My A51 ALX

[ALXAndy]

Hi all ! am finally getting to the point where I'm almost happy enough to stick the side panel back on..

 

So here is my rig :)

 

Specs-

 

Dell Alienware Area 51 ALX chassis

1200w Newton PSU

AMD FX 8320 OC to 4.2GHZ

Asrock 990FX Extreme 3

Palit Jetstream GTX 670 X2 SLI

Mushkin Blackline (Frostbyte) 8GB @ 1600mhz

Coolit Eco II (Corsair H60) running two Arctic F12s in push/pull

Corsair Force Series (SII) 120gb

Patriot Convoy SSD hot swap box

4x Seagate Pipeline 500gb

Sony DVDRW

Alienware Delta fan in GPU duct (120mm)

Arctic F9 at rear

Xilence 80mm cooling the northbridge

NZXT internal USB hub.

 

Here she is, sad and empty two days ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:D

[alpenwasser]

This looks familiar... :D

[ALXAndy]

Haha yeah !

 

I did do some work on the cables though !

 

Thanks for pointing me here man, good to meet up again.

[alpenwasser]

Yes it is indeed.

 

On another note: I'm out of house tomorrow, so I'll probably write my response-essay to your latest email on Saturday. ;)

[ALXAndy]

haha no need to go mad I was kinda ranting.

 

Now where did I put that box of caustic soda?........... :D

[alpenwasser]

Yeah but I enjoy a good rant once in a while and as you may have noticed I can

be rather long-winded myself. :lol:

Ontopic: Where's that Xeon of yours going to go now? And may I suggest adding

those nice videos of the case flaps moving to this thread? Use the media tags

for youtube btw.

[media]videourl[/media]

[ALXAndy]

I'll shoot some videos tomorrow. Nicola (my baby :) ) has a tripod somewhere !

 

I ended up having to remove the 4GB Radioactive memory (2x2gb) so I will now (if MSI ever return by board,still nothing BTW !) have my Xeon, Z77a G45, 4gb ram and whatever else I have lying around..

 

I may just build Nicola a gaming rig or a small server :)

 

I forgot how quirky AMD boards can be with odd sets of memory tbh. My Z77 just laughed at it but my 990FX? holy crap dude, four hours of setting it up only to find the board wouldn't boot. In the end I had to over volt it and remove the Radioactive just to get it booting.

[alpenwasser]

Yeah do something nice for your lady, that's always a good idea. :)

I've read on several sources that the SR-2 can be a very finicky beast as well, I'm

equally curious and intimidated by whether or not she'll be cooperative or not. But

I guess that's always the case with the most desireable ladies. :lol:

[ALXAndy]

haha true that man. Yeah I gotta say I almost gave up tbh. I just could not touch the multi AT ALL without it spazzing and dying.

 

Very odd that you have to take to the FSB on AMD but hey, if needs must haha.

 

Asrock were really supportive tbh shared a few emails with them today :)

[alpenwasser]

The only thing I've overclocked in the last few years was my 2600k, and obviously

that was a rather trivial affair.

Luckily B-Negative has given me some info on how to go about the SR-2 which should

help me figure things out, but I'm sure it will still be quite a monumental task.

But ah well, live would be boring otherwise, so I'm sort of looking forward to some

proper tinkering.

It's so nice when tech support does what they're supposed to do :)

EDIT: This thread must be so weird for the uninitiated. "What the heck are

these two talking about?!" :lol:

[ALXAndy]

Few updates.

 

1. My SSD decided to die in the hot weather spell we had. Second Corsair SSD I've had die, will be my last.

 

2. Have changed quite a bit with my rig.

 

Wiring tidied.

 

 

H100 with Cougar Vortex PWM fitted and a T-take in the rear.

 

 

I also bought a Killer NIC card for really cheap for when I go wired soon. I only wanted it for the software.

[alpenwasser]

Nice to see it up and running again. Those Cougar fans look tasty. :wub:

[ALXAndy]

Yeah they're among the best for static pressure apparently. All I know is that even at 7v the stock fans drove me nuts.

 

I am quite tolerant to noise but those things? I even managed to slice my finger on one of the blades taking them out.

 

Sadly Cougar do not distribute fans here in the UK so they're priced quite disgustingly (you're looking at over £20 a fan ffs). Thankfully some guy on Ebay did that for me and I only paid £20 for both 

 

Been working out ways to bring the noise levels down. This hot summer has been a complete git tbh. Still not replaced my SSD (too broke :( ) so I'm living from an old 80GB SATA 1 drive for booting from.

 

It's pretty painful tbh. Hopefully I'll be able to replace the SSD within the next few weeks

[alpenwasser]

Yeah they're expensive as !@#% where I live as well :(

How's the build quality though? Rather sturdy or a bit on the flimsy side as with so many

other fans?

