Case Mod - In Progress Project Slumber Parties UPDATED 12-16-10 Leak testing

Yea I've never had problems with a build. Mainly because I've always done research for what products I wanted (Never really went with a theme didn't matter before) Sold my old stuff and used those funds to buy new. It was always gpu upgrades or mobo cpu upgrades. Sometimes I would buy a new case if I got tired of working with the one I had at the time.

This one is different. It really has a purpose and it means alot to me. It shows my appreciation for my fiancee and her business. It also shows my appreciation to her for allowing my junk in her business office. Since the house is only 3 bedroom and 1 living there isn't space for another office. So she "ALLOWS" me to use half the office. LOL For that I greatly appreciate her. This build is partially my way to thank her as well as it allows her to be involved in the build of it also since it resembles her business.

I would love to be part of MOTM or MOTY, but I don't think I started at the right time for MOTY not to mention I think the finalists are already decided. Haven't looked into it much, because of time constraints and stuff. It would be awsome to do my first ever fully custom computer mod and be picked for something like that let alone win anything like that. This thing has taken blood sweat and tears let me tell you.

Many times I've thought of pulling the plug on it, because of all the problems. I take a break from it and start looking through project logs and spark the fire again. It comes and goes. I see the end nearing so I haven't had any problems as of late. So I should be good till the end. LOL Unless something expensive breaks around the house or gives out anyway. LOL I've been trying to figure out how to get the Enermax Magmas and Clusters I want though. They aren't a bad price, but when your getting as many as I am the $200+ price tag hurts. I also think I need some piddly other things like ccfl controller box in white I think. I've been tossing around white or black. hmmm still thinking.

I need to start putting money away for x-mas and my fiancee's convention again next year which will be in March this next year. Thats about $1,400. I also have to pay for dress alteration, dj, cake, catering, invitations for our wedding in July. It seems to never end. Jan 29th is one daughters b-day mar 25th is the other. Feb 7th is the fiancees and mar 15th is our anniversary. Of course you have V-day in feb. I don't know why we picked next year for the wedding. To top it all off: we can't have an actual wedding, but both of us want to actually have a wedding. If that doesn't make sense I'll explain: I'm paid through the state to be her personal attendant and she is also on SSI. If we get married I'm out of a job and she looses her SSI. Good times! We just found that out a couple weeks ago.

I did some figures a while back on the hardware I have (which has changed and grown since then) My retail pricing figures also reflect shipping which is $4,638.97. That's not with extra costs in doing the paint first or the first powder coater. Chock up the 2nd powder coater to a $305 price tag added to the above amount plus several hundred dollars more. That's also running just one gpu which I want to eventually run x-fire. Alot of money and time has gone into this build. Because of that I don't know when the next build will be that I can actually afford to buy parts again. I would say several years.

I really need to get my camaro back up and running after this build. The squirrels got ahold of my engine harness right at the firewall they also chewed through the reservoir for my clutch slave and master for the clutch. So that's $500 right there. The T-56 6spd needs to be rebuilt which is about another $600. It was hit back in 07 at my apt complex that I lived in by some guys who broke into a car and were trying to get away. Screwed up the rear bumper and taillight panel as well as the right rear quarter panel and busted the rear glass out. I had a 87 that was parked so I used the hatch and picked up some taillights after a day of beating on the metal I was able to remount taillights.

The police caught two of the guys but never got the driver and impounded the suburban yet they got it out of impound without insurance information which I don't see how they did. So I got nothing out of it. I've picked up a new hatch that is the same year range (its a 91 and the 87 is a bit different) and also a new 3 piece spoiler and rear bumper cover. Sometime I'll make a drive to a guy who parts 82-92 f-bodys and pick up the rear quarter. Then I have all the t-top moulding and such to change since it leaks like mad when it rains the floorboards have gotta go also. When the body is complete and painted (something along the lines of the business colors also) I'll work on setting back funds for the $15k LS7 motor I want to drop in it. So Its going to be a long.... time before I can work on another computer again.

On top of mine I'm helping my fiancee restore an 85 TA also. More money. Thank goodness she already has her motor done. Although it needs to be broke back down and sent off for powder coating because the TX heat hasn't fared well with the high temp paint go figure. So hers mainly needs some body parts and a paint job. As well as some performance suspension items and such.

If anyone wants to see the gallery where the car got smashed up

Car carnageThe video of it happening is on the last page. Might I add it happened two days before my b-day. Although I could swear it was the day before and I spent my b-day fixing it enough to drive it.
Don't mind the Formula act like its not there. It belonged to a crazy x. I'm glad she got the worst of it.

