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!

- 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!

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

Thanks!

A little bit too RGBery for my taste, but still looks great. Good job!

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

- 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 1/5/2020] - continued
 

 
This was about at about 2am this morning. Got the loop completed and water in it for testing. Only one super small leak, which isn't too bad for my first time on water ever, haven't even owned an AIO.
 
And finally......
 

 

 
If you made it this far, congrats!
 
Now... to do it all over again in another year or so...
 

[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!

So I got my cheap PCIE risers yesterday and they work totally fine, despite looking like some obsolete IDE cables that have been given a new lease on life. I found out where to put the graphics card and cut some holes. I would have used a CNC to just drill all the holes perfectly, but I can't go to school for the next couple weeks due to human malware. The only thing now to do is get everything back in the box and find a way to stabilize the graphics card better. I also need to get a USB wifi adapter so I can have internet access on it 

[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.
 
 
 

doesnt need to be flashy, but theres options for figurines, just a thought (when I saw the pink and glitter was imagining a barbie or so sitting on the gpu ?).
 
Nice job, a very nice of you to go through these lengths to contribute to a 6yo happines!
 

[Update - 2/28/20]
 
Finally reassembled the case. Hopefully I'll update again with some build pics this weekend. For now.....
 

 

 

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.
 

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.

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
 

Frozen In The Blizzard
Snow White Color Theme & Massive Air Flow
 
"When I was young we didn't have it good like you kids today with you're giga this and peta that. We had kilas and if you were willing to walk in the snow you could fight that blizzard outside and invest a weeks pay in a single megabyte of ram! Bah! Air Flow you say? Stop being weak you little snott! I didn't need any Air Flow for my 386 but if you really want some Air Flow just give me a moment, Grand Pa had some beans for lunch earlier today, you're about to get some Air Flow soon you whipper snapper."
 
- Grandpa
 
Weather Forecast Data
 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify S2 with Duel Tempered Glass Panels Power Supply: Be Quiet Straight Power 11 750W 80 Plus Gold Mother Board: MSI MEG X570 Unify CPU: AMD Ryzen 3900x RAM: Micron Crucial Ballistix Gaming(HA! Marketing!) Memory 32GB (4x8GB DDR3600, 2666 OCed up to 3600) Boot Drive: Corsair Force Series MP600 NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD 1TB GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 Super Gaming OC 3x White 8G (Virtically mounted through a Lian Li 011D-1X PCEI 3.0 x16 kit) CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 Chromx.black (Noctua NA-HC4 chromax.white added for looks) CPU Thermal: Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste Case Fans: 7 Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC-3000 PWM (Noctua NA-SAVP1 chromax.white Anti-Vibration PADS replaced the brown included pads for looks), 2 Notctua NF-F12 IndustrialPPC-3000PWM (with the same white vibration pads) LED: 7 Phanteks 140mm Halos Lux Digital RGB Frames, 2  Phanteks 120mm Halos Lux Digital RGB Frames (These are connected through a single Phanteks Digital-RGB Controller to a JRGB port),3 Phanteks Neon M5 Digital-RGB LED Strips (connected through a 2nd Controller to a 2nd JRGB Port) Comments From The Weather Man
 
This was a really fun build. I started by stripping down the S2 case so that I could understand my options and was not disappointed by all of the nooks within the case which left many possibilities to be explored. I stated by choosing the Unify Board because it was the most basic x570 board I could find which also had just enough features for multiple future planned upgrades down the line. Even though this build has quite a few LED elements, I appreciate that this board has minimalist design which does not force its own lighting on my design. I am also happy with the Bios options which will make my Overclocking adventure a really fun story to tell when that time arrives.
 
For the CPU I went with a 3900x. This was a future proofing choice. It will handle my Multi Tasking habit and also not bottle neck a planned upgrade to a Duel 3000 Graphics purchase for Christmas. This CPU is being cooled down by a NH-D15 with White Caps added for looks. The fans have been setup to blow cool air to the center and then get sucked out the bottom by the lower case exhaust arrangement. The vertical GPU orientation allows the air to flow down with no impediments. Future upgrades include liquid metal and Lathing as part of the future Overclocking Adventure.
 
I went with Crucial ram for pure aesthetic reasons and I went with 32gb because I tend to run allot of programs at once and the extra Ram allows me to Game while I work.
 
