sort of but not really build log (new stuff update log)

[helping]

There's so much stuff and mining rig mishaps going on in here it's hard to decide an order. Be warned it's pretty long with a lot of pictures ranging from potato to ok.

 

Primary venture was repurposing an old moderate/high end POS into a miner in a ghetto modded case so it doesn't look goddawful or too out of place anymore. 

 

Original parts list and changes:

• ABit Fatal1ty AA8XE
• 4GB Corsair XMS  800Mhz (or 533 idk)
• 9800GTX+ --> GT440 --> Former pair of 2GB MSI 7850's to mine
• 80GB WD Velociraptor (things almost 8 years old nows)
• 500w modular Antec whatever PSU --> 620w Antec Neo
• 3.2Ghz Pent 4 HT from like 2005 or something --> underclocked to 3Ghz, was running too hot with heat sink being choked out.
• Thermaltake Shark, which was abused to hell and scratched and blemished everywhere, seriously needed a new coat of paint. It's definitely not a poorly built case so I was hesitant to throw it out for a sub 50$ piece of lame, but at the same time it wasn't worth spending a lot on a case for a mining PC that would also double as a secondary PC for someone who doesn't particularly care too much about the case. As long as it doesn't look like it was dragged through the street and used to kill 3 people and a dog. 
• The previous owner also managed to get coffe stains on the INSIDE of the case.
• I don't even know
• 20$, won't complain

I don't have much before and after, so this was mostly after:

 

kind of what the front looked like before

 

Plasti-dipping after blowing two holes into the top and bottom

Note that cutting a clean 120mm circle with a jigsaw is somewhat difficult

I also painted the wrong side of the fins (metal pieces on top of the case), not thinking about it when I took it off and painted it, so I had to do those, again. 

 

 

came out 'k'

It's hard to get good coverage with plasti-dip and the panels especially need retouching after opening and closing a few times. The matte textured finish is worth it though. 

 

"finished" build with a GT440 main and two 7850's to mine

Everything is held in place with double braided fishing line () and chained zip ties to be adjustable and easily removable. 

 

 

Unfortunately the GT440 had to be removed. I didn't factor this in since I figured any given board should be able to power at least 3 PCI powered components, but this board is not any given board. I guess it's just too old to reliably deliver PCI power to three cards, or it just can't handle having two or three video cards in at once. With optimal config I only lost like 20-30 hash while still being usable, so I guess it's not that big of a deal. 

 

When multiple video cards are plugged in to this board it spews out a code which leads to some cryptic RAM error explanation in the manual, then it proceeds into boot loop. Since ABit doesn't exist anymore, and there's nobody online with this problem I was kind of on my own.

 

It even gives the error with only two GPU's plugged in. I could have possibly tried shorting the 1x bus to bypass the issue, but I ended up circumventing it in the most annoying way possible. Turning this miner off is a complete catastrophe. If for some reason anyone ever finds themself in this situation, the procedure to force a boot (I confirmed this is precise and repeatable):

• Switch off PSU, clear CMOS
• Remove all cards except main VGA
• Boot into Windows 
• Shut down, switch PSU off
• Plug in secondary GPU, switch PSU on, then boot. Must be done in approx. 10 seconds.

I don't know why, but if I did anything different it does not boot. Turning the computer off or restarting it from this state will pretty much break it and will have it stuck in boot loop with RAM codes again. As you might imagine it was incredibly frustrating to find out the CPU is now overheating when doing anything remotely intensive (Youtube on an old P4, goddamn inefficient Adobe) since this process would have to be repeated in addition to messing with clocks. 

 

In retrospect, 3 GPU's might work if I did the same jumping process but it would be difficult to pull off. 

LEDs cause why not

 

 

 

dat clearance 

 

 

Completed I think it came out ok

 

 

 

sea of spoiler tags:

Entire family here

 

Picked up a pair of Polk Series 2 monitors on sale off of Newegg. As of right now they're 120$ but regularly go on sale for 80$. They sound really good actually, completely destroys my old Logitech X540 gay'meh'in speaker system. They're pretty light on bass, good mids, strong but not violent highs, which was perfect since I was going to buy a subwoofer anyway. 

