Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Der_Meister - custom alu case *Epilogue Nov 8th, 2007*

Hi jokkos.
First off all I have to say that I’m impressed on how your work turns out.
I did this account only to reply your threat, and you’ve really inspired me, with the way you’ve build the case. I have a project going on, I’m sorry I’m not posting it here, but if you’re interested you can take a look at a Danish forum where I’m posting it. You’ll see it here


Peace out and keep up the good work

 

thanks all for the nice comments!

hi, I buy them in the local do-it-yourself market. There are a few in my neighbourhood and they all have them, they're pretty standard. I find it weird that you can't find them?

 

Selbsverständlich... aber nicht ganz 100% gut

 

I'm honored you made an account just for my work. I'll check out your mod! Thanks!

Edit: I just checked it out. Didn't understand much of the writing, but the pics speak for themselves. I'm really impressed, you have a lot of good ideas!

We do have similar taste, don't we
You should post your log here on bit-tech, this deserves to be seen!

 

Really a good looking flowmeter, jokkos! It's a stunning effect! I'm really curious to see the whole case, but the sticker with the clearcoat are really interesting. For my next case I'll plan to do near the same, is't a really good effect!
As usual , goor work, and keep on modding!

 

yeah, i thought it was weird too that no one around me has them. i dunno, maybe they don't know they have them. lol. keep up the good work!

 

this case is fantastic

 

Good-Stuff Jokkos.
The Innovatek flow meter is a good choice, I use them as well..
Great-Project Fella :

 

Nice. Love those stickers!

Keep up the good work!

 

New Hardware and waterblock installation

A double update…this is post 1.

Finally, at last, all the hardware is in. So I immediately started working on it. But not after taking the necessary pics.

The CPU: 6600 Core Duo. No doubt well-known.


My new RAM. I love that look, will go perfectly with my mesh cover next to it. Dual Channel 2x 1GB, killer timings.


These are the adapters I bought to use my IDE optical drives on SATA connectors on the mainboard. As you can see, on one side there’s the IDE plug and on the other a power jack for the adapter and the SATA plug. The normal 4-pin molex is still needed to power the drive, the power cables you see here are necessary for the SATA.


Here’s the mainboard. Asus P5B Deluxe. I want to use the SATA adapters since this board has 6 SATA plugs and only one IDE, which is inconveniently located for me (the red one on the side right above the SATA’s). This board has everything I want, even more than that. It looks really great as well.


The mainboard comes with a truckload of extras, most of which I’m not going to use.


And then…the beast. It’s only the small beast, there is not enough room in my case for the GTX. Imagine that.

Here’s the box of the beast. It’s huge. Really huge. Over the top.


Especially when we take a look inside. The beast only takes up about 1/3 of the box. Nice environmental consideration, Asus. Oh well, a beast needs a big cage, right.


Here it is in all its glory. It’s long, about 1,5 cm longer than my 6800GT. It’s also thick, but that’s because of that huge vent.


Before I continued, I ran all these goodies in a test-setup, to see if they work. Here’s a pic.


A couple of noteworthy things:
1) the new ventilator design on the 8800 series seems to work. It’s damn quiet (in 2D mode), a lot quieter than my 6800GT was.
2) note the size of the 8800 beast. The good thing is I don’t have to do huge changes to the vid card support. More on this later.
3) the SATA adapters work. I knew that in advnace. But the BIOS of the mobo recognizes the optical drives attached to them as well. See the blue screen on the left? That’s the windows install screen. The cd is in the drive on the right. Attached on one of the SATA ports. So it’s bye bye IDE for me.
4) you see the green glow behind the optical drive? That was unexpected, both of the SATA adapters have two small green leds that indicate a good connection of the power and data cable. I’ll need to cover them.
5) finally, another inconvenient thing: the newer asus boards have –instead of the green led they previously had- an ASUS logo that glows. It’s the red glow you see on the bottom of the board. The sad thing (and also a bit illogical imo), is that it glows red when the pc is on and blue when it’s off. The other way round would have been so much better. Oh well, I’ll have to live with that.

