This log covers the modifications made to my Cooler Master ATC-210 (Azure) case and system upgrades/ mods. I should have started this a long time ago... but for the time being I'll be adding the mods to this thread with the date I did them in their post title. I have been modding my cases for a long time... the previous chassis of which is now in the attic... one day I may take it down and photograph it... but that is for another day... This is how the case is looking at the moment: This is it's story Please post your comments in the discussion thread to make things a little easier to find.
Noritake VFD - November 2002 My first addition to this rig was the Noritake VFD that I purchased after reading Cheese's excellent review. I had planned to make the cutout (which was milled out) about 25mmx85mm but I got a bit carried away and it ended up a bit bigger (approx. 120mmx30mm). I think it looks pretty good with the cutout the size it is. The filter is the dark blue one available from Maplin (QZ71N). Unlike the filter supplied with the kit the dark blue from Maplin gives the display a much stronger blue colour and I would highly recomend it. For my previous attempt at making the bezel, the filter and display were attached using double-sided carpet tape. I used the same this time which worked well and is still holding today. The blank milled bezel Apply Double-sided carpet tape (it's like double-sided Duck tape) Carefully cut round the hole So the tape isn't covering the window Peel off the backing and stick the filter to it. Attach the VFD in the same way and all done! The Noritake display itself does look stunning and colour with the filter fit the case perfectly! I previously wrote this up here Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
Independent Activity LEDs - January 2003 This mod was inspired by ZapWizard's Drive independent activity LED's mod. At the time I had a Promise Fasttrak 100 TX2 controller, 4 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 40Gb HDDs and 1 sodding LED to show it all off. I won't go into the background of how this works as ZapWizard has covered pretty much everything I will just start with the following notes: 1. If you are going to follow instructions follow them to the letter... Having wired everything up it didn't work... I soon realised that the white wires in my cable were signal and the coloured cables ground not the other way round as I guessed... Of course if I followed the instructions in the first place and cut the third wire in I wouldn't have had this problem at all 8) 2. Having wired it up correctly the drives weren't detected on boot up. I solved this by setting the master drive jumpers to Master with non-ATA slave. I've figured that the activity line is also used between drives on the same cable to detect the presence of a slave... without this connection some drives will assume they are on their own and cause the drives to not work. Without further ado here is the mod: First off I modded the cables cuting the wires for pin 39 and bringing them out of the shieving. Next I grabbed a piece of six core cable and soldered this onto one of the molex connectors connection red and black to 5v and ground. The remaining four cores were soldered onto the pin 39s for each drive with a bit of heat shrink to make a tidy job. I removed the front panel of my case The usb ports I never used have been removed and I am using the plate to house the extra LEDs. The white plastic is HIPS with 2.5mm holes for the LEDs to shine through with a bit of blue filter. The plate is screwed on and diffused blue LEDs glued into place. I connected the LEDs to the wiring as per ZapWizards guide. The independent activity gives a very pleasing effect. I previously wrote this up here Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
Watercooling (Revision 1) - Jan 2003 I'd been interested in the idea of Water Cooling my PC for some time... it's quite an extreme thing to do but quiet and effective. I had been looking ito it for quite some time and eventually decided to "splash" out on the kit myself after installing a system in my Dad's PC. I purchased a pile of bits to install which are listed: Eheim 1048 with Innovatek Clear Header Tank (with Eheim Filter mesh added) Innovatek Water Blocks (at this time I had my Dual Slot 1 system) which needs modding to fit my slot 1 CPUs Black Ice Extreme Radiator (Picture Below) Innovatek Tubing and connectors Water Wetter The first part was to mount the radiator... As I didn't want to make any large holes in the PC case, and wanted to show it off, I opted to fit the Radiator to the top of the case. The first task was then to attach fittings and tubing to the radiator which would not be easily broken (being unprotected outside the case). I visited my local hydralics company (HCS) and they fitted some airline/ fuel pipe to the radiator which was crimped on. To attach the radiator to the case I attached some metal threaded posts to the pre-drilled holes. Next was the simple case of attaching to the top panel. I marked out the holes and pilot drilled the holes for the pipe and began filing... Until the holes were the correct size for a tight fit around the hose. Then the radiator was screwed to the top panel by the mounting posts. The hoses also needed to go through the inner skin of the case so I marked out a hole large enough on the top of the case and cut this out using a coping saw and then filed to a smooth finish. Once neatly cut I could check the fit was good and start worrying about the rest of the system. The next task was to attach the water blocks to the CPUs... As I had had no success finding water blocks for slot 1 cpus in the UK I ended up getting Socket 370 blocks which I planned to drill and tap in order to mount onto the heatsink with the CPU card clamped between. After carefully measuring and checking locations using a heatsink as a template I used a drill press to drill the holes into the copper without going through the block (so it could not leak) and milled a section off of the block which otherwise prevented the cpu sitting into the socket fully. I have circled in red where the modifications where made. After removing the