cammerv8

K where's my $130 Intel cpu that out preforms and 8350

Hmm. The P6T is a very old board so unless you find one brand new the chances are it's been running overclocked and X58 is a very old platform now so I would worry about capacitor aging and so on.
 
I know these Xeons seem like an awesome idea but with the prices/age of the motherboards you need to run them I don't think I would bother.
 
Still, I wish you well and I hope you get it running !

Hi, my name's Dave/InsolentGnome.  This isn't my first log, but it is my first one on LTT, so I figured what better way to start in these forums than with my personal rig.

 

Shinai is a weapon used for practice and competition in kendo representing a Japanese sword.  The word "shinai" is derived from the verb shinau, meaning "to bend, to flex", and was originally short for shinai-take (flexible bamboo). Shinai is written with the kanji 竹刀, meaning "bamboo sword".

 

Let's start with the patient, Antec's P380





 

It's really a nice case with a lot of room and good spots for cooling, but what sold me was the aluminum panel on the front.  I like the look.

 

First thing, time for some disassembly.  There's a little too much stuff in here.



 

The cages have to go.  Luckily they're all screwed in, including the 5 1/4" bays.



 

The top should have room for a 360mm rad with minimal modification.



 

Same with the front.



 

There's a nice touch where you can swap what side your I/O panel is on.  I think I'll keep this functional.



 

Think I'll keep the front intake grill and screen functional too, since I'm planning on this being my daily driver.  There will definitely be some upgrades to the looks though.



 

So what, you might ask, am I putting in this nice big case?  Well, I'll tell you the plan so far...

 

Motherboard:  Asus Maximus VII Hero.  Very pretty.  



 

CPU:  Intel i7 4790K Devil's Canyon.  



 

RAM:  16GB of 1866MHz Geil Veloce Enhance.  The gold is growing on me. 



 

Drive:  480GB OCZ Vector 180 to start with.  I'd like to come up with two more of these bad boys.



 

PSU:  Cooler Master V1200 Platinum.  Yeah, yeah.  Overkill, smoverkill. 



 

That's the loadout for now.

 

But Gnome, why did you name your case after a bamboo sword???  To answer this, we need to start rapping.

 

My name is Gnome,

And I'm here to say,

I hope you're having,

A very nice day.

 

Wait, not rapping.  WRAPPING!

 

Start with two, nice hunky pieces of aluminum.  Or aluminium, whatever your flavor.



 

Add in one large sheet of bamboo veneer.



 

Slather them up with some glue.



 

Once it's all dry, iron the heck out of it, and you wind up with...









 

While I was waiting for the glue to dry before the ironing, I managed to do some mock-ups as well.





 

Now I have a nice little template for the back wall, floor, and PSU shroud, plus I can start to pull parts together for the loop.

 

Thanks for checking it out and stay tuned!

 

UPDATE!
So today I got a "new" pc for like 3$ without ram or HDD to use as a donor case.It also came with an old ATI GPU
Now I have an I/O plate thingy, I could also use the motherboard tray but I am not sure about that.
This means that I am now able to move on with the project and actually be able to make a design that I actually know if it's going to look shit or nah.
More updates will follow, hopefully. Now I'll let you take a look at them photos(I know they're not many but they exist)

I like the case but i would not be able to handle people thinking it was a mac 

So I ordered some new keycaps off WASD because my old keycaps were getting too smooth.
 

 
This is just one of the many things I purchased recently. The next one that arrives probably wont have much use for this build, but I might post it. Anyway, back to the keyboard. Some might not like the way it looks, but personally I love it, and I haven't even finished with it
 
Expect another update kinda soon, although I still have things to do before I finish the mods for the keyboard. 
 
--
 
Also, MODS, CAN THIS GET MOVED TO BUILDLOGS? done - prolemur

I've gotten the GPU, so all I've got to do now is paint a couple things, and then maybe later get a different case.
 

 
- Get the Sapphire r9 290 Tri-X
- Paint these things myself:
     - GPU Shroud
     - Memory heatsinks
     - Corsair Fan rings (TBD)
     - Keyboard Plastic case (TBD)
 

 
This will be my current build with a better Graphics card, and an awesome colour scheme.
 
