Case Mod - In Progress Project: "Building Better Worlds" by E.E.L. Ambiense - Completed

Bwwhahahahaha!! Thanks, man! I appreciate that!

LOL... hahahaha, thanks bro. I know I need to up an update. I'm basically in repair/RMA limbo regarding the mobo. Hopefully I'll hear from DFI by the end of the week or so, if they're still keeping within the 2-week time frame. The laser is keeping constantly-busy so I won't have access just yet, but I'm workin' on it. I'd love to get this rig done!! I've been workin' on pre-build for my main rig that I'm updating, and I've got some big plans for it. And yes, it will be logged.

Thanks all for your infinite patience in this wait.

 

Belated happy birthday!

I'm also one of the many patiently waiting for updates... DFI needs to step it up!

 

Thanks, Craig!

Yeah, me too....I don't want to start bugging them just yet, but I am getting impatient, lol. I wanna MOD, dammit!

 

4-4-08 Text Update!

Hey guys... No, I do not have anything to bring to the table other than the fact that I got my mobo back from DFI..........and it seems to be working! I quickly dug it out of the Infinity UltraII mobo box they shipped it in......and installed a basic system (HDD, RAM and a single VGA card). I used the onboard power controls to boot it up without a monitor at first to see if I'm past the LED's of Death phase. It was, so I hooked up my trusty 800-year old CRT to it, and I was able to get into BIOS. I'm not going to go totally out on a limb and say that my problems are over, but the board did post fine and everything seems within spec voltage-wise. The only odd thing is the HDD blue screens when it tries to boot into windows, stating a hardware issue. I'm just going to zero the drive and reinstall everything. Probably got corrupted somehow; most likely because I touched it. So, I'll be working a bit on the system after work today and hopefully hardware-wise I can get this pig kicked. Now, the friggin' acrylic? Well, that's another issue entirely. I hate it when we get busy and I don't have access to the laser machine.

Sincere thanks and gratitude to all of you who actually somewhat care about this build for your infinite patience and understanding with both the situation and myself. I will work to my fullest potential to get this ugly-ass Technicolor® M & M's®-coated rig up, running and folding as expediently and efficiently as possible.

 

Sounds good man!

I'll continue to wait patiently for as long as you take...I'll just start hinting at updates more often

 

LOL. Thanks man. Keep me on my toes!

 

Dude!! Craaazzzzyyyy. The case got the Jamaica looking (at least to me) with all the yellowy greeny paint man, loving it puff puff pass.

 

very good news! Did you get any feedback as to what was wrong with the mobo, or did they just ship it back?

The HDD thingy sounds annoying, hopefully you can get that sorted without too much hassle. I'm lurking and waiting for updates

Please do not expect me to feel sorry for you because you don't have access to a laser cutter though. All I have to mod with is blunt knives and a dremel, so i'm rather enjoying the momentary absence of that big mountain of envy in the back of my head

 

Thanks! Jamaica? Yeah, I suppose I can see that...

That's the odd thing; DFI didn't say a thing! No note in the box; no e-mails about it; just quietly shipped it back apparently in working order. So odd! Eh, I'm not worried though. As long as it continues to work like it did this morning on firing it up I'll be a happy modder.

Yeah, the HDD thing sucks...but I'll take it if that means I get a working mobo!

Hahahahaha.... Well, let's see what I can do about getting Mt. Envy back up in the Xtrafresh mountain range, shall we?

 

Dammit... Happy B-Day E.E.L Ah well, better late than never I guess!

Neeeed more pics! He he.. I still have a love/hate relationship with the colours...

But the craft is eeeexelent! *Putting fingertips together like Montgomery Burns*

 

LOL, thanks bro! It's cool; many didn't even know or remembered my b-day IRL!

Hahahaha, I know you do. Consider yourself in the majority over that too! Love/hate; sounds like my last long-term relationship.

Yeeees, Smithers!

 

4-4-08 Another Update!

Alright... Back to the grind! Just a small update with actual pics and stuff from this evening's festivities.

I got the board installed, RAM, etc. I also got the two video cards (after an SLI enable fiasco; ; forgotten how much I hate the hoops you have to jump through to get the crap running!), it seems to be fine.



The video card, well, one of the FOUR of them I have anyways, ....had a different cooler I had put on it. It's a cooler from Zerotherm, which it is not a full-cover unit like these Arctic Cooling Accelero X1 units are. The Zerotherm looks kind of similiar to a Zalman 'flower' cooler with individual sinks you attach to the RAM modules on the card. It's...okay. Temps were a full 10° higher with the Zerotherm than with the AC unit, which puts it at around the same temps with the stock solution (45-50°). Both are quiet as hell though, but then again, anything is compared to the stock cooling.

I wanted to experiment with different coolers because I noticed previously that with the AC units installed, I cannot slide the mobo tray back into the chassis. They're too wide. Here... Check it out. And no, before you ask...cable management has not started so it's a rats-nest ATM, obviously! Just all haphazardly hooked up to check the system out.



And lights-off and UV's on!





