Project: Blue on Black

[mbreslin]

It's not all fun and games filling up a huge case! It won't be long until you're saying wow this is a lot like real work. Awesome pile of hardware, if I could make a suggestion, take it sloooow. I rushed it for sure, I didn't have many problems but it certainly could have gone better. (and hopefully you update your log more than I do mine!)

Subscribed.

[Bolas]

It's not all fun and games filling up a huge case! It won't be long until you're saying wow this is a lot like real work. Awesome pile of hardware, if I could make a suggestion, take it sloooow. I rushed it for sure, I didn't have many problems but it certainly could have gone better. (and hopefully you update your log more than I do mine!)

Subscribed.

That's good advice to take it slow. It'll be very tough to follow that advice, though... I'm dying to power up everything and see the monitors working!

I'm hoping that our video camera has a "time lapse" setting and I can set it up on a tripod and do a time lapse video of the entire build. That would be fun. Doubt it has that though, but won't hurt to check.

I'm tempted to assemble everything with just stock cooling and cabling, power it on, and make sure everything works. After all, if something doesn't work, I want to find out right away and get the RMA started. It might be a couple weeks before I have everything the way I want it as far as wiring and cabling goes, so that would be outside of the warranty window. So I probably should put together everything this weekend.

I wonder how long it will take me to build the whole thing if I do nothing else and work on it straight through? (MOM! Poopsock!)

[Bolas]

At last, the motherboard shows up on April 7th.



Fancy packaging. I wonder how much I paid for the packaging?



The other shipment of watercooling stuff showed up too. Now I have darn near everything I've ordered.



Only waiting on the sleeving and the DisplayPort to DVI-D adapter.

So now I can start building... but where to start?

The water blocks look nice. Really nice. EK did a good job with these, it's obvious. Nice craftsmanship, good packaging, good instructions... and they even included some GOOD thermal paste, some MX-2. I'll be using that on the CPU when I mount it. EK just made the "nice" list.



I opened the boxes and familiarize myself with the... dang that's a LOT of work to install a block. And it looks like I need to wear ESD protection, so that means wait for the weekend and bring my work smock home to "wash" it. And by wash it, I mean wear it non-stop while I build and take it back to work stinkier than when I brought it home.

Hmmm... fans look fun.



They came with some kind of rubber screw substitute, it seems.



Trying to fit a fan on a radiator using the screw substitutes looks like it is just not going to work. No way to get my fingers underneath to pull them through. Maybe if I install them using rubber gaskets and regular screws.



Only problem is... I don't think I'm ready to install the fans to the radiators yet. The radiators don't look so clean inside.



What's this? Dang it!! Radiators are all banged up. I thought I bought new ones?!? Are all Swiftech products like this, or just the radiators?



Hmm... now what? Maybe I can mess with the pump and reservoir.



This looks pretty cool. I gotta hand it to XSPC, their bay mount reservoir looks pretty sweet. Good craftsmanship, from what I can tell.



One problem though. The pump isn't sleeved yet. Well, OK, two problems. I also don't have a TORX head bit handy, it's in the garage somewhere and I"m not dressed to go out on the cold concrete floor and squeeze past the car to get to the tool box. Maybe I can sweet talk my wife into finding the bits and the screwdriver for me. Another day though, she won't brave the garage at this time of night either. So on to something else.



Let's take a look at the case.

Use the key to cut the tape on the box please, sweetie. No, please don't press daddy's car alarm...



Ah that's more like it.









Open up the case is easy enough, press one button and the panel comes off with no tools. Nice.

Looks like the case has some things stuffed in the cavities, like giblets in a turkey.





Nothing much to do with the case yet. Let's check out the knick-knacks.



Aha! At last, something that I have the skill to do. O-Rings!!



That looks fun. I think I'll do them all.



That leaves two blue ones left over, just enough for the O-rings on the plugs on the gpu block.



Ok, that's done. What else?

Not much to do with the tube yet. It's darker than I thought it would be. And also smaller diameter, guess I should have gone with the big stuff.



Ok, I suppose I could install the power supply into the case, since it's modular. What's this? A white ROHs sticker on my black power supply? Off, off, sticker of stupidity! In the trash can with you!

So let's check out the anti-vibration gasket to use for the power supply.



Looks like it doesn't quite fit over the power supply due to the special plug and the LED. I guess I'll get to do my very first CUSTOM MOD for this build, and cut a small amount of the rubber gasket away so that it fits better. But how to do it in a way that doesn't look totally sloppy?

