Case Mod - In Progress Zombie Mods - The TVR Sagaris.

OK so I'm back. This time though things are different. This time I have 100% guarantees that my CPU will work haha.

I've ordered a bare bones one of these -



Includes board, PSU (875w 80+ silver) CPU cooler and case.

Here is the board. Whilst it ain't no SR2 it's good enough.



I will be breaking the Steam Box down into the parts I bought, sans the case. So I lost £18, it could have been much worse really. Today a mysterious package came from Taiwan.



Why isn't the UK more happy when it comes to designing packing cartons?



What is it? well it's the GTX 480 Lightning Bindi donated to the Steam Box. It needed stripping...



Cleaning...



Rebuilding..





I'm not sure what mods I am going to do to the case yet. It is ordered and should be shipped soon. I do know that the front fascia is removable, so there's lots of scope for modding



Oh and the name. Well, without the donations I have received in parts this project would not be happening. So I figured it fitting to name it after you guys

More to come soon

 

Man, That board is a real ****, but what if you need an AGP slot?

 

OK so it came and I started work. Initial impressions..

1. Holy crap the front part is solid alu :O

2. Man it's smaller than I thought !

3. Yay, reverse ATX !

This time though I wanted to actually build it first and get it running. This has been a success ! yay !

Right now I have no solid plans. I want to do it as I go so to speak. I'm deliberating getting the front panel part professionally sprayed. That or I can wait a month or so and spray it myself, still not decided. It would be really hard to replace the entire front and tbh I quite like it.

So first up an inventory of parts.



Some heat spreaders that sparkle



Drives.



One large clump of very useful wires.



Now I just have to use these things..



Fans.



Getting the Lightning to work was a problem. Basically even though the PSU is the 875w 80+ silver unit you find in the Aurora ALX it was wired differently and they have left two rails empty. So it only had two 6 pin PCIE FFS. I needed two 8 pin AND a 6 pin. Thankfully I had already made a twin molex - 6 pin.



And two +2



But then I found out that the PSU only has one Molex. FFSx2. So I took a string of Molex from the dead PSU (that Silverpower) and soldered them on. I then set to work.



And..



Factoid - this GPU has two less power connectors than a 24 pin ATX plug lmao.

I also received this from Saspro... God Bless Bit Tech /salutes.



So today I will be playing musical ram slots to see what config allows the most ram

Til next time.

 

I've never seen a modder that makes things so difficult for themselves, if there is anyone that can take totally incompatible parts and beat them into submission until they work together, it has to be you

"If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it".
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

It will be interesting to see how this build performs, I really wanted GTX 480 Lightning when they came out but they were a £400 card back then.

 

Love builds that come along and remind everyone a project doesn't have to cost the same as a secondhand car to be awesome!

 

I'm one determined little person tbh. Once I set my mind on something that's pretty much it. And you're right, I will then beat the bugger into submission

At the time the Lightning launched I was just putting my life back together. As in, lost everything in the USA and returned back to the UK with nothing but the fluff in my pockets.

Mum loaned me £230 and I bought a bogey green Alienware with a Core 2 in. I got it from a Dell recycler on Ebay, as I always have with my Alienware gear.

Then the Lightning launched and wow, what a card ! I know MSI had released Lightning cards before but they were never, ever as special as this one. The cooler on it is found nowhere else, which is unusual for MSI as they usually put their current Twin Frozr on anything it will fit (hawk, etc).

I lusted after it so much. Me and a friend of mine made it an 'in joke' where we would say "**** it dude, I'm getting a 480 Lightning". But I've never, ever had something like that. Something so high end at launch.

I only have a 7990 due to my wonderful lady who helps me embrace my hobbies, but yeah, 480 Lightning is something I've always wanted and Bindi made my dream come true. OK, so it's knocking on a bit now but man, doesn't matter one iota to me.

