Very nice build, would love to build something similar for a LAN rig
VIDEOOOOOO!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlAdNW0gvt4
IT LIVES!!!
Temp sensors aren't taped up yet, ignore that :P
Construction wise, things left to do:
*Edge trim the sharp edges
*Sleeve the SATA cables
*Complete final assembly
Software wise:
*Flash the 6950s to 6970s
*Update firmware for HDDs (as available)
*Update BIOS
*Load Windows (hurr)
Long but informative Update:
All the construction has finished, I still need to stuff everything together and close the case. I've updated the firmware on the Seagate Momentus XTs to SD25, looks like everything's smooth right now. Still haven't loaded windows though, I'll get to that in a second. Tonight I should be able to get to the C300 firmware and load Windows, then finally flash the 6950s to the 6970 BIOS.
THE BAD NEWS:
First of all, getting Hitachi's Feature Tool to work on a USB drive appears either impossible or just beyond my experience. I tried every option I could think of using HP's USB Format Tool and using the files from the various Feature Tool ISOs out there. Additionally, I tried using the Feature Tool .exe programs after using HP's tool to flash the drive that way, no go. My only solution is, and the one I highly recommend, is unless you're familiar with writing software for DOS don't bother doing this ->and just download the CD ISO. Go to Wal-Mart (or Tesco for you people across the pond
) and pick up some CD-RWs to try the various distros.
The key versions you want to try are v2.09 and v2.11. After 2.09 Hitachi took out APM (Advanced Power Management) support and after 2.11 they took out AAM (Automatic Acoustic Management). There are some tricks to getting the Feature Tool to run or boot on a more modern machine:
1) The drives MUST NOT be in any sort of RAID configuration.
2) You MUST have the BIOS set to have the SATA mode as "IDE." You CANNOT have the option set to ACHI or RAID or you will get a boot loop trying to load into the Feature Tool.
3) You MUST have the BIOS set additionally to "Compatibility" mode for IDE, NOT "Enhanced."
4) You MUST have the CD drive be the first boot device before everything else.
That being said, once I was able to finally boot into any of the various releases, I could see the hard drives just fine. I could also see the various attributes, firmware versions, SMART information, etc. However, regardless of what version I tried (I've downloaded 2.00 through 2.12) I could NOT change the APM or AAM options on ANY of the Momentus XTs. When I tried to change the Acoustic option, which showed disabled on the status screen, Feature Tool said that this option is not available for this drive type. When I tried to change the more important (for my needs) APM option, the tool said something to the effect of "Changing the APM is not supported with this program."
As some background, before I had even bought the drives I did a month's worth of research into the drives themselves, the Feature Tool, flashing a USB drive for floppy use, and using the Momentus XT in a RAID. While some hardware review sites had great experience with the benchmark testing, from what I could tell they were ONLY running benchmarks and weren't performing daily tasks for weeks on end. I discovered that people were having issues with initial slow RAID response or freezing after idle time, and this was due to the APM feature in the drives stopping the spindles. The RAID had to wait for the platters to spin back up before responding to any requests.
There were many options to turn off AAM or APM within the Windows or Linux (hdparm) environment, but these changes were LOST on power down because it was only set within the OS itself. This meant that you could never shut down the machine (not even a conceivable option) or that each time you powered down you had to tear down the RAID, load into Windows, disable APM, restart the computer, rebuild the RAID, format/partition, and copy your data back.The only permanent solution of changing drive attributes available was the Hitachi Feature Tool. Unfortunately, documentation of the Feature Tool, users' methods, and successes/failures was limited at best. The only option I saw was a 50/50 "Try it and find out."
All in all, this endeavor was going out on a lark to begin with. I was well aware that I was using basically a 4th party software on a more than likely unsupported drive. The original program was written by IBM, then Hitachi took it over, and I was trying to use it on a Seagate drive. Seagate's SeaTools does not support changing anything with any of their drives, it is purely a diagnostic program. From what I've read from various sources, some people have had luck with using the Feature Tool on non-Hitachi drives, but not this time. So once again, unequivocally, THE HITACHI FEATURE TOOL _CANNOT_ CHANGE ANY ATTRIBUTES ON SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT DRIVES.
My next option is to see if I can get a hold of a Seagate engineer and with hat in hand ask for a tool that I'm sure they have to disable AAM/APM. I'm going to proceed with the rest of the build and put the drives in RAID, but I already know I'll have response issues which I'll have to live with. I gotta get moving though because I have another build I have to address.