Back to the build:
I was froggy last night in trying to get things ready for when the case is done. So I wanted to try and clean the XSPC res tops since I went used and saved about eh $37 bucks since one also came with a kill coil. I first tryed wiggling around a thick pipe cleaner. Wasn't working to well. Then I put some water in it and tryed that. It helped, but there are places I can't get to and in one of the reservoirs they must have used blue uv or something because there are some spots that I can't really get off. Should have went new!

So I wanted to try and flow fluid through and see if the pump heating up the water would help clean it out some. So I had some 1/2 barbs and some tubing from the first case purchase and hooked that up in a loop pump to top. I then filled it with White Distilled Vinegar and ran them for about 15 minutes. I then drained them and left them on the kitchen counter. I actually haven't looked at them yet. I was waiting for them to dry and fell asleep on the couch while watching the Craftsman Truck race on the DVR. I shall go look at them now. LOL Nope still got some marks and the blue crap is still there.
Anyone know of a better way to clean these things?

Oh got a shipment Sat morning from a local retailer that was too good to allow local pickup so it added another $20ish to the order. Which after that I'm left with like $11 and some change in my account until tomorrow at 6am when my check deposits to my bank. I'll get photos of that and of the front like I said I would today. Sorry guys. Kiddos are over this weekend so I've been a bit occupied.

 

Nice work matey Keep it up...Ohhh and i think you need sum asprin cus you are going to have a head ache if ya keep banging you head against the wall like that lol

 

Thanks. Yea I've already got a sinus headache. I was outside most of the day yesterday so allergys are going nuts.

 

Build, Build , Build! Time to Build! Sketches, drawings, something. As the Governator of California once said in a move. "Enough Talk!", he he he, if you please! Kevin Cos man was told "Build it, they will come!". You have shown some play things, now what are you going to do with them. I can't stand the suspense anymore.... You do realize I'm just having some fun with you? Still here aren't I

 

HEHE. Can't build if I don't have anything to put it in or anything here to install things and get proper tubing setup. I will update soon after uploading pics with some more work I did today. I would have done more, but my wonderful fiancee notified me of some bad news with some parts as I was showing her progress this evening. So yea it just keeps coming with this build. Raining and pouring then pouring more...........

 

More photos of shipments and some bad news as well as progress shots.

More photos and updates as well as more bad news.

Well here are the photos of my shipment on Saturday.



Two of the large clear
Two solid red
Two clear red
One translucent white
This was all a little over $50 shipped from a local retailer that unfortunately doesn't accept local pickup.

Now The UV Bulb from the FrozenQ I was talking about working with last night. I pmed FrozenQ via OCN and asked him about the tube and told him I thought it was a wiring issue. He said he could ship me out another one to replace it as he has seen this problem before. I told him I didn't mind tearing it down and trying to solder the connectors and save him a tube and post. Well I tore it down and everything seems soldered fine. If I touched the contacts it would light the whole tube although very dim. It seems like its having two problems:
Not grounded
Not receiving full voltage
I tryed it in both ports on the cheapo inverter that came with some White CCFL tubes. That of which the other UV bulb works just fine in both ports. So I should have a replacement tube in the mail in the next few days.

I pulled the MDPC sleeving I had left over from the psu and started working on the DDC pumps.
Was left with this:


Then while showing my fiancee she brought the following to my attention:

Anyone else see the problem here?

Yea sure for just an everyday pc there isn't a problem. Although for PSP this is a huge problem as my detail is very maticulous. *SP I don't want flaws that are noticeable. These two pumps will be near dead center in the case and viewable on top of that directly next to each other. So as I stated earlier when I was trying to clean the residue out of these. I SHOULD HAVE WENT NEW. This isn't the first thing that I have changed which I originally purchased used and went new after its sat around the house.

This crap is getting very old. I can't believe I didn't notice one was obviously an older revision earlier. Not only that the internals are different (that of which I wasn't too concerned about taking pictures of. The center inlet tube doesn't line up with the pump intake in the larger res top. Where the smaller one does. The mounts for this tube are also different as well as the internal area where the hole is for the pump intake.

More details then most people will care to notice or give a rats ass about. Myself on the other hand would like to see something come out of all this work. Whether it be sponsorship or just to be featured. Heck I would love Enermax save me some grief and worrying on how I'll afford them and toss 4 Magmas and 8 Clusters in the mail to me. LOL Most of all though with the hell this build has caused; the ups and constant downs it would be nice to be featured sometime. It would make me

Anyway I heard from Hugo from Cangough in New Orleans with the address to send a piece of acrylic to. So tomorrow morning I will be running by the powder coaters to swipe my side panels to make sure I get the above acrylic cut properly. I should also have the missing piece from the last waterjet cut made up and ready for pickup tomorrow so I can take the final piece to SP Coatings and get moving into rotation so maybe something can start coming together.

