Tiger Style - A build log

[Ic3man]

I am just about to start on a new project so thought it might be an idea to make a little log of it. Hopefully it might interest a few people.

A few of you may have seen my last build :


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/059-2.jpg

Although I did really like my old setup I felt that the green/blue theme had been done to death. It was also very bright and became a little distracting, especially when gaming. With the fans being blue LED version, alot of UV blue reactive kit, blue gauges, fan controllers etc so the looks needed a complete overhaul.
My watercooling kit is top of the range stuff so I would be keeping that although it did need a damn good clean after 6 months of none maintenance aswell as a little spruce up - more on that later.

I love the UFO case and just can't rate it highly enough. It makes building a rig very easy (though expensive) and although the accessories it comes with are sparse to say the least, all you need are fans (9 of) to get you going. I will once again also be using a dual loop watrercooled setup so using this case again was an easy choice to make. Being black it goes with almost anything and for watercooling there just isn't a better case to use on the market (imo). I know it isn't to everyones tastes, being more industrial looking than lianLi and silverstone, but its a look I like.

As the name suggests there will be a splash of orange (visually, not physically I hope) as I don't believe orange is widely used - I guess for good reason judging by the hassle I am having sourcing parts. It will however be a little more descrete than the blue/green effect used previously!

Before I get onto the actual building though I have a little prep work and cleaning to do so I'll update this when its done. Pics to follow;)

[starlon]

You run that q6600 @ 4ghz all the time? What temperatures are you seeing?

[Ic3man]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/4gigq6600.jpg

[Ic3man]

Did a little prep work in the hope of getting rid of some nasty wires.

Before undertaking any job any Englishman worth his salt has a cup of tea first:D:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0029.jpg

This is the fan I intend on using: Yate Loon D12SL-12. These are fantastic fans for the price and near silent:

Model: YATELOON D12SL-12
Dimensions:120x120x25mm
Rated Voltage: 12 Volts
Operation Voltage: 6.5~13.8 Volts
Input current: 0.30 Amp Max
Operation temperature: -10 to +65 C
Storage temperature: -40 to +70 C
RPM: 1350 +/- 10%
CFM: 47
dB: 28

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0031.jpg

They're that good I got 13 of em! :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0025.jpg

As you can see there's a hell of alot of wires there which could look a real mess inside a case, even with some tie wraps.

[Ic3man]

So.....time for a little braiding.

I said the fans were near silent, well near silent aint really good enough so to make them as quiet as possible without hindering airflow too much I decided to 7v mod them while I'm braiding them.

First I cut off either the 4 pin molex or the 3 pin headers (depending on which connection I wanted) and then removed the connection itself. The 3 pin header is a doddle to remove, just use a small flat head screw driver and push down the metal pins on the back - a little tug and the wire should come straight out. The 4 pin molex is a little more tricky if you dont have the molex removal tool. The trick here is to look down the metal plugs and there are 2 barbs per plug. You need to push these barbs in flush with the plug but not too far as its a :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: to get em back out again. Once they are flush the wirse should come out without the need for tugging.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0032.jpg

With the connectors removed I went about braiding the wires. I used 3mm black braiding for the fans with 4mm heatshrink which is a perfect (tight) fit. IT was a tedious task but certainly worthwhile. I won't go into the ins and outs of braiding as its pretty much self explanitory but heres a couple of tips:

1. When you have cut the braiding to the desired length, slightly melt the ends which will prevent fraying when threading the wires through.

2. I cut the lengths about 4cm (2x2cm) short which gives the heatshrink something to grip onto, about 1cm wire and 1cm braiding. Depending on the look you're after you may want to allow more or less.

So with them braided up and looking alot tidier, the ones with molex's (case fans) I 7v'd them :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0033.jpg

I cheated in that I 'coloured in' the molex connectors with a marker pen until I can get hold of some black connectors:001_cool:.