Wasted literally the entire weekend trying to just install Win7 on the computer. Come to find out, I got bit by the Marvell 9128/C300 issue. Needless to say, I'm pissed. Going to close up the case, take some pics, and it'll just sit there for a while. Great.
it.
OK, didn't completely give up on it. Ran Memtest overnight from a thumb drive, all 24GB of RAM checks out
Woohoo! Back in action!
Thanks to a beta BIOS and some help from a forum member, I'm back underway. Windows installed and updated, and doing preliminary testing. 6950's are now 6970s!
Before:
After:
Got Calculus final coming up soon so this weekend is blown. I should be able to finish this just as school lets out. Stay tuned!
Winner winner chicken dinner! Ordered a UPS for the new computer, normally this model costs $200 but I got it online for $144 shipped. Open the box and find out they sent me TWO by accident!
What's this????
Oh ship son!
Thought it still had to be fake, but opened the package...
Still have Calc final pending, but should be able to wrap this up this weekend!
It's finished!!!!!!!!
6950s and the PSU:
HDDs, RAM, and main HSF. You can see here the intake comes right on over the CPU:
Top view:
Back view; intake has a decent removable/washable filter and the vent is a little invention. It exhausts the majority of the hot air out and away from the intake:
It's "portable" but definitely not light!
My corner of the universe. 22" NEC Professional CRT and temp keyboard. MX518 mouse:
Yeah I was thinking about getting a decent 19" for spare when I do go somewhere. But I'm not replacing the CRT anytime soon, nothing I can find except for professional $2k LCDs give me the same color reproduction and clarity this does, and those aren't built for any video/gaming. Right now I run at 2048x1536 @ 85Hz for everything and it looks glorious!
There was some concern about the UPS that I got, as it's rated for 810W and I have a 850W PSU alone. I ran a bunch of games, Furmark @ +20% and Prime95 and it never got up to full capacity. The only way I could max it out was by running 8 threads of Prime95 AND Furmark at the same time. Sufficient to say I won't be doing that on a regular basisso I'll be plenty safe.
HDD benchmarks to come!
Finally, some tests!
All these tests were run with a 128KB RAID strip size, RAID 0 of course. I also ran 64KB tests, and ended up staying with the 64KB as I found it handled files ~4MB in size a little faster. I found this out after an unfortunate incident which caused me to reformat both my OS and Data drive. Before I did however, I just happened to check the average file size of the Data drive with all my programs installed and it was right around 4MB, so...
Oh, write back cache was disabled for these drives as I wanted a raw testing of just the drive performance.
Test Setup:
Motherboard - Asus Rampage III Gene
CPU - Intel i7-950 3.06GHz
Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 x6 (24GB total)
Storage -
-Crucial C300 64GB (OS)
-Seagate Momentus XT 500GB x4 (Data)
*Drives are connected to the on-board Intel RAID controller*
GPU - Asus EAH6950 x2 (unlocked shaders)
PSU - Thermaltake Black Widow 850W, Modular
HD Tach 8MB
HD Tach 32MB
AS-SSD
ATTO
CrystalDisk
I found something interesting with HD Tune per some other tests that had been run from other review sites. The more often the test has been run, the more the HDD adapts to seeing what kind of data you're requesting. This is the first run of HD Tune
... and here's the 2nd. Notice the access time drops dramatically as the HDDs have adapted to usage pattern, and are now pulling straight out of the Solid State portion of the drive
Overall, I'm quite impressed with the performance. I have much quicker than standard hard drive performance with RAID 0, enhanced even further with the hybrid SSD storage. And you really can't beat the price either; for ~$400 I got nearly 2 Terabytes of storage, compared to the same price for a slower 1.2 TB VelociRaptor setup or only 256GB worth of a single SSD. While the speed isn't nearly as fast as a true solid state drive for random writes or QD, the overall package of speed and storage makes this an attractive package.
*Note: After running the tests I enabled write-back cache and just from user perception the system did become even more snappy, but I don't feel it's a fully accurate gauge of the performance of just the hardware itself and instead tested cache performance. I am thinking of purchasing another set for my home server, in which case I could fully test connected to a Areca ARC-1220, but I fear there may be a CPU bottleneck since the server is just a s754 Sempron on a pretty dated Abit board.
Some more pictures. Made a change with the CPU cooler.