Current Specifications:
 
CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor   CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler   MOBO: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard Memory: 2x4gb (8gb) G.Skill Ripjaws X Series  GPU: EVGA 760 4GB GDDR5 Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (White) ATX Mid Tower Case   PSU: Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (I planned for GTX 460 SLI when I bought this)   Planned Alterations   GPU: Sapphire r9 290 Tri-X CUSTOM PAINT JOB: Galaxy  
 

 

[Taken with DSLR]
 

[Taken with Galaxy S6 Edge]
 

[Taken with Galaxy S6 Edge]
 
More pictures coming soon!

They're quite rare. At one point Dell was selling off the old cases to recyclers in Ireland (near Shannon where they're made) so they were quite plentiful but nowadays they're hard to find, especially in what could be considered to be good condition. They're an absolute asshole to have to move around and I finally decided that the easiest way to move the thing was to remove the left side panel and carry it from inside. Because of this you will find plenty of pretty badly damaged examples on Ebay..
 
The last time this particular case was up on Ebay it would easily fetch £500. That was like the base line price. I was so lucky, because I managed to pick it up for £200 shipped with a BDR and DVDRW as well as the 1200w PSU. That never happened again, and believe me when I say I used to stalk Ebay day in day out looking for one.
 
As built systems complete with the original X58 get up they still command £1000 or so. They don't usually sell, but people will not let them go for cheaper.
 
This particular ALX (will explain that in a moment) cost around £2700 minimum to build. When I ran the service code once (before it faded off) I looked up the spec and this guy who bought this one spent around £6000. He had dual 5970s and RAID 0 SSDs which back in 2009 cost a small fortune..
 
ALX. Well first of all it's where I get my username. Secondly, ALX is something the real, original Alienware started in around 2006. ALX models carry chrome plated everything, and in some cases the case itself is completely different. The original ALX came with a flared top and inside it was a water cooling unit with a temp gauge etc. Not only that, but you got a specialised customer service team who were open 24 hours a day. Since then there was a Predator ALX (Predator rev 2.1) which came with a aluminium internal chassis and the silver parts outside were all plated with chrome instead of being sprayed flat silver. Not quite the same as the original which differed hugely but was still far more luxurious.
 
This particular ALX comes with full chrome plating and a motorised front door (as you see in the vid) the basic regular versions don't have that function. No extra customer service and what not but still the ridiculous price tag. I've owned every ALX model since the original (hence my username).. I'll post some pics at the bottom of this post
 
 
Honestly it's amazing. The build quality is just staggering. I don't know how many of you guys have ever tried to lift a Dell Poweredge server but trust me when I say this thing is built every bit as good as one of those. Yeah the silver insides are a little disappointing but once I get the case closed that will vanish.
 
OK pics of some of the units I've owned over the past several years. At one point I only used Alienware chassis.
 
My black ALX predator 2.1
 

 
My silver ALX predator 2.1
 

 
My black predator 2.0 non ALX. You should see the difference now
 

 
My lunar shadow Aurora.
 

 
A 2.0 non ALX panel and a 2.1 ALX sound deadened panel.
 

 
The bogey, my green 2.0
 

 
My MJ12
 

 
Aurora ALX
 

 
Black Aurora
 

 
Twins. My black and silver 2.0s
 

 
 
So it's fair to say I've earned my username

I wish my Pentium would run that cool.

They do. But in this case they were taken directly from Dell's fan inventory and they really belong in servers, not desktops.
 
I just want it running on standard 120mm fans that make the noise of a standard 120mm fan. The Noiseblockers in the top are 600 RPM. The reason being that the Xeon is a 60w CPU and you can't overclock it, and even with just a H55 Prime 95 makes it hit 35c. That's 8 cores BTW. So there's really no need for any noise
 
I originally built it up for my lady who at the time scoffed at it and said she wasn't going to use it. As soon as it went out of the door she said "But I wanted that". lol.
 
Ah well, it's back now and it'll be quicker than ever.
 
Edit haha forgot to mention.. Get this.. So when the board died in my dream rig I put the 8 core Xeon and X79 UD3 in there whilst I sourced a replacement. I put the 60w CPU on a H110 and even in Prime I couldn't break the ambient temps of the room
 
Seriously I think it's the coolest chip I've ever owned. Even more so than my Haswell Pentium !

