Marking Out and Cutting

  Once you have decided on the location, you'll need to mark out the holes to cut/drill. Using the holes from the bracket itself, marking them out shouldn't take you more than a minute. :O) But confirming the position again and again does! :O) Never hurt to be extra careful and extra sure! You're drilling thru plastic, so a cordless drill should do light work of it.

Marked out.....

New Toy!! 18V of cordless Dewalt goodness!!

   Drilling the holes for the screws is simple enough. For the rectangular USB ports, it's a little more involved. First drill a couple of holes at each end of the rectangular markings. I then use a cutter/shear to cut thru the holes and exposed a rather large part of the rectangular ports. This is where the bracket comes into play again.

Screw holes done...

Holes for the rectangular ports...

   Secure the bracket into location with a couple of bolts and nuts on the screw holes that you have drilled earlier. And using the rectangular holes in the bracket, file away the plastic according to the size of the bracket. You're sure not to missed or "over-cut" the holes in this manner. This shouldn't take you long. Once you're done, remove the bracket and you'll have yourself some nice USB ports cut-outs! Heheh!

File and cutter/shear.

Using the bracket as guide.

Finished Mod

   Here you go! Now, that didn't take long, does it? I finished off the cut-outs by sanding it down lightly with a 600 grit sandpaper. It's up to you really to do this. Now it's time to test the USB ports to the cut-outs you just made. Before that, you'll find that there's a ridge running next to the cooling vents and depending on the type of USB extension port that you got, you'll probably need/need not to cut away part of the ridge so that the extension port sits in nicely. In my case, I had to trim away a small part of the ridge to accommodate the extension ports. Nothing I can't handle though! ;oP

DONE!!!

Close-up of the ports...

Cut away the ridge...

Perfect Fit!

Mod done..

Close-up!

Cutting the Case Structure

   Next thing you'll need to do is cut an opening in the case structure itself to allow the cable to be routed to the USB header on your motherboard. Mark the opening out on your case structure as shown below. Then use either a Dremel or Jigsaw to cut thru the metal. Finish off my grinding off the sharp edges and you're done! AS you can see from the pictures, the opening DOES NOT interfere with the front fan ports OR the 3.5" drive cages bracket supports in the case. Also, depending on your USB extension ports, you can have a smaller cut-out for this.

Mark out the opening

Preliminary cut...

Done!