The final new item is the one I had to wait for the longest. But oh boy was it worth it. The waterblock for the beast, made in Germany of course. It’s big, bad and beautiful:


And on the other side. Note the ‘Aqua-computer’ engraved plexi next to the threads for the fittings. It’s illuminated by a blue led. Both cores (the aluminium discs) are mounted on springs so they can move back a bit. Like that, the waterblock is auto-adjusting.

 

New Hardware and waterblock installation part two

After the succesful test with stock cooling, it was time to do what every sane person does to a €500 vid card right after he bought it: void the warranty

I was actually pretty scared of this in advance, more specifically getting the stock cooler off. Since it’s so big with so many contact points on the card.
But it turned out to be by far the easiest block I’ve ever removed! Only 8 bolts, and it came off very quickly because it has only one contact with thermal paste and all the others are pads.

Here’s the stock cooler removed. Look at that massive amount of pads. Also note the enormous amount of paste on the GPU and the stock cooler. Way too much if you ask me.


I cleaned up the card, here it is after the treatment. Looks much better.


Putting the waterblock on was very easy as well. I used thermal paste on most places, thermal pads on others. The original bolts are needed as well. Didn’t take more than 15 minutes.


Another one. The card looks a lot slicker now, not as lump as it did with the stock cooler.


I ran a short test to see that I didn’t cause big damage. All went well. Here’s a pic with the card on the mobo that shows how huge the waterblock is. The good thing about this is that the card doesn’t bend at all when the mobo is held vertically. So a video card support is not even needed.


The new hardware forces a few changes. Since the usb-ports are lower on this board then on my previous one, the cables have fewer space to be moved. So I need to give them some more room coming out from underneath the fake bottom (middle hole on the top, markings indicate new hole). The wires to the power/reset switch and leds also need a tiny bit more room (right hole on the top side).


The video card support also needs some changes. It needs to be lowered by about 19mm.This is exactly the thickness of the part next to the vid card, so I can leave the ‘fork’ where it is (see the pic of the test setup, the fork is nicely placed) and I can just lower the other part on the fork. It will now ‘hang’ underneath the fork, instead of ‘lying’ on top of it like it did before.

The changes needed on the vid card support also clearly show the size of the 8800GTS and the waterblock. The support was made for a 6800GT, and some bits have to be cut off now. On the back (this will be right next to the vid card), about 1,5 cm needs to go. So the 8800GTS is 1,5 cm longer than the 6800GT.


On the other side (this will go under the edge of the waterblock to support it), 2,6 cm needs to be cut off. Also a big difference with the waterblock for the 6800GT (not that that one was small either).


So the coming evenings, I’m going to make the adjustments to the vid card support and the fake bottom. When they’re done, I’ll need to do some work on the wiring as well (mostly the wiring on the waterblock). Then I need to sand/wetsand/polish the fake bottom and vid card support. I also need to remove tape from the mobo panel, clean the edges, wash it, polish the edges. Then –finally- I can start putting the case together.

See you soon!

 

Well done . Great "D Keep going

 

Love it man! What a huge vid card

Cant wait for the next update!!!

 

Damn I would be nervous if I got to install a cooler to a G80-series card :I Pretty nice hardware there.

 

HOLY- **** this case is so awsome
The RCA connector looks so cool !

Can't wait to see it finished !

 

You said earlier that there's little to do anymore, it's an annoying phase of the mod, you have a million small details you have to take care of and no time or opportunity for "real modding".

This is still coming along really nicely, just don't cut any corners even though the things you do can't be seen by anyone else, you'll still know they are there

Keep it up, loving your work.

Janne

 

that's some nice hardware you got there, I especially love that GFX w.b. (or maye the card beneath it

 

Fantastic m8... My rating is

Just spent nearly 2 hours reading your project log and I have to say it's one of the best.

I'm a big fan of modsquad's work, but you too have also joined him in my all time favourite modders.

Great work man... keep it up. You're an inspiration to us all.

*Subscribed*

 

...

What a gorgeus piece of hardware! I'm really happy to have subscribed this thread, all of your post make me happy! Go on, jokkos, now you're really near the end of this big mod!

 

Love it jokkos, really nice load of hardware, keep on going!
I've been watching this from the start, it took time, but man
the time is worth it in the end if you ask me

Petter