Now to figure out how to get two new XSPC Res tops. If anyone wants to buy one of these hit me up via pm. It will help with the $100+ shipping for me to get new ones. They are pretty clean now as you can see from the above pics. They could use a little more pipe cleaning and maybe more vinegar ran through them I dunno. There must be some trick to cleaning them I'm not aware of. At least with new I shouldn't have to worry about cleaning them too much with distilled water and kill coils being the only thing in my loops.

So until then.......

 

Playing with acrylic

Playing with acrylic

So I was supposed to pick up the missing piece of the S today, but got round up in helping a 70ish old neighbor of ours with his van most of the afternoon. So I couldn't get up to get the piece of the panel before traffic got bad. So I chose a different route and made use of the window panels I picked up. Which left me with the following along with a ton of small dust.


Tomorrow we have to be in Addison at a cake making company to meet about our wedding cake at 11:30 so I will run by and get the piece tomorrow as well as drop the panels back off with Michael at SP Coatings so PSP gets put in rotation. Oh and today I mailed a trade I made on [H]Forum which I will get pics of when my end of the deal arrives. As well as paid for a replacement for the old revision XSPC Res top which will also get me started on my external fans as it is including 2 out of the 8 I need.

Oh yea almost forgot. Sent the special piece of something something to Hugo Montero of Cangogh in New Orleans. Which he will get started on my stuff when he is done working on the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. This little piece of work will blow everyone's mind.

I may pull out the sanding block and some wet sand paper tomorrow when we are done with everything and smooth out the acrylic edge some. Not like it matters too much since the acrylic edge wont be seen from the inside, but I'm so anal anyway. Look at the 1/8 difference pictured above between the two res tops. LOL

That's all for now.
That's all for now

 

I picked up the small piece that was left out of the last cnc cut. Unfortunatly only one side of it can be coated which is quite ok by me since a piece of acrylic will back it. Its the first cool day in like 20 something consecutive days so Michael wasn't at SP Coatings but his assistant was and said that he would let Michael know that I'm done with everything and it is all now in his possession so PSP can go into rotation. I did pick up all the pci brackets though as I couldn't see paying $30 to have them done. On top of that I would like to keep the black inside the case all the same which means they need to be painted hammer steel black like the drive locks. So the Powdercoating price is back down to $275 now. Thats $225 for the case and $50 for the fittings.

I finally sold the 10 Bitspower 3/8ID 1/2OD straight compression fittings this morning so I will be placing yet another small order with Frozen CPU for some odds and ends. I also dropped a line to Enermax for specs on their Magma and Cluster fans in regards to if I can run them in series on the NZXT Sentry LX fan controller I have. Which is said to only support 6w per channel which if I'm not mistaken the Magma's are 5w fans. So I don't know if they will run at a slow rpm let alone work off the controller. This controller has been something the whole build has been done around and would really suck if I can't use it. I've owned the fan controller since somewhere around Oct Nov of 09.

What I'm looking at is:
3 Magmas in series on one 6W channel
4 Clusters in series on one 6W channel
4 Clusters in series on one 6W channel

Anyone know what this will do to the fans or the controller? In case I never hear back from them of course. I actually opened a ticket this time instead of emailing the question to them like I did around a month ago. So I may actually get an answer this time.

 

I think I just fell in love with a different set of fans. after I already made a deal with the guy I bought an XSPC res top from that had two Enermax Clusters. :shrug: One of these days I will figure out what I want to do in the airflow department.

Dropped NZXT an email about their fan controller to see if I will get any answers from them since Enermax more or less probably wont answer. :down:

 

Paint jig and pci bracket painting commencing.

Pci Bracket painting

Well I thought about the pci brackets for a while that I dropped off at SP Coatings a few days ago and decided while there dropping the missing ccnced piece off and the panels I picked up for measuring acrylic that I would take them back and paint them myself so they keep with the interior black things I have already painted. Ie: The Drive locks for 5.25 drives.

So I set up this snazzy jig after I cleared off the shelf below.


Then I used this great stuff I've had laying around for years.

Take note of the date.

Then I strapped each bracket to the jig with the good stuff pictured above.


I then grabbed the trust can of Rustoleum Hammered steel.


2nd Coat.



