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Scratch Build – In Progress One Fresh Sunrise

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by Xtrafresh, 12 Oct 2014.

  1. Xtrafresh

    Xtrafresh It never hurts to help

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    Hey guys, I'm back from a loooooooong lurking period! Hopefully it's been long enough for people here to have forgotten me and my 4 half-finished mods :worried:

    This time, for reals, I'm going to finish one. Before we get into it though a little bit of background.
    I moved to a tiny island in the Caribbean almost three years ago, and haven't regretted it for a second. There's downsides though; I'm pretty much the only person on the island at all interested in PC hardware. My former main hobbies of LANs and modding have been banished to my once-a-year trip back to Holland. To this end, I've built my PC to fit in the carry-on luggage restraints when I came here almost three years ago.
    It looked somewhat like this:

    [​IMG]

    With the sidepanel on, a pretty clean look. Sadly, on the first return flight, my aging Maximus Gene died on me, and I was tasked with the recovery and rebuild of my PC on unfamiliar soil with very little time and budget. I got a good deal on an ITX P77 Deluxe and a 2500K, and a very good friend of mine helped me out with the rebuild. In three days, we built this monstrosity:

    [​IMG]

    I don't have all that many pics of it. It was very rough and unwieldy, but it looked pretty wild and made people go :jawdrop: at the airport.

    It took me ages to get my butt in a modding gear, mainly because outside the house it looks like this:
    [​IMG]

    So yeah, I spend a lot of time out of the house these days. I even lost my glow-in-the-dark white color, I'm currently a murky looking brownish red, with a terrible bike tanline. :wallbash:

    Now though, it's time for some modding. The same awesome friend who helped me out over a year ago to build the above monstrosity is visiting for a few days, so in proper traditional form, we are modding! I've come up with what I feel is a pretty nifty design. Here's a teaser screenshot of the Sketchup model:
    (for reference purpose, I wanted to add a coke can like everyone else, but all I could find on the island was a coconut. :duh:
    It'll have to do...)

    [​IMG]

    So, from here on, the pictures will improve dramatically. My friend has a 7D with him, so you'll be able to actually SEE stuff on these pictures. I'll start with the first pic he made after arriving on the island. Fortunately, it's my cat, which means we can officially declare this mod underway! :clap:

    [​IMG]

    Before it all started, I did a quick and rough mod on an old Intel SSD. No pics of the process, but as you can see by the rough edges, it wasn't all that technical :p

    [​IMG]

    First things first! We dismantle the old case, and exhibit all the hardware that we have to play with:

    [​IMG]

    Top row: Silverstone 180mm AP fan. Silverstone 450W Micro PSU. 2 HDDs, 3,5TB total.
    Second row: Modded Intel 80GB SSD. 2x4GB DDR3, Adata. Phobya 200mm radiator. Asus P8P77-I Deluxe with some extras :)
    Bottom row: various fittings. 100mm Tube res. MSI GTX 670 with XSPC block. 355 pump with Koolance top.
    As you can see, nothing super-special, but a cool collection of hardware nonetheless. Fun components, selected for performance, bang for buck, and small size. Oh yeah, this will be SFF for sure! :hip:

    Also, we have the fun business of breaking up the case. Here's me concentrating before the big *snap* moment, and below that I'll post a video of the snap itself when the bloody thing finally finishes uploading.

    [​IMG]

    A few small upgrades to do first, to get the ball rolling. The Bitspower fullcover block that's on the mobo sure is pretty:

    [​IMG]

    But it can use some upgrading nonetheless. We'll replace these:

    [​IMG]

    with these:

    [​IMG]

    Oh man, this macro lens is amazing. I don't have enough light for it to really work well, but if the BAD shots look like that... :rock:

    Focus man! Back to modding, don't get distracted! Screws! Here's the difference between the two sitting on the block:

    [​IMG]

    And the whole block done:

    [​IMG]

    Next, the SSD needs a little love too. I'll let the pics do the talking:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    As the say here on the island: Much more better! :dremel:

    Tomorrow I'll start posting the actual build. For now, please forgive me while I get some sleep, it's 5 in the AM here! :eeek:

    Good to be back, hope you like the read and the project guys! :rock:
     
  2. Cheapskate

    Cheapskate Insane? or just stupid?

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    Yay! Troll thread!
     
  3. Xtrafresh

    Xtrafresh It never hurts to help

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    Troll thread indeed! :lol:

    One day of modding, and then i got sort of distracted by a fukcing hurricane hitting the island dead-on. :eeek:
    A good collection of devastation pictures is here.
    I wonder, did Gonzalo receive any news coverage in the UK? It hit a few British isles too, Anguilla most notably. Nobody in Holland cared, the news was way too busy shouting about corruption in our latest elections. Oh well.

    My internet services have been down since last Monday, and I've only just been reconnected. Normal modding service will resume soon, I've not done nothing in the mean time! :thumb:
     
    Last edited: 21 Oct 2014
  4. Hukkel

    Hukkel James' minion

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    Good luck Joost! Next time you are in Holland and your hardware breaks down gimme a call!
     
  5. Cheapskate

    Cheapskate Insane? or just stupid?

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    Do you people not have a dry dock? I would think if you were in the seasonal migration path of the tropical storms, you would have some kind of prep.
    The islands only get coverage here if the storm is headed for the mainland. It's expected that storms hit the islands, so they only get coverage if they get clobbered.
     

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