ALXAndy

The biggest issue is the rig isn't mine. It belongs to my lady, and now it's built it really shouldn't be coming apart. Once the side panel is done I really shouldn't mess with it.

I'd love to, but I can't get over my fear of water and electronics... Maybe one day I'll invite one of my friends over to do it for me

So I decided I wanted to use some power tools today.. First up I took the bad panel (replacement is on the way as we speak) and masked it up. I killed a Black and Decker Firestorm rotary tool doing this. It took about three hours... And then.. Quick test. Now it just needs hours of filing, some 3mm smoked acrylic and some paint. I need to repaint it....

Stop living life so you can build a computer. Yeah man, great idea. I can see the chicks queueing up for you.

Oh dear god that paint and etching

lulz. Couriers and the mail companies are 24 hour. It's not like some dude has worked 15 hours, it's just the night shift.

No mate nothing. I want it totally stock on the outside There's a very high chance I will take the cut panel I have left over and put a full sized window in it with some etching but yeah, nothing else planned. So yeah, expect a window mod (a good looking one that isn't just for cooling) and maybe some etching etc as I find that fun

Update. So basically the inside of the rig is now complete, and I've installed Windows and pretty much everything else Mrs ALX needs. We played some Borderlands tonight, rig didn't miss a beat. Talking of beats.. That's the first time I've ever managed to get that working. I'm now convinced that the case arrived to me with an already faulty PSU and was probably why it ended up going back to Dell. Still, it's working better than ever now. Also.. I have paid the shipping for the side panel. £84. Oucho... Still, it has to be done.

/Cartman. Why the fuck not? it doesn't hurt any body ! fuck fuckity fuckfuckfuck.

Dude with the silhouette you wouldn't change the logo you just remake it in different colours.

TBH I've left so little of it on display that there's no way it would have been worth it. Next time you're over your mates take a look down into the guts at the IO board and just how much crap you would need to remove in order to paint it. There's about 80 screws in the hard drive docks for a start lol. I fully intend to put the side panels on. The right one can go on tomorrow and the other one should be about two weeks tops.

Yeah the original Predators are nice. I'm in the U.K though... Now what I'd really like is one of the original ones.

So I'm done for today. The interior is complete now so I just gotta ship over the side panel from the USA. Fitted a few hard drives. Then changed the light scheme to red. And set the vents..

They work perfectly, so do the lights. TBH as soon as you see lights you know it's working OK. There was an issue once where a version of Command Centre did not work with non Alienware boards. Alienware released a version that worked with any board, so I have that on a CD. So yeah, everything is working as intended I've got some more pics I will upload later, just cooking my dinner I did have an issue with the H55 on the GPU. Basically the pump wasn't getting any power from the fan header and the card overheated and shut the PC down. That's all fixed now, I decided to use my molex - 6 3 pin thing. I ran 3dmark earlier and here's what I got @ 1080p. http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7470573? Not bad at all. My wife will be very happy with that

Update. Good old sod's law. That would be Murphy's law to you U.S residents. Basically I got tired of waiting for the SATA extenders from Hong Kong so yesterday I ordered six joiners from the U.K first class. Got up bright and early and went to the door mat. Hilariously the extenders from Hong Kong had arrived but not the ones from the U.K. So that's £12 down the drain.. They said they were shipped so I think I'm going to send them back, especially as I paid extra to get them today. Any way with the SATA extenders there was nothing stopping me putting the rig together to a bootable state. So I fitted the floor and the board. Then mounted the H55 to the CPU. Big ram.. Big issue.. Uh oh ! so I connected up the front headers and pressed the power button. Nothing. Tried again, nothing. Then I realised that I had basically used one of the power button wires as a ground for either the power LED or HDD led. This meant I had to spend two hours cutting them off and basically starting again. In the end I finally managed to trace the power button, then the LEDs, then resoldered all of the wires.. Then fitted the GPU And then fitted the sound card, Revodrive and back plates and test fired.. And... Kick ass. Only one slight issue at boot. Because the header wires were wrong I somehow corrupted the bios. However, Gigabyte are cool and basically it copied the bios over from the second slot and restored OK. Phew. Still plenty to do but I can now install an OS on it

I've always bought the empty chassis apart from a one off where I got a fully completed Core 2 unit for £270. To build with the same spec in a reasonable case would have cost me about £500 at the time.

