93SHADoW

And now the quest is to find a spare 2080 Ti XC heatsink and fan assembly, as a spare. I intend to use this with my Ryzen 9 sleeper build, so finding a capable 92mm radiator for a custom loop may be tricky as the case its in limits the rear fan to only 92mm and wish to retain its sleeper status, although I may build an intake shroud for the intake fan (the only space for a 120mm fan is in the bottom of the case and not completely sure if it will properly fit).

On Sunday, while I was working at an e-waste dropoff/collection event, one guy came to drop off all sorts of unwanted peripherals inside a box, and immediately, I spotted what appeared to be an EVGA graphics card that was taken apart and asked the guy if the card worked. He claimed that it apparently burned out and couldn't get it to work. After clearing the box, I found the waterblock (an EVGA hydro copper) and the backplate, but the mounting plate was missing, as were the screws to hold everything together. The GPU die had "TU-102" on it, and sure enough, the backplate had "EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti", as did the side of the waterblock. Flash forward to yesterday, after digging out my tube of Artic MX-4 thermal paste, and enough screws to hold the backplate and waterblock in place, I put in some chilled distilled water, just enough to keep the card cool to see if I would get a video signal. Sure enough, the card came to life and was able to get a video signal without any artifacting at all while exploring the bios (I only tested it enough just to see if I got a video output and if it did, to see if there was any artifacting, didn't boot to windows as the water was only cold enough to last for a quick test) After a quick google search, it turned out to be an EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XC Ultra, with the Hydro Copper kit. Now all that's left is to find a new mounting bracket, and descale the waterblock (although I may convert it to air cooling, or at least get the NXZT or EVGA hybrid kit) and then I can do further testing. What probably happened is poor maintenance on the previous owner's part, as the waterblock does have a significant clog, and it got to the point that the card triggered its thermal protection, and he probably thought it was fried as a result. Can't beat a free 2080 Ti

You should hear them when they start up, they kick to full speed for a few seconds before slowing down! It's actually pretty quiet at its lower speeds.

The last of the build was completed back in July, but this is my sleeper which itself is a tribute to the first PC my parents bought new in 2004, a Compaq Presario SR1303WM. While this one is an SR2002X, it uses the same exact case, only that it has the revised side panel which has more ventilation than the original side panel the earlier versions of this case used. Cable management was a nightmare, but I did the best I could. Anyway, here's what's housed in the Compaq case: - Ryzen 9 3900X, running at a 4GHz OC. - 64GB 3200MHz DDR4 (G.Skill Ripjaws V) - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super - ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS - 512GB Inland SSD + 2TB Hitachi 7200RPM HDD - LG Blu-Ray/DVD/CD writer x2 - Asetek 645LT with a pair of 92mm Delta 154cfm fans (I had to build a PWM signal inverter to correctly drive these fans). - EK-Furious Vardar EVO 120mm fan for intake (107 cfm). Eventually I will 3D print a shroud with an insert for a filter for the intake fan. - PC Power & Cooling FireStorm 750W PSU (carried over from a previous build) - Zorin OS 15.3 Linux (based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS) I actually found the floppy drive module with matching bezel which came out of an older Compaq PC using the same case design earlier today, and intend to make it fully functional using a USB to floppy adapter (I do have some retro PCs that I occasionally write floppies for). Although I didn't build this with gaming in mind, as it is my workstation for model rendering, animation rendering and video editing, it can game just fine If i wanted to.

Ironically, I used to have a Dell Dimension XPS T500 that I used as a Windows 98 gaming rig until the board started having I/O issues. Same case. If you want a nice wow factor, keep the floppy as well as the optical drive. You can get a USB to floppy adapter, and swap out the optical drive with a TEAC DV-W524GSB-002 (they had these available in beige, as I have two myself in beige). However, removing the floppy and optical drives is fairly simple. There are screws in the front holding the 5.25" mounting cage as well as the 3.5" mounting cage. You would need to use the original cage as a basis for a new cage for mounting either a radiator (if water cooling is your thing), or to conceal all your wiring (limited cable management), or whatever you wish to do. Keep in mind, the single fan mount limits you to a 92mm fan. You can grab a San Ace 92 or something with a high CFM to compensate for the poor airflow in the case. You can also add an Evercool FOX-2 blower or 2 which only takes a single expansion slot. The last photo confuses me, as the other photos show you can just mount an ordinary ATX power supply, but on this one, it shows a different mounting method.