original Intel stock heatsink I fitted it together using the original backing plate and some machine screws (M4 I believe) which were carefully tightened to apply even pressure. With the cpu cards mounted in the board the it was time to start on the graphics card. The Matrox Parhelia 128Mb Retail. With stock heat sink and fan. I was building this system to be quiet, so that had to go. As I had a spare waterblock from my dad's setup this was to be fitted. With the Parhelia's non-standard mounting holes using the waterblocks mounting bracket wasn't an option, so from reading around I opted to attach the waterblock using Arctic Silver thermal adhesive of course the first task was to remove the stock heatsink and fan. After removing the fan and the brass clips, the heatsink was gently heated to soften the waxy substance holding it. Was hot enough the heatsink simply twisted off easily. The remaining resedue was scraped of with a knife and cleaned up with isopropyl alcohol. To ensure the Thermal Adhesive did not migrate to the board (which would be very bad) the board was masked off with insulation tape, and then a mix of Thermal Adhesive Part A and Part B was mixed with a small amount of Arctic Silver 3 added to ensure the remote posibilty that the heatsink may come off at a later date! At the same time I attached 2 packs (4 in each) of the Tweekmonsters BGA ramsinks using a mix of Thermal Adhesive without arctic silver added (as I didn't want them dropping off onto something...) After waiting a day to ensure all the Thermal adhesive had gone off (set hard) I connected evenything up (Pump -> CPU1 -> CPU2 -> Graphics -> Radiator). And mixed some deionised water with water wetter. And began filling... This is why I added the filter foam to the header tank. The frothing in the water is quite heavy! I continued to fill the system, tiping the case to remove air from the radiator until the froth cleared and then sealed the system. At this time I had planned to see if the system would run passively cooled and didn't use a fan. I was getting great temperatures of around 40degC however a couple of hours later I realised how hot the water was and investigated the temperature probe on the board a little more. Using a fan in the case I could easily drop the CPU temps down to 25degC! As it turned out, the temperature probe on the board measures the air temperature next the CPU to monitor the heat emmited... The heat was building in the case and I was getting reasonable temperatures... with the fan this would drop drastically however, the radiator would be almost uncomfortable to touch! I added a 92mm fan to the underside of the radiator which cooled it considerably! Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
System Upgrade (TFTs) - March 2003 Having been working for my industrial placement year (part of my degree course) I had been saving up for a while to upgrade my system. The first upgrade was the display... Previously I was using a Sony GDM-F520 21" CRT. I wanted to go to a triple screen setup powered by my Matrox Parhelia... So I order 2 18.1" Iiyama TFTs (Model 4637). As a tempory measure to test out the setup I joined them up with some steel lengths I cut and drilled to fit the original bracket mountings and use just the one stand in the middle to support the three. Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
System Upgrade (Components) - March 2003 As with any major upgrade the CPU, RAM and Motherboard are core to performance. So I got some new bits... Supermicro P4SAA Motherboard - Intel 7205 Chipset Corsair XMS Cas 2 512Mb PC2700 (333MHz) DDR RAM... 2Gb in total! Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU with Hyperthreading. I also purchased some other bits for the upgrade that I'll show later on... With the new bits I disassembled the old system and began the upgrade... First off the CPU, Motherboard and RAM were installed into the motherboard tray (removable from my case). Using Artic Silver 3 I mounted the new Innovatek Water Block onto the Processor. The hold-down mechanism for the Innovatek Water Block is a great piece of work and up to their usual level of quality! The tray was slid into the chassis and other components fitted and water cooling plumbing added. Once I had checked everything I filled the system and powered it on! Fortunately, it worked first time. The next task was to install everything... Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
Water Cooling Remounted - May 2003 Unhappy with the appearence of the radiator mounted on riser posts and with no real mounting point for the fan I decided to mount the radiator directly to the top of the case. The fan to be mounted inside with a big hole in the top. Marked out where to cut and attack case with a coping saw! Nice fit for the fan inside that case and onto the outer skin... need to be neater here. The good old hand nibbler tool makes quick and clean work of this. Job done! Please post your comments in the discussion thread .
The huge radiator! - May 2003 Even mounted better the radiator still didn't look right... It needed to be bigger!!! This is the Thermochill 120.3 3x 120mm fans bolt onto this! It's huge Of course, nothing is easy.. I had to perform more surgery to the case so out came my tool box again. Some time later... ] Blow hole trim just tidied/ smoothed the edge of the shroud. Please post your comments in the discussion thread.
Just outta curiosity, how much were those displays because with those displays i could do alot of damage in halo and cz lol. 14 year olds just don't have the money to buy S@i! like that. Maybe if i got it from some of my fello bit-tech forumers. lol Who would wanna pitch in to buy Spy somegood old 3000 dollar lcd displays and maybe a new hat?????
Those screens set me back £700 each when new... Bit less than that now. Please keep comments in the discussion thread.
wow 700£! but i was wondering... since you play on those screens, do't you have to have an extremly high sense (sensitivity)? and the lower sens means better aim.. btw: pics works fine for me...
The extra resolution provides a better aim! But not when I'm playing Normally used for browsing the web at the moment anyway.
