ManOfGold93

Ahh balls
 

 
I chipped the memory cooler but that should be cake once my brushes arrive. I am going to paint those ports at the bottom of the board too.

Hi. It doesn't dim them at all mate no. That's because it's almost crystal clear. It's expensive though at around £6 a roll.
 
I originally bought it to seal up a paint booth that I was making. However, whilst I was digging for scrap in the cupboard under my stairs I found three white LEDs, so decided to fit those to the paint booth.
 

 
Now note, in that pic the LEDs are completely taped down (like all the way along 'cause the adhesive had died) with two coats. I figured hey, if they mist up because of paint I can peel one off leaving me a new one
 
*goes to Ebay to check his purchase history*
 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181450055946?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
 
I'm not sure if they sell it in the USA though chap.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Das-Keyboard-Professional-Soft-Clicky/dp/B00KA4H72K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1476406131&sr=8-1&keywords=das+keyboard
Here's the UK layout with MX browns.

OK so now we are entering the final phase of work and modding. The last two pieces needed to be painted. Remember this? it's been a while...
 

 
Painted.
 

 
And some ram sinks.
 

 
And tbh I think that is all of the modding done. The case is ripped and stripped so the next task is giving it a ruddy good clean and drying it.

So my order of fittings etc is here I've now made up all of the parts that needed assembling and it's all now ready to have hose fitted.
 
The penultimate order from HK is in too, the 6 way fan splitter.
 

 
I wasn't expecting much of it but it's excellent. I said before that the fans were very quiet at 12v. Well I was wrong, especially when you are running six. One was barely audible but man get six of them going it sounded like a typhoon was passing through the living room Thankfully the low speed option brings them all down to barely audible as a whole. Very happy with that, can just throw the switch for benching.
 
OK so today I will not be working as I visit my mother every Friday. So I had some free time last night and got to thinking about the name of the project. Elvis was fine, but that was supposed to be a joke with the crappest water cooling parts you could buy. It's gotten a bit more serious since then and I wanted to dedicate it to Wayne who sadly died a while back.
 
So the project now has a new name. I was poking around a few days ago for a name that would suit the build. This ended up leading me to alien names, which then led me to Dianoga.
 
A quote from the Wiki page - "Dianoga would often prove a nuisance by nesting in bodies of water, sewage systems, and whatever other large concentrations of dirty, appalling liquid that they could locate"
 
Sounds absolutely perfect So I present the banner, and will be changing the name of the thread myself where I can.
 

Just to let you all know, I should be getting pictures of the assembled case today To not reveal too much the paper backing will remain (it's actually to protect it during shipping, but helps to not reveal too much

I finished the build today!
 
I have no time for a proper blog entry by now but here you have a sneak peak:
 

OK so here's what I got up to today. First after lots of measuring and a bit of cutting I lopped this off of the remaining sheet. Quick note - the sheet is a little warped. I didn't notice it until this morning. So if it looks like it isn't straight? it isn't. I need to fit a couple of solid blocks to keep it straight once it is final fitted.
 

 
I then had to bolt in the res bay. What a nightmare. After trying all sorts of hand gymnastics it then dawned on me that when I drilled the holes it was firmly taped to the roof. After about ten minutes and lots of swearing I realised that I needed three hands to do it. Or, you can just tape the bolts down, turn the case upside down and then slot the res bay over the bolts.
 
So I put on some double sided tape.
 

 
And then stuck the panel to it. I then removed all of the res bay bolts and went to take it out and it fell apart. Turns out there was a rivet stopping it pushing down all the way so I cut out a notch. Then I had to perform the same and annoying ritual again before getting this.
 

 
Which then allowed me to turn it over like this.
 

 
Remember I am cutting back to front on any dress up panels. The reason is that the rotary tool has a screw that holds the cutting disc on. This often burns along the edges of the piece. I have tried double masking and even duct tape but it still goes through. Obviously the other side is fine, so I have had to mirror mark everything which is pretty tricky.
I then marked it out (using the res bay as a template, hence why I needed them stuck together) and cut it out.
 

 
Then covered in masking and marked out some drill holes, then drilled 2mm pilots.
 

 
And, well, you know the drill on this bit (well actually soldering iron).
 

