Yay. This has turned out really nicely. I was beginning to pile stuff high that I can't use. I don't like that. I am also not a huge fan of selling things, but it was getting silly. I sold some, but was still left with a huge pile. I had a think about building a spare PC for home and away, but tbh I really just don't need it. It would never get used, and buying a GPU would be a nightmare. Then a twist of fate. I had all but decided to sell off the last TR board and CPU I had. In January 2020 I upgraded my old Intel Broadwell ES rig at home for a 1920x and Aorus Pro X399. IIRC I spent about £470 on the two. Then about a month later I ended up buying another bundle on here (same CPU with a X399 carbon). So that sorted "home and away" and I was using both. Then I had a windfall in March, so I built a killer PC for home. I was going to bring the Aorus TR rig away, but it was so heavy it was almost non moveable. So I just left it sitting there for a while before deciding to get rid of the TR rig away (sold it for what I paid for it to a friend who came down, we had a lovely day out too) and built a smaller rig for away. Then I pinched the 2080Ti out of the TR rig at home and I knew then there was a big chance I would never put it back together. So there it sat in my bathroom storage (got a huge cupboard) for over a year. Decided around Christmas to finally gut it. And probably sell the contents. Then the twist of fate happened. On another forum I visit a guy was offering up his "drawer 'o crap, take it all or nothing" sort of deal. I asked if he would send me one part, he said no, all or nothing. So I thought bugger it, why not. What I was after was this. A Revodrive X2. I still have a 240gb one, but one half of it died. So it doesn't work. That said I wasn't fussed about another 240gb one. This however isn't 240gb. And, it's not anywhere near that old. This one is 960gb, a rev 3 (so after Toshiba took over) and is very quick. 1500/1300? something like that? I thought "great, I can put that in my killer rig at home for more storage !". So I bought the lot for £20 postage. Well, £8 actually but I bunged him a couple of pints for his troubles. I had no idea what the rest was, but figured I could donate/pass it on to chums. And it turned out to be a pretty killer bundle tbh. First thing I found was a mint 8800 GTX that will be winging its way to a friend of mine who collects retro gear. Along with a PCI SB card with all gold traces and connectors. I chucked the rest in my drawer 'o crap and forgot about it for over two weeks. Then I realised that since upgrading the away rig and the home rig to all NVME and M.2 SATA I was amassing a pile of SATA SSDs. Three 240gb, two 500gb and three 1tb. Or was it two? IDK. A lot basically. So I thought "oo, I will bung them in my NAS!" only I can't. It only has a 4 drive SAS controller in it and no space for any more drives. That was when I decided to build a full blown "big boy" server. I had a dig through the gear the guy sent me, and noticed that most of it was SAS cards. Mostly Adaptec 1 or 2 SAS (so 4 or 8 drives). Then one jumped out at me. Hory shet. 4 SAS, so 16 drives. So instead of running two or maybe three cards I can use one. It also has the battery backup board and module too. That card still fetches between £100 and £200. So I was pretty thrilled. Then I needed a case. Looked at towers, but these days server towers seem to be a thing of the past. Like really. I also didn't want a tower, as it would not fit in my attic space where I want to put it (unless I laid it flat of course). So after seeing that David got a 4u case recently (Inwin? was it?) I looked at those. I very quickly realised that none will take an AIO. At all. So I then realised I would need to cut up said case no matter what. Having looked at the black ones around the £100 or so mark I found this. The ACME 4U server chassis. For £60 plus £15 postage. Immediately fell in love with it. It's so retro and I have no retro kit at all. This is the board, CPU and cooler I will be using. And why I need to cut it. I am going to have to cut the rad in at the bottom of the board sideways. I will lose the bottom PCIE port for sure. Then on the left side (looking from the back) I want to do the same cutout so that the PSU can breathe and I can fit a 120mm intake fan. So I got two caravan vents in brown. They were about £4 each and come with mesh. Not fine mesh, but I don't care about dust. It's insects I don't want getting in there and rotting and causing a short. So there will be one each side in the same place. Then I set about literally gutting out the Alienware. I did well. The biggest surprise was that 80mm Noctua fan. I forgot that was even in there. That cooled the AC gear down in the bowels of the rig. So I can remove the 80mm PCI fan in the front of the chassis as it's molex 12v. The PSU is a 1500w Enermax Platimax, 80 Platinum. I also needed a GPU of sorts because the TR has no GPU on it. Again the drawer 'o crap provided. Passive 7300 GT. Crap, but who cares? Nice thing is that it has a VGA connector and my TV has one. So when I need to access it all I need to do is change the source on the TV and I'm in. I've ordered the four SAS cables. Doubt I will use more than two but they discount them the more you buy. All of that so far was pretty cheap. The one thing I was missing that scared me was RAM. I was going to wait until I had more cash, but then a chance look on Amazon last night revealed 16gb kits of DDR4 3000 CL15 for £44 a set. I have two options here I reckon. Either overclock to 3200 CL16 or maybe even 15, or try 3000 CL14. Lastly I will most certainly be using Windows. Mostly because TrueNAS and FreeNAS only support hacked LSI cards, and a 16 port LSI card would cost me a fortune. I am also going to span the smaller SSDs into a large one. And this is risky, as if one dies you lose the lot. However, I am not getting rid of the NAS. That will be used as a weekly backup dump for the server
Oh yeah, I also have one of these. 400gb. Notorious for being the most reliable drives ever made. However, because I am totally thick I didn't think I could use it. I think the only slot left will be the lower one. Right now it's in this. Which is in this, as at the time all of the NVME slots were full. And I thought "Well it will need to go toward the bottom and I may lose that slot or two because of the AIO". Dill wad here had forgotten that you can actually remove the NVME card and put it in an NVME slot. Derrrr.