For the GPU I just wanted a white card that was good enough to give me a good experience today without spending too much. I will end up selling this on Ebay when I upgrade in December. This 2070 allows me to easily game at 4k/30+ FPS in FFXV and other titles I have tested so far. Gigabyte has software to change the color of the on board LED but once you choose your color you can just delete the program as the card holds your choice permanently. I did Vertically mount this because this case has about 20mm between the side panel and the card for plenty of airflow. This places the card perfectly in line with the top of the Noctua Heat sink. If I had done a Horizontal mount I would have to worry about GPU sag and it would have not lined up with the dimensions of the heat sink as nicely.
 
I do not need allot of storage so I went with just a single 1tb NVME gen 4 as my boot drive. I am very happy with this choice as it takes advantage of the PCIE 4 and gave my higher then advertised results when I ran it through some benchmarks.
 
For airflow I went absolutely overboard and threw in as many fans as the case could hold just because I wanted too. The one thing to note here is that while most people will have a single case fan blow out behind the CPU I am actually bringing air in through that location. The reason I am doing that is because my CPU fan setup wants air from both sides of the CPU and then is exhausting the hot air down. Because of this I did add a small air filter between the case and the fan. All 7 intake fans are filtered.
 
I was forced to place to 120mm fan in the bottom of the case instead of 140mm because the larger fans would not fit due to the LEDs and the Power Supply. This also left me a little extra room for cables and with the 23 extra components I have many wires to manage.
 
Power was chosen for silence more and size vs power so that I could fit everything in. I also went with a 750w to allow for all of the extra components. I know a single case fan does not have allot of pull but when you have 11 fans and 12 lighting elements then the those small numbers start adding up to something that at least has to be considered in your power totals.
 
Finally to give me a massive increase in FPS, CPU clock speed, Extra RAM speed and lower heat ratings across the board I added LED elements throughout the case. To achieve these amazing stats I went with the Phantek Digital LED system with Halo products on each case fan and NEON stips along the motherboard and the base of the panel. This products works with MSI's Mystic Lighting product and finally brings lighting to my Noctua Fans (I hope Noctua does not repo my fans!). I have these lights synced with my system's sound output which provides me with a simple light show and also keeps the lights off when I am not using my computer without requiring any thought. Something to think about when it comes to LED products like these is that they do burn out eventually. So doing it this way will keep them working longer.
 
Frozen In The Blizzard has been a passion project of mine for the last two months which began with my first post a while ago about stripping down the Meshify S2 case for this build. At the time I had bigger aspirations about doing an entire series about the build. Life gets in the way and my lack of experience with media and story telling really made the venture more then I am ready for. I did take lots of video and photos to document the adventure I had and maybe in the future I will have the talent to tell the full story of how this build got from point A to point B.
 
Thank You!
 
In conclusion I want to thank everyone in the community. I am not able to give credit to all of the individuals because I just do not remember every single person but I want to thank every person who created a video I watched, a post I read or a website I looked at to help me with this build. Your content matters and it helps all of us with these builds we share with you.
 
 
 
"I looks like that Blizzard is finally done. You're Grand Dad told me you built a new computer. Can it dial up Facebook for me?"
 
- Grandma

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 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.

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!
 

when it isn't? ^^
every time i "finish" my build, a already have the next step im mind. be them other mods, upgrades or whatever
anyway, i wish you all the fun building, as that is, for me, the best part
hope to see much more from your build

[Update 1/5/2020] - continued
 

 
This was about at about 2am this morning. Got the loop completed and water in it for testing. Only one super small leak, which isn't too bad for my first time on water ever, haven't even owned an AIO.
 
And finally......
 

 

 
If you made it this far, congrats!
 
Now... to do it all over again in another year or so...
 

[Update 1/5/2020] - continued
 
Sand, prime, paint, clear... here we go!
 

 
I ran out of the Krylon paint I used for the graphics card, and while I SHOULD have taken a sample with me when I went paint shopping, I didn't, I wasn't overly impressed with the Aluminum shade of the Premier Paint + Primer I picked up, I got some Rustoleum "Frosted Pearl" clear to give it a little more flake, which did help it out a lot.
 

 
From there I moved onto the motherboard tray - For this I wanted something close to Gunmetal Grey, as I wanted the motherboard to stand out from the back wall. I after my previous disappointments with paint, I figured I'd try automotive paint - so I grabbed some Duplicolor Honda matched paint - the colour is called Polished Metal Metallic, and I believe its a factory colour for the newest Type R Civic, which was completely unplanned. Cool colour though. I love how it colour-shifts at certain angles.