Soldering time!

Locate your NIC LEDs and identity their terminals on the underside of the NIC PCB. You wouldn't want to be de-soldering the wrong thing now! Once you've done that, it's much easier to carry out this mod if you remove the metal bracket of the NIC, while waiting for the de-soldering iron to heat up....

  

Using a soldering stand/support (if you have one), make sure that the underside of the NIC PCB is facing upwards and use the de-soldering iron to melt the solders and suck/blow it off the LED terminal. It shouldn't take long to complete this process. Repeat the same procedure for the other LEDs too. You can clearly see if the solders have been completely removed from the LED terminals.

 

If you've done it correctly, this is what's left after you have pulled out all the LEDs. You can now use the jumper pins and place them into the holes.

 

Cut the jumper pins with the required number of terminals and insert it into the holes. The pins were a tight fit on this mod but if it's a little loose on yours, you can hold it in place with some tape first.

 

Once you've got the pins in position, take the soldering iron and let the tip touch the pin for a few seconds. Then take the solder and let it touch the heated pin and it will melt and slowly cover up the holes and holding the pin in place. Repeat the same procedure for the other pins as well. You don't have to use a lot of solder. Just a quick "touch-and-release" from the solder to the heated pin. Once done, clean up the joints and make sure non of the pin solders are touching one another.

 

VOILA!

You're almost there! Give a slight pull on the jumper pins to make sure they're firmly seated/soldered into the holes. Connect the metal bracket back to the PCB and connect your wires/connectors and the LEDs and you're ready to test it!

  

Preliminary testing shows the LEDs lighting up with no problem at all. I opened up a browser window and while the site is loading, the LED indicating NIC ACTIVITY blinks along. Very cool indeed! Like I've mentioned before, the wire length depends very much on your case size and where you want to connect the LEDs up front. My wire connections for this mod is quite long as I planned to run the wires from the NIC, along the bottom of the case, up to the front and along the door of the case that I got. Plan ahead so you won't find yourself short of wires! I also used these woven mesh to enclose the individual wires and make the wire bundle neater.

 

Placement of these LEDs is another matter involving personal preferences. You can mount the LEDs next to your case LEDs or in your 3.5" or 5.25" bays too if you want. Here's where I mount mine. Those of you who have read the Project Tivoli Article knows that I'm using the ChiefTec/Antec case. And the PWR and HDD LED Indicator is located on the door. So to have a more consistent look to the door and case overall, I mounted the 3 NIC LEDs above the existing PWR and HDD LEDs location. You'll have to mark out the position for the new LEDs and then drill holes for them. I drilled 3 2.8mm holes for the 3mm LEDs. The LEDs fits perfectly into the holes after some minor filing.

   

Once I'm done with the case painting, I simply trim the LEDs terminals and bend them upwards. I fixed on the two-pin connectors into the LEDs terminals, ran the wires along the top of the door and in thru an opening in one of the 5.25" drive bays. You can clearly see how I did this from the pictures below. From there on, it's down along the case bottom and to the NIC.

  

Here's two more close-up shots of the finished product. Pretty pimpy eh? Many people have asked me how I labeled the LEDs.... I simply used Decadry letterings. I bought this at a local electronics store here in Singapore. It's for labeling your electrical circuit boards and I guess you peeps overseas can also find it at your local RadioShack, HomeDepot or stationeries/bookstore. It's a kind of letter-transfer kit..... you simply align the letter that you want onto your case, use a pencil to rub on top of it and the letter would be transferred onto the case. That's it!!

  

Well folks.... that's the end of the mod guide! Hope you have fun doing this mod. I sure did!