Update. I've been very busy today. Firstly I cleaned the entire inside of the case. It took me a few hours but it's very clean in there now, and all of the dust that was caked inside the front is now gone. So I fitted the PSU, then, ran most of the wiring. Any left over wiring will be hidden in the bottom under a floor panel I am going to make. Any way, here is the Titan Black, now AIO cooled and mounted in position.
 

 
And the CPU cooler and exhaust fan. This is a unit that slides onto a hinge and lives in the roof
 

It hasn't operated for nearly a year dude.
 
The case is filthy. There are parts inside that without major surgery can not be accessed. Thankfully with it all gutted out like that I can get access, so there's serious cleaning to do !
 
It's going to be a long road ahead. Basically it wasn't made to take a standard PSU so I am going to have to really cut about the PSU tray to take the Corsair.
 
But hey, it works. So I'm pretty thrilled about that

a little dry silicone lube would fix that

OK so I cut off the 10 pin wire that powers the electronics.
 

 
And then soldered it into a 24 pin extension.
 

 
Plugged in the standard PSU, in this case my RM750. Hah, the open vents kind of give it away
 

 
And then...
 

Hi guys. Please note this will be a quite long winded affair. It's not a custom build and it won't contain many, if any, case mods. It's just me restoring what I feel to be one of the best cases ever made. The quality just oozes from every crevice. It won't look terribly nice inside but it never did. However, this case is all about the outside.
 
Just think of this as a more electronics based build log, rather than one with lots of shiny parts.
 
About a year ago now I gave my Area 51 ALX to my step son. It was his 21st and after buying my dream rig I simply had too many rigs and had to get rid. I hate selling stuff I would rather give it away free (to family and friends of course) so at the time it was no biggy. However, I did regret it a little because the Alienware is just so lovely and well built. Not only that but good examples are incredibly rare (due to the size and weight they are so easy to damage) and when new at retail this was a rig that starts at £2700 minimum.
 
So any way, enough digressing. I originally bought the chassis along with a 1200w PSU in 2010. The rig was originally manufactured in 2008 and was sold as a dream rig (I ran the Dell service code and saw the specs. 980x, two 5970s etc).
 
When I got it it was pretty much mark free and in mint condition. Everything worked too, there was just a cold boot issue with the PSU that would happen every couple of months or so. When I gave it to my step son it had a hex core Westmere ES chip in it clocked to 1.8ghz with two 670s and so on. I took out the 670s and put those into the Dark Carnival AMD rig and gave him that as a replacement.
 
Since then I have been going to and fro over it. I had to cut into the left side panel because the 670s were over heating which kinda ruined the originality of the case. This sucks, and was why I have been humming and harring as to whether I should keep it or just take it to the dump. However, after doing some digging I found a new side panel on Ebay USA for $20. Sadly it will cost me around £100 to get it here, but I feel it's worth it.
 
After rigorous testing I found that the PSU was definitely at fault. A while back I bought some cables (braided extensions) and the 24 pin was wired up incorrectly and caused a short, buring out three 12v wires. I took them from anothter unused rail and all was well again, but it seems the PSU never fully recovered. This is a big issue, as the internal IO board that controls the front panel, roof vents and lights uses a proprietary power connector. This means you can't just fit a standard power supply, as nothing would work.
 
Bummer... Here is the IO board in question. It's about half the size of a ITX motherboard to give you some idea of the scale of it.
 

 
As you can see it's quite a complex beasty and has a 10 pin proprietary power connector. After many hours of running search strings through Google I finally managed some success, and, dug up these two images.
 

 

 
They are both identical, aside from the fact that one clever little person correctly identified that one of the 5v lines is a 5vSB. 
 
SB stands for "Stand By" and is used for "Power On" features, such as keyboard power on and/or mouse power on.
 
Setting +5v rather than +5vSB eliminates the possibility of using those features.
 
Thankfully when inspecting the 24 pin ATX connector we come across this...
 

 
Note, one pink 5vSB. So the upshot of this is that I *should* be able to basically buy one of these (already ordered)
 

 
And then strip into the wires, running the Alienware's 10 pin connector from it..
 
Here is the rig here (well, this is not my pic but this is what it looks like)
 

 
Here is where the PSU mounts. I will probably have to hand make some sort of plate to adapt it to take a regular PSU.
 

 
Proposed specifications.
 
