I would appreciate some help finding a new dual socket board and case

[NoxiousOdor]

Hello everyone, for a while now I have been building a dual xeon x5690 server and I ran into some issues with the current motherboard and case that I have and I am looking for replacements. What I currently have is the case and motherboard from a Dell Poweredge t410 which was working out fairly well until I realized that this particular motherboard only has one cpu 8 pin connector that both sockets use. It needs a power distribution board connected to the psu to tell the MB how to split the power but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an easy way to make the PDB compatible with the PSU I want to use. Also, with the case being large and steel it was very tubby. With all of the parts assembled it was 70+ lbs.

 

What I am looking for now and would appreciate help in finding is a new motherboard compatible with my procs (LGA1366), and if possible it would be great if it was on the medium to small size. I have found some boards that would work but they are in the range of $400-$500 for some reason. Is there any cheaper than this?

 

Also I'm confused on how to tell if a case is compatible with a particular server motherboard or not. If someone could explain this to me I would be grateful.

 

Thank you all for your time and any help you can provide.

 

Oh and I am looking to keep the combined price of both the MB and the case to around 400USD or less. If this is an unrealistic figure I don't mind being shown what it would cost to make this work. Thanks!

[Windows7ge]

Why do you want to stick with such an old socket? I built myself a dual socket server using LGA2011.

[NoxiousOdor]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

Why do you want to stick with such an old socket? I built myself a dual socket server using LGA2011.

I wouldn't mind doing a LGA2011 build but I already have the two cpus for a 1366 build

[crzyces]

18 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

Hello everyone, for a while now I have been building a dual xeon x5690 server and I ran into some issues with the current motherboard and case that I have and I am looking for replacements. What I currently have is the case and motherboard from a Dell Poweredge t410 which was working out fairly well until I realized that this particular motherboard only has one cpu 8 pin connector that both sockets use. It needs a power distribution board connected to the psu to tell the MB how to split the power but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an easy way to make the PDB compatible with the PSU I want to use. Also, with the case being large and steel it was very tubby. With all of the parts assembled it was 70+ lbs.

 

What I am looking for now and would appreciate help in finding is a new motherboard compatible with my procs (LGA1366), and if possible it would be great if it was on the medium to small size. I have found some boards that would work but they are in the range of $400-$500 for some reason. Is there any cheaper than this?

 

Also I'm confused on how to tell if a case is compatible with a particular server motherboard or not. If someone could explain this to me I would be grateful.

 

Thank you all for your time and any help you can provide.

 

Oh and I am looking to keep the combined price of both the MB and the case to around 400USD or less. If this is an unrealistic figure I don't mind being shown what it would cost to make this work. Thanks!

Too many boards to list, but an eBay search of LGA 1366 Dual Socket Motherboard showed hundreds of good boards. I like Supermicro, but that is just my preference. Also, a search for LGA 1366 Dual Socket Motherboard Cases and LGA 1366 Dual Socket Motherboard towers returned hundreds of results well in your budget. Most boards were between $52-$113 and the cases between $25 and $100, some with psu's, some without. The easiest way to tell is to pick your favorite board, check dimensions, slots, well all the specs on the manufacturer homepage. Look at the pics. Save them to your desktop, tablet, whatever. Then do the same with the case.

 

I'd put links but there are literally thousands of combinations in your price range.

[Windows7ge]

Alright, I'll see what I can find. You'll probably have to drill holes in the case to mount it though because I think Dell uses their own proprietary motherboard form factors (At least in their server line-up). They don't follow any standard as far as I have been able to tell.

[crzyces]

@WhisperingKnickersYou are switching boards too, thank goodness. Right?

[NoxiousOdor]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Alright, I'll see what I can find. You'll probably have to drill holes in the case to mount it though because I think Dell uses their own proprietary motherboard form factors (At least in their server line-up). They don't follow any standard as far as I have been able to tell.

Yeah I might have to do that if I can't find a case but I am looking into replacing the case I have so I dont necessarily have to worry about making a MB compatible with my current case

1 minute ago, crzyces said:

You are switching boards too, thank goodness. Right?