Sucks about the SSD, sometimes life just has a habit of not doing what you'd want it to

(yeah, right, "sometimes" :lol: )

[ALXAndy]

When it comes to quality they're really super. Think Noctua without the yucky colours (that being subjective of course, you may not like orange and black).

 

But yeah, nice and heavy and really whisper quiet.

[alpenwasser]

Good to know. I'm quite the build quality fetishist, so my big dream is that the Gentle Typhoons

come out in a 140 mm version at some point (I know, totally unrealistic). Those double ball

bearings... :wub:

Or maybe even a 140 mm x 38 mm fan of industrial quality. Ah well, maybe those new industrial

Noctuas (the black ones they expo'd recently) can somehow be acquired by civilians as well,

who knows. I am toying with the idea of ordering one of those Cougars as a sample and see if

I like them.

I do actually rather like orange and black, if I'd had the money for it I would have put together

a rig with the Gigabyte X58-OC when it came out (that board was just pure awesome IMO). Ah well,

can't have everything. ;)

[naca1227]

I fucking love that Alienware case. 

[alpenwasser]

I fucking love that Alienware case.

Although Alienware is a bit too flashy for my taste I do like the engineering and all

those nice extras they put in their cases (like the battery powered LED lights for when

you open the door and your PC isn't running). There are some things I'd like different

if I was to buy one, but they could be worked around with some modding (window, interior

paint job for example).

I recently came across this build log of an alienware case, which I thought was pretty

awesome.

[ProGearUk]

No offence to you but I just categorically disapprove of Alienware all together. I think they are just for too teenagey amongst many other things. 

[ALXAndy]

No offence to you but I just categorically disapprove of Alienware all together. I think they are just for too teenagey amongst many other things. 

 

That's fine every one is entitled to their opinion

 

Thanks for the teenager compliment :D I'm actually knocking on the big 4-0 door. 

[ProGearUk]

That's fine every one is entitled to their opinion

 

Thanks for the teenager compliment :D I'm actually knocking on the big 4-0 door. 

don't you think the styling is aimed at a younger market though. 

[alpenwasser]

don't you think the styling is aimed at a younger market though.

From what i can tell that does seem to be the case (not totally sure though, never read too

much about AW) , but just because you're not in the target audience doesn't mean you can't

enjoy it IMHO. I'm pretty sure quite a few of the TV shows I tend to watch and like are not

exactly aimed at my demographic, but I still enjoy them.

As for AW, I think it's quite curious how much hate they tend to get. Sure, there are some

spoiled kids who got an AW from their parents without either of them really knowing what the

hell a computer actually is (let alone how it works), but they're kids FFS! And of course

some of that hate is then translated onto AW themselves, but that's not really a very

reasonable approach IMHO. Some people say AW are way overpriced for what they are, but all

those little custom details that go into their machines do cost to R&D and manufacture I

would think.

As far as I can tell, AW found their niche market and were (are?) quite successful in that

segment. Although I can't claim to belong to that part of the market, I don't really have a

problem with them doing their thing and other people enjoying that.

[ALXAndy]

don't you think the styling is aimed at a younger market though. 

 

No not really. The Predator chassis series was clearly a very art deco style meets Japanese bullet train. Before that? they just took a Chieftec Dragon and painted it pretty colours before adding the branding.

 

The later models are just basic stealth type designs. The only teenagers they appeal to are rich show off types who know little to nothing about computers. That doesn't mean they like the design it just means they have rich parents who can afford to fund their boasting. Those types always end up selling them on Ebay and getting next to nothing for them.

 

I like their cases and I've owned most of them. Mostly because I like how they got in first and finally ended the "boring beige box" that we had been putting up with for over decade. Funny how a lot of so called PC enthusiasts hate Alienware, yet, all they did was do what we all dream of (IE making big money out of our passion) and so on. So I can't hate for that.

[ProGearUk]

No not really. The Predator chassis series was clearly a very art deco style meets Japanese bullet train. Before that? they just took a Chieftec Dragon and painted it pretty colours before adding the branding.

 

The later models are just basic stealth type designs. The only teenagers they appeal to are rich show off types who know little to nothing about computers. That doesn't mean they like the design it just means they have rich parents who can afford to fund their boasting. Those types always end up selling them on Ebay and getting next to nothing for them.

 

I like their cases and I've owned most of them. Mostly because I like how they got in first and finally ended the "boring beige box" that we had been putting up with for over decade. Funny how a lot of so called PC enthusiasts hate Alienware, yet, all they did was do what we all dream of (IE making big money out of our passion) and so on. So I can't hate for that.

I just do not like the look of them. To me they do not say pc enthusiast enough. I like a clean cut system. I mean metal piping or little to no branding with meticulous care to every detail such as polishing water cooling fittings.

[Mooru]

I'm in my mid 20's and I do agree that it might be aimed at teenagers. But I can't help myself. I do like the look of that case a lot :p Nice build. Enjoy it