Project Slumber Parties UPDATED 11-19-09 10:05PM

[scgt1]

Ever get the feeling that S & H for some places is part of the profit margin??

No kidding when it was almost $20 to ship 30 minutes away.

[scgt1]

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.

[ScottALot]

Dude all of your photobucket stuff is gone O.o

[scgt1]

Dude all of your photobucket stuff is gone O.o

Yea I'm pissed off. I paid for it last night because I was getting close to the limit. I get the emails stating I'm now Pro and I get a receipt email. I login to photobucket and it shows me as Pro and allows me to see all the viewing traffic.

This morning I get up and I have emails stating I'm almost at my limit and then I've exceeded my limit right after the other. I login and it says click to go Pro by my name and all the traffic details are gone as well as it showing me I'm 101% on my bandwith. So I sent them a nice email and still haven't heard anything back. Its already pending in my account so its nice to know they are taking my money and running with it.

[scgt1]

Other news....

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.

[ScottALot]

Sounds good! It'd be cool if you could upload a video fiddling around with your fan controller.

[scgt1]

Sounds good! It'd be cool if you could upload a video fiddling around with your fan controller.

You mean sleeving it?

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. 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.

[scgt1]

Just noticed that photobucket fixed their screw up and didn't even bother to email me an excuse.
Account Status


Account Type: Pro

So the photos should be displaying again.

[scgt1]

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.

[scgt1]

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 the 1050 is to sleeve? I think I did, but what the heck its a real 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.

[scgt1]

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.

[OC Maximus]

Wow, what luck. Hope you get it all sorted out soon. Nice updated pics non-the-less.

OCM

[scgt1]

Well its obviously a deader then dead stick of ram. The other two sticks tested just fine in all banks for many pass's. I pull them all out and put the original one that was in bank 3 that I pulled and allowed the computer to start before back into bank 1 this time.

Never posts and its in a bios code loop:
00, E8, 02, 69.

I've tried it in all slots 1-3 with the same effect. I've reset the bios still no avail. Its obviously a dead chip. Kinda odd I carefully handle ram and any computer parts carefully. I've been building computers since 1992. Never have I had a ram stick go bad after touching it. Normally the computer just doesn't post one day or starts BSODing like mad. Which I had a nice long run in with Crucial. Which is why I will never deal with them again, because of how they handled my RMA.

At the time resale wise when I did the RMA D9 Micron Ballistix ram was worth double-triple what standard ballistix was going for. Which was the junk single sided ram no one wanted that had terrible reviews everywhere and people were RMAing left and right. I believe it was the 2.0V stuff I could be wrong on that though.

Granted I got a good deal on mine. They worked awsome for like 6-7 months then one day the BSODing started. I tested and right off the bat memtest was going ape on two of the modules. So I filed an RMA. that was the breeze. What I got back in the mail is what started the whole mess. They shipped me the crap no one wanted and was going for $20-30 AMIR at Frys and everywhere else, because no one was buying it due to its extreme failure rate. Needless to say I was screwed and stuck with them. Wow two sticks out of the packages were bad. Mind you these were sealed retail packages. So those two bad sticks have a nice layer of dust on them while sitting on the desk. The other two are still running today although from time to time the computer they are in (Granted its mainly a storage computer and is hardly accessed so it sits idle) has a hiccup and restarts and hangs on restart of BSOD.

I'll test a stick then the other no problems. Put them back in and it will go for another few days and do the same thing. Run memtest again and it will test them all good. So I pull them and stick the old ones in and one will test good the other bad.

So I would pick one of the two that were just causing problems and pair it with one of the ones that collected dust and be good for several weeks until the whole process starts over again. Crucial has gone down hill and their products aren't reliable. Not to mention they screw you on RMA.

So anyway I filed an RMA with Corsair and lets see what happens.

If I seem to just be rambling and not making sense forgive me its late and I'm pissed and tired!

