Sean W.

Hey Everyone, 

I just got an offer letter for a new sales job in the media and entertainment industry here in Los Angles, my official title is West Coast Regional Sales Manager and with a new job, comes a new work laptop.

My previous laptop was a Microsoft Surface Laptop 2, which I liked a lot, and with the 3 version out, it is one I am keeping in mind. 

Models I currently have my eye on:

- Surface laptop 3 13 & 15

- XPS 13 and 15

- A couple from Razer with a Dbrand skin to mute the "coolness" that would be out of place in a boardroom meeting

Couple considerations:

- 13-15.6" screen, preferably a matte screen, I will be using this a lot outside.

- Windows, not Mac 

- $2000 budget

- Dedicated laptop, not a 2 in 1 / tablet

-This needs to be a laptop that I can bring out in a meeting with Vice Presidents in fortune 100 companies, so pretty much anything "GAMING EXTREMEMEEEEXZXX!!!!@" is a no go, it needs to look professional. 

-Needs to be thin and light, I will be traveling a lot all over the west coast and need something that isn't going to double the weight of my backpack. 

-Needs great battery life, Not needing to be tethered to an outlet for an entire day is an extremely freeing feature for an outside sales role. Being able to post up anywhere for the day to do work without worrying if there's power is important.

-*NO* 10 key, I don't like laptops with the number pad, it shifts the whole keyboard off to the left, just personal preference   

- Nice backlit keyboard with a great typing experience

-  Nice to have is a dedicated graphics card for some light gaming waiting for a flight 

TL;DR

$2000 budget

Windows

13-15.6" screen, prefer a matte screen

Professional looking, no gaming laptops

Thin and light

great battery life

Dedicated GPU is a nice to have, but not mandatory 

10keyless

backlit keys

SSD

Windows, not Mac

This is sweet! Id love to win one!

This forum is shit. So far there's only been one helpful post in this thread

I'll sell you my used apple monitor for 1200 bucks then. 

 A used monitor doent increase its value. But it also doesn't turn its value into complete shit either. "oh, its a used $1000 monitor, its only worth $80 now ".

People will spend 100 less for a used monitor? good luck.... I'm not sure why they would buy that for 600 used when they can get it for 700 new with all the warranty ect. 

It could be argued that a used monitor is better. its already been tested and confirmed to be working 100% with no bleeding/dead pixels. 

Ill trade you for my 3xAOC i2267fw 22-Inch monitors

youll trade me your $300 worth of monitors for my MSRP $1,000 monitor huh. how generous of you   :rolleyes:

kinda looking at the 

Acer B6 B32HK

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009716&cm_re=32_4k-_-24-009-716-_-Product

http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-34UM95-34-Inch-LED-Lit/dp/B00JR6GCZA

 

probably more around 400 bucks. 

 Thats a link for a $708 34UM95... uhm, thank you?

hey guys,

 I love my 34UM95 Monitor, but Fallout 4 is being stupid and wont let me run the game in 21:9 3440x1440. I tried to fix the .ini file and it still wont work and I just dont want to deal with it anymore. 21:9 is amazing, but its just not game friendly. 

 So I was chewing on the idea of getting a 4k monitor. I really haven't kept up on all the new monitors lately. I wasn't planning on upgrading from my monitor few years! So I was hoping you monitor gurus could recommend a monitor!

 I have a 4770K and SLI 980s so not really worried about being able to push all the pixels.

 A few things i'd like the monitor to have:

  -16:9 3840x2160 resolution

  - LED IPS

  - Matte screen

  -60hz+. there is new Nvidia tech that lets you go up to 144hz? Gsync/Vsync-Extreme-Pro-Edition something something?

  - I'm leaning towards a 32" model

  - I'm thinking I can sell my 34UM95 for about $600, so thats kinda my budget +/- $200ish

 So yea... What monitor do you think will fit my needs? I really want to play Fallout 4...

Hey guys,

Rattling around with the idea of doing a build with the "NCase M1 " Mini ITX case. unfortunatly there simply isnt enough unicorn tears in the world to shove a custom waterloop in a case that size, so for the first time since the original Corsair H50, Ill be forced to go back to an AIO.

The MOST important thing to me when I build a computer is that its quiet, like inaudible. My 4770K SLI 980 sig rig is completely inaudible even at full load. I water cool to keep things quiet, not a single part of my rig is overclocked, tho its entirely watercooled.

So my question is, having not played with an AIO since the original H50, can you get the pump on the H100i ( not the H100i GTX ) to be completely silent? Id replace the corsair fans with noctua fans and bring them down 5v for around 400rpm. So my worry is that Ill hear a constant whine from the pump.


Thanks guys!

Is it just me or is the color Correction in this video horrible?

So first thing I did with the new radiators is remove the " Acool " decal off the show side of each of the new radiators!

 It was a PITA and took forever 

Here is the case with all the radiators installed! Things are starting to get tight in there! Keep in mind Is till need to shove two GTX 980's in there!

In the next couple pictures, you can get an idea of how tight things are and just how challenging plumbing this is going to be!

Here you can see that the fan from the top radiator is actually touching the radiator on the back. Also, getting an 8pin CPU cable to that CPU power plug is going to be difficult. You can also see that there is about 1/16" clearance between the motherboard and the fans on the top radiator

Here you can see how tight the barbs from the front rad and the top rad are, its going to be challenging getting tubing on those barbs, but I dont think impossible.

