ALXAndy

Todd Howard has an OCD about Fall. If Bethesda have 'done a Valve' and their game is actually fully ready at being announced it could well be released this Fall.

IP=IO. Sorry for the DP phone doesn't allow me to edit posts either.

I can't quote you because Blackberry's browser doesn't work with quoting on this forum but... If it has a PSU in it make sure you do the paper clip trick and fire it up before handing over any money. The vents should flare three times and the power button LED should come on. Leave it running and look at the IP board. You should have an orange LED lit. Without the electronics all functioning you can't even open the front panel,let alone the lighting.

They're not sadly. Because of the way the PSU mounts I need to make something. Basically you have three in total. The PSU itself, the handle/sled and a cover plate. It goes Cover plate-handle/sled-PSU. IE the screws go through all three. That's what I'm struggling to keep intact and original ATM.

Yes, always risky, especially when you are going from a photo a guy uploaded to the net ! thankfully I found two and they were both pretty much identical. With the case now powering up and the front panel functioning (I won't get to test the lights and so on until I have Windows on there and the USB header connected to the IO board) I have been pondering my options on the PSU mounting situation. The Alienware's PSU is the same width as a standard ATX power supply but it is about 8-10mm taller. So basically you can not just fit a new PSU into the slide out tray (the part with the handle on). So I decided to take the power supply apart given it was dead. And then empty it, throwing away everything but the shell here. OK. So my idea is to cut off the back and then solder a female power supply plug onto the male one you see there. Then paint it black and use it as a sled for a standard PSU

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

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...

From the top of my head.. Motorised roof vents. Motorised electronic front panel. Front lights, side lights, roof lights, all fully programmable. The IO board is about half of the size of a ITX motherboard. Then a two AA battery rechargable pack that charges via the IO board to give you internal work lights, external work lights (the IO) and hard drive bay lights. I was thinking about stripping everything out and getting the inside powder coated but it's so much work and I would be afraid of not ever getting it back together again. I will know more tomorrow, because I am going to investigate it fully before plugging anything in. Everything worked perfectly before the PSU died, so hopefully it wasn't damaged. Thankfully the 24 pin extension was only £3 so I have nothing to lose really I do have plans if the IO board is dead, so it will eventually end up being a working PC again any way

Thanks Stefan. From the moment I gave it to my step son I regretted getting rid of it so maybe this is fate. The extension cable is due to arrive tomorrow so I will make up the custom plug then. So, fingers crossed I will know more then

Sorry but I don't agree they're a rip off. Right now I can buy a new Area 51 for around £1500 with a 5820k in it. That's around a £300 mark up over a self built rig,however, many people out there just don't understand how much engineering goes into these cases nor the complexity. They're not just a standard case with a few things bolted on. Empty the case I have weighs around 30kg. Empty. This is why good examples are very rare because there is no logical way of moving them without damage.

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

I wouldn't touch the Big Bang Xpower II. I have one. It's just died and about to be RMA and I bought an Asus RIVE and tbh it slaughters the MSI. I managed an easy 4.7ghz on the RIVE in three easy steps. Getting the same clocks on the MSI was really hard due to the completely and totally over fussy over complicated bios. Get a RIVE.

Dude the more I think about it the more I realise that you need to do something with the text. Nintendo and etc. I would do it in black or gold. Gold would be better, given that this is pretty special

Amazing dude. Simply amazing ! Can you answer a few Qs for me? What mario game is that you're running? How do you control it using a PC? does the 360 controller work? I never did play SMG on the Wii.

Yeah that's what I mean. Can you get some pics? Edit. Oh I see it now !

Where did you put the hard drive/s?

The only way you can really get chrome is by plating. So many of these supposed finishes are just variations of silver. House of Kolor do a chrome paint but as you've said, it's bum stingingly expensive. Not only that but it's also impossible to touch up if you accidentally scratch it. Why don't you go with a very bright silver and then use chrome water pipes?

Over $500 for a motherboard to run a 5820k? Wow this build is discombobulated !

To be honest B (and you know I'm always honest with you) I can't say I really like the colour on those blocks. It just seems awfully bright when you've got that lovely dark blood spatter marble paint. I don't know if it's going to work together mate. Hopefully I will be totally wrong but right now I'm just not sold.

It should be fine but you will likely need to overclock the CPU if you want acceptable minimums. GTAV is not CPU bound but it does like clock speed. I benchmarked it on my Pentium @ 4.2ghz and it was absolutely fine with my Titan Black. Max settings @ 1080p mins were in the high 30s low 40s.

Or get one of the newer 45nm quads.

Has any one even read the OP? It's a load of gobbledy gook.