Project: Cosmos S WC; Quadfire - 56k Puke

[Captain Zero]

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies, on a summer day.
Bertrand Russel - Skeptical Essays, 1928

Hey everyone, remember this?

It's been a long road. Many of you have forgotten about this, figured I gave up, had a stroke, ran out of money. Well, that's all true but I'm a stubborn fellow and, contrary to popular belief, never give up.

It's done.

With piles of hurdles and many defeats and, in the end, a victory of, what I can only attribute to attrition. Throw enough parts and dollars at the problem and it might just go away (a prayer to Loki wouldn't hurt, either).

Not a wise choice, for what are obvious reasons and some that are not so obvious. Read on, fellow builder, and know that you are not alone in your woes.

What I've learned is that;

• No amount of research can prepare you for all the potential obstacles.
• A $100.00 motherboard with cheap DDR2 is more stable than the $500.00 motherboard with a $1200.00 CPU and costly High Speed/High Capacity DDR3.
• 'Tech Support' is a misnomer. They're trained to presume that the user is a half-wit and that the problem can't possibly be with their product. AOL pioneered this. It's not support, it's a chess match.
• When you think you have triple-checked everything that might be wrong, check it again. You idiot.

To be fair, a little background. In the first photo I linked, I remember taking that and feeling the elation and almost euphoria I had when that motherload of gear arrived. This was to be a Monster Machine with no rival. I mean, who blows well over $5k on OEM parts? Another $2k in incidentals (tools and repeated trips to Fry's add up, fast). Not to mention the RMA's and other parts that I bought so I could swap them out while troubleshooting a seemingly never-ending trail of problems... Yeah but, it's going to be a Killer Komputer.



Uh, sure.

But back up for a moment. Everything had been carefully spec'd out. The Mobo, the CPU, RAM, water blocks, all of it down to minutia. So putting it together would be a breeze. In theory. The first Rampage Extreme board I had was a solid DOA. Finding that out took an eternity. Swapping out PSU's, chips and even RAM before deciding 'ok, it has to be the board'.

Off it goes to ASUS. Only after 2 weeks of 'discussions' about what could be the problem.


WATERCOOLING GONE WRONG
A month goes by.

The new (refurb) arrives and so does my first son. Wow.. how am I going to find time to get that snakepit of tubes and wires put together? He's so cute, think I'll play with his toys for a while, they're way more fun and drool-soaked.



A month goes by.

Time to find a weekend and put this thing together. We're well into February at this point. Everything is looking good and, since this all started in September '08, I finally have a POST. It's alive. It's ALIVE!

I don't fully assemble the case and tidy cables since I am only testing and letting it seat for a while before calling it a wrap. I play with some very minor benches and it looks promising. I leave it on auto and treat it with white gloves. Easy does it...

A week goes by and things are looking ok. Oddly enough, however, it's started to BSOD on bootups. Something odd with the SSD seems to be happening. I'd never had one of these drives so maybe this was normal. Into the BIOS and it's all default/auto, yep, check check. It's all good, reboot - nothing. Since the case is still open, I can quickly see that the Green/Yellow/Red blinky isn't happening. Just a solid Amber that I discover is the HDD activity indicator. It's solid. That's it, nothing else is going on, just a solid amber.

Out comes the battery and I sneak out of the office. Maybe I can trick it back to life. The next day, I slip it's heart pacer back in and... nothing. Just amber. You gotta be kidding me. "Hello, ASUS..?"



Another month goes by.

Kiddo is getting bigger and, gosh, this whole 'kid thing' is really cool. His toys are way more fun than mine and, the best part - they're waterproof! Unlike my pile of hoses and rads and pumps, what a mess. I've got coolant stains in the case, some has run down the side of my HD cage.. Good grief, what a mess. Time to start over. I still don't have a board but I need to pull this apart and do some cleaning and refining...



Another month goes by.

My THIRD Rampage Extreme arrives. My son is almost 5 months old. Wow, they grow so fast. His toys keep getting cooler. I'm so discouraged by the build that I don't even care anymore. The office/workshop is trashed, cables, wires, bits and pieces everywhere. Time to clean up, only this time, it only takes me a weekend.

Finally time to sit this thing down and have a talk. "Look machine, you're supposed to do this and I expect you to do it. Now let's try to get along."

In goes the board. In goes the newly prepped loops, tighter fittings, much cleaner and efficient lines and braided cables, pristine management for all the molex, sata and other cables. This is going to work. It's all on you now, ASUS.

The first time I powered up was nerve-wracking. With all the other boards, I had swapped out every component possible just to trouble-shoot. In each case, it was the board. In all this time none of my other gear had really been tested. I'm well into $8k for this build, it's going to work.

That first time, when you're looking at it all and running through everything in your head.. Cables ok, power is plugged in and your finger is resting on the back of the PSU.. Click..!

Wiiirr.. Huummmm, click BEEP! Holy crap. Fans are going, pumps is gurgling, monitor sparkles to life.. We have a PULSE!



So far, so good. Need to calm down. Don't do anything stupid. Ok, where's that damn boot cd? Ok, what's the BIOS looking like? v1003, ok looks good, check check.. Where's that CD?!?



After some 8 months, I finally have what appears to be a stable build. Sure, it looks amazing, performs exceptionally well and is way just up there on the 'wow' factor.



I could do better with a rig a third of the cost. Much better. The REX has proven to be a completely unreliable piece of turd. I run a 3x RAD, SwiftTech NBMAX and Apogee GT for the CPU. The CPU (QX9650) idles a cool 20c. The NB? 45c~ on idle. WHAT?!? Yeah, turns out this is normal.

Out goes any chance of that 5.0 Ghz OC I wanted. This NB is fried! But I'm happy, because I have a stable machine that runs anything I throw at it. It's a Crysis eater, for sure.

But, who cares? It was a colossal waste of money and effort. Unless you consider that I'm now a pretty comfortable builder and modder. There isn't much that wasn't altered in some way for this build. That knowledge is invaluable and I'm happy for it.

The coolest moment though, was sitting my son in my lap and watching the marine aquarium screen saver with him on my 30" Dell. Wow, that's priceless.



In the end, I'd still do it over again. In fact, I plan to. Nehalem is clearly the more stable platform and DDR3 on x48 was purely a money-grab for Intel and others. There's no way this board can do 1600 or even handle DDR3 beyond 350. If you run a ReX with DDR3 and have 400+ on the FSB, I salute you.

And to everyone here, and elsewhere, that has seen my silly mug on one forum or another, I genuinely thank you. Everyone had some terrific opinions and feedback. I could NOT have done it without you.



See you in the funny papers.