Yes the board is the #1 problem. As far as getting cases from supermicro goes, do they have smaller cases? All I have been able to find on their website is large tower/workstation cases and rack mount cases

[crzyces]

Just now, WhisperingKnickers said:

Yeah I might have to do that if I can't find a case but I am looking into replacing the case I have so I dont necessarily have to worry about making a MB compatible with my current case

Yes the board is the #1 problem. As far as getting cases from supermicro goes, do they have smaller cases? All I have been able to find on their website is large tower/workstation cases and rack mount cases

They do, but you may have to do same digging. That's why I said to check the dimensions of the board itself, and where the i/o's are, as it opens up a ton of options case wise. I use Supermicro in most of my Xeon builds, as their boards tend to be relatively standard size wise (Well they offer a bunch in standard non whacky dimensions and shapes), giving case selection/building/modding extremely easy.

[NoxiousOdor]

12 minutes ago, crzyces said:

They do, but you may have to do same digging. That's why I said to check the dimensions of the board itself, and where the i/o's are, as it opens up a ton of options case wise. I use Supermicro in most of my Xeon builds, as their boards tend to be relatively standard size wise (Well they offer a bunch in standard non whacky dimensions and shapes), giving case selection/building/modding extremely easy.

You have given me a lot to look into thank you for responding to the post. I am finding some decent options now

[crzyces]

I love old Xeons. You'll find some nice boards with cpu's and RAM quite a bit too. I grabbed a dual socket supermicro with 2 x5650's, aftermarket huge heatsinks, 48 gigs of ECC (Supported up to 192 I believe); the board had 2 dedicated 2.0 x16 lanes (each 8x8, so no split in sli or CF) 3 x8, 4 x4, 3 pcie x, 10 USB 3.0, no idea on fan headers, but the board was just packed to the gils. Where there was space there were stick on heat sinks. Guess how much? I spilled my coffee before I could "Buy it Now". $150 usd. By far the best deal I have ever gotten on a combo, and this was before the drop and the x5650's were still selling around $53 or so.

[NoxiousOdor]

5 minutes ago, crzyces said:

I love old Xeons. You'll find some nice boards with cpu's and RAM quite a bit too. I grabbed a dual socket supermicro with 2 x5650's, aftermarket huge heatsinks, 48 gigs of ECC (Supported up to 192 I believe); the board had 2 dedicated 2.0 x16 lanes (each 8x8, so no split in sli or CF) 3 x8, 4 x4, 3 pcie x, 10 USB 3.0, no idea on fan headers, but the board was just packed to the gils. Where there was space there were stick on heat sinks. Guess how much? I spilled my coffee before I could "Buy it Now". $150 usd. By far the best deal I have ever gotten on a combo, and this was before the drop and the x5650's were still selling around $53 or so.

That is awesome, the rig I currently have I got the Dell poweredge t410 for free, I don't remember all the stats at the moment but I sure couldn't beat the price. I'm really disappointed it isn't going to work for what I need. I got two big air coolers for $25 each, I got 64Gb(8x8) of ecc ram for $90 from a guy on the forums here and I got the 2 5690's as a pair for $350. Do you have a link to that particular board you mentioned? was that on supermicro or was that ebay? If it was ebay don't worry about it.

 

The biggest problem I'm running into now is all of the reasonably sized boards I'm finding are only compatable with rack cases

[crzyces]

19 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is awesome, the rig I currently have I got the Dell poweredge t410 for free, I don't remember all the stats at the moment but I sure couldn't beat the price. I'm really disappointed it isn't going to work for what I need. I got two big air coolers for $25 each, I got 64Gb(8x8) of ecc ram for $90 from a guy on the forums here and I got the 2 5690's as a pair for $350. Do you have a link to that particular board you mentioned? was that on supermicro or was that ebay? If it was ebay don't worry about it.

 

The biggest problem I'm running into now is all of the reasonably sized boards I'm finding are only compatable with rack cases

I don't have the link, I bought it a little over a month ago from eBay, built a case for it. It was a gaming/workstation for a home office, so they wanted it to blend well with their modern "Wooden" theme, so I stained 9 pieces of 2/3, added fake hardwoodfloor snap together sides, mounted a bunch of bays, from old cases inside, cut out a spot for the psu, the i/o's, drilled holes for the mobo, drilled about 100 tiny holes on each side, 10 larger on the bottom and top, spray painted an old screen black to keep out dust, blah blah etc, tossed on some cheep hinges from an old cabinet in the basement ;^), S few more adjustments, fans, gpu, 1 ssd, 2 hd's, and it was on it's way. i think all together, with the insane 1200 watt psu it cost about $525 total as I had just about everything except the psu, rx 480 8 gb (which was on sale for $179) and ssd on hand. I oc'd the X5650's to 3.9, sold it for $1100. Oh, I added an optical drive as well (Standard Bluray/DvDRW which was in my closet).

