Introduction
While the power supply still does not capture the sort of prestige as the CPU,
video hardware, and other more “important” components, hobbyists and overclockers
are fast realizing the importance of a quality PSU. Whether you have just invested
in a high-end unit, or you are simply pursuing more effective case airflow and a
cleaner wiring job in general, sleeving your PSU’s cables can be a worthwile project.
Seeking more organization in an already cramped case, I will take you step-by-step
as I sleeve my beloved Antec True480.
As much as I love my PSU, I can’t claim that it’s the most aesthetically pleasing
thing to stare at:
Nor is it in the proper condition for a really effective cooling setup. While it
isn’t going to make or break your cooling setup, all those stray wires can certainly
disrupt your airflow.
Materials & Preparation
There are a few options for sleeving material out there, but by far the most
appealing one is FLEXO sleeving. It has a much cleaner look than spiral or loom
wrap, with the added benefit of being very flexible and easy to use heatshrink
with. Let’s look at all of the materials we’ll need for this project:
- Power Supply
- ~10′ FLEXO Sleeving material
- ~3′ 1/4″ – 3/8″ diameter heatshrink tubing
- Molex pin extractor or other tool with sharp point
- Heat gun, hairdryer or lighter/candle
The amount of FLEXO and heatshrink tubing will depend on how many cables your PSU
has and how long they are. Before ordering any materials, take the time to measure
your cables and order appropriately. Always order a little extra to make up for
mistakes or that mysterious cable you never noticed before 
While the ideal tool for extracting the Molex headers is a tool made for the job,
you can get away with a razor blade or other sharp point. In order to shrink the
heatshrink tubing you will also want a heatgun. If a gun is not available, you can
use a hairdryer or lighter (if you are careful not to burn the tubing!). As you
can see above I’ll be using a fine point driver tip for Molex extraction, and just
a candle for melting the heatshrink.
Once we have all of our materials ready, get a nice clean workspace prepared and
remove the PSU entirely from your case. Now we are ready to prep the PSU for the job!
Preparing the PSU
The first step is to remove the Molex plugs from our PSU. I’m using an AMD system
so for the purposes of this article I’m only focusing on the Molex headers, not
the P4 plugs. The concept is similar and it should be no problem to translate
these steps over to the P4 plugs. The plugs we need to worry about are the Molex
and mini-Molex:
Before removing anything be sure to note the order in which the wires go in! If
you cannot remember please refer to the pictures in this article. Starting with
the mini-Molex plugs (the ones that go to your floppy drive), we
can release the four pins by pressing the tabs down as shown below:
Once the tabs are depressed you can slide the plug off the pins and we’ll have four
bare pins like this:
The regular Molex plugs require a little more effort; there are two tabs on either
side of the pins which you need to push in:
Once you do so, the plugs slide off easily like the mini-Molex did:
Now rinse and repeat until all of the wires are done! You might also find that
some of your wires are budled and secured with zip ties. These will serve to annoy
you to no end if they aren’t removed before the sleeving begins. Just snip them off
with some scissors or a wire snip:
If you made it this far, we are almost ready to sleeve! One last thing which I
wanted to do is to reorganize the wires where they meet the PSU. They are bundled
and zip-tied where they all conjoin on the PSU, and not in the best order. Wires
overlapping one another, causing a general mess and not pleasing to look at. I
removed the zip tied securing them, played around for a bit until they were a little
more organized, then secured them again with a new zip tie.
Once you are happy with this we can sleeve away!
Sleeving the PSU
The sleeving itself is fairly easy to work with. Using 3/8″ FLEXO, measure and
cut a length of tubing for the first ’section’ of wire leading from the PSU to
the first Molex plug. Leave a few inches on either side for the heatshrink, and
then start working the FLEXO onto the wires. You will need use the ‘inchworm’
method to work the FLEXO from one end to the other, being careful not to catch
on the pins and tear the tubing.
Once the tubing is in it’s place, cut two small
lengths of heatshrink tubing and work them down to the sleeving. Once the sleeving
and heatshrink is in place you can replace the first Molex plug at the end of the
sleeving. This will bend the wires into their ‘natural’ shape and let you fix the
tubing and heatshrink over the wires as they will look when finished. Before you just stick the plug back on, bend the tabs out again so it will
snap into place. Once everything is lined up and spaced correctly, apply heat to
the heatshrink tubing and it will seal the sleeving in place.
If all goes as planned your wires should look pretty similar to this:
Of course, we get to repeat the process for each and every length of wire on the PSU which
we want sleeved! Tedious? Yes. Worth it? You bet. Once you start finishing up it will
look a hundred times better:
And now that you’re done slaving away over your PSU, go ahead and reinstall that
sucker, and give yourself a pat on the back. A worthy project, and your stylish
PSU will be the envy of the town. ;O)
If you have questions, comments, or think that anything should or shouldn’t have
been included in this article, I encourage you to stop by Fury-Tech Forums
and leave a line or two. We’d love to see what you have done with your PC, and
if this article helped at all. Good luck and may the hertz be with you!
| Store Rating | Store Name | Price | Visit Store |
|---|---|---|---|---|
   226 Store Reviews |  Amazon Marketplace | $ 979.99 | 
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226 Store Reviews | Amazon Marketplace | $ 999.89 |
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