Intel 2ghz Ivybridge ES, 8 core 16 thread 60w.
Ram - TBC
Motherboard - custom painted Gigabyte X79 UD3
Graphics card - MSI Titan Black 6gb
Hard drives - TBC, though I have about 8 spare]
SSD - 100gb Intel 320 series
Power supply - Corsair RM 750
Mods - possible internal painting, carbon 5.25 cover possibly with a screen in.
 
One more shot for now. This is the right side panel where all of the hard drives go.
 

 
It's an amazing feat of engineering. You really would think it couldn't be any better, then you realise that it's all completely lit with LEDs that connect to a battery pack, so even with no power going into the rig it still lights up.
 
As I mentioned before, this won't be a terribly exciting log. Well, not unless you are into electronics and the hacking of. I will post pics as I go
 
Yeah I know, TL:DR

So i recently build my sister a PC so she could do her school work and stuff , its an old lga775 Pentium e2160 1.8ghz OC'd to 2.8ghz on a Q6600 cooler
But As Of late she has been using it when she shouldnt , like at night when she is meant to be sleeping like the rest of us lol 
 
so i took it as an opportunity to do some modding
 
I found an Ignition switch from an old Mobility Scooter that my dad striped down for parts , it only has on and off so its perfect for what i need it for 
 
Here is the switch mounted in one of the 5.25' Bay Covers 
 

 
Now i just had to figure out how i was gonna make it work , i didnt wanna cut any PSU wires or anything that might interfere with the workings of the PC
So i decided to put it on the circuit for the power button , all i had to do was extend the wires on the switch to reach , cur one of the power button wires , and strip all insulation off at the ends to 
twist it all together and put some insulation tape on it 
 
Here is the finished Circuit :
 

(orange and white wires are power button , Black and red are from the Switch )
 
and it works , the PC wont turn on with the power button unless the key is in a turned on the switch , i know a pass word would have done basically the same thing but i was bored and i had a modding itch lol
 
Finished Product ( dont mind the Crap dirty case , she will be getting my Z11 case soon )
 

 
Very Simple Mod , Very Ghetto Mod , Very Effective 
 

What a thing of beauty .......


LOL!

Phanteks 120sp?

Once a upon a time, there was a young little boy who bought hos first part for his gaming machine. he chose each individuals parts with care, making sure that all pieces will fit together. Those choice where optimized for the type of gaming, he chose the i5 3570k for it best ratio performance/core because FSX... He knew that this game doesn't scale with better GPU, but he also wanted to be able to play some descent game like StarCraft II who need more that a little integrated GPU, so he took an Readon 7850. For the power supply he knew that it was a serious part of the build but didn't know so much but the 80+ bronze/silver/gold rating. he also didn't know which manufacturers where good and which were bad, the only one he heard was Corsair, so he calculated the wattage needed for this build. 600W was the magic number, he checked his budget and realized that there wasn't much left so he picked the lowest 80+ bronze 600w that has all the cabling for his build and the Corsair CX600 builder edition went to the cart. Now to fit and cooled this amazing build, he checked those gaming case with a lot of fan and big open grill... Hummm Those blue LED seem so beautiful he couldn't resist for the Antec Nine Hundred.
 
Now the little boy grow up and realized that his case make more light than his light room. In his room, this computer is a distraction when he try to watch a movie and even with all case fan running at 0 or 400rpm and the CPU fan running at 650 rpm the power supply fan make too much noise to browse in silent. So the little man decided to upgrade his gear because LED and airflow are not all variables he discover the SILENT... Soooo relaxing... 
 
 
So that's my story. Now I want a silent rig, I will buy a Fractal Define R5 without windows (much mature case now that i have the experience), but a silent case with DUST FILTER (GOD THANKS because I live between 2 sand pit so do you imaging how often i need to clean my case) is not enough to shut my PSU's noise off so I decided to go with the Seasonics 520W FANLESS recommended by SPCR. To continue to have a great airflow at 300-400rpm now that i have a front door and dust filter 2 or 3 Noctua NF-A14 PWM which will be set as front intake the front fractal will be put as bottom intake, but I'm not sure if the noctua are the right choise.
 