[crzyces]

18 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is awesome, the rig I currently have I got the Dell poweredge t410 for free, I don't remember all the stats at the moment but I sure couldn't beat the price. I'm really disappointed it isn't going to work for what I need. I got two big air coolers for $25 each, I got 64Gb(8x8) of ecc ram for $90 from a guy on the forums here and I got the 2 5690's as a pair for $350. Do you have a link to that particular board you mentioned? was that on supermicro or was that ebay? If it was ebay don't worry about it.

 

The biggest problem I'm running into now is all of the reasonably sized boards I'm finding are only compatable with rack cases

You can always mount more bays in a normal case.

[NoxiousOdor]

2 minutes ago, crzyces said:

You can always mount more bays in a normal case.

I don't need more bays I am more concerned with whether or not the MB is actually compatible with the mounting points in the case. I'm only planning on using 2 HDD's and one SSD. My problem is the only usable MB's I'm finding on supermicro/ebay are only compatible with rack server cases. I did find one case that is a normalish tower case but it is $500. I'm starting to think it was a waste to buy the procs I have and I should have gone with something more modern : /

[crzyces]

11 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

I don't need more bays I am more concerned with whether or not the MB is actually compatible with the mounting points in the case. I'm only planning on using 2 HDD's and one SSD. My problem is the only usable MB's I'm finding on supermicro/ebay are only compatible with rack server cases. I did find one case that is a normalish tower case but it is $500. I'm starting to think it was a waste to buy the procs I have and I should have gone with something more modern : /

You can't just drill new holes for the mobo, screw in some plastic mounts, and put the motherboard in? Sorry, maybe I am so used to making slight to extreme mods this seems like a simple fix. The 5690's are very good procs, and can OC up to about 5 (if you are going to game/work on them which I assume since you don't want a server case).

[NoxiousOdor]

24 minutes ago, crzyces said:

You can't just drill new holes for the mobo, screw in some plastic mounts, and put the motherboard in? Sorry, maybe I am so used to making slight to extreme mods this seems like a simple fix. The 5690's are very good procs, and can OC up to about 5 (if you are going to game/work on them which I assume since you don't want a server case).

I suppose I could. I was hesitant to do that because I haven't done it before and I am not sure of the best way to go about it. Realistically that would be my best bet though as long as I can find one that I can align properly with the oi openings on whatever case I end up using. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I am building it to be able to work from home as well as game on it.

[crzyces]

1 hour ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

I suppose I could. I was hesitant to do that because I haven't done it before and I am not sure of the best way to go about it. Realistically that would be my best bet though as long as I can find one that I can align properly with the oi openings on whatever case I end up using. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I am building it to be able to work from home as well as game on it.

That's perfect. Just find any case that appeals to you, or just something dirt cheap, whatever suits you. Look up the interior dimensions to make sure everything fits physically. Order the board and case. Put the board down in the case. Take a thin pen like a writing sharpie (or grab some eye liner as it has a soft tip. Put it through the mother board holes to leave a mark on the case. Do that for each hole in the motherboard. Take the board off and drill through. Place plastic screw risers in the holes, put the mobo on the risers, and screw it into the plastic risers, using a plastic or rubber washer between the metal screw and mother board (So you are screwing the mother board into the threaded plastic risers. They may already be in the case, and may be made of copper or aluminum. If so, just unscrew those and move them to the new holes).

 

It is exactly like installing a board normally, but you are drilling the holes onto the motherboard tray..

[NoxiousOdor]

11 minutes ago, crzyces said:

That's perfect. Just find any case that appeals to you, or just something dirt cheap, whatever suits you. Look up the interior dimensions to make sure everything fits physically. Order the board and case. Put the board down in the case. Take a thin pen like a writing sharpie (or grab some eye liner as it has a soft tip. Put it through the mother board holes to leave a mark on the case. Do that for each hole in the motherboard. Take the board off and drill through. Place plastic screw risers in the holes, put the mobo on the risers, and screw it into the plastic risers, using a plastic or rubber washer between the metal screw and mother board (So you are screwing the mother board into the threaded plastic risers. They may already be in the case, and may be made of copper or aluminum. If so, just unscrew those and move them to the new holes).