Well that was cool. I had a dig around and found out you need to start hacking to get the 7300GT to work in Win 10. I wasn't terribly concerned... Then the phone rang, and it was my aunt. Who is giving back the ITX rig I gave to her when my uncle had his first round with cancer about 5 years back. Her PC died and had a weird proprietary PSU in so I could not do anything with it. So I gave her my tiny ITX rig as I wasn't using it. It has this in it. Which does support Win 10 X64.
It's here ! No tracking info sent. Just went down (very late start) and saw an enormous box sitting in the porch with ACME across it lol. Pics soon.
My guess would be server. If I'm right, drinks are on VT. If I'm wrong, drinks are on VT It could also be Senior Virtual Reality and quite frankly, that might be more likely
OK. So after four hours of scratching my head and realising certain ideas I had post case were not going to work I have figured it out. Firstly the rad position. Now I was almost scuppered here, because I do not have a mobo to test fit. I need this for the height of the board and its slots. So I know where to put the rad, or if it will even fit. Thankfully I remembered I had a mining riser left in the drawer and this did the trick. So here is where the holes will be going. The other problem was how to intake air. My idea of putting a fan opposite were destroyed by the tank of the 5.25 area. Its a huge metal construction, and you can not fit the blanking plates without the whole thing attached. IE, if you remove it you lose the bay covers. I wasn't prepared to accept that, and tbh? I wanted that bit intact because it will hold 16 SSDs easily. So the big problem to solve was where to put the intakes. Thankfully I did work that out. I fitted the mining riser to the GPU, which in this case is passive (so sticks up well above the slot) and. I can cut two into the top of the case. This is excellent because it will blow a ton of air down onto the PCIE area (for the GPU, SAS card and ETC) but also it will blow fresh air into the rad directly. Meaning all of the parts of the inside that need cooling will be directly under two fans. Then came the issue of how to go about cutting it. TBH I am not in the mood for a two hour Dremel session. I need something more powerful and quicker. Jigsaws are good, but getting the holes exact can be hard, especially in thick steel like this. The saw tends to jump around a bit. So I went for the fastest option.
OK so wrapping it up for today.. I now have the side mapped for where the rad will go. I've drawn the holes (wasn't needed but did it any way) That did make me laugh. TANK is written there because that is where the end tank for the rad goes. However, at 17kg it's about right lmao. This is where the fans will go in the top. Then I figured I would fit the cards I am using in order to make sure the fans clear. They do. However, I made a mistake at first. The GPU is obviously 16 lanes. What I had mixed up was the SAS card (because it uses 8) and the Revodrive which uses 4. Good thing for manuals. So yeah that all worked out really well. Plenty of room left for the rad and fans, and everything where it should be. I am not making drive planes now. My Dremel died (RIP) and I have a much better idea.
Bloody hell back planes are expensive ! I was going to get my friend to 3D print a rack, but it would have used tons of filament and taken forever. Plus then it dawned on me, what if a drive dies? I will have to disconnect the entire thing, drag it out, open it up and.... Yeah no thanks. I got three of those. Cost a packet, but I reckon it will be worth it.
