MindArlekin

What does that change when they had an explicit agreement in the later days to have it returned so they can ship it to other reviewers? 
 
Let's be clear about something - they told Linus he could keep it but then he completely butchered the review, used it on a wrong card, steamrolled the product and the entire company, and was at no point apologetic about it, and then doubled down saying nothing would have changed his opinion. So they said - well, can we have it back. And LTT said - sure, we'll send it back. And again, and again, and again... and nothing.
 
And then they auctioned it off.
 
In fact, Billet even sent them the right card - 3090Ti - and they are still waiting to get that back.

You guys have a parasocial relationship with the figure of Linus. It's as if Steve and Linus are viewed as "friends," and friends don't act that way; a friend would have called. Followed and amplified the childish way Linus deals with criticism, like someone was "attacking" a friend that you guys need to defend. 
 
Facing the reality that your parasocial buddy is not as perfect as you see in the videos is too hard, and the search for excuses starts. You guys don't really know him. 
 
Did you ever get outraged by the fact that a journalist didn't contact a 100-million-dollar company for comments at any moment in your life? We all know that is a no. 
 
Things were bad, and a lot of errors happened. There is no excuse. Being worry about courtesy is just a way to dismiss the problem.
 
The great news is that who made the mistakes and needs to deal with the errors is them not you guys. And It's not wrong to wish that they fix things and improve. Then just relax and wait. 
 
About billet labs, don't be naive; you are regurgitating a version of Linus' points and making it sound that LMG actictions wouldn't make any difference. 

I was watching almost every single LMG video since Langley House. At least two LMG videos affected me personally in the recent months:
The incorrect Cyberpunk 2077 graph on RTX 4090 almost made me pull the trigger on the card, until I watched some other reviews. The Pwnage Stormbreaker mouse gliding issue - I was looking for new mouse and immediately disregarded the Pwnage Stormbreaker after seeing the review. Your videos have power to affect user decisions. You cannot afford to make mistakes.
 
Additionally, mishandling of expensive PC components triggers me so much. Also the attitude towards liquid cooling equipment. I own a high-end liquid cooled PC that I build, with borosilicate glass tubes and custom cables I made myself. It cost ma a lot of work and money. Seeing similar equipment treated as junk and thrown around is just painful. If I wanted to see monkeys I would go to the zoo.
 
Not to mention the integrity problems and rushed videos. With each video and error I'm less and less interested. I do not see proper reviews anymore. It's more like unboxings combined with ads.
 
Maybe LMG is no longer for me. I don't know. Until this is properly addressed and handled I decided to unsubscribe from all LMG channels and mark them as "do not recommend" on YouTube.

So, after watching GN's reply, this is what I think:
1) Let's hope Ivonne will remind Linus that it's her company too, because without her LTT would not exist. Also, it will be good to see the new CEO giving Linus a good reality slap to the face and reminding him why he stepped down.
2) They NEED to lower amount of videos on LTT, especially ones that include testing of products by Labs or otherwise. It will give some air to breathe for employees (they actually want it, BTW) and will give some time for the proper QC while Labs are figuring out their tools, processes, and test methodology.
3) After this shitty (no offense, it just is) response Linus NEEDS to make a proper video with not just "I'm sorry", but with a list of what they are changing. It's not needed right this freaking second, but in a couple of days - absolutely.

So, after watching GN's reply, this is what I think:
1) Let's hope Ivonne will remind Linus that it's her company too, because without her LTT would not exist. Also, it will be good to see the new CEO giving Linus a good reality slap to the face and reminding him why he stepped down.
2) They NEED to lower amount of videos on LTT, especially ones that include testing of products by Labs or otherwise. It will give some air to breathe for employees (they actually want it, BTW) and will give some time for the proper QC while Labs are figuring out their tools, processes, and test methodology.
3) After this shitty (no offense, it just is) response Linus NEEDS to make a proper video with not just "I'm sorry", but with a list of what they are changing. It's not needed right this freaking second, but in a couple of days - absolutely.

So, after watching GN's reply, this is what I think:
1) Let's hope Ivonne will remind Linus that it's her company too, because without her LTT would not exist. Also, it will be good to see the new CEO giving Linus a good reality slap to the face and reminding him why he stepped down.
2) They NEED to lower amount of videos on LTT, especially ones that include testing of products by Labs or otherwise. It will give some air to breathe for employees (they actually want it, BTW) and will give some time for the proper QC while Labs are figuring out their tools, processes, and test methodology.
3) After this shitty (no offense, it just is) response Linus NEEDS to make a proper video with not just "I'm sorry", but with a list of what they are changing. It's not needed right this freaking second, but in a couple of days - absolutely.

