Case Mod - In Progress REDLINE: 2006/7 Retro PC Mod

Looks beautiful. Don't go too old-school with the wiring. The bird's nest look died out for a reason.
I own a 2 seater too, but the trunk is 10 feet long.

 

I had to do a double take on the posting date when seeing the 8800's and other spec of the build as I thought this had been brought back from the depths of bit-tech of yonder years ago. This is looking really very nice. The red against aluminium is divine - I don't know what it is about the colour combo, but it's very easy on the eyes. Looking forward to updates!

 

UPDATE:

Some more progress on the build. I removed the chipset heatsinks and replaced all the thermal paste and pads. I also installed the CPU waterblock, which is a really neat gen. 1 Alphacool Nexxxos waterblock from 2004 I believe.



I got to work doing some wire management. Many of the front panel wires were either damaged or outright missing, so I had to make some repairs and custom cables.













After routing and hiding the wires this is what we get. Not bad!



Next, I started working on liquid cooling tube routing. I started with the GPU cluster, as those would likely be the tightest bits. Turns out my original idea of doing loops didn't work, as the tubing kinked pretty easily.



I ordered some 90 degree fittings, and that seemed to fix the problem...



...Except they were too long for the runs between GPUs!



So I cut down both ends, and it looks like they'll work now.







My next problem is that the bracket I made to hold the lid up by the gas shock kept interfering with components of the GPU.







So I designed a new bracket to be a bit smaller and stronger.





I messed up on one of the dimensions, so I had to trim it.







And there it is installed! Much more room. Although, it still looked difficult to get tubing out of that last GPU. So I ordered a different kind of 90 degree fitting.





And that should hopefully make life a bit easier.

In other odds and ends, I had to make an adjustment to one of the backplates to accommodate the USB headers.



I was also able to confirm that the display works! It's a bit dim since I didn't give it full backlight power, but it's working!



That's it for now. I've got some tubing to work on, as well as getting all the power cables situated (a long story, I'll need to make some custom length cables). But I'll save all that for later. Until next time!

 

Great work.
That first pic of mangled wires had me confused for a bit. I was trying to figure out what really old connector it was, then I saw the next shot. The closeup had me thinking it was a lot bigger.

 

I love the overengineering going into this. Looks very solid, hard to lift too I can imagine!

 

Being aluminum helps a bit, but there’s still a lot of metal and a ton of hardware… yeah, it’s gonna be heavy!

 

UPDATE:


Lots of work on the water cooling and wiring this time. I originally wanted to use the pipe clamps below, but found they let air out and bit into the tubing a bit. So I decided to go back to good ol' fashioned zip ties.




Here I've pre-mounted the tubing that'll attach to the GPUs with the cards outside the case, then put them in. I wouldn't have room to do so otherwise.





I then put the connecting pieces in and zip tied them down. I also cut some tubing for the CPU to GPU section.



And here's the tube that goes from right-side radiator to CPU.



I purchased these right-angle NPT adapters that gave the computer a slimmer profile and look amazing. I also cut the tubing for the radiator inlet/outlet and fan cables. I really like how the tube curves remind me of engine ignition coil wiring.





After doing some wiring, I noticed I didn't have a way to get them to the PSU without going over the motherboard, so I cut out a section of the PSU/HDD shroud to accommodate.







Then I got to work making my custom cables. I started by cutting down the cables that came with the PSU to a manageable length.



Then I added crimp connectors and a red cable shroud.



Then I zip tied and heatshrinked the ends.









Here are all the VGA and CPU cables completed.



Next I set to work making my HDD box. I'm using two WD Raptor drives which only have about 74GB each. I plan on setting them up in RAID 0 for extra speed.





Here's the stack with SATA power cable.



I'm also using red SATA cables because of course I am.



Next I decided to tackle the reservoir and pump situation. Since they're so close together, I really had to play around with the placement before I found something I liked.







Here are the cables going through that new notch.



I also noticed at some point that the gas shock going to the lid needed a spacer on the top side to clear the GPU when closed. So I made one out of a test piece I made for REDLINE really early in the build.





To accommodate the ball-end of the newly-spaced gas shock, I also had to remove a chunk of the side of the case. Being too lazy to removed all the components first, I decided to cover the area with tin foil instead.





With those tweaks out of the way, the lid finally closes with all the GPUs and wiring installed! You may notice I had to splay the wire paths a bit to get the lid to fit, but they still look great.





That's it for this update. There's still plenty more to do on the wiring and water cooling side of things, but the build is really starting to come together. Until next time!

 

Only now do I notice the 3rd hose going to nowhere. Pushing the aesthetic to the max.

 

Great update - looking really good. What's the overhanging bit with the cutout on the top panel for (past the front panel of the aluminium front plate)?

 

Sunglasses holder.

 

That's the handle to open and close the lid. Maybe a bit overkill, but what on this build isn't.

 

UPDATE:

The build is nearly done! I've done a lot in the last few weeks, and all that culminated into a power-on test. So, let's dive in:





I installed these rather ancient Lian Li red LED fans onto the radiators. Back in the day, airflow vs. static pressure wasn't really something people looked for, so neither am I! They look cool and run rather quietly, so that's what matters.





I purchased this fan splitter, which has no active components. I wanted a single cable running to the computer per radiator, and this was how I was going to get it. I considered soldering the cables together, but this seemed easier.



I made a little L-bracket out of some aluminum lid parts that I had replaced and mounted the fan controller to the back of the radiator. I'd have liked for it to be underneath, but there wasn't enough room.



I then ran my fan cable extension through the red shroud material and into the center fitting.







Here's a shot of how the cable routes through the pass-through fittings and down into the case. The cable is custom length, so I just left some extra wire on there and terminated it once everything was together.





I also redid and installed the pump/res combo because I detected some air leaks in this area when doing pressure testing. You may also noticed that the color of the zip ties has changed! That's because I needed to remove all the GPUs to get to the left-side radiator inlets, and I figured they could use an upgrade. I think they look far nicer this way.



I then remade the DVD/HDD drive caddy to have more compact wiring.





Finally, I put everything back together. This was far more of a hassle than I originally thought it would be, and really emphasized how little space I actually have in this case. Luckily, everything actually fit and I was able to take some really nice shots.



I even like how the back of this build turned out. That fan shroud and multi-GPU is really putting in work! But you might be asking yourself, "what about the DVD drive cover?" Well here it is in all it's glory:



Next up, I added a little fill spigot to the reservoir and filled the system with distilled water for flushing out all those old components.



Now for the moment of truth:







Power on! After spending at least an hour trying to get as many air bubbles out of the system as possible, the system ran with no hiccups. I did have trouble getting my RAID 0 config recognized by the Windows XP installer, but then I just decided to dedicate one HDD to XP and another to Vista. I had to take over my "retro" table, and I'm planning a VESA mount project for the 30" Cinema Display (remember that? I told you it would look cool!) so I can push REDLINE farther back and have more room for the keyboard.



And there you have it! A clean install of Windows XP. I'm having some driver issues (of course I am, it's Windows) but once I have those sorted I can begin installing games. I'll also need to swap out the distilled water soon for proper coolant once the system has cycled enough.

Hopefully, aside from draining and refilling the loop, my problems will be software-based from now on. I hope to run some benchmarks and show pictures of gameplay in the future, as well as a proper photo shoot somewhere with actually good lighting. Until next time!

 

Awesome!
-I'm going to ignore the plumber's thread putty and hope you didn't use it.

 

This looks really good