First, this is how I managed to keep the inside Crossfire card from bursting into flames
Second, the CPU cooler. Admittedly, the idle temperatures with the case closed were not all that great. I was seeing 45-47* and even up to 50* just idling. I knew from the get-go that the 92mm fan is (duh) smaller than the 100mm that the cooler originally comes with, but additionally the fan blade profile is completely different. The Tornado's blade profile is meant as that of a server fan which is to blow very powerfully in a single direction. The column of air even un-shrouded covered only a narrow portion of the 'flower' of the Zalman heatsink.
What I was able to do is to remove the spindle and magnet from the Vantec's fan and shoe-horn it into the Zalman fan. The Zalman fan's magnet is just pressed into the plastic with the surrounding metal, so it was relatively easy to pry out. The middle spindle is moulded into the plastic itself, so it had to be dremeled out. With the Vantec fan, the spindle and magnet and housing are all one piece, so as soon as you dremel out the 3 tabs of melted plastic holding it to its fan it slides right out.
Test before for Prime95 on 8 cores was pusuing 74* with full fan power. New fan gives 67* with only 40% fan power! Additionally, the Zalman fan blade profile is noticeably quieter than the Vantec. So essentially this arrangement is:
- Sunbeam socket bracket
- Zalman CNPS8700 Fan and heatsink
- Vantec Tornado motor, magnet/spindle
- (optional) Ceramic rheostat
Decidedly highly modified beyond its original specifications, but that's what we're about here right?Not a cheap option either, about $20 for the Tornado, $8 for the bracket, and another $35-40 for the Zalman, plus another $10 in miscellaneous parts, but it was fun to build.
Lol i think the one thing i most envy is your monitor. Im mad that i was dumb enough to get rid of my crt. Thats back when i didnt know what i was doing. Stupid me. Nice build btw. My next one will definitely be a tiny one with the smallest led lcd i can get that will do 1080p.
Brilliant build, congrats. Although I used to have two 6950 sandwiched next to each other like that, AMD chose a really retarded stock cooler for crossfire setups. I was spiking to 105c in some gaming rounds on hot nights, it was a joke.
Thanks for the comments! Small update: I had my case left open for a bit after the latest fan modification and I found that ants were crawling into the system. Bugs in the system, har har. I was pissed that my new equipment had crawlies all in it, and that my apartment apparently can't manage the insects around here (I keep a very clean apartment actually, but we're on the ground floor). So I decided to stop procrastinating and tidy up the last bits that were waiting. Hence, the final exhaust vent.
You can see the fit is different (better) and there is the divider to the right of the plug socket keeping the hot air from recirculating out the wrong side of the vent and back into the case. Definitely helped.
Next project, to test and catalog all the RAM disk programs I downloaded and write the review!
amazing, your mini design is beautiful, congratulations
CPU: Q6600 MOBO: Maximus Formula RAM: 4gb VGA: 4850 HDD: C300 64gb TELA: 22" CASE: CM 690II Advanced | PSU: 750z-af
Steam | Xfire | BFBC2
www.hallaor.com
Almost 10 months running for ~24/7, still going strong! Everything is working famously, and the system fan is just fine. The fan assembly itself is slightly off balance, but the bearings seem to be holding just fine. If I had to do it over again, I definitely would've sourced some LN2 to cool the magnet bracket enough to properly fit the fan hub. I used my stove and my freezer, but only goes so far.
I'll add some new pics later, got a lot of new hardware!
nice build
i like the shroud on the psu exhaust
if you don't mind me asking where did you get the UPS from
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper
I7 950---12GB F3-12800CL9T-12GBSR--GTX 460 hawk talon attack--300gb velociraptor
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
i7 2600k---GTX560 ti 2gb----16gb mushkin 997005---120gb mushkin chronos deluxe
PC power & cooling 750 quad
Got it/them from Buy.com. Great company, love them as much as Newegg. Forgot about the pictures, do that in the morning :P
Pics!
New keyboard (Adesso), new mouse (Logitech G400), new joystick (Logitech Extreme 3D), new monitor (HP ZR30w), new SPEAKERS (CyberAcoustics) and a new giant mousepad(HERE)! Old MX900 bluetooth mouse hooked up using MX5500 drivers for Win7. It's all a great setup, and I'm really happy with the monitor; it did make a worthy upgrade to my old NEC!
IT'S BAAAACK!!!
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