So, after watching GN's reply, this is what I think:
1) Let's hope Ivonne will remind Linus that it's her company too, because without her LTT would not exist. Also, it will be good to see the new CEO giving Linus a good reality slap to the face and reminding him why he stepped down.
2) They NEED to lower amount of videos on LTT, especially ones that include testing of products by Labs or otherwise. It will give some air to breathe for employees (they actually want it, BTW) and will give some time for the proper QC while Labs are figuring out their tools, processes, and test methodology.
3) After this shitty (no offense, it just is) response Linus NEEDS to make a proper video with not just "I'm sorry", but with a list of what they are changing. It's not needed right this freaking second, but in a couple of days - absolutely.

@LinusTech You know what this whole situation reminds me of the spirit of? The events that lead to creation of the dick shaped logo of the PC building company 😄 Let me explain.
 
First- the response was way too fast. It's not thought through and it clearly was done in a rush. Regardless of what you think about what GN did here, the simple fact is that their video is factual, and you really should have gone: "We saw it, we want to take out time and figure out the details and our response, please give us a few days". 
 
Second - you just committed a cardinal sin of "I have shit to do, I don't have time to deal with this". This is how your whole response and handling comes off here.
 
Three - the "dragon energy" - yup, that's the worst possible application of it here. This requires anything but that and frankly, as the owner who now has a CEO that runs day to day operations, you should have dropped all things but the most critical stuff and look into things as the owner properly and take your time to fix shit. I will be honest here - as a fellow, albeit far far smaller, but still a person who has been in business world for past decade and have had to manage a lot of people (most I had was an IT dept of 100+ people), I would be making some hard choices right about now. And not just fire someone (albeit that is subject to a review and if the fuckups are really piling up due to the specific person(s) - it might have to happen) - I would be pressing the big red "STOP FUCKING EVERYTHING" button and freeing up some people from projects to decrease the clearly unsustainable load that leads to way too many mistakes. 
 
I think what is happening right now is that due to the size of the company, the people that get hired are just not able to keep up and you have to really account for that. LMG can't run at the pace and speed as it was when it was 5-10-20 people any more. 
People also need to be given the KPI of "quality" as the primary goal and you seriously need to re-think the amount of time that's given to people to do their job.
 
Also - KPI's are not meant to be fulfilled 100%. IF you are hitting your KPI's to 100% completion - it's a bad KPI. In the software development world our KPIs are considered "done" if we hit 70% target, anything over it is a bonus and means everyone did an extraordinary job. It also should not be expected that next round of KPI's should be upped - you only up them IF the teams consistently outperform on a significant stretch of time (like a few months at least) to account for the fact that if you up them immediately, the result will be burnout and things will tank badly. My current feel is that the team is undersized or disorganised for the amount of work you want it to do and you are pushing them too hard. At it will make things only worse, do I really need to spell that out? I think I do, because for the past 2 years of watching every WAN show I get a distinct feeling that this is the mistake being made and there are literal company corpses by the hundreds that this mistake has killed in the software industry. The people resource management.
 
 
And in general all the errors GN pointed out I have noticed them all myself as they popped up and I will say this: The amount of corrections in the videos has got to a point where it started to really annoy me personally. I now have to second-guess everything LMG is posting with the reviews of anything. 
Want to also know something? At this point when I hear "labs spent time with the product" automatically puts me into the "doubt everything" mode as in with the current track record your reviews where the hard numbers are present are not to be trusted. At all. As far as I'm concerned until this problem is solved, you should not even post any review videos - just do other content.
 
I love the jank, but lately, the jank has been too much. The home improvement videos as of late have been more like "channel superfun" and less "Linus Tech Tips" main channel and that is a really bad thing. 
 
My 0.02$ rambling cents that nobody will read 😄 At least I got it off my chest.