 

It is exactly like installing a board normally, but you are drilling the holes onto the motherboard tray..

That actually doesn't sound so bad. Thank you for all of your input so far you are actually helping a lot. This may be a dumb question but do most boards come with standard lga 1366 heat sink mounting points? I ask because my old board did not and making it compatible was a tense experience involving drilling 8 holes through the mounting system that board came with. 

[crzyces]

3 hours ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

That actually doesn't sound so bad. Thank you for all of your input so far you are actually helping a lot. This may be a dumb question but do most boards come with standard lga 1366 heat sink mounting points? I ask because my old board did not and making it compatible was a tense experience involving drilling 8 holes through the mounting system that board came with. 

The Super Micros normally do. I had 2 8 screw Tower Heatsinks (Probably what you are referring too) I put top and side blowers on. I wish I took pictures. Once my divorce is final I'm going to buy a bunch of "fun" stuff (Lol, that means a $62 wide screen 1080p webcam and a 34" curved 1440p ips monitor) and start YouTubing my builds, as they really are whacky. Custom cases. Some Wood, some glass (My new one, which I am keeping, is a cherry wood framed dark tempered glass with a fake black quartz back/bottom with a tinted glass dual open cabinet front (I recycled it from an old entertainment center). Oh, did I mention it's going to be wall mounted?), some metal, most combos of them all. I really want to make one with old car windows. I know, sounds lame, but I have a design in my head for it. Two left passenger side windows so it has a curve, black cast iron as the frame itself. Not sure about the top, bottom, back and front though. I can probably get the Windows from a junk yard for like $5 bucks each. Doesn't matter what it comes from, probably an old Honda or something. I already have the black cast iron frame from, of all things, an old restaurant chair from my college days that somehow stuck with me through 4 moves, and it's been non used until last year when I set it outside with a small table. The part you sit on broke somehow, and as soon as I saw the legs the first thing I thought was "Custom case".

 

When you get things squared away, if you need any help oc'ing, let me know. OC'ing Xeons is the best. I've gotten an 2 x5650 too 4.29 on air and still had headroom (it was those fricken giant heatsinks, I tell you). I'd love to see where the x5690's go. We'll shoot for 4.8 on air! I want to beat an OC'd 7700k. I think I can do it with 2x5650's in certain games (Like GTA V, which isn't my choice of game, but it's cpu intense and will use all 12 threads).

 

If I was mechanical engineering talented I'd try to get 2 PCIe x16 3.0 in an LGA 1366 board, but running the correct current to certain spots is a bit different than soldering something on. I wish it were that easy. Heh, I wish I could find an LGA 1366 with one already built in. They have to have made them, as the tech was out right at the end. Still, with dedicated 2.0 x16 there still isn't a bottleneck (maybe 2 FPS on a 1080ti, but nothing noticeable. DDR6/HBM2 will probably show though.

 

The funniest thing is, I'm happy gaming at 1080p 45 fps with good graphics, but just building the darn things is such a blast.

Edited April 26, 2017 by crzyces
Heh, the thing you sit on. i think they call it a seat. Stupid.

[NoxiousOdor]

14 hours ago, crzyces said:

The Super Micros normally do. I had 2 8 screw Tower Heatsinks (Probably what you are referring too) I put top and side blowers on. I wish I took pictures. Once my divorce is final I'm going to buy a bunch of "fun" stuff (Lol, that means a $62 wide screen 1080p webcam and a 34" curved 1440p ips monitor) and start YouTubing my builds, as they really are whacky. Custom cases. Some Wood, some glass (My new one, which I am keeping, is a cherry wood framed dark tempered glass with a fake black quartz back/bottom with a tinted glass dual open cabinet front (I recycled it from an old entertainment center). Oh, did I mention it's going to be wall mounted?), some metal, most combos of them all. I really want to make one with old car windows. I know, sounds lame, but I have a design in my head for it. Two left passenger side windows so it has a curve, black cast iron as the frame itself. Not sure about the top, bottom, back and front though. I can probably get the Windows from a junk yard for like $5 bucks each. Doesn't matter what it comes from, probably an old Honda or something. I already have the black cast iron frame from, of all things, an old restaurant chair from my college days that somehow stuck with me through 4 moves, and it's been non used until last year when I set it outside with a small table. The part you sit on broke somehow, and as soon as I saw the legs the first thing I thought was "Custom case".