I know, I'll get my wife to do it. She's got all those fancy precision cutting things for her scrapbooking, she's bound to have something that will cut the right shapes out of this rubber. "Honey? Help please!" Mark it with a pen? Ok... where to get a pen. I guess a cheap pencil will have to do the trick. Can you see that? Not really, and it's too late to mess with this... so I guess that's it for Wednesday, April 7th.

[ottoyu34]

Bolas: That's some nice fresh hardware. I see there's two monitors. Where's the third one?? :P

[nyeah]

nice project Bolas, it seems you don't have the patience to wait for riiie
i really envy your monitor btw

[RCG_Bex]

Looking sweet dude. But we needs moarrrrrrrrr!

~Bex

[tool_462]

Upgrade of the century?

Sexy hardware, if I had enough money for even one of those monitors, no way I could have held out on the old rig you were rockin

[Taskforce]

Spending spree, monitor over kill but I'm guessing your not going to keep all three, plans for a new desk maybe? went cheap on res, rad and fans though, don't like the case, would've gone with high-end Lian Li since you're already dropping that kinda cash, anyways good luck with your build.

[Bolas]

Bolas: That's some nice fresh hardware. I see there's two monitors. Where's the third one?? :P

I opened one of the boxes to check out the monitor, the other two boxes are still sealed.

I just put the third monitor back in the box so that I could have some desk space to work.

[Bolas]

Spending spree, monitor over kill but I'm guessing your not going to keep all three, plans for a new desk maybe? went cheap on res, rad and fans though, don't like the case, would've gone with high-end Lian Li since you're already dropping that kinda cash, anyways good luck with your build.

I'm almost certainly going to keep all three monitors. I thought about getting just one, but I got such a great deal on them I couldn't pass up three. Heck, I was tempted to get six of these bad boys! But that would have skimped on other components in the budget a bit too much, so I passed on that option. Reviews for Eyefinity say that 3 is the way to go and that 6 is annoying with bezels across the middle of the view. 5 in portrait is a consideration if you play a lot of first person shooters, but I don't do that.

I thought about getting a new desk. My wife wants one, so that would be easy to convince her to buy one. But this one is a nice desk. I'll just need to add some more cross-braces underneath. It's sagging a bit too much at the moment and I don't want it to collapse. When I put the Corsair case on the left side, the case wobbles due to the desk sag. Bleah.

I didn't go "cheap" on the res. I wanted a pump/res combo for better performance.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=178575

But the XSPC reservoir top wouldn't fit in the bottom of the Corsair 800D in the power supply chamber, it's too tall. And I didn't really want to put the pump/res combo on top of the power supply where it would bump into the motherboard and gpu. So the next best thing was a bay mount pump res combo. Pump plus res together means less tubing (because you don't have to connect the two) which means better loop performance.

I considered putting the pump with an aftermarket top in the bottom of the case and using a cylinder reservoir mounted behind the drive bays, but the reservoir that I wanted was out of stock at Petra's Tech Shop at the time I was shopping for a res. Naturally, they were back in stock the day after I placed my order for something else.

From www.petrastechshop.com:
Yates AND iandh StealthRes Reservoirs in stock!!! 3/31/10 5:11 EDT
Petra's Yates are now back in stock! A DIRECT shipment from Yate Loon just arrived and all models are ready for purchase. Also, we just received a second batch of stealthres reservoirs, but as usual, those won't last long....better get em while you can!

With Petras ouf of the iandh StelthRes, I considered a different brand of cylinder reservoir. But being a noob, I also wasn't really sure how to mount the cylinder res, so I went with a bay mount reservoir, which is pretty easy to figure out how to mount. I still have the option to switch to a different reservoir, they aren't that expensive ($60?). I'll see how this one works out first, though.

For the radiator, you'll notice that this thread below indicates that the one that I bought is the best price/performance for any fan speed. Not so much a matter of going "cheap" as it is getting the best bang for the buck.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/....php?p=4101259

For the fan selection, I went with what Martin listed as the "king of low noise". I was after quiet, not cheap.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=223391

The Gentle Typhoon was also a consideration for fans, but I didn't like the gray blades. That's not the aesthetic that I'm going for -- gray isn't in my color scheme plan for this build. It's black, dark blue, UV blue, and bright nickel. All other colors are forbidden, including gray. The fan I picked is black and dark blue. Perfect!

