banana_havoc

[Update - 3/19/23]

Finally all put together as of last weekend. Unfortunately, I got fleeced by the previous owner of the GPU, who not only sold me a broken part, but also neglected to let me know that it had been refused by EVGA's warranty team to be repaired due to physical damage to the PCB. Luckily for me, I found a fantastic service (Northwest Repair LLC, look up his YouTube!) who took care of me and get the card functional again!

Hyte has some REALLY interesting designs, I'd love to get one of their cases in the future. Even the little things like that riser cable that set them apart. Looking forward to seeing this completed!

Its been a while, everything pretty much went on hold while I waited to acquire a newer GPU, and I refused to buy anything while they were horrendously overpriced. 

Anyways, here's a parts list of things I've acquired that need to be added as of yet, hopefully I'll start on some of this this coming weekend.

Asus ROG Strix 1000 watt Gold PSU

Darkside 360mm crossflow radiator

Phanteks D140 rear distro-plate

Phanteks Glacier 220 DDC reservoir

A bunch more fittings and thicker wall tubing.

And waiting on its return from an RMA.....

an EVGA RTX3090 FTW3 Ultra. It'll be run on air for the first bit until my wallet feels like round two for a waterblock, unless I decide to trade or sell it for another different GPU.

Stay tuned?

[Update - 5/24/21]

So, Had a few major issues. The motherboard I had purchased used off of Amazon, and while it worked fine for the first while. it eventually rendered BOTH my M.2 drives inoperable. Fortunately, Amazon agreed to at least cover the drive I purchased from them. I decided to swap the motherboard for an Asus B550-F Gaming Wifi. At least Asus Armory Crate is a pleasure to mess with unlike MSi's Dragon Center, that program is literal trash. Also lucky for me, the tubes mostly lined up, that said, I'll likely redo the runs soon as I'd like to add a second radiator in preparation for a new GPU and I also found out that stupid me plumbed the CPU block in reverse, so that will need to be dealt with as well. At least the system is FINALLY back up and running.

On 5/10/2021 at 12:09 PM, PT22YT said:

Those leds look really nice, do you know what they’re called?

Which ones? The strips above and below the motherboard? Those are the Phanteks NEON strips - available here.

I just finished rebuilding my old PC for future use as an HTPC, I love how this is going. and that it will just look like an antique if you put it in the livingroom.

- Newest Update - 

So my old system was getting a little long in the tooth and I was looking for a little more power to possibly try my hand at streaming. I also found myself with some involuntary time off due to the current global situation and put the last couple weeks to good use. Will update as parts are replaced/upgraded.

PCpartpicker list - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/banana_havoc/saved/#view=2gyRK8

And here's a link to my Reddit post with a video of the lighting - 

Cheers!

[Update - 4/23/21]

Been a while, computer has served well, but I may have robbed it of its watercooling glory to enhance a new addition to the stable. This one will be retired to my wife as her PC/household HTPC once we rearrange the livingroom and make the space for a mid tower upstairs.

Swapped in a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Black, drilled the intake area to fit triple 140mm Phanteks fans, and swapped out the Corsair HD120s for a mix of "UpHere" cheap white/black 120mm and the left over Fractal 120mm fans from my daughter's case.

At idle, the GPU is hovering at 32*C and the CPU stays pretty locked at 26/27*C. This PC will spend a lot of time idle, so that shouldn't be too bad. Once it takes on that duty though, I'll be taking my 1070ti out for the mean time and swapping in a Quadro (I think 2400) I have kicking around. 

23 hours ago, Jack0f5pades said:

So the new $500 GPU won't be held back by my $20 monitor? and I was unaware of any heat issues with the steel legend. Not overclocking, but I was actually planning on upgrading my board because I was worried about heat issues on my current board. And my current one lacks a second heat sink, only has 2 dimm slots, only 1 m.2 slot, and doesn't have a type c port. These are all the "real" reasons I wanted a new board. But if the steel legend has heat issues i'll look into other boards with the same features.

If you're not going to overclock, you should be fine. Just make sure you have adequate ventilation. In all honesty I was considering the same board. But I have a tendency to overclock.

As for the monitor, you would be outpacing it but the up side is you wouldn't have frame drops, and you were speaking about replacing the monitor anyways. 

52 minutes ago, NZgamer said:

Go for the GPU next.