 

When you get things squared away, if you need any help oc'ing, let me know. OC'ing Xeons is the best. I've gotten an 2 x5650 too 4.29 on air and still had headroom (it was those fricken giant heatsinks, I tell you). I'd love to see where the x5690's go. We'll shoot for 4.8 on air! I want to beat an OC'd 7700k. I think I can do it with 2x5650's in certain games (Like GTA V, which isn't my choice of game, but it's cpu intense and will use all 12 threads).

 

If I was mechanical engineering talented I'd try to get 2 PCIe x16 3.0 in an LGA 1366 board, but running the correct current to certain spots is a bit different than soldering something on. I wish it were that easy. Heh, I wish I could find an LGA 1366 with one already built in. They have to have made them, as the tech was out right at the end. Still, with dedicated 2.0 x16 there still isn't a bottleneck (maybe 2 FPS on a 1080ti, but nothing noticeable. DDR6/HBM2 will probably show though.

 

The funniest thing is, I'm happy gaming at 1080p 45 fps with good graphics, but just building the darn things is such a blast.

I'm sorry to hear that you are going through a divorce that sucks. But your build sound awesome dude and you couldn't have replied with all of this at a better time! I kid you not last night I was thinking about what case to get and then I got distracted with thinking about the bin of legos I have in my car and in storage. Boom, a lego PC case. I think that is what I am going to do. I have had legos my entire life and I haven't used any of them in years so I thought this might be a good "Fully Modular Nostalgia Build."

 

I probably will need some help OC'ing I have never done it  before and I want to make sure I don't mess anything up. What do you think of the GAMMAXX 400? I would be fine getting better coolers but I already have two of these.

 

As far as bottle-necking goes that really isn't too bad. I know that I wouldn't notice. the computer that I have been using for the last 7 years has no dedicated graphics anyway and the proc is an AMD e-350. If you don't know what that is you should look it up, by today's standards it is kinda funny. Using it to game has taught me to be content with whatever fps I can manage

[crzyces]

That is awesome regarding the case. Someone actually asked me if they could build one from legos and asked how? I said "Of course, you an build a case from cardboard and an old Styrofoam beer cooler. We decided on lincoln logs though (seriously) with spray adhesive to keep certain parts in place. Lincoln Logs topple easy, but I'm sure you know that. Legos work perfect, and the kids will love it.

 

Coolers... Those are, ok? They are side blowers, right? You'll be alright with them. We'd have to test the OC to see where we get temp wise. If you didn't already have them I'd say to grab a couple Dynatron R17 3U's (They're thechnically for 2011 boards, but ez enough to fit with a 1355). The great thing about the Dynatron's, is they are side blowers, but are still big enough to mount another fan on top, so you get great cooling (Like $150 Noctua cooling per heatsink/fan) for $27 bucks, just by adding a cheap/free fan to the top). Don't think the Deepcool's are big enough to add an extra fan, but they are good little fans. Got your heatpipes along with the normal heatsink and fan, so already a leg up on Intel.

 

Speaking of cooling and OC'ing. This PC is just a beater. An old (But petty cool looking) black midtower with a 3570k in it, a cheap 550 ti 1 gig gpu (I allocated 3 gigs of system memory to it so it's really more like a super cheap 4 gig card). Anyway, the stock clock is 3.4. I had it running at 4.2 for awhile since I was gaming on it while finishing other people's builds, pc's, back and forth to lawyers, court, etc.. I noticed it was running hot. So I looked (I've gotten 3570's to 4.95 on great custom air coolers) at the fanand heatsink again, finally pulled it off as I'd already lowered theOC to 3.9 a week or two ago, and I was still idling at 42, but now I'm watching YouTube and playing with Photoshop CS 12, and I'm at 60-73 celcius. I was like wtf? So I reboot, go into the BIOS, and IDK what happened, but I started a game that loaded one of my test profiles I made when stress testing with the stock cooler, so the cpu was set to a minimum speed of 3.8 and a turbo of 4.5. To make matters worse, the thermal paste is 5 YEARS OLD! It's half gone, the rest dried as heck. So I grab some old diaper cream, mix it with a dab of Vaseline, use that, change the profile to run at 2.5 (I under clocked it) but turbo up to 4.1 to see if the bum paste and ckean stock heatsink and fan can deal with it. Low and behold, at 4.2 stress for 10 minutes, I never went over 85c (105 is the max I believe, 125c is what it says as max, but I'm not testing that theory), and idling at 27c. I'm playing Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution right now, so I just left that profile. No reason to have the pc auto running at 3.4 when I start a game if it only needs 2.5 (maybe even less for those). Heh, butt cream from 5 years ago saved the day!