[scgt1]

8-28-10 Another small shipment from Frozen CPU, some updates, and yet again more problems.

So I'll start with the bad:
A bit back I picked up an XSPC RX360 rad that was matte black. Which was actually matte black. I then ordered from Performance PC's an XSPC RX480 rad which was matte black. Upon arrival of that rad I inspected the rad which had about 3-4 fins that were a little non straight and the box looked like it had been crushed some.

Although the shipping box was just fine as well as the Bitspower rad grill that was packed directly above the rad. Of course if you notice from the pictures the rad isn't matte black. That of which kind of pissed me off. Then I got to thinking that it would be ok since it's not going to be seen right with the RX360. Well today while digging for information on professional screws for the rad and fans I was informed that I have an older version of the rad which has problems with its gloss finish pealing and flaking off. I did some searching online and sure enough its plagued by it.

Furthermore I looked at a link I was given which was the news releases on XSPC's own website. May 22 2009 they started to rectify this problem. With further digging around I found out that this v1 of the rads had M4 threads and they weren't properly drilled for fans. The rectification by XSPC for this problem was to make them matte black and go with 6/32 screws.

I contacted PerPC's about the rad prior to finding out about when they made the change to fix the problems. What do I get back from them?

"XSPC has never done any recall of these radiators or asked us to stop selling them. What you were sent is what XSPC sent us last order. This is all we have.

Best Regards,
Customer Service, Performance-PCs.com"

The first part of the response is in response to my questioning why they are selling an item with known problems that has since been fixed. Then he/she/they tell me that they were sent the V1 rads? I hardly believe that. Not long ago I was putting a cart together and the RX480 was SO. Which means they just recently got the shipment in. By the looks of the box I got mine has been sitting around the shop for a while or was a return...return....return. Then they figured they would try it on another sucker and see if they get away with it. Had I not been looking for screws I would have probably fell for it and never known about the previous issues until I had to take it apart for warranty of the paint coming off.

So I then did more checking around at various retailers and seeing how they describe the rad. Hell Sidewinder even states theirs as being V2. The great kicker is. Per PC's lists theirs as "matte black" which is what I wanted in the first place. They also list the screws as being M4 which is from V1. Now how the hell does any of that make sense? XSPC even has a caption under their rad information:



XSPC RX480
Introducing the RX480, the highest performing radiator XSPC have ever released. At close to twice the thickness of the RS series radiators it has excellent cooling capabilities and the sub 8fpi gives the radiator very low air flow resistance. The RX480 has been designed and optimised for low speed fans so it can offer high performance cooling at very low noise levels.

- Black Matt Finish
- Copper Tubes and Fins
- 3 rows of 13mm by 2mm Tubes
- Sub 8fpi (fins per inch)
- G1/4" Ports
- 6-32 Case and Fan Screws

Supplied with mounting screws


The first version of the RX radiator has a gloss black finish and M4 Screws, version 2 spec is listed above



Does Per PC's have any indication on if your actually getting what you pay for? Nope sure don't.
Their customer service is lacking rediculously bad also. Considering they should have given me options and not just blown me off with an uncalled for: "This is how it is and oh well for you!" response. This isn't the first time I've had bad run ins with their customer service dept. I can assure you though when this is finalized it will be my last!

So I responded with saying they might want to forward my email above their head with someone whom actually respects their customers and then provided all the above information as well as requesting a respectable rectifying conclusion to this matter.

Now on to the goods I received today. Which came from Frozen CPU (a company I have yet to have one single problem out of and their shipping is cheaper then PerPC's)

The backplate is a Prolimatech 1366 replacement backplate which will take place of the stock Apogee XT plate which I found out can warp a board. Bah this one looks much better anyway.

I could have sworn this thing was white. It appeared as such in the the retail photos I looked at. If I had known it wasn't I would have ordered the black one. I didn't even bother to look at the description of it. My mistake.

So since my mistake I'll just rectify it easily enough and take it apart. Just got back from Wallyworld with a can of satin white. And we will see how it turns out. So far I'm on my second coat and its just now starting to cover the lamptron logo. I guess if I ever have to warranty it I will have to order another one, pull the guts from this one and put it in the case for the new one. LOL.

Those pci brackets I started on several days ago.


The photos just don't do them justice since they are a smaller body. They do resemble the orange peal somewhat. This was with about 6 coats on the solid brackets and 4 on the mesh ones.

I have a product that I picked up from the UK to be put to use outside the case for the RX480 rad. Which I don't think I have taken pictures of yet. :-(
It had little feet that were just plain silver and obviously I don't want silver in this build so they needed some work also:

I'm still contemplating if I want to drag out the model paints and brush's and accent white on the grooves or not.

Well I'm off to put coat 3 on the Lamptron case. Keep in touch feel free to leave comments, criticism, etc.

[Panther_Seraphi]

Looking really good but my good your run of luck with companies seems to favour the bad!

Hope Corsair get back to you and sort you out.

Looks good and will pop in from time to time

[scgt1]

Still haven't heard from Corsair. :-(

[OC Maximus]

Looking really good but my good your run of luck with companies seems to favour the bad!

Seems like the ongoing theme here, kinda depressing if you ask me.

[scgt1]

Seems like the ongoing theme here, kinda depressing if you ask me.

Yea seems like the build has had more downs then ups and for the most part they aren't because of things I do. :-(

Its either things taking a dump or incompetent people/companies.

Got some updates coming up after dinner. Took some shots, but have to assemble something and take shots of it. Cooking steaks right now though.

[OC Maximus]

Nice, looking forward to more pictures.

[scgt1]

Some more goodies and some more of that great news that has plauged this build from the start

So last time I started the update with the bad. I guess I'll reverse that this time around.

I placed an order with a company I have never ordered from before nor heard of. Needless to say they are what more companies should be. Fast, punctual, great protection during packaging, cheap shipping, and fast order processing and shipping. Just flat out Awsome! So without further delay I bring you my order from Directron a local (to state anyway) based company in my hometown of Houston, TX.


These are for a push/pull on the external rad. Also for the internal rad and rear case fan location. I will be picking up their larger brother at Frys for the front of the case when I'm on that side of town. Directron was out of them and Fry's stocks them so its a win I suppose.

Next up I made a deal on [H]Forum yet again for this res top as well as two Enermax Clusters. The clusters I was going to use on the external rad and Magmas on the internal rad and rear case fan location. Then after some looking and thought for the front fan I went with the NZXT FN-*** series so they are all matching.

Now I got this to replace the taller res top that I had since the internals weren't correct. Well more on that problem in a bit after some shots.



This thing is sexy as hell compared to the other two. Why is that? Because this one was opened, but unused. The other two had die ran through them. Which causes one problem. The color of the acrylic is tainted in the other two res tops I have. Now for the other problem I was trying to fix, by getting this res:



A bit of a better angle to see the problem I'm still plagued with as well as you can see the color difference:


So this leaves me stumped.

How can XSPC manufacture so many different res tops? Why aren't they keeping with the same footprint? I could understand the internals and stuff being different on the first taller res. I'm sure its from an early design which is why the intake tube doesn't properly line up with the pump intake hole. I could be wrong who knows.

The problem I have is will the next one I get match this new one? Or will it be different too. I can't keep buying res tops. Something has to change. Something has to remedy itself. I don't mind buying a used one somewhere if its only been used with distilled and a kill coil so there is no tainting to the color of the acrylic and no build up. I also don't mind buying new, but this can go on forever until I find one that is actually manufactured the same as the new one in my possession now.

Hell I could flat our order two brand new ones and not get the same thing with these odds.

I still haven't heard back on Per PC's with a response to their false advertisement and lack of customer service so I will be forced to get one on one with them on the phone tomorrow.

Haven't heard from Corsair about the ram RMA either so I may drop them a line tomorrow also.

I also haven't heard back from Enermax on their fans (which is irrelevant at this point as I'm not using them now)

I did get a response from NZXT which was informative and I will see what happens when the time comes with the controller and fan situation since I'm wanting to run 4 on a channel for the rear rad and they say it can only produce 1.9 to 3 fans since its 6w max per channel. So if the fans spin a little slower I'm fine with that as the XSPC rad is designed for low rpm fans anyway.

Now with XSPC being brought up I think I'm going to contact them directly on the matter with the rad. Meaning when they stopped shipping the older gloss black ones to retailers as well as if their retailer wont do what is right if they are willing to help me in any way. As well as contacting them in regards to the Res tops. I won't settle for two different designs of the same thing right next to each other in my build.

This build means to much to me and I've put too much money and time in it to let something like that go. PSP has more meaning then just another computer and if you have been following my build you know what I'm talking about.

So hopefully tomorrow I can put the Lamptron controller back together as most of today it has been tacky still. I prefer not to chip paint off or leave finger prints in it. So its pleasantly sitting on my lightbox in the garage for the time being.

I may dig out my fiancee's product bags out of the closet tomorrow so I can get to my model box to get white paint and brushes out to accent the feet for the rad stand. Other then that I have been sleeving like mad. Which like an idiot forgot to take those two items out to the box and shoot photos. I will do that this evening when I get bored. LOL

I do believe though I will be in need of placing another order with Nils. Unfortunatly with a rough estimate its around another $100 USD that I need to order which will include a bunch of Sata sleeving also. Fortunatly the slew of NZXT fans come pre sleeved. And they do a damn good job too. Most companies leave bare wire at the connectors. Not NZXT. Real standup job guys.

Well thats all the ranting, raving, disappointments, triumphs, trophies for now. God I wish someone would throw me a bone..

[scgt1]

Well I got bored so here goes the other two updates I finished up today:

Upper I/O panel on the Haf 932. Minus the items no one uses and I wont be using:


The NZXT Sentry LX:



That's all for now.

[ScottALot]

Damn, I wish I could get that same job for the I/O!!

[scgt1]

Damn, I wish I could get that same job for the I/O!!

Talk with me when I'm done with the sleeving. LOL

[scgt1]

Well got my RMA number from Corsair today on the ram. Although they didn't bother to answer any questions I had while I filled out the RMA. Nice to know they place a comment box during the process and ignore it as they are processing your claim.

Hell the people on the phone are even more clueless. Getting transfered from customer service to tech support and back. What a 30 minute headache. I found out the ram I would be getting is:
cmt6gx3m3a2000c8 which is still a 3 x 2gb kit and 2000mhz. The problem is they people can't even tell me what chips they are running now in their ram. I'm really leary about this whole situation.

Then the part about my tall ram fins comes up. Which I had to ask about considering its one of the questions that were in my initial rma claim that went over looked. I asked the tech support guy (why they even transfered me to them I have no clue) He told me that I needed to ask Cust service about them. Well that lady didn't even have a clue what the fins were. So I had to explain its their own product and they sell them on their site for $25 dollars. The problem is I didn't have the small ones that come with the ram and I needed to know if they were going to change them or if I could just keep them and send the ram and the heatsinks. She said I could keep them and they will write a note on my file. Wow a note that is reasuring. So I can imagine once my ram gets to Corsair the RMA claim will be denied. I just know it with the luck I have been having. That or one of the replacement sticks will be bad right out of the package. LOL

Time will tell.

I tell you I'm half tempted to get my $409.99 + tax back and then turn around and order this same kit at Newegg for $269.99 considering they aren't worth a crap from what I hear. Since the Elphida chips their ram has been junk and problematic.

Again time will tell.

[OC Maximus]

For the love of God, is this a constant rant thread or a build thread?