Scratch Build – In Progress ParaHelix Exterbis

NOTE: In the following text I may incorrectly refer to this website as the following content was taken from my own website (www.ParaHelix.org) which means I may say things such as "If you don't like this, get off of my website", please do not comment about such things as it would take far too much time to edit this for every website which it is posted on, thank you.

__________Introduction__________

Hello, and welcome to the ParaHelix Exterbis project’s official forum board!

I am Daniel Middleton, an 18 year old ICT student at Craven College. I live in a small countryside village called Addingham, three miles from Ilkley in Britain’s rainy west Yorkshire.

I have always been fascinated in the workings of computers, especially in the hardware side, and since you are reading this I guess we already have something in common (if not, this website is 100% not for you, leave my bandwidth for someone worthy, mwhahaha!) and this fascination in the workings of computers has been very much an interesting and fulfilling hobby which has finally led me to this project, an attempt at building an extremely high performance computer, or gaming rig as some of you may refer to it. I am planning to spend every penny of my earnings on it and will not settle for a second hand Pentium 4 processor to power this beast, no, I am thinking more along the lines of a water cooled quad core, but pay no attention to that, I still haven’t started the project, but that’s why I have set up this board, to record every decision, construction, modification (or problem) step-by-step.

Thank you for reading, and until the next post, take care

Short definition of "ParaHelix Exterbis"
ParaHelix Exterbis is a step-by-step diary of the creation, modification, maintenance and life of a very high specification computer, the computer itself is named...I'll give you one guess...that's right, Exterbis, a machine created and maintained by the ParaHelix organisation and a few other affiliates who have also been named on the ParaHelix website.


__________Choosing the case__________


Well, it seems I have decided to actually stick to the project (I thought maybe it would decompose ^^) and have purchased a case, the starting point of any system, but as I said in the first post, I am not planning to do things cheaply and am actually spending every penny of my earnings on the project.

The case has already been delivered (very fast, less than 24 hours ^^) and is from a great company called Lian Li who are famous for producing extremely high quality cases, however, it seems Lian Li have taken a giant leap into the high performance gaming market with this case, it is a Lian Li PC-P80 and despite what many online reviews say (often reviewed by people who have only seen a photo of the case ^^) it is absolutely beautiful, and the online photos you see of it really do not do it any justice, I’m serious here, it is also twice the size of what I thought it would be (known as a super full case). The entire thing is constructed from aluminum with 5 huge 140mm (14cm) fans inside, three mounted inside of the very nice door and two inside of the case itself. Specifications, a video review and a couple of photos are below.

Model: Lian Li PC-P80
Case Type: Super Full Tower
Dimensions: 220 x 633 x 610 ( W, H, D)
Front bezel Material: Aluminum
Color: Black
Side Panel: Hair-line brushed aluminum finishing
Body Material: Aluminum
5.25″ drive bay (External): 12
3.5″ drive bay (External): 0
3.5″ drive bay (Internal): 6 ( using 6 x 5.25
Expansion Slot: 10
Motherboard: E-ATX, ATX, M-ATX
System Fan (Front): 3 x 14cm LED Fan @800-1200 RPM
System Fan (Top): 1 x 14cm LED Fan @800-1200 RPM
System Fan (Rear): 1 x 12cm Fan @1500RPM
I/O Ports: USB 2.0 x 4; IEEE1394 x 1; E-SATA x 1; HD+AC97 Audio


http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_2_47_25.JPG
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_2_41_30.JPG
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_03_04.JPG


__________Choosing the components__________

Hello again guys, I have finally chosen the components of this beast of a computer. Well, I’ll get right to it and post them below. Keep in mind that these are “components” and not the peripherals which will be chosen later into the project. I will later post the www.scan.co.uk product links below, I have not yet because as you may know, Scan has just redesigned their whole website and link structure.

Processor
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB L2 Cache, OEM

Motherboard
Asus P5E WS PRO, X38, Sok 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1200/1066/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

RAM
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15, EPP, DHX

Graphics card
Zotac GeForce 280 GTX 1GB AMP! Edition, 512 bit, 700MHz / 2300MHz, DVI-I+S7(HDTV)+DVI, Dual Link, HDCP, HDTV, DVI Audio with dongle, SLI NVIDIA, Pure HD technology, NVIDIA CUDA technology, NVIDIA PhysX ready

Master hard drive
300 GB Western Digital WD3000GLFS VelociRaptor, SATA 300, 10000 rpm, 16MB Cache, 4.2 ms, NCQ

PSU
900W Tagan TG900-BZ "Quad Rail" Gold Plated PipeRock Modular Cable Management, +80% Efficiency

CD/DVD drive
LG GGC-H20L Lightscribe SATA 16xDVD±R +RWx8/-RW x6 Also READS - Blu-Ray & HD Disc's black - Retail

Okay, that’s just about it for components. Next time I will give you a peek at what kind of cooling, either air or water I have chosen, until then, take care.

http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery...&height=300&width=300&mode=box&bgcolor=ffffff
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_27_57.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_26_45.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_34_24.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_32_03.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_22_34.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_21_07_08_7_36_13.jpg


__________Choosing the cooling__________


I have to admit, I have been interested in the concept of water cooling a computer for a very long time, and have always felt a slight resistance to actually going ahead and trying it (water and electricity!?!?). If I want to do this I must learn it from scratch as it will be my first attempt at this type of system, so I suppose the good old internet and hours of Google should do the job.

After many hours of consideration I have decided to go ahead with the whole water cooling idea, it is more efficient and quieter than the normal old air cooling and you can have green glowing UV liquid zooming around the inside of your case, so why not! Since I have chosen water cooling I am going to have to modify the case to fit in a radiator and all of the other components which come with such a system. I have a basic idea of where I want the radiator, behind the case door, remember the three door mounted 140mm (14cm) fans? They will be great for cooling the radiator!

Okay, so its official, water cooling all the way and I can smell uber-ness in the air. So, what parts will I use?

Pump:
Laing D5-Pump 12V D5-Vario 1/2
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/33_57/products_id/2291

CPU block:
Danger Den MC-TDX 775 1/2" CPU WaterBlock with Lucite top
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/33_54/products_id/2914

Water tank:
Danger Den Single 5 1/4inch Bay Reservoir
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/33_61/products_id/2932

Tubing:
Tygon R3603 Tubing 1/2inch ID
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/33_60/products_id/2517

Coolant fluid:
F1 FeserOne - UV Blue
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/product_info.php/cPath/33_63/products_id/2597

Hose clips:
I already have the hose clips

Okay, that’s just about it, until next time, take care.

http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_37_14.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_36_53.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_36_36.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_36_20.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_35_57.jpg
http://forums.parahelix.org/gallery/1_05_06_08_3_20_40.jpg