 

No worries about the divorce, I just want it over. Maybe I'll private a message over if I want to vent about it, but a public board isn't the place for divorce stories .

 

Toss some mock cases together for ideas. Building your own is a blast. Watch, it'll start with legos, and the next thing you know you'll be at a pick and pull junkyard taking out car windows!

[NoxiousOdor]

7 hours ago, crzyces said:

That is awesome regarding the case. Someone actually asked me if they could build one from legos and asked how? I said "Of course, you an build a case from cardboard and an old Styrofoam beer cooler. We decided on lincoln logs though (seriously) with spray adhesive to keep certain parts in place. Lincoln Logs topple easy, but I'm sure you know that. Legos work perfect, and the kids will love it.

 

Coolers... Those are, ok? They are side blowers, right? You'll be alright with them. We'd have to test the OC to see where we get temp wise. If you didn't already have them I'd say to grab a couple Dynatron R17 3U's (They're thechnically for 2011 boards, but ez enough to fit with a 1355). The great thing about the Dynatron's, is they are side blowers, but are still big enough to mount another fan on top, so you get great cooling (Like $150 Noctua cooling per heatsink/fan) for $27 bucks, just by adding a cheap/free fan to the top). Don't think the Deepcool's are big enough to add an extra fan, but they are good little fans. Got your heatpipes along with the normal heatsink and fan, so already a leg up on Intel.

 

Speaking of cooling and OC'ing. This PC is just a beater. An old (But petty cool looking) black midtower with a 3570k in it, a cheap 550 ti 1 gig gpu (I allocated 3 gigs of system memory to it so it's really more like a super cheap 4 gig card). Anyway, the stock clock is 3.4. I had it running at 4.2 for awhile since I was gaming on it while finishing other people's builds, pc's, back and forth to lawyers, court, etc.. I noticed it was running hot. So I looked (I've gotten 3570's to 4.95 on great custom air coolers) at the fanand heatsink again, finally pulled it off as I'd already lowered theOC to 3.9 a week or two ago, and I was still idling at 42, but now I'm watching YouTube and playing with Photoshop CS 12, and I'm at 60-73 celcius. I was like wtf? So I reboot, go into the BIOS, and IDK what happened, but I started a game that loaded one of my test profiles I made when stress testing with the stock cooler, so the cpu was set to a minimum speed of 3.8 and a turbo of 4.5. To make matters worse, the thermal paste is 5 YEARS OLD! It's half gone, the rest dried as heck. So I grab some old diaper cream, mix it with a dab of Vaseline, use that, change the profile to run at 2.5 (I under clocked it) but turbo up to 4.1 to see if the bum paste and ckean stock heatsink and fan can deal with it. Low and behold, at 4.2 stress for 10 minutes, I never went over 85c (105 is the max I believe, 125c is what it says as max, but I'm not testing that theory), and idling at 27c. I'm playing Mass Effect 2 and Deus Ex Human Revolution right now, so I just left that profile. No reason to have the pc auto running at 3.4 when I start a game if it only needs 2.5 (maybe even less for those). Heh, butt cream from 5 years ago saved the day!

 

No worries about the divorce, I just want it over. Maybe I'll private a message over if I want to vent about it, but a public board isn't the place for divorce stories .

 

Toss some mock cases together for ideas. Building your own is a blast. Watch, it'll start with legos, and the next thing you know you'll be at a pick and pull junkyard taking out car windows!