I noticed something earlier which I should have caught anyways in the design phase... I mean, jeez...am I a n00b or what!? Because of the width of the AC units installed and the location of them relative to the chassis and the side panel, there is NO room for the side 120mm fan I was going to install on the side panel acrylic. And that sucks. I wanted some more breathing room by using that damn fan. And it's UV orange too! I would've made the case even uglier! So, now I'm torn. I'm OCing this rig as well, of course, and the chipset temps will climb rather quickly. I know from experience with this particular board and chipset. I really want that fan, dammit. Good thing I wanted to reverse-mount the acrylic on the outside of the panel also! I wouldn't have been able to fit it inside the panel because of the VGA fans. Argh!

Here... see what I mean...



My choices:

1). Keeping the AC units installed, and removing the side panel fan from the acrylic's design.
2). Keeping the AC units installed, and moving the side panel fan up and towards the CPU area on the acrylic's design (I think).
3). Keeping the AC units installed, and removing the side panel fan and keeping some vents on the acrylic.
4). Install the two Zerotherm units, but lose my 'stealthing plates' for the VGA cards due to the retention mechanism (that sucks!).
5). Reinstall the crap stock solution and deal with the horrid blasphemy in the form of noise emanating from the system.

Decisions.

I'm going to mull it over while I work on my secret main rig--er, I mean, go home.

-------------
Until the next update, I got nuthin'.

 

I say go with choice 2 or 3. Loving the colors on the case, keep it up

 

I would say you have to go for 2 or 3.

3 would look the best as I think a side panel fan will obscure the view in and there really is a lot to look at in your case so you dont want the view to be blocked too much.

Maybe make a mount for a 120 in the 5 1/4inch bays for the extra air flow?
I did something with a peice of acrylic which was basically just to cut it to the size of 2 5 1/4inch bays, cut out some tabs so it can slot over those folded tray flap bits, cut a fan hole and drill holes for an 80mm fan and drill and tap some screws in the side so you can screw it in securly.

 

Mount the 120 on the outside of the plexi, a little off center of the vga coolers, maybe more to the right? Or do you not want to have a fan on the outside of the case?

Or #3 and have Neg pressure inside your case?

Otherwise, this case is looking killer! (more like killing my eyes, tbh)

 

I'd say the most viable 'have your cake and eat it too' option is #2. The only thing that sucks about it is that you'd have to mess around with it helping/competing with the CPU fan. If you put the side panel fan right in line with the CPU cooler, it'll pretty much negate all the other air around that space and give you an isolated 'cold' spot, but it'd be rather inefficient for cooling the video cards. On the other hand, if you place the side panel fan in an area above the graphics cards offset from the CPU fan you may create some weird and irregular turbulence around both the CPU and the video cards thereby going back to that inefficiency problem.

It's a pickle for sure. If it gets to be too much of a pain you can always get creative with option #3. Good luck man! Let us know

 

Nice to hear that the board is working again ,your case got many colors but i think they look good together and also makes this one a case/mod that stands out.

Regards.

 

I haven't really been so sure about the color scheme so far, but seeing the pics of the insides with those colorful sleeved cables made me really dig it!! I hope you don't hide those cables away too much, they really lift the look, imho!! 8D

About the fan.. what about mounting it further towards the front (on the inside)... and then having fins behind it to direct airflow to where you want it. Don't know how much space there is between the window and the PCBs of the GFX cards, but I'm guessing that you may have to make some cutouts in the fins to be able to fit them (?).

 

Thanks, man!

Yeah, I've thought of the bay thing too. Easy to do, and make it look decent, but it almost defeats the purpose of the fan in the first place. I really wanted it to directly blow on the cards! I'm just going to have to mull it over some more. Sleeping on it didn't help, lol.

That's the thing; I didn't want to mount the fan outside the case. I just don't see it looking right to me, although I've seen it done before and looking good. Argh! Decisions!

LOL @ hurting your eyes! Sorry, mate. I know it's painful, lol!

Yeah, that's the problem... I don't want it to compete with the CPU fan, like you said. It would most likely defeat the purpose of having it in the first place. This case, compared to newer solutions, doesn't have a lot of airflow stock as it is.

Thanks for the offerings on ideas! It's definitely giving me more input/data to help me figure out what I want to do.

I appreciate that, mate! Your opinion is definitely in the minority though in regards to many others' response on the colors! Most of the time they recoil in horror!

Hahahaha, I'll do a little cable management, but that's the nice thing about modular PSU's.

Yeah, I like the idea of 'fins' directing the flow from the fan, but it'd almost hinder the clean look I was trying to go for, not to mention the flow from the front intake fans. I'll just have to chew on the fat a bit and see where I'm at.


@ Everyone:
To be honest, I've been thinking of ditching these vide cards anyways, as they are getting 'long in the tooth'. Not to mention the fact that the PCB's are green and they don't match the black PCB of the mobo.

Alright, I've now moved into total dorkdom.

I know...I know...I said this was a crap build using old parts, but I've been eying a pair of XFX XXX Edition 8600GT's. The price is good, and they're black! And they already have a Zalman® cooler on them that doesn't stick out past the edge of the PCB. They have a higher clock speed, but the down side is they only have 128-bit bandwidth versus 256 from these 7800GT's. They use less juice meaning they won't get as hot though. But looking at the benches, they're only slightly lower in FPS versus the 7800GT's. If I SLI them, it'll be pretty close to what I have now with a bit less heat and I won't need any aftermarket coolers installed; they're already included! I mean....I do have a little 'birthday money'...does that qualify as an excuse?

....Guys? Hello?