samuelellis

I got a bit bored and decided to modify a case just to see if I could. I have a couple of small things to finish off (add a USB3 port to the control panel and bolt it to the case. Case started life as a CIT Raider - a value orientated "Gamer focused case", Modifications done to it are -Powder coating stripped off with paint stripper and screwdriver. It was then allowed to go rusty -Biohazard logo sprayed on the side -faulty spray can used to put a bit of paint splatter on the side -glass front removed -metal case has been coated in some non-shiny lacquer to stop it rusting further/rust coming off on hands -custom 3d printed fan grills -fan grills sprayed in cast iron effect paint, then painted over with black and then the paint flaked off to make it look old and worn -key to start the PC -Control panel removed and replaced with one that the power key mounts to and aged with the same technique as the fan grills -2 fans on the top had the outside sprayed in cast iron effect -Inside has some green UV reactive paint inside to make it look like spilled chemical - did not fully work as it needs quite bright UV to work Computer hardware installed just to see what it looks like

This is not fully a PC build but its something ive wanted to do for a while and as it is is a build log this seemed the best place for it, make my own Magic Mirror - if you havent seen these before then you can find examples on youtube, you basically get a two way mirror and mount it infront of a screen so the text can shine through. You can get some software for the RaspberryPi that runs this so here we go. This project is only just starting so its going to be a big wall of text before I get some real updates Step1 - Get a screen. I had a family member throwing this 32inch TV out as it was only 720p and they had just upgraded. The screen works perfectly so i thought its a shame to see it end up as e-waste. In the picture below I have it connected to the Pi and as you can see the software works, I will have it setup to show me Date/Time, hourly NASA image, when the bus my partner takes to work arrives, when I need to set off to get to work with the latest traffic updates and a weather forecast Step2 - get the back off the screen and see what we are working with, as this is an older TV it uses cold cathodes to backlight instead of LED's so its not going to be the thinest but the case is massive, Whipping the back off shows me the following This makes life easy as the driver for the cold cathodes is on the left, power supply is on the right and the actual panel controller and source selector are all on one card with a daughterboard added onto it under the shelding Step3 - After a bit of time I stripped out what looks like it was was not needed to keep the TV working -Common interface slot for PPV TV -Side panel Inputs -Speakers -Power switch and function buttons -Some shielding -Speakers -Stand Now in order to try and thin it down a bit more I need to do something about the power supply board and the control board - as you can see they are sat quite proud from the back of the screen What i am planning to do is 3d print some plastic that has mounts for the holes on it so I can attach the boards directly to the back of the screen - should should give me about 1/2an inch extra room to play with once I have removed the then redundant metal work, I am guessing the reason Samsung didnt do this is heat but as the tv will be on for a max of 5mins i will probably get away with it - Im currently giving it some time before i poke around with it again so that big beefy capacitor can loose any stored charge but licking round the screen it looks like its attached to the front plastic with a metal frame so I should be able to just uplift that out and mount it into a new frame. Im torn on what aesthetic i want to go with, At the moment its either going to smooth and modern or steampunk So while that is being worked on - The Pi, how did I configure that The Pi is just a standard Raspberry Pi3b running a standard copy of Raspbian OS The software for Magicmirror can be found at the following url https:\\magicmirror.builders - This site gives you a single command to install the software, the command is - Run that from a command line and it will go away and do what it needs to do, when it asks if you want to auto-start magic mirror at this point I would say no as you have extra config that it needs to do I have added the following extra packages to my install -MMM Nasa for the space picture -MMM-Traffic - this allows me to set what time I need to be at work for, where I work and where I live and it will pull the traffic stats from Google and give me a rough time to set off -MMM-UKLiveBusStopInfo - this is for my parther, it shows when her bus will be arriving at the stop so she knows when she needs to set off. As time goes on I will probably add more to it Then if like me you want to run the screen in Portait mode you need to edit /boot/config.txt so it has the following line at the bottom of it display_rotate=1 Then you need to reboot and the screen will be Portrait Once this is done you will need to stop the screen saver turning the display off, change the power settings on the WiFi card so it doesnt sleep and auto-hide the mouse To stop the screensaver kicking in from a command prompt run sudo apt-get install xscreensaver This will install the screensaver control panel so you can turn the screen saver off To hide the mouse at a command prompt type sudo apt-get install unclutter Then when it is installed type sudo nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart That will open the autostart file - at the end of the file enter the following - @unclutter -display :0 -idle 3 -root -noevents That will hide the cursor after 3seconds of inactivity Finally to turn the power save mode on the WiFi off enter the following at a command line cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/network/if-up.d/off-power-manager #!/bin/sh # off-power-manager - Disable the internal power manager of the (built-in) wlan0 device iw dev wlan0 set power_save off EOF Then change the permissions and restart networking sudo chmod 755 /etc/network/if-up.d/off-power-manager sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