 

 

Seconded, the other parts will hold up fine. And IMO, unless you're overclocking, you probably don't need the MB, and if you were to upgrade, I'd suggest going to an X570 board, or one without known heat issues (that said, my friend has one and seems to like it, and I was thinking about getting one purely for the aesthetic), like the MSi Tomahawk MAX B450. And mebbe a 750 watt PSU, because they are around the same price as a 650 and more is always better.

[Update - 3/27/20] - Beware text update coming...

So just before all this COVID-craziness, I purchased a new monitor as I was getting a little over 1080p60, so I picked up an AOC CQ32G1. Very happy with the extra real estate going from a 27" to 32". 1440p and 144Hz with Freesync doesn't hurt either. Though after putting it in I sadly discovered my GPU was pretty much at the end of its life in my system. After the last 5 years its definitely paid its due, I'm still a little attached to that card as its one of the few parts that's still from my original build, and one of the first things I modified, but it was time. It will live on inside my daughter's system for now, and eventually get the shroud paint corrected and find a new home on my shelf once she's ready to upgrade. So anyways, I went on Fl-ebay and picked up a used MSI GTX 1070ti DUKE for a pretty decent price. Immediately after its arrival, I torn it down and cleaned everything with isopropyl, and put in some new thermal paste in. Got a decent OC out of it too, 150mHz core and 575Mhz on the memory. That said, it is only a placeholder for something better hopefully around Black Friday/Boxing Day. Still not sure if it will be Big Navi or whatever nVidia drops, but for now its a great replacement. And for what I paid I'm not complaining. Anyways, now that I have some more spare time, I also ordered some of the new Phanteks RGB strips, and I'll likely finally make the pedestal I've been thinking of for a while. The upside of that will be that I'll eventually be able to add another 360 Rad without crowding the case. So there will be a few more updates coming. Like @LauriHimself said, there's always another step in mind.

Anyways, the pedestal will also allow me to rotate the case 90* and cover the I/O for a cleaner look, also I'll probably trim my monitor riser to move it closer to me. I also just ordered some more PETG to route the tubing a little differently so it doesn't hide behind the GPU, as the new card is triple fan and a lot longer than the old one. Also, while I have the loop apart......

So yeah, I'll probably finally delid my 6700k, as I already have the Conductonaut. Temps are still a little higher than I'd like under load, and I can't get any higher than 4.5 gHz without crashing. So hopefully this will help that out. I'm hoping to switch to Ryzen early next year, so It won't be for too long. Then this system will likely be wall mounted to replace my HTPC in the living room.

Anyways, the case will be rotated according to the following picture, and a hopefully more updates made in the next couple weeks as I'm bored out of my mind. And it'll give me something to try and do with the kids. Thanks for visiting!

[Update: 3/27/20]

Small revision, I upgraded the GPU in my rig, and passed down my customized GTX 970 to this machine after a cleaning and some new Arctic Silver 5. 

I realize the difference between these cards is negligible, but after the work I've done, and its one of the few parts I have from my original pc and this card deserves to be used. Not to mention its a bit of a beast (for Maxwell) for overclocking, which I'll probably play around with tonight when I can actually get her off Minecraft. Also, she decided to rename her PC, its now known as "Watermelon" due to the Razer Keyboard, and I matched the RGB on the eVGA Torq X10 mouse.

And for those interested in the final specs:

CPU - i7-4770

MB - Gigabyte GA-H85-D3H

RAM - 16GB Crucial DDR3L 1600mHz

GPU - MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G

PSU - eVGA 750-G1

Fan Controller - Bitfenix Recon

SSD - Kingston A400 120gb SATA

HDD - 1 TB Toshiba 2.5" 5400 RPM

Case - Fractal Design Focus G

Thanks again for checking it out!

I'm not going to lie, that's a neat idea, though I'd probably build a new case if I were to attempt, simply to fit the monitor inside. And watercooling, because watercooling.

Good luck!

[Update - 3/15/20]

So with my shifts and people visiting we didn't have the time to get the system built immediately, but after work today we got the time to finish assembling it and get it running. Little girl is very happy with it, though she hasn't had the chance to play on it yet as I still needed to do the installs. but hopefully we'll get some time in tomorrow before I need to go to work.

For now it will live in the basement next to my rig, but we'll see what happens once I finally clear out the old shop in the basement and turn it into the office.

