When Mike Henry (aka ikem) isn’t extinguishing  fires or rescuing people as a Fire Fighter, he enjoys case modding as hobby. The canvas Mike chose for “Project Citrus” was  Lian Li’s A05-N micro tower. It has become very popular among PC build and mod enthusiasts.  It features a small, all aluminum design that provides excellent cooling with two 120mm fans and enough room to support two 5.25 devices, a 3.5 device and 3 hard disk drives. With the built in rubber rings, the hard disk drive noise is kept to a minimum. Of course Mike is never satisfied with factory stock options, so lets what he did to his A05-N.

Mike fabricated covers for the internal bays and what he describes as a “Cable Mask” that  goes from bottom optical bay to the floor. It’s located on other side of the PSU in the above picture. He added cable management fasteners to this cover to keep the cabling as clean as possible. The HIS HD 6870 1gb shroud was custom painted too!

The vents in the 140mm machined aluminum fan grills rotate manually. Some of the other most noticeable features on the “Citrus” include MDPC x Orange and White Sleeved Cables,  Custom cut side window, with painted socket head fasteners and Xigmatek fans that were also painted White.

There 140mm Xigmatek fans sandwich the Noctua NH D-14 cooler in Push / Pull configuration, from rear to front of Lian Li’s A05N. Mike was a litte concerned about the Blue Gigabyte GA890XA-UD3 motherboard clashing with his color theme, but it’s hardly noticeable. He may opt for Gigabyte’s OC Orange motherboard in the future. Overhead lighting is produced by White RGB light strip.

Noctua D-14 CPU cooler is a big improvement on their previous D-12. It’s much larger and heavier. It weighs in at a 2.7 pounds.

Mike customized the Corsair HX 650W and White LEDs in the cooling fan, billet fan grill and fresh paint and custom sleeved the cables with MDPC-X sleeving order that included UV Orange connectors, 100 ft White Small MDPCx, 50 ft Orange Small MDPCx, and 75 precut White heatshrink.

Mike didn’t leave anything untouched. Check out the sleeved WiFi! The casual observer may think the fan is mounted backwards in the rear of the Lian Li A05N.

Cooling Fan Specifications:
2x Xigmatek XLF-F1453
3x Xigmatek XLF-F1253
2x Xigmatek XLF-F1254 (89 cfm version)
1x ADDO 120mm 90cfm
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller

A set of Mnpctech Machined Aluminum Case Feet with Powder coated with “Chevy Orange” finish elevates Citrus while protecting Mike’s work surface.

The “Citrus” System Specs

AMD Phenom II x6 1090t
Gigabyte GA890XA-UD3
GSkill Ripjaws DDR3 1600 4x2gb
HIS HD 6870 1gb
OCZ Vertex 2 60gb
Corsair HX650W

No doubt Mike’s project will inspire a lot of PC Modders for years to come. You can follow all of steps he took in modifying it on the Overclock.net Forums  We look forward to seeing future projects from him!

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