I'm sure, that nobody needs my opinion, but I will say it anyway)
I preface everything I want to say with this: I started watching LTT in 2013 and I still find it interesting and funny. I had worked in the RMA field, specifically with PCs for over 7 years, and currently working as a QA automation engineer. I want LTT and all its subsidiaries such as Labs to do better.
If we talking about the Billet labs issue - I agree, but for everything about problems with accuracy and frequency of errors\corrections there was no need for Steve to contact you, because first of all, it's not started recently but rather ramped up since the start of inclusion of Labs data in videos year or so ago. Secondly, videos, mistakes in them, and how these mistakes were handled - all of this was in the public domain for a significant amount of time, free to see by everybody. And all of this can be considered as a statement by LTT, and there was no need for contacting you, Linus, or anybody else from your staff.
Open up any video that uses Labs data and is not specifically on the topic of Labs itself. In most of them, there will be no warning like "processes are a work in progress, viewer discretion is advised", and data from Labs is presented as valid by default. Somebody, who stumbles upon such a video while doing their research, will take info from this video at face value and might make a bad purchase decision.
If we talking about Labs as a source of valid info that will benefit all consumers AND at the same time using not completely correct Labs data for LTT videos - it lessens the trust of consumers with background knowledge about Labs, and at the same time can be directly detrimental for some amount of consumers who sees this videos\data the first time.
So, as I see it, it's either:
1) Labs data in LTT videos starts to be marked with a clear warning about "test processes are a work in progress, data can have mistakes\inconsistencies", Labs stop getting mentioned at all to preserve its brand until Labs processes and tools to generate data are finalized and validated for giving correct results in a specific amount of work time with big test samples. Additional focus is placed on QC measures for a production team to ensure that they will not screw up test data, provided by Labs.
2) Labs data stops to get used in LTT videos at all, all testing returns into the hands of writers until Labs processes and tools to generate data are finalized and validated for giving correct results in a specific amount of work time with big test samples. Additional focus is placed on QC measures for a production team to ensure that they will not screw up test data, provided by writers.
3) Amount of time spent on videos that specifically use Labs data is increased to give space for an additional level of QC; Amount of LTT videos that are not based on Labs data is increased to close the gap in LTT production schedule.
4) Amount of videos per week dropped from 6 to 5 or 4, freed time split between Labs and production team, existing QC measures are strengthened; Amount of non-LTT videos that are not based on Labs data is increased to close gaps in the overall production schedule.
In my point of view, it's an accuracy issue, but from a different standpoint.
While yes, I agree with a metaphor about a supercar, it's not just that, not mainly.
In my opinion, by the inclusion of Labs as the objective, valid, and independent data source, you can't be not-objective and not-fare in other videos about niche, rare, experimental, or in any other way not-practical or not-valid for consumers products. It takes a lot of credibility that is given to your videos by the inclusion of Labs as source of a data.
No, the reason not to ask you is because you can be very dismissive of a problem, not intentionally, but still. Go to any of your "hot takes" that put you in hot water from recent times and you will see, that your initial reaction is quite dismissive, only later, after giving it some thought, do you acknowledge that you were wrong. And you doing it now, in this post, a similar thing was with the Billet labs issue.
 
I can be wrong in places because English is not my first language, but I hope everything above is readable enough.

First of all, the whole Billet Labs stuff is completely absurd if true. I don't think they would intentionally sell something they couldn't, probably some massive fuck up in communications happened between the team responsible for sending it back and the people choosing the items to be auctioned, but it's still a huge issue and 100% LTT's responsibility to fix it and make sure something like this never ever happens again. 
 
About the rushed content, it's something that a lot of times crosses the border of "fun jank" to being just frustrating. Every single project they do seems to be rushed, unfinished, untested and plagued with issues and oversights. And that could be their content "brand", seems like many people enjoy the jank. But if they now want to present themselves as serious testers, someone the community can look up for reliable data with Labs, that mindset needs to change, FAST. How the hell can I trust someone who has to correct themselves almost every video? And makes errors that a basic review of the content could catch? 
 
You need to pump out 7 videos a week? Sure buddy, but maybe allow more time sensitive projects to be properly planned, executed and reviewed and throw some "here's 10 fun crap we found on aliexpress" videos to make up for it.

As a proud "privateer" I agree with a underlying base of Linuses take on "Watching Youtube with Adblock = piracy". And I don't see LTT using free version of OSST as a deceitfulness or something.
All this drama makes OCCT developers look bad because: 1) because of the difference between responses on Twitter and Reddit 2) because of the way they set up their site where I have to go to a separate page to find out that this software has a paid subscription. They created all the conditions for some employee of a random company to make a mistake. Whining posts on Reddit are not a professional way to solve problems. Better way to resolve such things is to contact company via email, it's more professional, especially if we talking about commertial\corporate relations.
LTT, on the other hand, did not suffer nearly as much from all of this. Is LTT in wrong in this situation? Yes. Was there any malicious intent from LTT to pirate this software?  No. Did LTT corrected their mistake? Yes. Dose majority of their audience care about all of this crap? No. This drama will be used as a topic on the WAN show and that's as far as it will go.
Linus idea "AdBlock + Youtube = video piracy" is his crappy way of explaining his idea that if you don't pay for a content the way it was intended, you kind of pirating it and it's up to you to decide for yourself whether to continue or not . This idea doesn't work very well in the context of Youtube video as a product and advertising as a payment, but I understand and made a conscious decision to continue "privateering" video and other software/content that I deem not worth to be bought for one reason, or another. This idea does not fit at all to OCCT situation here. But haters still will try to connect this things. And, because this is wrong connection, people who can think for at least 2 seconds will move on and forget about it.
Yarrrrrrr!

