With the tubing done, and the small stats display screen involved, it is time to run all the various power cables to the components in the case. In the past I have always made my own sleeved cables and they came out really well. For this build, the owner wanted cables from CableMod, so we took to the configuration tool to get the length and colors he wanted. The tool works really well, and the cables were ordered. Unfortunately, the ordering process was the ONLY positive experience we had using CableMod cables. More on that farther down the post.
Once the cables finally arrived (a few weeks as they came from Hong Kong), they looked pretty good. I was a bit disappointed to how thin they were compared to the custom cables I have made on my own builds (my cables on top, CableMod below), but the colors look great and should work fine despite how thin the cables / sleeving are.
In addition to the PSU cables, I needed to make a custom fan splitter for the 2x 140mm exhaust fans in the case, so that can run off the same motherboard header, and spin at the same speeds with minimal configuration. Could have ordered these as well, but had all the parts to make them, so did that instead.
With the fan cables done I moved on to routing the cables from the various components, through the case, and back to the PSU. The process was fairly easy with this case, but despite how large the case is, running this many cables can still be a lot of work.
During the cable routing process, I ran into my first issue with CableMod. Even though I specified which Power Supply we were using during the ordering / configuration process, the 8pin CPU Power cable had the wrong head installed, wouldn't fit in the power supply as can be seen in the picture below.
I was hoping with the 8pin head swap out of the way, I could quickly move along with the system....
I was wrong. This is where the issues with our CableMod order really came to light. Their quality control is horrible. Turns out every single cable we purchased from them had to be re-wired. Huge waste of time. I'm not exactly sure what they did to screw this up so bad, but I think they wired these cables as you would extension cables, not ones that go directly from the PSU to your components.
For a visual example, to the left is the stock EVGA PSU cables for the 24pin motherboard connection, and I am holding together the two cables that connect on the PSU and Motherboard connectors. On the right are the connecting cables from the ones purchased at CableMod. Notice they are not the same, and the Motherboad will not power on in this configuration. The Graphics Cards also didn't power up until I fixed the cables.
This held true for every individual cable,with every cable. So I went to task re-wiring every... single... cable. At this point I was really regretting the decision to order sleeved cables instead of making them myself as I usually do. Pretty sure I could have made my own set faster than the time spent taking apart the CabeMod ones, and wiring them back together correctly.
With that daunting task out of the way I set out to run the cables through the case again. But this time I tested each component before running the cables through the grommets just in case. Luckily, my work is better than CableMods, and everything powered on as it should.
Cables and Sleeving is always a time consuming process, but this particular instance was especially frustrating as we purchased these cables to avoid the typical time suck, only to spend MORE time fixing them than what had been required had I just built my own from scratch. I will never purchase from CableMod again, and will be contacting them to let them know their quality control is non existent.
