Carbide

[Furball Zen]

Yup sure did and was wanting to make a similar one for myself Thanks

[UrbanSmooth]

No, thank YOU sir!

[Furball Zen]

Well, got it all put together this past weekend, bled, rinsed and went to boot...blah. Not sure if something hosed or what. Took forever to pull it all apart Tuesday night to test the mobo by itself, but it booted up. However a reboot like after saving BIOS settings cause it to not boot up, or not display video, cant tell. Ill post the update pics i have from the weekend anyways and update when the 990FX board is in there.

Silverstone add-on dual SATA port controller so i can run 6 drives (for sale, brand new) with custom backplate





Progress pics, most wire management done, waiting on the drives now....



















Plumbing, FINALLY!!! Still waiting on drives...



4 VelociRaptors and 2 Intel X-25M SSD's...





Aaaaand how they mount



All plumbed up and ready for liquid



Bitspower fill funnel



Starting to mod the 990FXA board















How the mobo looked stock

[Furball Zen]

The last time this will look like this






After about 10 mins of 150 grit



Switch to 600 now for about another 10 mins



Yay! Copper!



Ready for some 1000 grit wet...



And, in its home ;-)

[LeoAndrade]

is it mirror finished? If I were you, I'd go up to the 2000 grit.

[Furball Zen]

Nah, plenty good at 1000. Like i said on the 955, flat is better than shiny.

[desnudopenguino]

This is a solid build. What are you doing to the para cord between the sata power plugs?

[Furball Zen]

What do you mean? The one going through the SATA data ports and SB cooler? Nothing now but DFI boards have 2 floppy drive connectors for extra power on the PCI/PCI-E lanes to draw from. Only the UD7's have something like this on the Gigabytes.

[UrbanSmooth]

Nice work on that sleeving and cable management!

[Furball Zen]

Gonna be cleaner still without the DFI in there

[desnudopenguino]

What do you mean? The one going through the SATA data ports and SB cooler? Nothing now but DFI boards have 2 floppy drive connectors for extra power on the PCI/PCI-E lanes to draw from. Only the UD7's have something like this on the Gigabytes.

Sorry, let me explain. On the images you have with the stack of drives (ssd & vraptors), you have para cord between the sata power plugs. Did you just jam a bunch in there or what to get it to fill the area and not slip all over the place? I'm thinking of doing a similar thing with one of my builds, but I have yet to figure out a good way to secure the sleeve over the wires between the plugs.

[Furball Zen]

Ah, easy The paracord i use i got at www.atwoodrope.net and its the stiffest stuff i can find. By singeing the ends just right i could make certain lengths to fill the gaps just right instead of copping out and using straight heat shrink

[Brodholm]

Beautiful build. Really like the black and yellow theme you got going!

[Furball Zen]

Thanks

[Furball Zen]

Small update as i wait on (yet another small order) a couple 45? fittings from Swiftech due to where the GPU bridge lands the inlet/outlet hoses.

Of course, Swiftech GPU bridge and GTZ waterblock top, Carbided naturally



Testing the ~395nm UV LED strip i got off eBay, i like the richness of color on the acrylic pieces i made for the heatsinks



Frosting the XSPC acrylic part on the memory cooler







Wiring up the 30 LED's...im thinking it might be too much so i may put them on a fan controller



All done and ready to test



Works





Not sure im liking the mesh look even after the pains i took to make it so im 'Carbiding' the stock piece

[UrbanSmooth]

Cool.

[Furball Zen]

Fairly big update here. I didnt like the mesh cover plate i made, so i went with the solid one, but of course it had to be 'Carbided'







Sorry for the blurriness, showing the custom switch panel, stealthed of course. The one with the huge mess of wires is for the triple rad stack fans so i can run at 5v or 12v depending on work and sound load needs. Plus i figure 4 high speed Yate Loons will push a butt load of air even at 5v. The other two switches are for the side panel lighting, one to turn it on/off, the other to switch between sets



Showing the drive bay lighting and power connections



Just how hidden are they? Pretty well id say, its actually a bit hard to flip them but you can manage



Ugh! What is that??!!



