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Case Mod - In Progress Gaming in tight spaces - MAX11Lv3 ***COMPLETE! (11/11/11)***

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by miahallen, 2 Oct 2011.

  1. jeckulz

    jeckulz What's a Dremel?

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    OMFG!
    That, Sir, is TIGHT! And I don't mean in that stupid urban American way either : D
     
  2. peteski

    peteski long live the pc

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    my thoughts aswell :rock: :rock: :rock:
     
  3. V1P3RZ646

    V1P3RZ646 What's a Dremel?

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    that is toight as a toiger! looking awesome!
     
  4. KoSoVaR^

    KoSoVaR^ Professional Sleever & Modder

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    om my god what have you done :(, i thought it would be so good...but it didnt turn out as i aspected :,(
     
  5. miahallen

    miahallen Team IRONMODS - World Champions!

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    Whats wrong :confused: Are you referring to the problems I ran into?
     
  6. imersa

    imersa Parvum Princess

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    Haha looks as close to perfect as it can get to me! Certainly gave me a bunch of ideas for my new build.
     
  7. miahallen

    miahallen Team IRONMODS - World Champions!

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    Updated with my commentary :)
     
  8. KoSoVaR^

    KoSoVaR^ Professional Sleever & Modder

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    the unclean cuts, the finish, and the whole product was just destroyed by that carbonfilm etc, a good paintjob would have been great !
     
  9. Darkwisdom

    Darkwisdom Level 99 Retro Nerd

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    The hell?

    The whole thing is spectacular, i think anyone else would agree. He's done a hell of a job for such a tight space.
     
  10. KoSoVaR^

    KoSoVaR^ Professional Sleever & Modder

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    i like the basic idea that he had, and the whole thing, but i dont know why he didnt make cleaner ad more precise cuts and a good paintjob, the other things he did just made the whole build to rate lower than it was before after the mods.
     
  11. miahallen

    miahallen Team IRONMODS - World Champions!

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    I wish I had access to the equipment some around here have, but I'm doing all this work at home with basic hand tools....and I'm not very experienced either. This is only my 3rd major case mod. I also don't have fast access to a powder coater. I'd have to ship the case to someone in the states to have it done that way I'd want it. The CF was used to clean up the rough cuts, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Thanks for your comments anyhow :thumb:
     
  12. bulldogjeff

    bulldogjeff The modding head is firmly back on.

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    Just looking back through this..that GPU on the top looks superb, excellent job dude..:thumb:
     
  13. OmightyOne

    OmightyOne Minimodder

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    Very Inspiring! always wanted to build a pc like this so it was easy to transport to LAN party's/events, but was always put off by how low the spec would have to be to get everything to fit in. Now after reading this build im shocked and you have pushed the limits of space with an amazing job done . I very much look forward to see the temps/benchmarks.
     
  14. miahallen

    miahallen Team IRONMODS - World Champions!

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    So, I mentioned during my last update that this project had run into two major problems. A water leak of which I was unable to identify the source. And the PSU's failure to power up with the system installed.

    I'm happy to to say that my friend Norbert and I have successfully worked through each of the problems (as well as a few more) and the system is now complete! Read on for the details :)

    We started off with the arduous task of breaking the system down to get access to the PSU.
    [​IMG]

    Next we probed each of the pins on the 24pin connector, and everything was spot on. However, as we re-assembled the rig piece by piece and testing after every single change. We found that the PSU fan would not spin when we closed up the PSU due to the wires which had been cut short earlier. So we shortened them a bit more.
    [​IMG]

    I also grabbed an extra 12V, 5V, and ground line to run to the LEDs, the pump, and the optical drive. I had previously planned to tap those lines into the SATA connectors, but it ended up being a mess, so this would help clean up wiring a lot!
    [​IMG]

    Then we reassembled to being leak testing again, so that we could hopefully identify the cause/source of the leak. It didn't take to long to figure out that the hose had been punctured somehow up near the lower rad line. And cutting off the last 15mm of that line solved the leak problem....Yeah!!!
    [​IMG]

    Then, curiously...after getting everything put back together, we found the PSU refused to run again which really got us scratching out heads. It took quite a bit of time and before we probed the PCIe connectors and found that I had swapped one of the 12V with one of the ground lines :-/ uggg....luckily we swapped them around and everything was happy once again. Nothing dead, phew!
    [​IMG]

    This is what the layout looks like prior to putting in the optical drive tray....it's a really tight squeeze!
    [​IMG]

    So, we finally had the rig running properly and started getting things set up correctly in the OS.....oh crap, I spoke too soon, the last thing I wanted to see at this point was poor temps....but the GPU was idling at 70C at stock speeds :(
    [​IMG]

    So, once again we broke the system down enough to get a wrench in there and found the GPU block bolts were way too loose (how could I have missed this earlier, eeerrrr:(). Anyhow, I tightened up the bolts, and got back into Windows....yeah! GPU now idling at 30C....much better :)
    [​IMG]

    The CPU now idles just above ambient and the GPU at about 8C above ambient. I'm not very impressed with this motherboard's overclocking abilities. It allows for Turbo mode overclocking only. So right now I have it set to Turbo up to 4.3GHz, but with a full load it drops back to 3.4GHz and even still throttles a bit down to 1600MHz to protect the VRM (I suppose). Oh well, hopefully the BIOS will improve in the future. I tested with v1.1 and v1.2. The CPU load temps are in the upper 50s and lower 60s.

    The GPU was overclocked to a modest 900/1050, the GPU only needed 1075mV to get there, and the load temp equalizes in the low 60s after 20 minutes of Furmark burn in testing. Very good!

    Unfortunately, Norbert is being relocated right now, so time to test the system was cut short. But I'm hoping he can run a few benchmarks for me so I can give you a better idea of the performance potential. Until then, I'll leave you with some final pictures of the rig :)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Thanks again for everyone's comments and criticisms...until next time [​IMG]
     
    TWeaK likes this.
  15. mars-bar-man

    mars-bar-man Side bewb.

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    WANT! SO BAD!
     
  16. OC Maximus

    OC Maximus What's a Dremel?

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    Very awesome work Mia! A step above...

    Now go visit my itx build thread :)
     
  17. Razer2007

    Razer2007 Building Proxima

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    WOW really good, and tight! The GPU block looks cool like that :) Only thing I don't like is the feet.
     
  18. miahallen

    miahallen Team IRONMODS - World Champions!

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    We weren't too happy with the feet either. Norbert plans to replace them when he finds something better. It was simply a lack of options at the moment.
     
  19. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Square peg / round hole.

    This mod is the equivalent of stuffing your face at an 'all you can eat' buffet.

    Nice. :thumb:
     
  20. daverobson08

    daverobson08 What's a Dremel?

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    This turned out very nicely indeed! Will it run Crysis?
     

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