To give the barbs from the front and top radiators as much space as possuble, I had to set the fans up as "PULL" on the front radiator

 Ive never done just pull on a radiator before, but I stuck a small piece of napkin on the front intake and was delighted to see that the air current from the fans pulling air through the radiator, kept it there! 

Thats all for now!

Im starting to get everything I need to finish the build! All I'm waiting for at this point is the waterblocks for the 980's which are on their way. So hopefully by this time next week she'll be all done and running!

 Today I received the radiators I'll be using to cool everything. The 2x Alphacool NexXxos ST30 240 and 1x ST30 120. I only use Alphacool radiators in my builds, to my knowledge they are the only radiators on the market that are made almost entirely out of copper. The important thing here is that the fins are made out of copper and not aluminum. In a build like this where there isnt a lot of room, you need to make the space you do have perform as efficiently as possible, short of a radiator being made out of a precious metal that has better conductive qualities than copper (like silver or gold), these are the best radiators on the market (IMO). Not to mention, with an almost all copper radiator, they reduce your chances of electrolysis occurring in your loop, so long as you use all copper blocks, like I do. The final thing I like about Alphacool rads is that they are relatively low fin density, which allows me to run my fans at lower RPM's, which keeps everything quiet. 

I reached out to Alphacool to sponsor me for this built, but unfortunatly they declined. That didnt stop me from happily shelling out my hard earned money for them anyway. They are the best.

Anyway! Here they are! So pretty!

In this picture, you can really see the copper fins on the radiators. Another thing I like about these radiators is that while they do have copper fins, they DID NOT paint over them ( much ) which would have severely reduced the cooling capability. 

A pic of all the radiators that will be in this build a combined of surface area of a 560mmx120mm of copper finned radiator goodness. These build is going to be nice and cold, but more importantly, quiet

Also, this is why you flush your radiators kiddies. See all those black specs, each one of those would be bad news bears for your pump!

tell me about that SR-71

super quick update today.

 Just painted the radiator screws that I already had, black. 

its all in the details kiddies

fair enough  

looks cool man. that custom hdd cage is a bit odd tho :lol: but it's nice to see you went custom instead of just buying some cage and taping it in

Thanks haha, yea its a bit weird. Function over form haha

The biggest reason is because of space, this is a very small case. Space is a major concern and Im already jamming a lot of hardware into this case, things are going to be quite dense. 

 Also... I already had it haha

Big update coming soon, guys! Stay tuned!

Alright guys,

I made the LED strips Ill be using to light up the inside of this build today, I figured that I could hook them up to the fan controller and control their brightness with it, and it worked! When I want the computer to be super quiet and dark, I turn the controller all the way down and the lights will turn off.

Sorry to hear that this has happened to you, Sean. That must have been a faulty PSU right out of the box. Unfortunately, I didn't catch this thread sooner. If I did, I would have been able to provide you some assistance with an express replacement, or even a possible compensation for the inconvenience. With cases like this, ideally, we'd like to get the unit back here in HQ so we can perform failure analysis to better understand what went wrong. But I guess that's all too late now since you have already returned the unit back to BB.

 

Well just in case you run into any issues with any of our hardware in the future, feel free to contact me directly anytime. 

I too regret you not having seen this, I would have been interested to see what you could have done. I was trying to get ahold of Harold, but learned that he no longer works for the company Historically I love corsair and all their products. I was genuinely shocked that a corsair product failed so dramatically on me. This does not leave a bad taste in my mouth for Corsair. S*** happens, on a long enough timeline, I have no doubt that Corsair would have made this right.

Thanks! I think it turned out pretty prefect!

I actually am going to be selling it to help with all this build wracked up. Do you think 600 is fair?

600 for what? 

should serve you well for a while! congrats!

 one suggestion tho, move your graphics card to the top PCI Express slot. Most motherboard's lower PCI Express slots arent wired for 16x, the bottom one might even be 4x. IIRC, the bottom slot might even be controlled by the chipset and not the CPU ( read: even more bottle necked ).

EDIT:

 This is a zoomed in shot of the bottom PCI-Express slot on your mother board, see how the metal pins in each one of the grooves is only in half of the slot, that means its not wired for 16x

Had more time to work on the computer today.

Having a fan controller is essential on my builds, I like to under-volt my fans so they run quieter, thats the whole reason why I water cool my computers, to make them quiet. Unfortunately the Raidmax Hyperion does not have a built in fan controller, So... I installed one

The fan controller I decided to use was the Zalman Fan Mate 2, Ill use it to control all the fans in the case simultaneously. The controller can support up to 6Watts. The fans im using all use .10Amps at 12v, but I will be under-volting them to around 5-6volts which makes them draw around 0.6Amps each. So Ill be able to run all 9 fans from the fan controller.

The first thing I did was rewire it to be powered by a Molex connector instead of a 3 pin motherboard header.

Then I drilled a small hole in the bottom right of the front fascia 

The applied the double sided foam tape, being careful to cover as few the ventilation holes as possible.

Then installed the fan controller.

Hidden but easy to get to 

Cant even tell its there!

Anyway, thats all for now!