Oh, proof you can remove the silicone from a 'waterproof' LED strip



I opted to go with a UV and an RGB strip setup. The UV strip should be self explanatory, but i went with the RGB instead of plain white because the white strip didnt have the 'LEDs per inch' i wanted, plus they were 3528's vs. the RGB's 5050 size.

Showing in white



I swear this is red on the lowest setting, the sunlight messes up my camera, ill pull out my older Carl Zeiss lensed camera for some nicer shots later



Well, thats all i have for now. I would say that its about 98% done as i just need to cut the side panel window and wire in a USB hub for my wireless accessories. The hub is optional since i have 10 ports on the back and 2 on the front, so i may not need the extra internal ones.

[UrbanSmooth]

Nicely done, should provide adequate light for an otherwise dark window to the world for the PC components. LET THERE BE LIGHT!

[Furball Zen]

Turns out BOTH the UD5 mobos i had are dead/dying so i had to pop for a new one, return the one i got off eBay that was meant for a friend and then turn around and RMA mine. Sigh.. its SO not been a great 'electronics' week for me. Bad thing is i have to wait till about Tuesday to see if one of my 4890's is bad or not, but i suspect the mobo at this point.

[Furball Zen]

I see you, what are you doing with my computer hooman?



The modding continues...i figured since i have to wait till Tuesday for the new mobo i would see what i could do to dress it up a bit. I thought some glow from certain places would look cool.

The 'hub' as it were is the southbridge heatsink and the two PCI-E lanes below the two vid cards. Under the heatsink is certainly hidden, i just hope the vid card ones are not as visible once they are installed. This is powered by the sysfan header.

[Furball Zen]

Not one to sit around and wait for something to happen, like a UPS guy to show up...i decided to do something else to the case and make a cover for something...

Just quick and kinda dirty



Little carbon fiber Di-Noc



And some 3M double sided tape...



Like i posted before about trying to put the HDD cage in the upper fan it barely fit but just didnt look right, so i opted for the next best thing, keep it in the original spot but rotate it forward 90? so you can see the custom cable and the SATA cables dont get mashed into the back of the case. Youll see what i mean in later pics

[UrbanSmooth]

Your cat's name is 'Hooman'? LOL!!

[Furball Zen]

No silly, thats Six. I was acting like it was his computer and he was talking to me lol.

Got the (new) motherboard installed Tuesday night and up and running yesterday. Turns out my slave vid card IS bad, but at least i was able to find a replacement for $75 shipped that had been listed the day before Im still waiting on the RGB controller from China so as soon as i get that i think ill be able to button this up finally! As soon as i can get my camera to connect to download the pics ill do a mini review on the differences between the Rev 1.0 and 3.0 of the UD5 mobo.

On a side note, running the rad stack at 5v actually works quite well for keeping the card pretty cool and the air blowing over the drives keeps them under 40?C

[Furball Zen]

Semi-large update tonight

First up is the difference between the Rev 1.0 and 3.0 UD5's.

1. Ultra Durable 3 on the old and 4 on the new.
2. Glass fabric PCB on the new one which is almost as stiff as the DFI board is, a complaint i had when i first got the Rev 1.0 board.
3. Other differences include the PCI-E lanes have different socket 'locks', better ones on the 3.0.



Lighting on the rad cover





All lit up





I wanted to go back to my S60 with Carl Zeiss lenses and see what the colors looked like and holy crap...MUCH more vivid!

[Furball Zen]

Well i didnt realize that my post from yesterday didnt take till just now. The GPU i had to replace same Sat and i tested and installed on Sunday and its working great. Got all 3 monitors working and an evolving image to throw across them.

This is the current iteration (click for full size)