Also... the obligatory peel.

From this...

To this...

[Update - 2/28/20]

Finally reassembled the case. Hopefully I'll update again with some build pics this weekend. For now.....

I know this is older and the problem has likely since been finished. But IMO, you could just get an SFX (or even an ATX) power supply and wire in something like a deutsch connector to the case in line with the power wires, and just use the power supply like an external brick. At least that way replacement is easier and you free up space inside. Wiring might be tedious, but at least a little more standardized. Not sure how well the coolers would work that close to one another though, as it seems like they'd starve each other for air.

Snapped a quick close up after clear coat. One more coat of clear tomorrow, than hopefully reassemble tomorrow or Friday night.

[Update - 2/27/20]

Just put down the last coat of clear, should be able to finish unmasking tomorrow and reassemble the case. Though I won't be updating again until my daughter and I can build it. Her birthday is Saturday, but the party is on Sunday so I'm not sure if we'll give it to her on Sat, and assemble it then or wait. We'll see. 

Two things I will note, if you're thinking about using this paint or something else similar, definitely start with a white primer base, you might be able to use a silver metallic as well to get a different look, but the colour is transparent, so whatever if beneath will show through. As well, it drys to a very matte finish, so I needed to use a gloss clear to bring out the luster, also to seal in the glitter. 

Also, maybe avoid the cheaper Rustoleum white primer, not sure if it was just because it was a cold can (maybe I'll try heating it up in a water bath next time), but it definitely did not spray very well. Just food for thought.

My only suggestion might be to grab a piece of about 1/4" acrylic about the same size as the pump mounting slots on the back wall and sand down the sides of it and mount a light strip facing into it to illuminate the slots from behind, would go well with the lighting you already have.

Good job!

26 minutes ago, Bartholomew said:

Cant wait to see how this progresses  curious of how the interrior will be, not so much tech components but as for other things for possible decorating and lighting.

 

Going with glitter with the paintjob is original; i might actually consider that for a frontpanel mod ive been contemplating.

 

Thanks for sharing, keep us updated

 

It's the closest I can get to getting paint mixed or adding throw on metal flake. As long as you do light coats with it, as it's easy to overdo it with the glitter.

The interior isn't going to be too flashy, just white and maybe a matching pink PSU shroud when I get time. I also made a template for an acrylic back wall, but I'm not sure if I'm going to bother. We'll see. For now the lighting is just ambient from the white led fans that are going in. But I may get a cheap light strip later on. Thanks for the interest!

Second coat was done this morning. Glitter is down. If you're thinking it's a bit loud, yup. It is. It's for a six year old.

Not much to update aside from.......

COLOUR!

It is.. very... very... pink. Like.. Linus' Lambo Pink... Like if it were outside you could easily see it from space pink.

I'll likely hit it with another coat in the morning, and hopefully with the glitter before I head to work. Maybe clear at about midnight or so.

Not much to update today. Go the clear on the front intake + 5.25" bay covers last night and reassembled the covers just now after I rotated the case to finish spraying the white on the top of the interior better as well as the bottom. Hopefully tomorrow it will be dry so I can mask the interior and shoot the colour. Then another day, then Mr. SPAAAAAAAAWWWKLE, then clear. Eventually I'm going for pink / sparkle exterior and white interior/mesh.

Primed for action!

So, I figured I'd add another to the ranks of the PC Master Race. My daughter is turning in the next week, and has enjoyed playing Minecraft on my PC, so I decided to mark the occasion by collecting parts and modding a case for her. After her birthday we'll assemble it together. I figured I'd add a little build log for her machine too, seeing as I finally watercooled my own a little while back and I was getting anxious to start another mini project. I'll provide a link below to the PCpartpicker parts list, though I'll warn you much of it is hand-me-down parts, and it's not designed for earth-shattering performance. Just something for homework / 1080p gaming.

I already tore down most of the case, as you can tell... this paint job is going to be a tad bright... OK,  its borederline obnoxious. She's going to love it.

I also snagged a Razer Blackwidow Ultimate (2013) off Kijiji for super cheap, the font was going to be a bit much for a first grader to read, so I swapped the keycaps for my factory Corsair ones off my K70. I also happened to have an eVGA Torq X10 kicking around that I won off an online giveaway like 4 years ago. It should fit the bill!