Hoping to cut down on wires even further I wanted to daisychain some of the fans together for the rads so I spliced some of the cables and ran 3 together for the front of the PA 120.3, 3 for the back and 2 for the PA120.2. I did run into a problem here in that my fan controller didn't like the fact I was using 3 fans on the rpm reader cable so only one fan could be used for that but other than that it was pretty straight forward.

...and an hour or so later all the fans were done.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0098.jpg

4 fans were modded for 7v with the rest on 3 pin headers that will be attached to the fan controller.

More to come later...

[Ic3man]

So while waiting for my hardware to arrive I decided to crack on and do a mini mod. The stock UFO comes with really bright blue LED's on the front panel. While these do look nice blue didn't match my rig this time around nor did I plan n burning my retinas any longer so I decided to go with orange LED's.

Heres a shot of the blue ones with the original 'chrome effect' holders next to my planned orange led's and balck holders:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0117.jpg

I want as little bare metal/chrome as possible on this rig so think I will be going with the black holders this time around.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0122.jpg

Rather than solder the led's onto a wire (and then strip it down again when I next change my rig!), I put a motherboard header on both ends of the case wire so the leds can be easily swapped if I dont like em.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0121.jpg

[Ic3man]

Of course these little babies were also braided along with the rest of the front panel header wiring.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0120.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0119.jpg

New vs old :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0125.jpg

anyway...thats enough for one day, time I went to bed (I h8 night shifts:().

[dnb#]

omg this project is going to be awesome. I like the idea with the leds m8! keep on going like this.

[disruptfam]

looking good :)

[septim]

yeah more pictures to come...

[Ic3man]

**Update**

Got a four boxes waiting for me this morning which contained :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0126.jpg

Gotta love the smell of new hardware:001_cool:

So on with the build.....

Wanting everything to be as new meant everything need to look like it was fresh from the warehouse. So I made a start on the Alphacool plexitops which had become a little battle scarred from the numerous rebuilds I have done, nothing serious just a few scratches that needed polishing out.

1500 wet and dry paper does the trick :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0136.jpg

But........Oh noes:o:crying:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0137.jpg

[Ic3man]

Fear not though - Brasso to the rescue :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0138.jpg

So while I had the pumps apart, giving them a clean I decided to do the 10W pro to 18w ultra mod. The pumps are easy to take apart with the impellor just being held in by magnetism. A slight push on the back and it all comes aprt easily (after removing the screws first!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0134.jpg

This is a very easy mod all you need to do is join the 2 contact points at the end of the pcb (see my very dodgy soldering skills lol).

link (http://blog.pixnet.net/windycj/post/6590735)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0131.jpg

Tested and working fine, a successfull mod which should give the pump more power to pump through the chipset blocks I have in store :D...Sorted!!

[disruptfam]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/Tiger%20Style/IMG_0126.jpg

Oh nice that new hardware does smell good :)

[Ic3man]

Pumps

As previously stated I wanted to stick with the DDC pumps but to get the most out of them you need to us the top inlets and as my previous mounts had the pumps mounted verticlly I wouldn't be able to utilise both top inlets. A friend however sorted me out with a nifty bracket which I had powder coated to match the case.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/076.jpg

This enabled me to fit the pumps side by side allowing me to use the top inlets and as an added bonus allowing me to fit a few more HD's should I need to in the future by utilising the free space above the pumps. The bracket fits onto a fan which is in turn fitted onto the PA120.2 on the guts side of the UFO.

I still wanted the pumps to be as silent as possible and although they don't give off much sound they can vibrate slightly which can be transfered through the case and then onto the desk. To counter this I fitted some anti vibration mounts.:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/088.jpg

Anyone keen eyed enough to spot the mistake here (apart from the missing barbs!).

And here they are mounted in the case :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/123-1.jpg

They just fit together and in hindsight maybe the petras or EK pump tops would have been an easier choice but I have further plans for the tops which will appear later in the build log;).