Today I'm braiding SATA connections. And again, it's hard work as they need to be soldered into place. I've literally just finished the braiding so I will return to my solder iron in a wee bit and get them in place. Then I'm going to make a custom deck for all of the hdds.

I do want to mention though that without the love and kindness of this forum this project would not exist. Pretty much half of it or more has been donated.

Which is unbelievable, really....

Yup. Pretty much sums it up. Me? I'm used to polishing cheap turds lol !

 

I will be watching this with interest! I love mods with older tech!

 

Oh, lord! I just looked up the module for the 2nd chip. Total Dell clusterf*ck. I thought it was strange there was an open space in the chassis.

Also: My Dyslexia makes reading your project title unrepeatable.

 

Bah. I was just about to post a mod log and Photobucket has kicked the bucket.

Maintenance apparently.

 

OK now remember the PSU that blew up during the I9 Steambox? well here it is again.



Solder.



Bzzzzzzzp



OK cool that's that cut then.



Mount.



Yup, I like it. Cover.



Test fit.



Hmm, something missing !!



Better.



Hells yeah !



And the deck is completed

 

Photos down again. Any way here's what I've been up to. First I needed to route a SATA cable (there are only two on the hdd plate)



Then I had a SATA extender...



So the hard drives are all fitted and wired now.



I have decided to use Windows XP X64. So far it's all gone well and I have pretty much everything sorted (drivers, Photoshop etc). Because of that I managed to fit my XFI Fatal1ty. I just love the headphone amplification on it You'll also note my Patriot Convoy. This carries two 2.5" hdds and is now all wired up.

So here's the front of the rig. I've done some Dinoc work on this.



She's gonna make a great workstation I just have to repair the GTX Lightning..

 

Hi guys an update, sort of.

I've been in talks with B-Negative about painting the aluminium front cover. We've managed to knock out a deal so I will be sending the front panel away to him. Not sure what colour it will be yet as I've given him free reign to do as he pleases

As you may have noticed I managed to break the GTX 480 Lightning but accidentally shoving a piece of plastic into the fan. I looked around for replacements but could not find any 90mm fans. This was the only Lightning card to use them it seems. Thus I sourced a set of these.



They are 80mm.. Close enough... Thing is I hit a snag. I first ordered them from China. I got an email the next day telling me they did not have them in stock and it would take up to 7 business days. If they didn't have them after that they would refund me. I've ordered from them before and it takes about three weeks for stuff to arrive so I wasn't happy with this and asked for a refund. Then they tell me they have shipped them (liars buying time).

Annoyed and broke (I had 45p in my bank account and no money to order any more, in fact I had borrowed money to order them) I packed the Dell away..

Then I went to Dorset yesterday and found some parts so they have been sold and I managed to source the same fans in the UK for £7 for a pair (I paid £5 for three from China but whatever) so I should, hopefully, be able to get the Lightning repaired.

I can't wire these fans to the card but will wire them to a front mounted fan controller of sorts (either a knob type or full on bay device) which is great because as a workstation the fans can all be set to really low levels. I must say I love how quiet this Dell is !!

Any way, not much more to report really. I found a 320gb laptop drive (well, swapped it out of my other PC for a full size drive) so today I will be installing Windows 8 probably

So that's about it for now.

 

Progress has been a bit slow. I'm still waiting on a bloody set of fans. Either will do, given I have two lots on order from two different places now !

Any way, today I decided to tackle the 8 pin EPS. This isn't something you ever see, but I just hated the Dell OEM plug.



But the buggers have cable tied it behind the board... REMOVE TEH BORDE !



And start



And....



And...



And...



That'll do

Fit the front blue LED fan..



OK onto something else. I've decided to have a go at the front myself before sending it to B-negs. I'm a massive fan of House of Kolor's Kameleon. I ordered some samples of switching Dinoc and had a play..