Right. Quite probably the hardest work day on the case. I cut the holes (was scary, but it did the job very well) and then was worried about getting the fan/rad screw holes right. I've used templates before, but you can't find them now. Plus I have no vinyl to cut, or ink in my printer. My engineer was having a day off, so I made a really super fantastic tool. I present, the El Crappo Fanholio. And no, I totally didn't bolt the fans onto my new EK AIO and then tape it all together and tape a metal ruler to it. That's a bloody precision tool that is mate ! Any way it worked very nicely. I don't know if that will be an issue. I doubt it, given I will be running the fans as low as I can. However, if it needs to be cleared I can use the jigsaw. Oh and the bugger got me again. Good too. I must have caught my toe on it, but didn't feel it. Was watching TV in bed and was like "WTF is that cack all over my foot?" turns out it was blood. Rolled edges? pah who needs those !
OK so the major modding is over. Thank god. It's fun, but not in a freezing attic. Top vent on. I am going to remove them in a bit and run cloth tape around the lip so it seals better and stops any vibration. The side vent attaches like this. Meaning you only have two extra screws to worry about. The bottom part needs some neoprene, as there is a step down in the case (for the top clamshell). I have that too. This is it assembled. What's great is the vents are directional. Meaning you can aim the intake and exhaust. All done. When I fit the gaskets I will put the interior stuff back in.
OK, we're there. First thing I did today other than drilling lots of holes and making all the fan bolt holes bigger (I realised I needed the low profile self cutting fan bolts) was cut two slots into the inner chassis to clearance the two top side vent bolts. After marking it out I put down the 2mm Neoprene gasket. This will stop any vibration due to the panel thickness. I also want it to be as "bug free" as possible as I have noticed one or two earwigs in the crawl space when in there. These are buggers, as they crawl in there, get zapped and then decompose causing a short. So the back PSU part will need fine mesh too, but that's cool I got loads. Onto putting a cloth tape gasket onto the upper part of that grille. And then a full cloth gasket for the top one. You can see here why that neoprene was so important. It stops crap getting in. Put the internal parts all back together, and. Now I need a couple of decals. Because my flat has the best roof access the maintenance guys sometimes come in (after I have allowed it and have someone there). It's been known for them to check the crawl space at times. My rent is very high, but for that I get the best service you could ever expect. They are meticulous. However, I don't want them shifting gear around and possibly covering either vent. Especially if I hook it up online and leave it going whilst I am gone. I also mentioned that I had braided the IO cables. I did, last night. I did them in pairs, as well as the speaker (important on a build like this). That should now be all of the mod work done, hurrah.
Yeah I did think about it. Thing is it would cost me about £100. Or more. Money far better off spent on storage (and those back planes I bought). Not ruling it out though !
That's its best feature The reset button almost looks like some kind of soviet launch button. And you can lock the buttons away with a key ! wooo ! Right. Last of the mods. TBH it isn't even really a mod, more of a easy hack. Bottom right of the pic. You can see those plastic things. Those are for full length cards to go into. I don't have any.... Inside that area goes a 80mm fan. I have removed it, as it's a molex power house (annoying). I will be replacing it with this. Couple of problems though. Firstly it's not really all that necessary unless it's doing a job. I have found one for it... Secondly, if you were around in the early 90s to about 2000 you would know that dust filtering was at best rudimentary. AKA - awful. It was like trying to suck a golf ball through a garden hose. Now whether I use a fan or not I need a better solution than that crap. So I had a dig around and found this. Which is up to modern standards. Then I needed to find a use for the fan. I did. I am going to remove the plastic parts (they just pop out) and fit a drive carrier there for 2.5. The reason? I go back to this. These were designed for server use. The reason? well they are blisteringly fast. However, they are also the most reliable stable SSDs ever made. So are still very much in use in the server space. Linus runs his servers with them, only his are much bigger. IIRC he bought them from Amazon when they upgraded. They run warm, but are supposed to be in a cooled drive sled. Obviously I don't have one of those, so I am going to bolt it right in front of that 80mm fan. The bottom is all fins, so I would imagine that is where most of the heat comes from. Given this will be the OS drive it needs to be very well looked after.
Sort of a last minute decision. Well, not last minute but thinking ahead. The more room I can save on the rad the more slots I can use. Important, as I will probably change my network to 2.5gb. I got those for the rad. The intakes will be changed to the Eloops. I really wanted to go Noctua in this (beige and brownish) but it will cost me £100+. More than the 2.5gb switch I will be getting. So I can't justify it.