[Ic3man]

Stripping the Blitz

My weapon of choice for this build is the Asus Blitz Extreme. I was fortunate enough to win this motherboard which is renown for being the one of, if not the best P35 board around. I had the blitz formula previously (DDR2) and its an overclockers wet dream. It has all the settings you could want from a bios and then some! It got my previous quad to 4ghz P95 stable so I know how capable they are but this board is the DDR3 version so we shall see later how well it performs - fingers crossed.

Heres the board as it comes stock :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/blitz2.jpg
pic courtesy of OC3D

As you can see it comes with a pre-attached waterblock on the NB, which while effective and alot better than traditional aircooling, it's also very restrictive and will kill the flow. While its great to see a major board manufacturer like asus to be innovative and consider enthusiasts needs, it seems to me to be a little short sighted that after providing a waterblock they use thermal concrete to badly mount it which will negate alot of the cooling effect it has. Still something is better than nothing so big credit to Asus there.

So I needed to strip the heatsink off to get some decent thermal paste on the chipsets. The pain here is that you cannot take the nb alone off. The NB is connected to both the mosfets and the SB which inturn also cools the crosslinx via a heatpipe assembly. So that makes the whole thing a tad more difficult, anyway heres the board naked :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/096.jpg

The heatpipe was a SOB to get off. I don't think the thermal paste(or cement as I prefer to call it!) asus used is designed to allow multiple mounts. After unclipping the push through pins, the trick to remove the heatpipe (which is the same method that should be used for maximus users) is to heat the assembly up with a hairdryer. This should loosen the cement enough for it to become pliable. DON'T pull the heatsink assembly, you need to twist it gently if you are considering doing the same. Pulling it will most likely damage the board by either ripping the NB clean away from the board ( I have seen pics of this!) or chipping the die - either way your board will be little more than a doorstop if you do this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/150-1.jpg

Pics of the naked chipset to follow:

[Ic3man]

To 'clothe'' the blitz I wanted to use EK blocks all round. Unlike the maximus there are no mosfet blocks available. This is probably a good thing as the mosfet blocks are flow killers and have little/no effect on overclocking anyway, so I had to come up with something else to cool them - more on that later.

For the NB and SB I DID find some EK blocks but the SB would need to be modded. ANyway, here are the blocks (EK Asus 1 NB/SB).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/078-1.jpg

The finish on the blocks were a little scuffy so I gave them a quick lap and they are like mirrors now.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/100-1.jpg

Sexy huh?:p

Right this is where things got tricky. The SB block needed modding to fit due to some capacitors that were in the way so out came the trusty modders tool (Read: Dremmel) and I nibbled the acetel away to allow a good fit.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/103.jpg

Fits like a glove now with no clearence issues at all.

[Ic3man]

Because the mosfets were also cooled by the heatpipe assembly I had to change that and the only viable solution was to use a thermalright HR-09S. This is what comes with the kit:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/079.jpg

The base of the cooler was a little too long tho so again it needed modding to fit with about 2cm dremelled away. Fits fine now.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/104.jpg

I used the pads that came with the heatsink as using past is a little tricky as there are a few resistors that are a little higher than the mosfets themselves which would otherwise be crushed.

[taowulf]

I applaud your color choice.

[Ic3man]

So the last bit of prepping the board was the crosslinx chip. This chip dosn't get hot but Asus saw fit to cool it so who am I to argue. The problem I had is that it only has one hole for the pushthru pins. Enzotech to the rescue!:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/102.jpg

I used the enzotech BMR-C1 ramsinks as IMO they are superior to the very similar swiftech MC14 sinks in that they have a larger surface area (20 pins vs 16).

The last little section of the board I wanted to cool was the PLL chip as this can get toasty and is the last section of the board that I saw fit to cool. Unfortunately its directly inline with the top PCIE slot so it needed to be a small sink - I used one of the low profile Zalman sinks for this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/108.jpg

With the board prepped I finally feel as though I', actually getting somewhere with this build at last!:)

[Ic3man]

So onwards and upwards they say.