 
And in.
 

I won't say much other than "Don't wander too far"

so, after pestering Frozen-Q relentlessly, we finaly concluded a design for a custom case to build in. The case base is the the Frozen-Q Apex mATX.
This case will be modified to take in two ITX rigs, one with a full GPU and the other with just the motherboard AND two full ATX power supplies!

 

#triggered 

I know right.  Why any company still does it I do not know 

Made it into Linus' video again. So hyped rn, didnt know anything about it.
 
 
 

Well for someone who saved up for 3 years working less than minimum wage for my dad for this computers your words do sting but I also agree with you.

The front intake panel is now complete.
 

 
Just waiting for the glue to dry, it should be good tomorrow. Then I soldered the loom onto the switches. This loom provides two +/- 5v for the LEDs in the switches, as well as 12v switched (for the cathodes) and 5v switched (for the SSD UFO and nose cone).
 

 
I've promised myself a new XXL mouse mat and wrist rest but only when the build is complete. Here it is all lit up.
 

 
And all working as it should
 
I have decided I want custom GPU cables made up with a 14 pin comb x4. So they should be in some time next week, then I can press on and build it all
 

Here's what I have been up to today
 
Firstly the completed nose cone assembly.
 

 
I'm very happy with that. Especially as it literally came from junk.
 
Here is the back/side PSU cover and the radiator covers (they are numbered )
 

 
The front of the PSU box / control panel.
 

 
The SATA port cover.
 

 
And finally the "main deck"
 

 
The only panel I have left to do now is the upper deck where the SSDs will live. However, I now need to focus on wiring and fitting lots of LEDs (and of course the cathodes) so I will probably tackle the SSDs last.
 
I absolutely love this phase of a mod. It's when all of the ideas you have had come to fruition.

Played around all afternoon with the cables, the red ones you see are the phanteks extensions, they are a bit thicker than the CableMod ones so they're hard to put in, but once they're in, they don't move, it's a bit of a trade off. I like it, but my thumb hates it. This is just a quick and dirty testing and preliminary cable management. I will need to get my Phanteks Power Splitter and PWM hubs back! Also two more fans to install eventually when the time comes! 

Books. Books can't be hacked. Read more kids. 

No, there's a new exploit for those. They found a way to remove the metal sticks and steal your beads. It's being fixed in the next patch though.
 

The rule likely stems from a fear of: 
Sketchy sellers Sellers with only one item  Self advertising (that's what classifieds are for) They're there to product the userbase. With that said, Ebay links from verified sellers (newegg's ebay page for example) should be allowed. 

Please elaborate on what a PCPartPicker referral link is. I do not recall a referral link anywhere, but only links to builds people have made. Can you give an example, at least?

Uummm... honestly, i still prefer the old color sir.

Hello again everyone. This thread exists to document some of the fun (and beauty) building Ainulindale (Music of the Ainur) the companion NAS for Kurald Galain (and the rest of my network). It is currently being used as a plex server and a movie/picture/music repository (and backup).
 
Beware potentially large images... (Better images to be posted later)
 

 
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($53.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($119.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($63.98 @ Newegg) 
Other: ASRock Rack MITX   C2550D4I ($299.99)
Total: $1011.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-19 17:18 EST-0500
 
I already had one of the drives from Kurald Galain.
 
So... Part A) Walk-through/ Quick Review of Components...
Motherboard: Asrock C2550DL. 
The Good:
Mini-ITX Form Factor
Intel Avoton C2550 Quad Core 2.4GHZ featuring 14W TDP (Passively Cooled)
6 PWM fan headers
12 total SATA Ports (4xSATA2 and 8xSATA3) across three SATA Controllers
4x240pin DDR3 DIMM slots up to 64GB of total System RAM (Supports ECC)
Dual Onboard Intel Gigabit Ethernet
IMPI (allows you to control the computer via ethernet even when off, if you remember to use it XD)
Doesn't require any cpu pcie power.
The Bad:
No onboard audio (not surprising)
No usb 3.0 rear or onboard.
Only two USB 2.0 rear (one onboard)
Not cheap... (although a good itx mobo and an I3 isn't that much cheaper)
 
Ram: Kingston 2x8GB 1333 ECC Ram
The Good:
ECC...
Dual Channel Ram...
The Bad:
Green?
 