As other people have said, swap the thermal paste as a first step. I got surprisingly good results swapping the paste on my newish RX480's with Thermal Grizzly Cryonaught so i suspect you will see improvements swapping out the older thermal paste on the GTX590 as a first atempt

Just incase anyone was curious i went ghetto and used some old case fans and zip ties Ironically the card is now cooler and quieter than its stock heatsinked brother so im tempted to do the same on the other one - Yes i know the clock speed and memory is different on the pair of them but not by a huge amount This is also with the TIM swapped out for Thermal Grizzly Cryonaught

Just for those curious, under the shroud of the asus dual rx480 you get A small heatsink with two heatpipes and no cooling on the RAM/VRM's apart from what blows through the heatsink and onto the bare components

Cheers for the suggestions - seems like aftermarket GPU air coolers are not massively common. Thankfully due to how I have the cards on risers I can justify massive coolers

Yes i should know by now to be careful, i was trying to move a power cable out of the way so it didnt touch the fan blades. Space isnt a huge issue as the machine sits caseless in a cupboard under the stairs - due to Parsec i can stream its desktop and 1080p gameplay to a Raspberry Pi in the front room - keeps the noisy computer away from where i work I did spot this on the Acellero page as well - https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-hybrid-iii-120.html

HI, last night i did the incedibly silly thing of catching my finger in the cooling fan of one of my graphics cards - It is an Aus Dual RX480 - as you can see from the attatched two of the blades snapped right off Now i am considering just ghetto zip-tieing some fans to the bare heatsink as that will get me up and running but its pretty small and the RAM/VRM dont actually touch the heatsink so it got me thinking about replacing the heatsink entirely and I seem to have come up with some shortlist options https://www.arctic.ac/uk_en/accelero-xtreme-iv.html loos like a nice drop in and work solution and comes with some stick on heatsinks for the RAM http://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=46 but would need some extra fans so that will add to the cost or Has anyone used either of these? The card is part of a 3 card mining rig (two Asus Dual RX480's and one MSI GamingX RX480 so the replacement cooler needs to handle continuous heat. The rig also does game streaming via Parsec to a raspberryPi in my front room (keeps the hot and noisy computer away from where i game) I did think about a Kracken G12 and an AIO but iirc i dont think the kracken g12 is compatable with this card

Just a quick question Does having your CPU and GPU(s) on seperate cooling loops actually do anything beneficial or is it just because dual loops are pretty cool when running two different colours of cooland?

The good thing is as its not actually going in a case when it goes in the front room (plan to custom build it into a open cabinet) i might get enough airflow being pulled through to cool them anyway

Not yet - 100% stock Will be fitting a stereo to it as i do love my big stereo's - this is the car i had before the volvo - Sadly that car had to be written off due to the damage the install did

As a newbie thought i would show what i drive My weekend toy - old skool Jag XJ with a V8 and my daily driver is a 5cy Turbo diesel volvo

Dont worry i will be sticking to the same metal on the blocks/radiators to avoid galvanic corrosion It sounds like you have the same thought pattern as myself primesonic as my thoughts were with the alphacool blocks it should passive cool the RAM and VRM in one easy to go option - obviously attatching aftermarket passive cooling to the RAM and VRM gives me that same benefit regardless of the block used The thing is as this is going into the av display in my front room I kind of want it to look good and the EK thermosphere just look epic.

HI I currently have two RX480's running in a mining rig on air. The plan is that these cards will eventually move into a gaming machine in my living room to pull double duty as a gaming machine when required but mining rig the rest of the time. This leaves me with the problem of keeping them cool at a reasonably sound level for front room use and from the looks of it watercooling is the only real option as they will be under full load almost all the time The two cards I have are an Asus Dual and a MSI GamingX so the off the shelf full cover block that EK do for the RX480 wont work. This leaves me with the generic GPU waterblock options. it looks like so far my options are EK Thermosphere - https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-thermosphere Plus points is that it looks really good and the EK name is known Bad points are that it only cools the GPU core so I would need some passive heatsinks at least on the RAM and power delivery EK VGA Supremecy - https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-vga-supremacy Slighty cheaper, not as cool looking and has the same issue of just the core being cooled Alphacool NexXos - https://www.alphacool.com/shop/gpu-cooler/ati-fullsize/21720/alphacool-nexxxos-gpx-ati-r9-480-m03-mit-backplate-schwarz This has the advantage of having the core cooled by the block but having a full cover passive heatsink to handle the ram and Voltage regulator Downside is that is looks a bit plain and is more expensive - this may balance out when extra RAM/power delivery heatsinks are added to the EK config Raijintek GWB-C1 http://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=33 This one looks like it could be the cheapest option but i rarely hear this company talked about so i dont know the quality and i would still need to look at some sort of passive cooling on the RAM and power delivery. Unless im missing something for blocks it looks like the Alphacool is the best choice but has anyone got any thoughts on this?