CPU prep

I am going to hold out a little for the QX prices to come down a little (hopefully) and unless I can pick up a bargain in the meantime the cpu I will be using is the Q6600 G0. This little baby is a 45A 'Golden' stepping and has a 1.225vid so it should clock pretty well - as always though its a bit of a lottery.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/109.jpg

My only hope is that it clocks as well as my previous cpu and can get 4ghz stable with a lower vcore. I heard these chips can run hot so it was time for a little lapping.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/110.jpg

Yup - massively concave as I suspected. Heres how I lap my CPU's. There are a few variances in the various lapping guides out now and I don't really want to go in how it should or shouldn't be done - I have tried most ways and here is what worked best for me :

Tools needed :

400,800,1200,1500,2000 wet'n'dry paper (NOT sandpaper).

Metal Polish

Sheet of glass

Same masking tape.

Prep you surface.
You need a flat surface - glass is perfect for this. I taped the 400 paper onto a sheet of glass. Glass from a photo frame ort mirror is fine if you dont have any other glass to hand.

Prep your IHS
I taped off the 'vent' (dunno what its really called but its the notch bit on the IHS) on the CPU. I also tape the cpu plastic protector plate to the underside of the cpu. Basicly you are preventing any ingress of dust or water to the sensitive bits of the cpu.

Start lapping
Now this is the controversial part. I sand my cpu's down using it dry, alot of people use it wet but I get better results using it dry. The only problem with using it dry is there is a risk of getting copper/nickel dust inside the cpu IHS, but there is a chance of getting water and dust in with it wet but aslong as you tape it off then it'll be fine.

Method
I use the up down for 30 seconds then twist 90 degrees and repeat method, until it gets it flat. It dosn't matter imo whether you use the figure of 8 method or up'n'down - both have the same effect. Just make sure you apply an even amount of pressure to the back of the cpu. You can tell its pretty much flat as all the nickel plating will have gone. It will however look very 'scratchy' so then we go onto the 800 grade paper and so on and so on. After each change of paper make sure you clean the cpu, this stops any further scratching from the lower grade paper when you advance to the higher grade of paper. Each time the scratches will appear less and less until you have a dull shine. Now you can honestly leave it at around 800 grade as it should be flat but it's a little unsightly. You can check if it's flat by using the reflection of the surface with something like venetian blinds or anything that has multiple vertical lines. I use graph paper which works well and shows up any inperfections. Bare in mind the aim of the game is to get the CPU IHS flat, mirror finish is just a by product and not neccesary for low temps.

Mirror finish
I however, like to keep going until I get a mirror finish. This will make no difference to the temps but looks so much better and will get you extra e-peen points.
Once you have got as far as you can with the paper you need to then use a liquid polish/paste which will bring out the shine of the copper. Alot of people will advise against this as in effect you are filling all the microscopic crevices with paste where thermal compound should go which is bad BUT aslong as you buff the paste off and then clean the CPU off with isopropyl alcohol THOROUGHLY, its fine.

Remove the tape and your results should be similar to mine along with your load temps being much lower:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/S5300078.jpg

Note: this is my old Q6600. The battery finally died in my camera while taking pics of the new one lol.

[Ic3man]

CPU Block + mount

Having tried and being very impressed with the D-Tek fusion I was hesitant to try anything different but as I already had EK NB + SB blocks it would be criminal not to also use EK for the CPU block so I took a risk and went for the Supreme by EK.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/ek-supreme-acetal.jpg

Reviews show it to be slightly ahead of the D-tek in terms of temps but as the next picture shows the internals - while gorgeous to look at and extremely well engineered, certainly look to be restrictive :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/116-1.jpg

Once more EK makes a fine job of the base with a perfect bowed but mirror finish:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/112.jpg

As I only plan at this time to have the cpu on its own loop the restrictiveness of the block won't effect cpu temps negatively.