Update. I removed the anti kink coils from the GPU AIO as they looked stupid. They were supposed to be red and they were actually pink. So those are gone... I've braided both pump power cables, just need to do a couple of fans now. OK, so the SATA situation. I'm growing inpatient so I ordered six of these things. They should arrive tomorrow because I paid for first class. Also I dug out six red SATA cables and numbered them. This is important, because if I ever set up a RAID array in the hard drive bays I will need to know what is what. Finally I did this to the floor pan a couple of days back. I planned on more graphics but sadly the blade has completely had it I will order some blades ASAP....

lol that's the second time you've taken a cheap shot over vinyl. Whichever way you try to butter it up this is quite possibly the worst case ever made. No seriously, you are the only person I've met who actually likes it. If you don't believe me look for the original thread on Bit-tech. Then go look at the post from Overfiend on MLG and you will see him politely saying what I did. You seem to have taken offence to me stating the absolute obvious - don't. Personally dude I wouldn't have dirtied my hands with it as it will only make you look bad. It doesn't matter how good your modding skills are there's just no getting away from it.

Quite clearly the most honking monstrosity of a case I have ever seen. When Bit-tech ran their competition to win one to mod my immediate thought was "Run the ugly bastard under a bus, that'll fix it". Sorry, but she's a dog. I know that Mythbusters can polish turds but this thing belongs in a landfill with ten tons of crap holding it down.

I hate to be "that dude" but you've missed a bit. The Geforce logos have black areas left in them.

Update. So I have now finished all of the braiding. 24 pin, 8 pin EPS, 8 pin PCIE, 6 pin PCIE, front panel header cables, USB cables and so on. There isn't a single cable left that will be visible that hasn't been braided. I've also covered the pump with satin black vinyl. Here is a better shot of the floor panel, showing the cable routing holes. And my lady's Titan Black with a Corsair H55 on it and some anti kink coils. I did this because of the way the hoses bend, I don't want them kinking. Just waiting on SATA cables now.

I moved from the UK to the USA in 1999. I married an American.. Any way, between '99 and 2008 I was out in the USA and I was broke. Like, all of the time. In the end I just gave up. Certain parts of the USA have been destroyed by the recession.. Any way, during that time I used to work at a Best Buy in NJ and used to sell the very early versions in the Chieftec Dragon chassis. From that moment on it was a love affair lol. So, once I ditched my wife and moved back to the UK I could get on with more fun things. My ex wife was incredibly insecure and controlling, which was why we ended up splitting up. She wouldn't let me buy anything and in the end I just snapped.. So yeah, basically between 2008 and 2014 I used nothing but Alienware. The only one of them that I bought built was the green one and I paid £270 for that delivered. Basically there was this recycling company out in Ireland getting their hands on all of the returned orders. So they were fully built PCs but could not be resold as new due to consumer laws. Believe it or not up until 2007 Dell was basically sending them to landfills. Literally burying them. Then new laws came along about waste and being green etc and that's when they started to sell off returns, slightly damaged cases, unused cases.. And that's when I started basically camping out on Ebay waiting for them to come along What I regret is selling them. Obviously in an ideal world I would still have all of them I really, really miss the green one. What I would loved to have done there is take the ALX parts and panels and make a green ALX. That would really have been something.....

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

This is the second pink Caselabs build I have seen. Surprised that I'm saying that but I do like a bit of pink and black. All of my cars in the first two NFSU games were pink and black I think it's a fantastic combo. But. You have to do something about that badge and the audio boost writing dude. I recommend a silhouette plotter and get cutting some custom graphics Subbed.