Today I fitted some to the panel and played around with the heat gun to see what sort of tolerance it has to being stretched. It was OK. None of the pigment was damaged tbh. I'm going to order it but not in Carbon finish. I really don't like that too much. I want to get it matt, then I'm going to hit the ****er with 6-7 coats of clear.

 

OK big update. The fan controller arrived (still no ****ing GPU fans though grrrrrrrrrrrrrr)



Remove the knobs



Strip



Cover



Fans.



Braid. Note. I've actually clipped down the fan with a pair of snippers and glued this braid onto the fan..



Done.



Do the other one.



Wire together.



Plug...



Make extensions.



Braid.



Fit.



Run wires.



And in. Can't fit the grills as they need paint and I need more screws..



Test.







More soon

 

Neat job, Doesn't look like you can get much more in that case, have you run out of drive bays

 

Yeah but look at that big area to the right of the hard drives lol. It's where the second CPU module goes, but I got plans for it

It is actually an incredibly compact case for the size of the motherboard inside it. Which is nice

 

OK small update again. So the case has a space for a card reader, yet, there's no opening in the front panel for it. Very odd !



The thing is a card reader on this rig is going to be essential, as the art I use sometimes comes from my camera. Thus, I need one and would rather it be fitted to the PC. But as I said, no opening..





Masked.



Marked.



I then cut through the masking and the dinoc and peeled it back.





Bzzzzp



Braided the cable.



And done.



I need to paint the inside of the cut as it went kinda gray.

Alfizzle has donated a H100 to the project.. I've been doing some measuring and I think I can make it fit It's gonna be tight though but hey, compact is nice

Oh, other news. After a dispute with the seller of those GPU fans (that never arrived) he's sent out two more tracked and signed for. So hopefully they will arrive in the morning and I can finally fix the GPU.

 

Fixing the Lightning...

The mother load..



OK remove the card from the rig..



Turn it over to remove the screws..



And remove the cooler.



Cleaning stuff.



Strip the cooler.



And remove the fans.



Now compare the two fans to see what my options are.



OK. The motors look the same width, depth and so on, so I was hopeful that I could just remove the yellow fan fronts and put them on the back of the original fans.. Remove the sticker.



Then remove the little C clip and remove the fan front.



But sadly the spindle on the yellow fan is not long enough to be put into the black back properly. Bummer, but the show must go on !



Solder and fit.



Reassemble.



And test.



OK, so the Lightning is fixed. Back to work....

 

This arrived today too. It's the Adaptec SATA RAID card. 6 ports, three RAID chips (you can see them lined up).



Put it in and sorted it out. Win 8 needs the driver forcing on but it's all running now

Then onto the front panel which hasn't seen the light of day since I bought the PC.



I am going to be smoothing the front completely, so I need to fill in that horrible hole where the badge used to be.

Get out the epoxy and the modeller's mesh.



Cut some mesh to fit.



And epoxy it into place. This will give a backing for the body filler.

 

OK so today is bondo day (they should make that **** a national holiday !).

OK, so here's the stuff.



Sand around the hole so the bondo sticks.



OK cool. so done..



Just checking that the mixing ratios haven't changed since I last used the stuff..



OK, so basically I didn't want a mass of bondo bleeding through the back of the modelling mesh. So I stuck a piece of scrap dinoc on there to reduce the seepage.



The problem is Dell have machined this front piece to be quite tight when it comes to fitting, so if I mess up here the panel won't go back together. Any way, enough of the waffle, that ought to do it. Apply bondo..



I'm a little ashamed of myself really, because it's been years since I've done this. I put on way too much, as you do. Mind you saying that I quite like sanding so too much is better than not enough IMO.

OK start ripping it back.



And.



And finally after about twenty minutes..



And apply some more. This ought to be good, but, I may need to crack it out later to get rid of any pin holes or manufacturing marks in the ALU.



It's quite hilarious how I am doing all of this only for it to be covered lol. Ah well, if it's **** underneath it'll stay **** all the way to the top...