[Ic3man]

Now while the EK mounting plate offers multiple mounts the sheer size of it also makes it incompatible with some boards, mine bing one of them. The problem is that the plate comes into contact with the mosfet cooling around the cpu sockets and the only way to fit it is to have the block vertical which is less than ideal as it then runs perpendicular to the cores on the cpu. Luckily there is an optional bracket that you can buy for skt 775 which is much smaller.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/ek-775-m-plate-l.jpg

Sprayed black :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/114.jpg

As I wanted as little chrome as possible in attempt to keep to the black/orange theme I decided to spray mine black. Here's a shot of both mounts, the original one being uppermost and modded one on the block :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/117.jpg

[Ic3man]

I tested 2 of my favourite sets of paste ShinEtsu MicroSI and some MX2. Previous I have found ShinEtsu to be better but after giving both sets of paste a trial run on air the MX2 proved to be slightly better. There probably isn't much in it tbh and the 1c difference could simply be down to mounts used as it wasn't a very controlled test it was more to satisfy my curiosity.

It looks like there is quite alot of paste on here but thats just a trick of the camera. The paste is vertually transparent its applied that thinly :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/118-1.jpg

and with the now sprayed and modded EK mounting plate attached, the block was attached which looks rather svelt in black if I do say so myself :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/119.jpg

[Ic3man]

Lighting pt1

I originally planned to go all black with black tubing for this build with some descrete white lighting but as the U2-UFO is more of an 'in your face' case I think it looks a little sterile for my tastes with such sublime styling.

So as the name suggests I have gone for an orange and black look. Sourcing orange lighting is a total pain and I see now why it isn't a very popular colour to go for. Just about the only lighting I could find are orange led's and even those wern't pre wired so I decided to do it myself :D.

I picked up a few LED's from Maplins and scrounged a few of a couple of friends. Some turned out to be amber coloured which didn't really suit my needs others were the ones I was looking for so on with the testing. I intended to use the LED's in the alphacool pumps and the bayres's to light up the plexiglass as without any lighting or UV fluid plexi will look dull so here goes:

Heres a template of the 2 bayres's I intend using with the holes marked for the led's :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/new003.jpg

With the wires cut to length I temp attached them to the led's along with a resistor and then wired it up to 12v and ground on the molex (yellow and black).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/new002.jpg

Once soldered up and sleeved I then went about fitting the led's to the res which is pretty much the look I was hoping for :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/new005.jpg

[Ic3man]

Lighting pt2

Cathodes.

Apart from the obligitory UV cathodes (AC Ryan x4) which will hopefully show up some orange UV I have going on inside the case I wanted to light up the fan grills so the fans on the front look orange but dont look 'cheap' like the thermaltake fans. I know you can gt orange yates but they didn't look right in my rig.

So I came up with the idea of using orange cathodes inside the fan shroud - problem being that orange cathodes are hard to come by so the nearest I could get were red. When I say 'red' I should say advertised as red but were more like pink. Never mind I just used some yellow permanent marker pen and gave the cathodes a few coats and now they are looking more orange. Still perhaps more red than orange but they were alot better than when they were stock.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/121.jpg

I fitted them each side of the shroud behind the fans and fan grills/filter so they shine through the fans without being too obtrusive.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/lighting002.jpg

I'm still not totally convinced and I might even go for a set of white cathodes and use some orange vinyl to get the desired effect but they will do for the time being.

[Grimtas]

Pumps
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/088.jpg

Anyone keen eyed enough to spot the mistake here (apart from the missing barbs!).



10W & 18W maybe??

[Ic3man]

Close but no cigar.

[Lloyd]

and with the now sprayed and modded EK mounting plate attached, the block was attached which looks rather svelt in black if I do say so myself :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/119.jpg

looks awesome - gonna do mine tomorrow (already done my Fuzion) :)
As for mistake - maybe no braid on the rpm monitor cable? But that depends on how ur going to run the cables anyway

[Waterlogged]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/088.jpg

Anyone keen eyed enough to spot the mistake here (apart from the missing barbs!).

