Okay so just about everyone and their moms have AIO kits in their PC these days. They have gone down in pricing and when it comes to the nicer builds there are now a lot of good options available. A lot of the companies even now pre-sleeve their kits for an even cleaner look. But if you are running an AIO, the one thing you can’t do that you can with a custom water cooling kit is change the color of your coolant. Well, CableMod came out with another option last year and I put it to use in our D-Frame Mini build this week. They have sleeving kits for your AIO kit available in a few different colors. Today I’m going to take a quick look at them and see how easy they are to install and find out if they are worth picking up.

Product Name: CableMod AIO Sleeving Kit

Review Sample Provided by: CableMod

Written by: Wes Compton

Pictures by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

specifications

 


Photos and Features

Okay, so they sent over a few different sleeving kits. Three to be exact. I had the option to get more but these were the three colors that I thought would look the best. The Carbon kit basically is really close to the sleeving already on our Corsair AIO kit and the light green sleeving isn’t really the best looking green in my opinion. But because these kits don’t really have too much going on, I’ve gone ahead and combined the photo section with the packaging.

Now the kits come in a box with a Q-Bert like design in the background. They have the CableMod branding up top and then, of course, the product name in the middle along with a line drawn AIO kit. The front does have a sticker showing these are the Series 1 kits that fit just a few Corsair AIO, there is a second Series 2 that fits a lot more. Next to that is a small window to give you a peek at the color inside. This is huge for me in a retail store, if I can’t see if the color matches what I need I’m not getting them and I know that CableMod products are in retail stores like MicroCenter. The back of the box just has a few notes about how they add coloring to your AIO and that they don’t require any tools. Awesome!

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Inside the box, you get two pre-cut sleeves in the color that you picked, one instruction manual, then a pile of clips. Nothing crazy.

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So I didn’t really think about it at the time, but what I ended up ordering in were patriotic colors with the red, white, and blue. The red is a great blood red and white, well that will go amazingly in nearly every build. The blue is actually what I would call Corsair blue. This is backed up by CableMod as well, they might call it Light Blue here but Corsair Blue is the name of the similar blue in their cable configurator. It is a bright blue that isn’t light enough to be a sky blue, but it is close. The sleeving is a plastic material and it has some transparency in the mesh but not too much to show your black AIO tubes. The main thing that splits the two series up is the length of the tubing, some AIO kits have longer tubes. These Corsair kits have shorter tubes so these had to be cut shorter, so don’t plan on using these here then moving to one of the other kits later.

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Installation

So the Light Blue just happened to almost perfectly match the blue feet on the In Win D-Frame Mini. I didn’t originally plan on using the kit on that build but once I saw how close the color was I just had to put it to use. With our PC already built I set out to installed the Sleeving Kit. The first step is unwrapping the sleeving and sliding it over the two tubes. This only took 30 seconds at most to do both.

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From there I had to get the clips installed. You have two tubes and four total clips so you get eight matching pieces. You get the sleeving set to have just a small gap at the ends then you slip on one clip with the thickest part down. Getting the second clip on wasn’t as easy though. In fact, I ended up having to grab a small screwdriver to kind of pry on one area. The clip both goes over and under the other clip at the same time so if those don’t line up it doesn’t snap into place. I wasn't able to get any of them completely without a tool. That said even with the difficulty here the install was still very easy. I think I spent a total of 5 minutes getting it all together. I would suggest that you make sure to line up the “flap” on the back of your tubing for the cleanest look before getting the clips on.

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The only issue I ran into as far as quality goes was on the left tube below. I don’t remember seeing these spots before, but after the install, they showed up. They were hidden because of the bend in the tube and it is possible they were there from the pressure of the bend as well. But it is worth pointing out that they did happen.

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So here is what it all looked like once installed. The AIO that was blending into the background now stands out on the black background while also matching the case. Depending on your build you could use these as an accent or to match it all together. Of course, there aren’t that many colors available. They did hit the big ones, though I think the light green needs hit a few more times. A good orange would be nice, but I’m bias on that one and a darker blue would be good for most other blue-themed builds.

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Overall and Final Verdict 

Once installed our build was clearly faster right? Okay, this sleeving isn’t really going to add FPS or even really add much more protection. Especially with our Corsair H100i v2 already having sleeving. But they do allow you to add another touch of customization. That’s really what this is all about. I would never recommend these as a required component for a build. But later on when you are looking at things like cable extensions and you price out a custom water cooling loop and nearly die when you see the price. The AIO Sleeving Kit is there as a nice backup option, paired with an AIO that doesn’t cost as much as a cheap car.

Installation went quickly and getting the sleeving on itself was very easy. The clips, on the other hand, are a challenge and I ended up busting out a tool for the tool-less installation to get it to work. CableMod has done a good job getting it all down to two different kits depending on what AIO you have, they have most of the popular options on there except the Cooler Master kits. The only other issue I had was with the color options. Being cable mod, I was hoping to see more color options. What they have does cover most of the bases though there needs to be a darker blue and a better green. Not to mention there isn’t an orange! The red and white basically cover most builds though.

They are listed for $19.90 on the CableMod store but you have to pay shipping or Amazon has them for $23.95 with prime shipping. It’s not exactly cheap for two short sleeves and a few clips, but when you step back and think about how much cheaper this is than going with a custom loop it really is nothing. A custom loop is always going to look better, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good the kit looks in our D-Frame Mini build.

fv5recommended

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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VaporX's Avatar
VaporX replied the topic: #38548 13 Jul 2018 15:30
Went looking for these and was amazed after reading your review of all the negative feedback these got. Seems they QC on this is a bit lacking, people hate the clips and the material will not allow a cutdown if to long.
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #38549 13 Jul 2018 17:06
Yeah, those clips are a huge pain. I can see how some people would have more trouble with them. As for cutting the sleeving, move sleeving kindof falls apart if you don't cut and melt it back together at the same time. I think that is why they don't just offer one universal size.

If you end up getting some, would love to see pictures

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