Will do up some light box photos in the morning if its dry. We finally got some rain today so it doesn't seem that we will be too humid tonight. So they should dry fine. I'll have to see if I need to move the fishing line to another hole to cover up what it may have kept paint from getting to tomorrow when they can be handled.

Tomorrow morning I will be taking the front panel from the messed up case to Frys with me to see about something fitting in the pre assigned holes that CM has in the steel. Its kinda nice having an extra case around the house for test fitament of parts on stock locations.

 

Alas, manufactures, always changing things. Not so sure about the paint finish, nice color, looks like an "orange peel" effect rather than "Hammered". But I know that picts have fooled me before. As far as the fan idea you've got, I'd give NZXT a call! From what I here they're pretty good about helping customers. I'm looking at that Phantom case real close. Each of those motors are going to add up on the amount of current, you'll be putting a load on the controller. Most likely they won't run at full potential with the controller on full. So as I said, I'd talk to NZXT. No need to rush this thing, it'll all turn out good for you. Hang in there.

"It's the little things adding up that cause one to go mad"

 

It looks orange peal until you get a couple coats on it. Notice the drive locks that were on the first page. Granted they aren't the greatest pictures. Also the Yate Loon fan blades I painted are the same. Orange peal doesn't have as deep of divits. The hammered steel is more of a pattern also.

 

Sorry 'bout that man, hope I didn't offend you. I've seen some picts of perfect hand filed stuff that looked off at the angle in the pict but perfect at another angel. Stuck my foot in my mouth then too! Hard to keep up with posts sometimes. I'm just used to looking at some old Turkish cymbals I have. Back in the day when they were made by hand. Anyway, made any headway on your fan situation? curious to know what you find out. till next time

 

Oh no there was no offense taken. That's why the build log is here anyway. To take all comments good or bad man. No worries.

Well I can say some fans have been ordered late last night. Have I made any other headway other then that with getting answers? No.

Its a typical response you get from large corporate companies. Either you get your answer several weeks after you ask or worse you never get it. So I guess I'll just see what happens with them once they are hooked up. If something frys then they can cover it since they wouldn't give me an answer. LOL The paper work states nothing about not hooking up multiple fans to one channel so..... That's on them if something happens.

 

Small shipment today 8-27-10

Small shipment in today 8/27/10

I remember earlier mentioning that I made a trade on [H]Forum. It was for these guys:

Straight even trade stock for the extended version. WIN!

So when installed they look like:


Now for that great Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme which barely allowed the channel 1 to slide in before with the short sink attached:



Now since I removed the pci brackets that allow the components to attach to the case and keep them in place I had to come up with some way to keep cards from sagging:

They are both actually perfectly level with a 8" level being held on their edge. Nice to have things around the house to use while I'm working on the PCI brackets. LOL

Now for a shot of the hardware in its temporary setup. ABS+ El Diablo. Keep in mind this case has next to no cable management ability and is still a stock case. So its a bit cluttered unfortunatly.


Did I mention before how much of a bitch the 1050 is to sleeve? I think I did, but what the heck its a real bitch to sleeve. Especially for my first time sleeving anything. I would have chosen to do the psu first. LOL The last few days I've been working on the wire mess of the NZXT Sentry LX and after that will be the top IO panel for the Haf so I still have my work cut out for me. Sometime I'll get around to sleeving all the 3 pin fan cables along with changing out any white molex connectors for more then likely black ones. Since they aren't a true white and more of a transparent white they can't stay because they ruin the asthetics of the build.

I also talked to Michael at SP Coatings this morning to check on when PSP may be done and he said a couple weeks. Soooo I have stuff to work on between now and then anyway for now.

Until next time.

 

You are going to hide all the wiring, right?! lol Looks great, though!

 

As mentioned above the last photo in post 75.

 

Now getting a post code 50 on Award bios.
This sucks. I fire it up to see what I alloted for my Win 7 install and what I'm consuming of it for decision on what size ssd to pickup and I can't get in the damn thing. I've unhooked all usb devices, reset the cmos numerous times and I still can't get past the bloodrage screen. At the specific point of it showing up on the screen is when it hits the 50 code and hangs. So I can't get in bios or anything. Getting very agitated at this point considering all this hardware is practically brand new other then a little wear and tear benchmarking several months ago.

 

pull all but 1 stick of ram, and try it.. (you may need to try each stick of ram to see if one if them has gone bad)

 

That colour scheme looks amazing.

I didn't know Corsair had a bigger (I'm assuming "extended" means taller in this case?) set of sinks for the GT's. Regardless, it looks awesome! Now if it only it behaves properly...

Are you going to be sleeving the SATA cables too?