Looks like your using a stud to hold the tops together for some reason. It also looks like, because of the stud, one pump is getting push over a bit.

I'm curious, did you mod the top on the 3.2?

[Ic3man]

I am using a stud to hold them together but thats because without it with the vibration of the pumps they sort of 'rattle' next to each other.

The tops are not modded - something I may consider in the future.

The 'mistake' I made is I put the 18w impellor back in the 10w motor. Not that it would make a difference now that both are 18w;) .

[Waterlogged]

IIRC, you need to remove the ring from inside the 3.2 mounted top as the inlet on the rotor is smaller than on the DDC-2 for which those tops were made. Otherwise, it will rub and either prevent the pump from starting and/or shorten pump life.

Seeing those are Euro version DDC's, I don't think anybody would have caught that mistake. All DDC-2's came with orange impellers and all DDC-3.x come with blue, the only thing that is a dead given away about the differences between a 10W and 18W is the sticker...and even there, the changes are small.

[Ic3man]

Well its a bit to chang em now as the loops are full but both pumps are working fine (for now lol).:D

[afX]

Black spray paint ...*panting* on retention plate... gotta write that one down. Looks E-mazing man! :up:

[Ic3man]

I decided to treat myself with this build and bought a couple of new HD's.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/124-1.jpg

I have heard some good reports about the new 32mb 7200.11's so I plumped for a pair to be used in Raid 0. I also hear these drives are quiet but I have my doubts they are as quiet as my current spinpoints but nonetheless I mounted them as I had previously done, using anti vibration rubber mounts which, if there is any, should cut down on any chatter the drives make.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/125.jpg

I also have another drive nestled inbetween to use as a data drive. These hard drives were then mounted to a fan using MM's own hard drive rack which is a handy little bit of kit as this serves to keep them running nice and cool.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/126.jpg

[Ic3man]

Tubing So this is where it starts to take shape now....finally!

I originally planned to use feser dye in the loop to get a nice orange glow to the tubes but the feser I used previously didn't turn out to be the orange I was looking for, more like murky green/brown if you ask me :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/mountainmods024.jpg

It may just have been a bad batch though as other feser products I have used have been fine. So reluctant to try another bottle the solution was to use XSPC orange tubing which glows nicely under UV. I would be using two loops though which meant I really needed (or rather wanted) to distinguish between the two loops. The only other colour I could really choose was black. So here they are :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/134.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/133-1.jpg

Still got alot of work to do yet but it's nice to see a little colour in there at last.

[Ic3man]

I like the look of the fat tubing as thin tubing just looks 'wimpy' imo, no offence to those who use it of course. As we all know a Tiger has stripes so I used some primo coils to get the look I was after :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/159.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/160.jpg

[smee]

OOoooh man!
That black tubing with the orange coils looks soo sweet!!!
More pics!!!!! *drools*....

[Ic3man]

Sunbeam rheobus LED Mod

Sadly my Scythe Karma meter gave up the ghost due to me asking too much of it. I needed to run 9 120mm fans off it and while it was ok for a couple of days it eventually gave up the ghost. Tbh I was a little gutted because its about the only black fan controller that has the capability to glow orange.

As a replacement I got the Sunbeam rheobus fan controller which while not being anywhere near as fancy as the Scythe it is renown for being one of the most powerfull controllers around so if this couldn't handle 9 fans nothing would. The Sunbeam has 20W per channel, of which there are four whereas the Scythe is only 7w per channel - so more than double the power.