Case selection. I originally settled on a Lian Li PC-343B powder coated black. But it couldn't be made to hold the really large motherboards, so I was going to switch to a Mountian Mods Ascension. But that seemed a bit too large for my feeble desk, and a bit too complex of a project for my initial build. What makes me think I can do seven loops if I'm not even sure I can do one loop right?

I wanted something simple to learn on and that wasn't too expensive, only about $300. That way, I can resell the case for $200 when I want to move up to a larger case and then only spend a net of $100 on the "learner" case. From what I've read, the Corsair Obsidian 800D is very "noob-friendly". Easy wire routing, everything's already black, etc. It's a well known case and I shouldn't have any problem selling it later when I no longer need it because I've moved up.

I was still on the fence a bit about exactly which case to choose, so I ran a poll on Xtreme Systems. Clear winnner was the Obsidian 800D. The Lian Li only got two votes.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=247698

Next build will probably be a larger all aluminum case -- probably one of the other ones from the survey. What's your suggestion for a good Lian Li case that can hold multiple large radiators internally with little modding?

I am also considering a custom wood case for my next build. My brother is a real craftsman with wood and he offered to build me a custom case. He has been building guitars lately, but if I send him the plans for a nice large custom case out of wood, he would build it for me with the highest craftsmanship.

So I might do something like Mick64's case, but made out of all wood by my brother and customized to my liking. Only problem is that I don't know enough about case design to plan it out myself, so I'll probably have to find someone to help with that. The nice thing about building this now on the Corsair 800D is that I can then have it to game with while he takes his sweet time to build the case and do it right.

[MegadetHCl]

Is aesthetics / blue color scheme the only reason to change the O-rings from stock to blue, or do the blue O-rings perform better?

[Bolas]

Is aesthetics / blue color scheme the only reason to change the O-rings from stock to blue, or do the blue O-rings perform better?

No difference in performance at all, as far as I know. Aesthetics is the only reason, color scheme is black so I could have left the black o-rings. I thought it would be fun to try and see if I could see any glow from the o-rings. I can change them back if I don't like it, I've still got the black o-rings.

They are both Bitspower o-rings designed for the exact same size compression fittings, so they should be completely interchangeable.

[Taskforce]

"noob-friendly"

Not everyday i see noobs dropping 1k on processor, you said it not me.

I was still on the fence a bit about exactly which case to choose, so I ran a poll on Xtreme Systems. Clear winnner was the Obsidian 800D. The Lian Li only got two votes.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=247698

As for your poll you only got two votes because it's probably one of the lease desired case out the entire Lian Li production line, i love Lian Li cases and would never consider purchasing Lian Li PC-343B.

Going BIG i see, but the saying goes bigger isn't always better, quality over quantity, truthfully i wish i was there in person to guide you in making right decisions cause it burns to see a newbie go way overboard.

[eth0s]

There's nothing wrong with your Corsair 800D case. It's a great case, and will serve you well. However, I would have recommended a better radiator, like a Thermochill or Feser or XSPC. The reservoir is fine. Now as for the fans, I really would have strongly suggested the Gentle Typhoons, simply because they really are the best fans you can buy today, and they will blow those NB's away, literally. I don't know how to explain this, but: color is really not an issue, because how often are you going to be staring at the fans? They should be spinning most of the time anyway, and the color really won't matter much. (Except for those Pink and Brown Noctuas, that kind of ugly is a problem.) And IMO, you really should have used 1/2" ID tubing, but plenty of people use the smaller stuff, and are quite happy with it. It will bend better, so it does have some advantages, and nobody can say it is the wrong choice. As for the $1,000 cpu, well that is the kind of thing everybody has to decide for themselves. And if you have the money to spend, well, getting the latest and greatest cpu is fun, but just remember the fun doesn't last, and something newer and greater will be out before you finish benchmarking your current cpu. However, since you are a man who keeps him computer going for at least 10 years, you will be pretty well served by that proc, and maybe you need to spend $1,000 to buy a little future-proofing.

All in all, great planning and great build. Congrats on a n00b build, it's tough to think about all this stuff before you build a rig, and it looks like you really thought about everything and did almost everything right. However, I think those monitors are a bit much, but I may just be an old-fashioned two monitor guy. Also, I can't believe your wife let you stockpile all of those boxes in that room for weeks. My wife would have gone mental over that, but that might be just her irrational fear of "clutter". Who knows. Either way, you are a lucky man.

[Bolas]

Not everyday i see noobs dropping 1k on processor, you said it not me.

As for your poll you only got two votes because it's probably one of the lease desired case out the entire Lian Li production line, i love Lian Li cases and would never consider purchasing Lian Li PC-343B.

Going BIG i see, but the saying goes bigger isn't always better, quality over quantity, truthfully i wish i was there in person to guide you in making right decisions cause it burns to see a newbie go way overboard.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a noob. Better to be humble and proved wrong than to be arrogant and proved wrong, I would think. I probably should have gotten the 920 or the 930, but it won't hurt me to have 6 cores of 32nm goodness either, so *shrug*.

I even asked for advice on the processor with a survey on xtremesystems. Winner was the core i7 980X. I probably should have combined the 920 and the 930 into one category when I did the survey, that would have given a different result, I suspect. But it's not a horrible choice, either.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=247702

What Lian Li case would you suggest? You still haven't answered that question.

I'm not quite sure how buying the cheapest case option is going way overboard. What would you have spent different in my budget, other than going with a cheaper cpu and power supply? Here's the budget breakdown.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=248144

I've been saving up for two years, researching for a year or so, and asking for advice on this build for months now (since November of last year) on multiple forums. Mostly on xtremesystems for obvious reasons.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=242234

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=242257

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=247701

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=248272

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=246754

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=248361

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthre...977&highlight=

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/fo...0&new=0&nojs=0

http://forums.firingsquad.com/t5/Har...397977#M139679

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/ide...87FCFC587449D4

A bit late to say that you would have done it different, don't you think?

[Bolas]

There's nothing wrong with your Corsair 800D case. It's a great case, and will serve you well. However, I would have recommended a better radiator, like a Thermochill or Feser or XSPC. The reservoir is fine. Now as for the fans, I really would have strongly suggested the Gentle Typhoons, simply because they really are the best fans you can buy today, and they will blow those NB's away, literally. I don't know how to explain this, but: color is really not an issue, because how often are you going to be staring at the fans? They should be spinning most of the time anyway, and the color really won't matter much. (Except for those Pink and Brown Noctuas, that kind of ugly is a problem.) And IMO, you really should have used 1/2" ID tubing, but plenty of people use the smaller stuff, and are quite happy with it. It will bend better, so it does have some advantages, and nobody can say it is the wrong choice. As for the $1,000 cpu, well that is the kind of thing everybody has to decide for themselves. And if you have the money to spend, well, getting the latest and greatest cpu is fun, but just remember the fun doesn't last, and something newer and greater will be out before you finish benchmarking your current cpu. However, since you are a man who keeps him computer going for at least 10 years, you will be pretty well served by that proc, and maybe you need to spend $1,000 to buy a little future-proofing.

All in all, great planning and great build. Congrats on a n00b build, it's tough to think about all this stuff before you build a rig, and it looks like you really thought about everything and did almost everything right. However, I think those monitors are a bit much, but I may just be an old-fashioned two monitor guy. Also, I can't believe your wife let you stockpile all of those boxes in that room for weeks. My wife would have gone mental over that, but that might be just her irrational fear of "clutter". Who knows. Either way, you are a lucky man.

Thanks for the kind words. I will buy nicer radiators when I do a larger case or when I get annoyed with these. I was not impressed with the build quality of these radiators, so they will not be a permanent fixture in my builds, I suspect.

I do like the Gentle Typhoons, guess I should have done a survey on which fans, LOL.

The deciding factor for me for the tubing diameter is what size of sleeve MDPC-X had available for tubing. I wanted to try out some things with sleeving and I read on xtremesystems.org that tubing size made a negligible difference in system performance.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=147767

I actually only kept my computer for 8 years, and only with upgrading the memory and the graphics card. I bought the top of the line in 2000 and when it could no longer do what I wanted it to do, but the processor I wanted wasn't out yet, I bought a refurbished HP dv9260nr laptop to tide me over until Nehalem.





Not the best specs in the world, but for $1000 a little over two years ago, it wasn't too bad of a system. Got me some portability which I can still use even after building the desktop.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...reg_R1002_USEN

I have only had one monitor before, so three is a nice upgrade. I looked at the ratio that I like, and 3 monitors in portrait gives a very nice aspect ratio. Reviews I've read point out that with two monitors, there is a bezel right in the middle of your view. So your gun sights are between the monitors -- your main focal point is the bezel. Not really what I wanted. I ended up deciding on three monitors when everyone seemed pretty unanimous that there was no reason to spend more than $5k on a computer and a great system could be had for $4k, so I put the balance into monitors.

My wife didn't let me stockpile things for weeks. The monitors sat on a pallet in the garage in my parking space until I got home from my trip and then I moved them to my corner of the basement and started ordering additional parts almost immediately. March 25th to 31st was the bulk of the parts ordering, stuff mostly showed up the first week of April, and now I'm starting the build, so really not much sitting around at all. Not anywhere near as much sitting around as if I had waited for Rampage III Extreme and Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 4GB.

I wasn't exactly sure when to order because I didn't know for sure when I would get the monitors. It's a pretty tight timeline between when I got them, when I ordered parts, and when I started building. All the boxes have been confined to my 1/4 of the basement, so she doesn't have too much clutter of mine to deal with. Not in comparison to toddler toy clutter, anyways, LOL.

[Bolas]

Well time to start the weekend build. I've successfully helped my wife install a screen on the back door to let the spring air into the house, so now maybe I can get some *ahem* important stuff done. First stop, I'll look at the builds on the Corsair web site to see what order they recommend installing things into the 800D case. That might save me some hassles.

http://www.corsair.com/systembuild/r...ort_id=1099104

I picked up one tip there already -- leave the packaging film on the case while building to protect the case. Glad I read that first, that might save my case some damage during the build.

[Taskforce]

What Lian Li case would you suggest? You still haven't answered that question.

I'm not quite sure how buying the cheapest case option is going way overboard. What would you have spent different in my budget, other than going with a cheaper cpu and power supply? Here's the budget breakdown.

Alright Bolas i didn't know you're open for suggestions, here's my personal opinion. I'm not saying you went overboard with the case just on other items, in fact you kinda skimmed a little with case choice, like i said i just didn't like the Corsair Obsidian 800D, it's too big, feels clumsy, and the quality can be debated "steel mixed with plastic" and just can't get over it having 6 feet.

Here is an unboxing i just watched, Lian Li PC-A77F:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xpB7...eature=related
I felt the same way he did when i got the 71F, marveled at elegance and build quality, cases i currently recommend, descending order:


Water:
Lian Li PC-A77F
Lian Li PC-B71B
Lian Li PC-A71F-B
Lian Li PC-A70B

Aftermarket top:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=25009

Air:
Lian Li PC-B10
Lian Li TYR
Lian Li PC-60FNWX
Lian Li PC-A16B

Other thoughts, you'd save and excess of 3k ditching two monitors and getting an i7, things you need not want! Extreme don't benefit you unless you do heavy benching and willing to run LN2, trust me next 6 months you'll see better Cpus for fraction the price.
And only if you have 3 pairs of eyes, you need 3x30" i can just imaging how much neck movement you'll be doing with those.

Let me know if you'd like to hear the rest of my parts recommendation including HID and desk, update with my own setup soon.

[Bolas]

I'll check out the Lian Li PC-A77F and maybe use it for my next build.

Monitors I would have only saved $1k if I'd gone with 1 instead of 3 because I wouldn't have gotten the deal that I did. These monitors have built in pivot, so I can swing them into portrait mode and make one huge desk top pretty easy -- and with decent aspect ratio. And I could have saved $850 on the CPU, so just under $2k I could have saved with different monitors and cpu, not really $3k. And who knows, maybe only one of the monitors works and I return the other two, LOL. Haven't tested them yet.

I'm not planning on running LN2 any time soon, you are right about that. I did see that anandtech thought that this is the first extreme edition that might be worth the money. Not something he would buy for himself, but not a complete ripoff either.

What would you do with a $7k budget? I think it would be interesting to hear your approach, but a build log thread might not be the right place to post that, maybe on the budget thread would be a better pick.

[Bolas]

I've just completed putting together the "stock air cooling" version of the build, to test all the components and make sure they work. I don't have the sleeving yet and haven't had a chance to flush out all the radiators and install the blocks, so the finished build is still a ways off, but I can at least make sure stuff works right.

My camera battery died about an hour into it, so I don't have pics of every thing. My wife can't find the charger and I haven't messed with it, so I'm not sure how I'm going to get the camera going again.

I have to say, I am liking the Corsair Obsidian 800D for a case. It's very noob friendly and the wire routing seems pretty easy. Everything's black, which I also like a lot. It'll look much better when everything's sleeved and water cooled, though, but that's a ways off I think.

I've had a few mishaps so far. The silverstone power supply doesn't fit into the opening properly. I figured out how to remedy this by loosening the screws around the power entry module and then re-tightening them over the back side of the case. I think I've seen that here somewhere before. I nicked the paint under the entry module with a screwdriver. Yick. Time to buy some black touch-up paint, I guess.

I got distracted when picking up the hybrid silent pipe module on the UD7 motherboard to help with the north bridge cooling. I forgot that I had set all four of the tiny metal screws into the holes on the module. Which sent three of them flying into the deep shag carpet. I spent about an hour hunting for them with a flash light on the desk, under the desk, around the chair, and so on. I found three out of the four screws and decided to just install it minus one screw. Long term, I'll be installing full board water blocks anyways. I probably shouldn't have bought the full board water blocks and just gone with the built-in water cooling. It's even the same size tubing that I'm using for my build already. I could have saved some money there, oh well. I also probably should have gone with stock cooling for the graphics card, I'm just worried that it'll be too noisy. Then I could have cooled just the cpu and the northbridge with water from a triple radiator and the build would have been even easier. But hopefully this will look better and be quieter and thus worth it.

I puzzled over which pin (#1 or #2) was the positive pin for the case power button for a while, so that I could tell which one to plug into the positive terminal on the motherboard. Then I realized that it was a friggin switch, and polarity probably didn't matter at all.

I also forgot to install the front audio before installing the hybrid silent pipe module, so I had to uninstall that again and reinstall it afterwards.

And I didn't get all the correct SATA stuff plugged in before installing the graphics card, so the card had to come back out so I could make one more connection under it.

I've got a nice little collection of stickers provided by the various product manufacturers. Intel core i7 inside. Gigabyte powered. My SSD rocks. Fueled by Sapphire. I wonder where I should stick them? My wife thought that was like the AAA bumper sticker on the back of an automobile. She suggested inside the case panel, so that I could see them if I wanted to but they normally wouldn't be visible. Anyone got a better idea for where to put the stickers? Where the sun don't shine = not an option.

I've determined I don't like the power connector locations on the graphics card. Makes the cables flare way outwards and bend at an awkward angle. Hmm... if only I had a big cylindrical reservoir to wrap them around...

Overall, the stock air cool installation was fairly easy, nothing too tough to do, so I'm enjoying the case so far.

I'm about to power it up for the first time and see from where the big plume of smoke originates....

[Bolas]

Ok, looks like I'm not so good at this. I had the only graphics card blocking the only LED readout of what the post issue is.

Motherboard won't POST. Giving error code 89. Not sure what that is, manual says something about PCI devices and memory. Tried removing everything from the PCIe slots, didn't help. Tried removing and re-seating the memory, didn't help. Now it's time to do some research to see what this new foe "89" is doing to my machine.

[Church]

who is general Failure, and why is he reading my disk?!
btw, try also booting with only one memory module seated in.
If that fails aswell, try put absolute minimum config. Just mobo, cpu, one memstick and videocard(or without it, if board also has integrated one). No disks or any other separate controller card. Recheck all power wires going to mobo/video. Another point of failure could be if liquid cooled - missing fan in motherboard fan connector, but it should shown that on screen after post.

[Bolas]

who is general Failure, and why is he reading my disk?!
btw, try also booting with only one memory module seated in.
If that fails aswell, try put absolute minimum config. Just mobo, cpu, one memstick and videocard(or without it, if board also has integrated one). No disks or any other separate controller card. Recheck all power wires going to mobo/video. Another point of failure could be if liquid cooled - missing fan in motherboard fan connector, but it should shown that on screen after post.

I'll try with just one memory module, good idea.

I already unplugged everything but the mobo, cpu, and the memory and it didn't progress. I'll try just a single mem module and see if that works.

I'm not liquid cooling yet, wanted to make sure all the components worked before I voided warranties by attaching water blocks to the hardware.

[Bolas]

Tried unplugging all drives, removing the video card, re-seating all power cables to the motherboard (24 pin and 8 pin), and booting with only one stick of memory. It still hangs with code 89. Very frustrating.

[tool_462]

Post codes on Gigabyte boards are often completely off-base on what the real problem is.

Probably just need a new BIOS that supports the Gulftown.