I know that Linus and all his fans are sold to the Noctua but I need an objective opinion here. The situation is that this 2 fans will be sitting in front a a dust filter and a HDD bay which may one time bee full of hard drive and those 2 at all load, except maybe when i'm doing a 8h long rendering, will be turning at 300-400 rpm. those 2 fans need to be dead silent under 800 rpm and produce the maximum static pressure between 300-800 rpm. I have a budget of CAD23$/fan max (I saved 3 noctua in my cart at Ncix when they were at $22.99)
 
If some of you have other option for the power supply keep these thing in mind, I will keep this power supply for the next build for sure and consider that my build last about 7-8 years so don't cheap out on the quality because in 10-11 years I want a functional PSU without noise, speaking of noise the PSU fan is the only one that i can't control so if you propose something with that make sure that it don't spin at 250watt and even at 500 watt make no noise... like a 300-400 rpm max because in the future I may get better CPU cooler/Graphic card that make even less noise (maybe i will want a sub 21-22 decibel machine) so I want the next PSU to be VERY quiet.
 
My Current rig:
 
CPUi5 3570k MotherboardAsus P8z77 V-LK RAM16GB (2x8GB) G. Skill ripjaws 1600 GPUAMD Readon 7850 2GB CaseAntec Nine Hundred Storage1x OCZ Vertex 3 Series 120GB; 1x Seagate Barracuda 1TB; 1x WD Green 3TB PSUCORSAIR CX series CX600 CoolingCooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

The answer is simple, Intel puts a limit on how fast the memory can be, right now all Haswell have a limit of 1600 without overclocking it, but all the memory's manufacturers put profiles in he memory to make them faster that is called XMP, and the motherboard manufacturers allow those profiles to be used without problems

This build defies ALL logic when building a balanced computer and I love it, also it must run hotter than the depths of hell.

Build's name : The Bang

(Picture from Google)
For how many bucks? : INR 44000(approx.) which is equivalent to USD 705. But since I am going to sell some parts of my 4 year old Intel core i3 2100 based PC, the cost comes down to INR 32000(approx.) which is equivalent to USD 515    ***
 
Build's Purpose : For general web browsing, 2D vector animations and also occasional gaming(AAA titles like Assassin's creed)  (And maybe even some CFD)
 
Build's aim : VALUE (a.k.a. Getting the Bang for the buck. Hence the name   )
 
The Build :  
 
APU : AMD A10 7700k (Received)
Motherboard : AsRock FM2A88X+ BTC (Received)
RAM : G.Skill RipjawsX 8GB(4GB x 2) DDR3 @ 2133MhZ (Received)
PSU : Corsair builder series CX500 (Received)
Graphics card : AMD Radeon R7 250 1GB GDDR5 (Already owned)
Storage : Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB (Already owned)
Heatsink : Cooler Master Hyper 212x (Received)
Case : Deepcool Tesseract SW(with one front intake and one rear exhaust fan included) (Received)
Case Fan : Deepcool Xfan 120mm L/B x 1 (Received)
OS : Windows 8.1 Pro (Student) (Downloaded)
DVD drive : LG GH24NSC0 (Received)
 
SSD : Transcend SSD370 128GB 
Monitor : Dell SS2240L 21.5"
 
The Builder : Me with no experience of actually building before!!    My older build was assembled for me by someone I know, though I chose all the components.
 
RATIONALE :
 
The build's aim and purpose should make it clear why I went for this build. So I will put this in the spoiler. You can read it, if you so desire.
 
 
Final words(for now):- Note that I was restricted to the Indian market alone here. My attempts to buy at international sites, failed miserably as I don't have a credit card and using Entropay wouldn't work because of AVS. But atleast, there were sales in offer price here and I was able to save a couple of thousand rupees. Happy for that!
 
Honestly, I am nervous, I haven't built a PC before. Last night I had a dream about applying thermal paste and....it wasn't good! So wish me luck on that!
 
I will keep you guys posted. Hope you liked this build. It will be a week(I suppose) before all the parts arrive. I might need some help with cable management, overclocking and cooling. If you have any advice regarding this, please leave it below. It will be a big help for an amateur like me.
 
Finally, I must link to this LTT video - ULTIMATE Kaveri APU PC Computer "How to" Build Guide. This was the video that inspired me to go with this build. So thanks to Linus and co. !
 
 
*** - Conversions are inaccurate. Same products might cost lesser in USD when bought in the US of A itself

when this is done i wanna see benchmarks, im one to <3 the apu builders

14 years of Legitimacy   and Thank you for the support guys! 

This is really nice to see, goes to show you dont need to spend mega bucks to get great looking games.