The problem with the sunbeam is that at stock it looks a little cheap (it is tbh @ £14.99) and not only are the led's the wrong colour for my build they are also extremely bright!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/10-1.jpg

So I set about taking it to bits to see what could be done.;)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0242.jpg

Well its very basic inside apart from the huge heatsinks to cope with the power going through the rheobus and as luck would have it the LED's will pop straight out so are easily changeable. The problem being is that the LED's are dual type and sadly getting orange and another colour that don't clash is nigh on impossible. Heres what I figured out after a little testing which may help anyone who gives this simple mod a try.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0243-1.jpg

As you look at it front side on the left prong is 0-7v, middle Gnd, and right 7-12v. I'm pretty sure theres a more in-depth guide on this very forum.

[Ic3man]

So as I couldn't find any dual led's to my liking, I used 4 amber and 4 orange ones which were a pain to solder (need to connect the Ground terminal on both leds). I wired them up thus : 0-7v = Amber and 7-12v Orange, which brought the rheobus much more inline with the theme of this build.

ITS ALIVE!!!!!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0257.jpg

Looks much nicer now and best of all I no longer burn my retinas when looking at the damn thing.

The Drive bay area is pretty much complete now, just need to sort the power/reset buttons :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0263.jpg

[daedality]

Looks amazing so far! I hope you get some great overclocks with that rig. Tiger's not ferocious without it's teeth!

[dnb#]

I don't like smartcoils at all, buit to be honest the r3400 with orange coils are a nice looking contrast m8. Hoping to get some more pics ;)

[Ic3man]

Yeah I aint usually a big fan of the coils either, especially on clear tubing but somehow I think these just 'work' and look with the theme, alot better than the plain tubing.

[disruptfam]

looking good mate

more pics?

[NaeKuh]

iceman, i heard setting your fans on 7V like that puts stress on your power supply.

Your drawing from both +5 and +12.
It wasnt mean to be ran like that. You should just get a uber fan controller and set it that way.

Other then that, its looking great!

[Evil-Fruits|R4z]

Looking Awesome.

That tubing option is exactly what I'm doing with my new build but, I'm going down the Feser1 route. Really fills me with confidence in that colour choice after seeing this - keep up the good work.

Subscribed.

R4z

[Ic3man]

looking good mate

more pics?

I'll do some 'finale' pics when it's complete mate. I've still got a few details to sort out and I'm also waiting for the powdercoated grills to arrive but once its done I'll get some more pics up.

iceman, i heard setting your fans on 7V like that puts stress on your power supply.

Your drawing from both +5 and +12.
It wasnt mean to be ran like that. You should just get a uber fan controller and set it that way.

Other then that, its looking great!

Cheers for the warning mate. I've been running 7v modded fans for a couple of years now thought with no ill effects:shrug:. I've got 9 fans on the rheobus
so I guess it wouldn't do any harm to stick another 3 on there.:D

[SoulsCollective]

iceman, i heard setting your fans on 7V like that puts stress on your power supply.

Your drawing from both +5 and +12. Not quite. You're not drawing from the 5V, you're using the 5V as a ground, which it isn't intended to do (voltage = potential difference, therefore with 12V as positive and 5V as ground you have 12 - 5 = 7V difference). This puts some stress on the voltage regulators, that's true, but any decent PSU can handle it without blinking an eye.

[Ic3man]

Did a few more little bits and pieces over the weekend :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0265.jpg

A pair of Temp gauges (orange of course!). Top is the board mosfet temp and the bottom is the exhaust air from the 3870x2.

I also painted a couple of thermochill grills for the inside of the case (black powdercoated ones just arrived for the exterior), a 120.1 and 120.3 which look great under UV and perfectly match the theme:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0267.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0268.jpg

I still need to even out the coils but thats will be one of the last things I do after doing the final cable tidy.

More to come soon....

[Ic3man]

Update :

OCZ Ram cooler

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/ocz-XTC_Cooler_4036.jpg

I bought this ram cooler after having one previously and being impressed with it. However three things let it sown imo. The fans are a little 'whiney' and get a little irritating after a while and they also don't exactly push alot of air. They are also blue led versions which dont fit in well with my build at all. So I got a couple of replacement fans:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0278.jpg

These 60mm fans are almost twice as thick as the original fans but push alot more air through without being 'whiney'. They are however very loud as you would expect being 60mm but run quite @60% speed while still pushing more air than the stock fans. Fitting them was relatively easy as I just bent out the original screw holes and then bent them over the top of the new fans after they were replaced. So thats the blue led, noise and airflow problem sorted - now onto the aesthetics.

