference to the look of
5:57
most machines for others though
6:00
extensions are about like putting a park bench on a civic and calling it a
6:04
spoiler so for them there are the pre-packaged cable mod replacement kits
6:09
which are available in a variety of colors and patterns and for pretty much
6:13
every modular power supply model under the sun we are going one step further
6:18
cable mods ultimate offering custom length and colored cables
6:24
so to get out your system the first thing you need to do is measure your run
6:27
lengths but you can't just do this any old way like don't use a string
6:32
we actually recommend using a wire so we cut a 12 gauge wire because this helps
6:37
simulate the way that the custom cables will actually bend once they're
6:42
installed we're also going to try to address the clump of pci express cables by the power
6:47
supply by calculating which cables we can run
6:51
hidden behind others it's important to
6:54
get each length of run exactly right and
6:58
make sure you're checking exactly the terminal that you'll use
7:02
because if you measure them all to the same one the end result might not align
7:07
as perfectly as you might like with our lengths in hand we dialed them
7:11
into the configurator which allows details like the number of pre-installed
7:15
combs and distance between SATA connectors and then about a week later
7:19
our pro cables with thicker wires and pre-installed combs arrived
7:25
when you're hooking these up we actually suggest pre-bending the cables into the
7:29
desired shape before you install them it helps more than you might think
7:33
then right last but not least we mentioned cable combs but you should
7:37
probably explain those cable combs can be used not only to keep your
7:41
individually sleeved wires apart but to ensure that parallel runs are
7:46
indeed parallel and they stay there
7:50
okay then so since all the cables were pre-made to length installing them was
7:53
an absolute breeze and this
7:56
is our real end result so as you can see
8:00
the front looks cleaner the clump on the bottom is minimized and
8:05
then the biggest difference is on the back especially when you look at the
8:10
before and after i mean it went from something that we'd really rather hide
8:15
to something we'd actually want to show off i mean maybe that's the next trend
8:18
in computer cases Windows on both sides oh wait they've actually been doing that
8:25
so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get
8:29
subscribed or even consider checking out our sponsors cable mod at the link below
8:33
to where you can buy their stuff also link down there is our merch store
8:36
which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should
8:40
totally join