sounds like yer pump flow rate has drop drastically OR there's stuff stuck in your GPU block
 
i had similar issue when there's air bubble trapped in my gpu block
 
if yer gpu block is not plexi, u might wanna disassemble it to have a look

Sure you can, it's a walk in the park.
Consequences of mucking about in the registry are a different matter altogether.
Macecraft's JV16 PowerTools.
Use carefully...

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

After almost an year of careful searching of Aliexpress and my local craigslist analog I built it.
And made a lot of mistakes in a process. They were made in choosing parts and in assembly.
So i present you  version 1.1 of "Ziptie abomination", that soon (I hope) will be rebuild with some changes.

Specs:
Ryzen 5 1600 4.1Ghz@2.825V LLC2
MSI B350 PC-Mate
GTX 1060, +230core, +200mem
Samsung OEM E-die(?) Ram 16gb 3200Ghz, 16-17-17-36-74 1T
ADATA SX8000NP 128gb NVMe(perfomance like sata) ssd
Hitachi 1Tb generic 2.5 inch hard drive
 
Moar photos:
Pump rocking 2 of 3 of my EKWB fittings, all others is brass fittings for pneumatic tools. Also i found a use for SLI bridge, that was laying around.

 
My second actual branded watercooling part is XSPC radiator. 3 NF-P12 redux-1700 on it.


IMHO PS4 controller - the best controller.

Tubes are shitty and do kink if not do excessively long runs between components. Reservoir is also not very good. Mounting it is a challenge, volume is too small (tube on top is because of that, in case of overflow), and only one fill port don't make life easier. Inlet and outlet ports from res needs to be switched, because at high RPM pump taking air from top of an res.
That is all of problems and mistakes of mine, that i'm aware of now. If someone see more - it will be for me good to know.
 
P.S.
Version 1.1 because in version 1.0 there where server Delta 3800 rpm fans instead of Noctuas. Even I could not stand a noise equivalent to an airplane.
 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hmmm, I think, I see here is too much of beautiful and accurate high end builds. Let me spice this forum thread with something more on budget side.
Remember this thing?


This was called "Ziptie abomination ", I posted it in January in this thread.
 
Well, we can say that this Pokemon has evolved. Let me introduce to you "Performance over style":

It's same case and mostly same components as in first build. But I like when components in case fill as much space, as possible, and i also like more compact builds, so:
1. I maked case shorter about 8 cm (little bit more than 3 inches).
2. All hard drive and optical drive baskets have been removed, front portion of case was made to mount on it 360 rad with fans.
3. Plus i mounted some brackets in coners (they behind rad on pictures, you can't see them) for improving rigidity (not enought, as I fugured it out later).
4. Small HDD basket was salvaged from donor case (btw, Inwin in early 2000s was making very sturdy cases, i will use frame from my donor for my next mod/build) and mounted directly to top of the case with roofing screws (at least it removable ).
5. Front panel was made from old one by removing center part and replacing it with galvanized mesh for plastering, power button was replaced and relocated on top center part of panel. Four neodymium magnets was mounted with hot glue in coners of panel to make it easy to install/remove from a case (but now front panel can't be used like a grip point).
6. My main mistake for this build was to trust LTT video about plasti dip (joke). I was on very strict budget, and all this work, from start to finish, i did in my rental room, where i live. So, at that time i considered plasti dip because it didn't need very heavy surface preparation, primer and also dries very fast. Also overspray is less of a problem just because after drying out coating turning into thin film, that can be peeled off very easily from pretty much any surface. But I had enough money for only two cans of "paint", ant this is not enough. Layer is to thin, it rips and peels off after any not very gentle touch, many edge surfaces was damaged in assembly process, even with me trying to be as careful as possible. End result is pretty only when you look at it from a distance, but for me it still good enough.
 
From last time i acquired some additional parts, like angle fittings (45s and 90s), proper reservoir and  better quality tube. For coolant additive i used ethylene glycol based automotive coolant premix (from which water have this light pink color), not very big amount, but enough for corrosion and bacteria growth resistance.
Also, it happens that my B350 PC Mate has RGB header, so i ordered 2 meters of rgb strip to mask defects with some bright lights. I also bought usb 3.0/ audio-mic combo for front panel, but after mounting of rad and fans there was no space to mount it, even without hiding it.
1060 was swapped for 2060, 120 Adata "NVME" ssd was changed for WD 500gb sata model.To cool vrm and memory on graphics card I made "custom" adaptor from standard fan header to smaller one, that was for stock graphics card fans. Rods and springs for stand off mount for cooling fan was salvaged from old AM2 cpu cooler mount.
 
Case is kinda on a flimsy side, but with components in it rigidity slightly improves. Paint Job is kinda trashy, but it good enough if you dont look at it very picky. Also, i decided to not make acrylic side panel and just leave case open, because acrylic is scrach magnet, and my plans to cover it with automotive clear armor film happend to be quite expensive.
 
Overall, lessons learned, experience is gained, even some good tools acquired in a process. Starting goal to fix previous mistakes and also make system more compact and neat is completed.  Next step will be after I upgrade to Zen 2.
 

 

Hell yeah. I love how well done RGB builds look as well, but IMO the clean simple look is the best. ZMT tubing is clean af, doesn't leak, and is easy to work with (still need to get 2 more 90 degree fittings to make a line or two cleaner though, and reduce microbubbles in the res). I have fittings for hardline too, for that I go with plain black PETG, it's similarly clean and simple looking. I've ran full RGB setups before (used to have a Crosshair VII with RGB RAM, EK monoblock, a Vega FE, etc), now the only RGB for my rig is the keyboard and mouse, the PC itself just has mobo and PCIe add-in card status lights. I also love how clean the X99 Classified is, it's still got a red EVGA logo, but it's not full black/red like my X58 Classified boards. 
 
For reference on the hardline, here's my X58 Classy 4-way with a hardline CPU loop before I pulled the pump/res, rad, and block for this rig: 

 
First time doing hardline so the lines weren't as clean as they could have been, but it still looks really good with the Noctua fans and mobo (later I replaced the 120mm Noctua and random 92mm fan on the VRMs/Northbridge with two 40mm Noctua ones, but now that rig has been taken apart and the mobo sits in a box waiting for a project sometime). 

Intel Core i7 6850K 
Asus X99-M WS
HyperX Predator v2 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz (4x8GB)
Sapphire Nitro+ RX Vega64
Fractal Design Define C Mini
Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe SSD
Samsung 860 Evo 1TB SSD
Western Digital Black 500GB NVMe SSD
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5in HDD
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 2.5in HDD
Seasonic Platinum SS-860XP2
 
EKWB EK-Velocity RGB - Full Nickel
Alphacool GPX-A Vega M05
EKWB EK-CoolStream SE 120
EKWB EK-CoolStream SE 240
Phantek Reservoir (PH-R160_BK01)
Swiftech MCP35X PWM DDC Pump
Mayhems X1 Coolant -  UV Blue
 

 

 

 

After almost an year of careful searching of Aliexpress and my local craigslist analog I built it.
And made a lot of mistakes in a process. They were made in choosing parts and in assembly.
So i present you  version 1.1 of "Ziptie abomination", that soon (I hope) will be rebuild with some changes.

Specs:
Ryzen 5 1600 4.1Ghz@2.825V LLC2
MSI B350 PC-Mate
GTX 1060, +230core, +200mem
Samsung OEM E-die(?) Ram 16gb 3200Ghz, 16-17-17-36-74 1T
ADATA SX8000NP 128gb NVMe(perfomance like sata) ssd
Hitachi 1Tb generic 2.5 inch hard drive
 
Moar photos:
Pump rocking 2 of 3 of my EKWB fittings, all others is brass fittings for pneumatic tools. Also i found a use for SLI bridge, that was laying around.

 
My second actual branded watercooling part is XSPC radiator. 3 NF-P12 redux-1700 on it.


IMHO PS4 controller - the best controller.

Tubes are shitty and do kink if not do excessively long runs between components. Reservoir is also not very good. Mounting it is a challenge, volume is too small (tube on top is because of that, in case of overflow), and only one fill port don't make life easier. Inlet and outlet ports from res needs to be switched, because at high RPM pump taking air from top of an res.
That is all of problems and mistakes of mine, that i'm aware of now. If someone see more - it will be for me good to know.
 
P.S.
Version 1.1 because in version 1.0 there where server Delta 3800 rpm fans instead of Noctuas. Even I could not stand a noise equivalent to an airplane.
 

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will take your advice and purchase an air cooler instead.
 
Thanks again.
Craig.