The main unit, while having a fantastic chrome effect sticks out like a sore thumb in my new build so something had to be done about it. A little sanding, priming and spraying and hey presto, a more sullen but subdued look:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0276.jpg

[Ic3man]

Now while black looks alot better, I still felt it still didn't 'fit' with my theme. It left a big dark area on the motherboard area which looked kinda out of place. I tried using some orange leds behind the mesh but that didn't look right either so I got a little creative:

Note to self - must wait for things to dry before taking pics :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0279-1.jpg

The paint is AC ryan acrylic UV wasn't exactly easy to use on a mesh surface but the effect I was after comes out fine under UV I think you'll agree:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/IMG_0281-1.jpg

Well thats pretty much all the work done now so I just need to do a few tidyup operations and then I'll take the 'money' shots.

[Ic3man]

Ok heres the finished article:

http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/w3bbo/

Enjoy:cool:

[Nate P.]

HOLY :banana::banana::banana::banana: THAT THIS :banana::banana::banana::banana:ING AMAZING! Love love love love love! RAM cooler is :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing awesome!

[dnb#]

HOLY :banana::banana::banana::banana: THAT THIS :banana::banana::banana::banana:ING AMAZING! Love love love love love! RAM cooler is :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing awesome!

thats exactly the same thing as I was going to say :D

[Tw1st3d]

thats exactly the same thing as I was going to say :D

Don't think i can say it much better..

KICKASS BUILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shocked:

That Ram cooler is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brammers]

There are no words, my friend :bows:


J

[[XC] NetburstXE]

HOLY :banana::banana::banana::banana: THAT THIS :banana::banana::banana::banana:ING AMAZING! Love love love love love! RAM cooler is :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing awesome!

As Nate said, truly amazing.

[smee]

WWWHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!
:shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked: :shocked:

Dude, love the ram cooler!! Pure genius right there!!! :up: :up:

You deserve a huge audience of applause:
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Edit:
Thats 1,078 applauding smileys! :yepp:

[disruptfam]

very nice work mate! and great lil video you did there

ram cooler = sik!!!

what temps are you getting with this setup?

[Ic3man]

very nice work mate! and great lil video you did there

ram cooler = sik!!!

what temps are you getting with this setup?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/webbo10/4100ic3.jpg

Thanks for your kind words guys :)

[kadozer]

I've read this whole thread and it was fun to read. You've got a good eye for what is visually appealing. Ic3man, mind telling me what your mch, fsb voltage, etc are in bios. I cant get 3.8 prime stable with my q6600 WC setup.

[ArtosDracon]

Gorgeous, glad to see someone else straying from the blue crowd!

[jmc]

Really amazing build!!!!


I love the last song in your video...it's from one of my favorite movies..

[disruptfam]

nice temps :)

ambient?

[Ic3man]

I've read this whole thread and it was fun to read. You've got a good eye for what is visually appealing. Ic3man, mind telling me what your mch, fsb voltage, etc are in bios. I cant get 3.8 prime stable with my q6600 WC setup.

Cheers. All the voltages are in the sidebar m8 (Everest).

Gorgeous, glad to see someone else straying from the blue crowd!

Yeah, been there done that etc.

Really amazing build!!!!


I love the last song in your video...it's from one of my favorite movies..

Yeah great tune.

nice temps :)

ambient?

Ambient was around 20-22c, normal room temp. I should really give it a go with an open window being as winter is still lingering on here in the UK (snow last week again!). The Mrs however, frowns on such activities now:(. Maybe I should think about an upgrade:p: