Project: mk.V (a UV circuitry theme) -=[FINISHED]=-

Dude you need a desk worthy of that PC...something that the PC can fit on also

 

Yeah I would have used one that I made, But it was snowing outside so I felt like using it.

I'm hoping to build a desk over the summer.

 

nice job man, really nice. and the others are right u need a bigger table for your pc. anyway keep on modding

 

Bad day today. It appears that the Ultra PSU that I got can't cut the mustard under really heavy loads. I'm not sure if it's defective or not. It took me a day to figure this out, and now their customer service department is closed. To make the day even more fun, I pinched my hand in the garage door this afternoon.
I have class all day tomorrow so I won't be able to do anything until Wednesday.

Edit: The voltmeter says the voltages are fine so I'm not sure what's going on. I'll have to investigate some more with benchmarking.

 

Edit:
I'm still having power issue and I'm not sure what to do about it at the moment.

I'm going to have to completely dissect the machine and restart benchtesting.

 

Way to go bud! Way to go...

Keep that chin up, you should have seen the crap I went through painting bling... I mean, if it could happen... it did happen. I was just totally befuddled. BUT... I learned a ton!

Same thing with you on your ATX cable, You know how to make it pretty, now see if you can figure out what is getting intermittant or incorrect about it. Wierd problem there.

Your power cables have inspired me, and I will be performing a similar cable mod on my Ultra, parts should arrive by Thursday I am hoping. Keep an eye out for a blazing ammount of activity.... inspired by you!

Love the way this beast looks and behaves! You really put alot of thought into it, and it shows.

Great, original and creative stylepoints that inspire other modders... and you threw some cool new tricks into the "Tool Pool" ... so to speak!

So, no worries on your ATX cable. You *will* figure it out, but dont beat yourself about it. Just take a bit of time away from that issue and let your brain chew on it in the background for a few days. It will come to you!

 

Damn Damn Damn

I'm beginning to crave a power supply with ActivePFC. But first I want to find out if that's the real cause first.

 

Ouch... what are the symptoms?

 

Driver warning about insufficient power supplied to the video card. Which doesn't make any sense since the voltmeter is reading 12.2vdc off the same molex that's powering the video card.

Motherboard Monitor however (which doesn't actually have official support for my board) is displaying 11.7vdc

 

Check the molex connectors. I've heard tales of these 90 degree molex's not making good contact with the wires. make sure they cut all the way through the insulation, and that there is no slack making intermittant issue of the power.

 

Positive: Appearantly it's NOT my fault. All the molexes are fine and motherboard monitor is reporting the wrong voltages. I tested the PSU without connecting it to anything and the ATX cable is reporting the same 5V and 12V levels as the molexes.

Negative: I have a hunch the power supply is overheating. The latest "crash" didn't actually reset the machine or cause windows to freeze. The difference this time was the ambient temperature being 5C lower because I moved the machine back to the basement. I've removed the exaust chimney too see if that will help, but the PSU smells a teensy bit like warm hot glue right now. I think it's fans are too slow and weak to create enough static pressure to overcome the combination of internal obstructions and the chimney. If I want to use the chimeny I'd have to install a different fan inside the PSU. Something I don't really care to do because the unit is already very quiet. Here's hoping test #5 is normal.

If the result is the same as before I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow.

 

Good luck bud... we are here to help in any way we can , or at least give you a shoulder to cry on!

 

I'm back to benchtesting and I'm only getting errors or problems when running games for more than 30 minutes. I've reverted back to all stock cables to see if I get any improvement.
The RAM passed a 1 hour memtest 86 loop and I don't have any temperature problems. I'm not sure what's wrong at the moment and I don't have a spare motherboard and PSU so I'll have to widdle things down until those are the only remaining culprits.

I'm beginning to doubt that the PSU is to blame since it's voltages have remained constant. It's more likely that motherboard monitor is just lieing to me.

 

This proved to be the culprit in one type of error that I was getting

After 7 hours of testing I have a final verdict: I got bad RAM, and I need to strip and solder all of the 90-degree molex connector terminals.

The general protection faults I was getting while running games for more than an hour were eliminated by swapping out the RAM with a different stick that I've tested to have no errors. The RAM the machine was using passed a memtest 86 loop, but had an error count of 80,000 per hour of testing.

The Video card stopped reporting low power performance reductions as soon as I reverted back to the stock cables. I'm very confident that the same problem the video card was having, was also effecting the 90-degree connectors on the hard drives. That's where the random resets were coming from.

After swapping out the RAM and using only stock cables I ran a successful crash-free 3 hour loop of UT2k4.
On Friday I can take care of soldering the power cables and getting the RAM returned.

I'm very thankful that it wasn't the motherboard or the video card seeing as how I have already heavily modified both components.

 

AWESOME!!!

Good job bud! Glad this turned out to be a fairly easy fix (as compared to trying to unmod the motherboard!!!).

Breathe easy and get those molexes fixed!
What brand of RAM was it?

 

PQi
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-141-152&depa=0

I should have a replacement early next week. If those sticks don't work I'm going to get a refund and buy these instead.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-144-114&depa=0

 

I have some soldering to do tonight and I may be working on a replacement for the inverter box sometime in the near future. There will be an update sometime soon.

What I would LIKE to do is get a 12Volt Throbber circuit made so I can animate the lighting inside the case, but I'm going to have to work on outsourcing that since I don't have the soldering ability or electrical engineering ability required to make one.

 

MMmmmm.... Kingston HyperX... Niiiice!

Dude... I have little to NO electrical experience! My soldering has just now started. You have to start somewhere! Do yourself a HYOOJ favor, and mosey (yeah, I said,"mosey"... that means wander, saunter, meander for all you non-Texans out there! ) over to the Electronics forum here on Bit-Tech. There are people over there that have likely already done what you are wanting, and have the schematics, and pictures of what they did! I can almost promise you that you will find it over there! That is where i found mine! I know for a fact that I have read of others doing throbbers over there.

Go! Fear not, Mr. Maxi-modder!

Another question for you, when you found the slack in the connection on the 90 degree molexes, and you soldered them in... how did you do that? Did you have to strip a small section of wire away to get the solder all thru the wire as well as on the contact points?

 

Me either. I'm going to have to have someone else make the circuit since I don't have the steady hands or equipment needed to make it.

I have to cut the insulation off then solder it to pin contact.

 

Yay!! The power cable is done. My original order for the IEC320 C13 connector got cancelled somehow so I had to reorder it last week. Now it's finished, works great, and looks fantastic.