Case: Node 304
The Good:
Mini-ITX Form Factor
Beautiful minimalist design
Three included ultra-quiet fans
6x 3.5 bay drive support
Cheap 
The Bad:
Only USB 3.0 (so no front connectors for me...)
A shell that makes getting at the drives not as nearly as easy as a hotswap enclosure (although not awful)
Less than ideal cable management (although very easy imho.)
Doesn't build the computer for me...
 
Power supply: EVGA 650W GQ
The Good:
"Semi-modular" Although, only the 24 pin is connected to really it's full modular.
Ribbon connectors (super important for clean itx builds)
High Quality 80+ Gold
Cheapest trusted semi/full modular 80+ gold PSU (This was why I chose it) 
The Bad:
Way more power than I need.
A bit longer than I'd like (still workable at 170mm)
 
Drives: 4x HGST Deskstar NAS 3TB
The Good:
7200 RPM NAS drives means MUCH faster performance
Higher power efficiency than WD Reds (and Seagate consumer NAS drives) due to MUCH higher drive speed.
All the NAS drive goodness
The Bad:
Currently a bit more than WD Reds
Potentially (although not an issue for this case so far) a bit louder than WD Reds
 
 
 
Part B) The Build

 
 
Above are ze parts... Below shows the case starting to be filled out.. The mobo and PSU setup is SUPER AMAZING. I literally only have the 24 pin and two SATA chains hooked up. I did remove the front USB 3.0 and front audio connectors from the case, as well as the included fan controller since I don't need it, and I certainly am not going to plug in a molex chain just to run my fans when the motherboard has it's own fan control.
 

 

 
Adding in drives and starting to configure FreeNAS...

 
People who know FreeNAS may have already seen the issue that hit me really hard in the face...
 
FreeNAS is installed on a small (8-16GB) USB drive (unless you are stupid). It is also installed from a USB drive. This motherboard has two USB ports and the case can't provide front USB. I couldn't install FreeNAS because I couldn't plug in a keyboard at the same time as both drives to hit that one enter I needed to install the damn thing...
 
Now I don't own any computers with USB 2.0 and I couldn't get FreeNAS to install on Kurald Galain (it refused to boot from the installer drive), but I was able to find and scavenge a USB2.0 front panel connector from a broken computer at work.
 
Woot. So I booted into FreeNAS using this, got my shit installed, and started to get my cable management setup so I could actually you know... close up this computer and put it in it's place. Well as I was doing that i decided that just in case I ever actually needed a third USB port I was going to mount that hub inside the case. Case meet double-sided foam tape. Foam tape meet case...

 
From the other side...

 
 
I did improve cable management since this image and I will upload it and an external image in a few hours...
 
 
 
Part C) FreeNAS/Software Configuration
 
If you guys haven't done a FreeNAS build before and want to check one out, feel free to check out THIS video:
 
Once, I got the USB situation fixed, installing the OS and making my ZFS drive was super easy.
 
I wish I could say configuring my network was just as painless, but it wasn't. I have one of the two NICs configured to attach directly to my network, and the other directly to Kurald Galain (on different IP Gateways). This was done because in order to attach my NAS to my router I needed to go wireless with Kurald Galain (only one port coming into the room), and I was getting AWFUL transfer speeds from wired NAS to wireless Kurald Galain.
 
I also tried setting up a two nic aggregated link to Kurald Galain (which also has two nics), but they didn't share the same controller (on Kurald Galain, one is intel, one is AsMedia) and it utterly refused to work (or was 1/2 the speed of just one nic).
 
So the solution was to run one NIC direct to Kurald Galain (which easily saturates the 1 GbE in reads and writes) and throw the other to my network (so in theory I could run plex/other apps and let my other PC's access Ainulindale). Unfortunately while I am able to access Ainulindale from other wired computers on the network, I have yet to get plex to work (I click the activate option and it just uh circles and does nothing). If any of you guys have tips/tricks after experiencing the same issues please let me know.

If it's not suppose to be unlimited don't call it that in the first place
 
Now ready the pitchforks