Not a question, but sharing some experiences I've had with my new build. Lot of little issues along the way that I've finally got sorted out... Hopefully anyone looking at a build along the same lines will find some of it useful! So after about 5 months of putting off the build, I changed a few parts on my list and picked up where I had left off... I had already purchased an eVGA Classified 760 motherboard, i7 920 processor, X-Fi Titanium sound card, and an Enermax Revolution 1050w PSU. Being in a hurry to finish the build, I went with an Antec 902 case in place of the Obsidian 800D I had been looking at, some OCZ DDR3 1600 RAM in place of some Dominator or Crucial RAM I had been looking at, and a WD 1TB Black in place of the Samsung 1TB F3 I had been looking at. Well I will say right now that this build didn't want me to cut corners! After receiving the case and putting everything together, I ran into a problem with the Corsair H50 cooler... Specifically the northbridge cooler on the Classified board sits too high and close to the exhaust fan on the 902 to install a fan + H50 radiator. What I had originally planned was to simply mount the radiator on the side panel after some reinforcement with new bolts + nuts in place of the original plastic caps + screws. This worked okay initially, but I soon realized that it wasn't the best solution... The intake fan was halfway blocked by the graphics card, and I was dumping warm air directly into the graphics card at the same time. Second problem came up... The hard drive cages included with the 902 interfered a bit with the SATA connectors on the side of the Classified board. While I could still install everything, I wasn't comfortable with how much pressure was being applied to the SATA cables to get everything to fit. Now my third problem came up... I had originally heard about compatibility issues with the Enermax 1050w PSU and the Classified board, so after receiving the parts originally I tested them. Everything worked fine. Now after installing everything into the case and hitting the power button, I was greeted by a red light on the PSU: it had entered fail mode. One RMA ticket to Enermax later, and the old PSU was off to Enermax. Then my fourth problem then came up... I had been getting BSOD's in Windows 7, pretty much straight away. After deciding that the hard drive didn't have any issues, I checked the RAM. Sure enough, one stick had arrived completely dead, with the other two sticks containing a few errors as well. OY! I ended up sending the RAM back to Newegg for a refund. Good news came: the new PSU was on its way! Got the PSU in on a Saturday (I guess the company paid for Saturday delivery too... credit to Enermax) shortly before leaving for work and decided to just screw it into place so I could re-route the cables accordingly after I got back from work. What I didn't take into account was how flimsy the SATA connector on the HDD was... Managed to break the plastic piece that holds the SATA pins in place... In hind sight, a locking SATA cable may have prevented my problem, but at the time I had the locking end on the motherboard. I was able to salvage the plastic piece that broke off by breaking the SATA cable. At this point I'm thinking I'm just not supposed to have this freaking computer working! Well a bit of determination later... For the hard drive cage issue: after looking at the cage + fan setup for a few minutes I realized it would be possible to mount just the fan portion to the case by using the screw mount holes in the front blanking plates attached to the fan setup. Three screws a side, two sides, six screws total... Worked a treat! Now the problem of where to mount the hard drive... The case comes with a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter for a floppy drive. What, other than a floppy drive is 3.5"? That's right, the hard drive! Score: Jared 2 - Antec 902 0. I was able to mount the hard drive in one of the empty bays between the fan setups. While I realize there won't be as much airflow over the hard drive without a fan blowing directly on it, there should still be enough to keep the drive cool. Removing the cages ended up giving me the H50 solution without realizing it until later... With the cages removed, the H50 can mount directly to one of the front fans. I ended up having to modify the fan cage a bit, removing the bit that normally houses the fan speed controller for the Antec fans originally in the case, and drilling out the original mounting holes so that I could run the screws through from the front of the fan assembly directly to the radiator, but it proved to be worth it. The H50's hoses are the perfect length to mount the radiator in the front. I was also able to make use of my 5th Sycthe S-Flex fan I had bought, setting up a push-pull setup through the radiator. MUCH better solution! As for the PSU issue, I already stated I had a new one back from Enermax above... The new one fixed the issues I was having, settling my mind a bit more knowing I don't have to send the motherboard back to eVGA as well! I ended up waiting on the RAM until they had the Crucial Ballistix Tracer models in stock that I was looking for... As luck would have it, they got it in stock a day before my PSU had arrived here. Seems it was fate! Ordered up 6GB worth of DDR3 1600 along with an XFX 5870 and called it a day. Got the RAM and the graphics card in and installed, and immediately booted up Memtest (the DOS version) to run while I was at work. Almost 11 hours and 12 passes later, zero errors across the board running at the proper settings. Crucial, I knew you wouldn't fail me! Having used their Ballistix back in the DDR400 days overclocked happily to DDR500 with extremely tight timings with zero issues, I had my fingers crossed that they would still be as good as they used to be. I wasn't disappointed. So everything's fixed and proper, side the hard drive's SATA connector. I had planned on using some type of glue to reattach the plastic piece to the hard drive, but wondered if it would be necessary if I used a locking SATA cable... I grabbed the cable I had destroyed, set the broken plastic piece back in place, and attached the cable. Success! The cable locks in place and holds the broken plastic piece perfectly. I may still end up gluing the piece back in place, but for now I don't see any reason to do so. It's being held in fine, and it isn't flimsy in any way... On top of that, I'm not sure I could get the plastic piece out again without breaking another SATA cable. So at the end of the day, after a lot of frustration, my new build is fully alive, running enough airflow with the 5 S-Flex E fans to lift a small car off the ground and sounding like a jet engine, it's time to call it a day. Overall I'm happy with the end result, though I have a sneaking suspicion that I will eventually want to install a fan controller as well. Time will tell if I can get one to fit! As it stands, the radiator for the H50 extends slightly above and below the 3 bay fan setup, with the hard drive narrowly squeezing below the bottom of it, I'm only left with the slot above the top of the radiator for upgrades. Edit: Pics!
I'm happy enough with it as it stands... Might make a few modifications yet, but probably not many. The red and black scheme is just sexy... Shame my point'n'shoot digi cam can't capture the 'real life' photos well.
Damn man. That looks fricken sweet . Every time I see a black case like that makes me want to go out and buy some black spray paint and mod my Stacker 832.
What's wrong with a 902? I was going to go with the Obsidian as I said, but budget just wouldn't allow at the time. I actually really like the 902. It's a great case for the cost, and it was able to accomplish everything I wanted to achieve in the end. Any bigger of a case and I'm not sure I could have fit everything the way I wanted, including mounting the H50 as an intake with a push / pull setup. Now, if I could have gotten my hands on one of these: THESE, I wouldn't be using a 902. They do make a 'Pure' edition now, but it doesn't have a side window, and I wanna show the hardware off! That was one of my reasons for picking up the 902. I wanted to have a case that was black inside and out, with a window, and it fit the bill for a good price. Only down side was that I had to replace all of the 120mm fans in the case with some new ones to get rid of the blue LEDs (and get better performance). On the fan note, I'm very impressed with the Scythe S-Flex E model 120mm's. The fans themselves are quiet, but they push a good amount of air, leaving me with a soft whirring sound from the airflow. Definitely recommend to anyone in the market!
Yeah. I think it looks the better because all the LED's are component LED's. My stacker has loads of fans with green led's but just doesn't give the same kick ass affect . Or maybe getting the rest of the case sprayed black will give a nice look.