Thanks! I thought it might be cool. I am thinking of mostly using the technic beam pieces because they are really light but strong and easy to work with, I think I will be able to get something pretty sturdy with them.After I find a design that I like and that i know works I will probably glue them together to make everything a bit more solid.

 

I have seen a case made from a box but lincoln logs? That is super cool. It sounds slightly sketchy but I but it looked really cool. The neatest thing with stuff like that is you can feel confident that nobody else has a computer quite like yours.

 

I am super surprised that the diaper cream and vaseline worked that is fantastic. What in the world is the cream made out of? I feel like that shouldn't work. I would be interested to try different materials to see what else could work. But yeah for it to work so well that is awesome. If something like that works then I feel hopeful that my cooling should be okay esspecially considering that many of my games are older and should in theory not be as taxing as many recent games (not that I don't expect to get some modern games that would only be expected).

 

If you ever need to vent feel free to send a message, I can be a good listener. Sometimes it is nice to talk to someone who is involved and have your thoughts heard. I used to talk to my coworkers a lot when I had things going on and it was nice to have someone to bounce thoughts off of.

 

I should probably stop after the legos haha this project is already costing more than I had estimated. even so though this build will be at an almost unbeatable value in terms of cost to performance. I am really excited for it. After this project maybe I will do something creative for a friend I know. He has been thinking about getting a system for gaming to replace his laptop. I think he hasn't gotten one yet because of his classes along with cost. I have a spare 5607 that I'm not using and it isn't the best xeon ever but it could probably do better than what he has so maybe I throw something together to get him started.

 

Thanks for all of your advice and ideas. It is awesome that you have an interest in this and that you are willing to help I will certainly take you up on that offer. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to overclocking and when I find a motherboard that looks intriguing I will send you a link to see what your thoughts are.

[crzyces]

Diaper cream is made mostly of zinc ion (the main ingredient in artic silver thermal paste, and the Vaseline was to make it a bit less thick. I'd hear (or read) of someone using toothpaste and Vaseline, but my toothpaste has fluoride in it and whitening which are both semi solvent; plus it dries out quickly, so I thought "Triple Paste Butt Cream" (When your kid gets his first diaper rash you turn into a crazy ingredient reader).

 

I was thinking about the lego build, then the lincoln log one, and wondered if he ever worked chimneys in for top air ventilation.

[NoxiousOdor]

7 hours ago, crzyces said:

Diaper cream is made mostly of zinc ion (the main ingredient in artic silver thermal paste, and the Vaseline was to make it a bit less thick. I'd hear (or read) of someone using toothpaste and Vaseline, but my toothpaste has fluoride in it and whitening which are both semi solvent; plus it dries out quickly, so I thought "Triple Paste Butt Cream" (When your kid gets his first diaper rash you turn into a crazy ingredient reader).

 

I was thinking about the lego build, then the lincoln log one, and wondered if he ever worked chimneys in for top air ventilation.

That is really interesting. I love learning stuff like this, it is something fun that I didn't know before and I will likely never need the information. If he didn't add chimneys then he really should that is an awesome idea. You would make it look like a scale model of a house if you really wanted to.

 

Oh and as far as building my case I think this is going to be a great tool

http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/

It is pretty much autocad for legos and when you are done building the set they will mail you the pieces and directions to assemble it.

[crzyces]

That Lego builder is awesome. I need to reinstall autocad on one of my pc's. I have an old version a friend sent me as his "Back up" copy (it is an old business license for up to 30 pc's installed and he only uses it on 10 at work, and 3 at his residence I believe), so technically, it is legal.

 

I used it a little, but it was a bit much for what I needed (basic case designs, tree house for the kid, that kind of thing where a sketch pad and a pencil work just fine ;^) . So I kinda gave up w/the steep learning curve and all. Kinda like me wasting 75 hours of my life learning 3d  Studio Max for "Fun". I made some neat chess pieces faster than I could with a free POV Ray renderer, but I'm not super into making in depth graphic mods for games, when there are so many people who are more skilled, have the time, and already do it, then give it away for free (well I think registering at the Nexus let's you DL files over 2 gigabytes and rated M+, so it really costs about $3 usd for a lifetime of free mods to just about every game you can think of. Cool for older games where they remake them in high res, or games where you just want better looking hair, clothes, weapons, faces, bodies, whatever).