 

 

 

Bummed this receiver off my uncle, it wasn't up to the job since he was trying to load like 10 speakers onto it and was using the A+B speaker sets and driving the ohm load on the amp too low. Kept shutting off to protect the amp above ~25% volume. If anyone can tack a date on it, it would be great to know. I'm genuinely curious. Short of calling Yamaha, there is no date on it and the manual miraculously doesn't have a single date printed in it. I know it must be between 1995~2001. Possibly older, but not likely.

 

Compared to the e10, the headphone jack actually sounds virtually the same to my ears with both my AD700 and 990. The amplifier adds almost no audible static hiss on both the speakers and the headphones unless it's turned up to near max volume, some of feedback is actually from the e10 since you can hear the noise changing depending on my PC is doing (source is the e10 line out to RCA. Note line out =/= front headphone jack). An old receiver that you have laying around or can find on the cheap local is a pretty decent substitute to a dedicated headphone amp. Overall impressed. 

 

As of right now, these Polk monitors are seriously efficient. I can't crank this receiver above 1/4~1/3, it's painfully loud and that's not a pleasant listening experience. 

 

Now, before you guys ridicule me and tear me a new one, the fans are on there to keep it cool. A receiver is not designed to be oriented on it's side. It's built to be passively cooled and grilled on the bottom and top to naturally radiate heat. By turning it on it's side, passive cooling is effectively completely nullified. The fans were required to keep it operating cool.

 

Because I don't want to have fans running in my room 24/7 (like when I'm not using it) the PSU the fans are plugged in to is on a power strip with a switch below my desk so I can turn it on whenever. The LED lights here actually serve a purpose, not just to look cool. I have to constantly remember to turn the fans on before cranking the amp, since I can't see the fans from where they're positioned, the LED lights serve as an indicator. Otherwise I would likely forget, and we all know heat is bad. 

 

 

It was somewhat difficult to pick one. Contenders were a Martin Logan Dynamo 300, and a Polk Audio 10", but Martin Logan putting something out at 130$ is like Ferrari making a 15k consumer car, and I wasn't really sure what I'd be getting minus the branding price hike, and the Polk subwoofer seemed to not have as powerful low end extension and had a few mixed reviews.

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this one, it can go from fun "rattle rattle" back massage type bass to well blended accurate bass, meeting the balanced "hidden speaker" goal. Only issue is there is a small hole in frequency response between the transition of subwoofer to midbass, but I'll probably have to play around with the frequency crossover more and phase sequence more.

 

jk

 

+1 for soft foam padding

 

840 EVO (for sale btw, to be added in classifieds shortly) and 12" ruler for scale

 

 

 

 

well, it's kind of big as you can tell. I didn't have anywhere good to put it except for on my night stand, so no more alarm clock and lamp. I'm just going to have to man up and hellen keller my way to the bathroom to take a piss at 3 AM because I've got my priorities straight. 

 

 

Minor blemishes, it's not nice to have but I suppose it's nothing major. At 150$ I won't take too much off especially for what it delivers.

 

 

ages ago with phugly H60 and 6850 CF

 

Threw out the H60, did a custom loop, moved up to a 7850 at first then added another a month later. (Blurry photo, all I had)

 

 

Redone.

My old watercooling stuff will also be up in the classifieds soon. 

 

 

Current state and move to air. (Note. in all the photos the PC is on, the fans are just running at minimum RPM)

I'm sure at least @TopWargamer @WoodenMarker and @Vitalius should recognize the shiny red fork 

 

 

Glam shots. For a plastic front door, it's honestly one of the things I like the most about this case. 

 

 

 

since I told @SAV1OUR I would

Top of case for reference. This has to be wiped down and shaved every two weeks or so. Consider that my room is carpet, probably going to put in wood soon but moving all my stuff....eh I'll have to do it over the break before summer semester.

 

 

Top of GPU, it's been here for around 1.5 months, so I wouldn't expect much. The heat sink ended up blocking out the light from the camera ):

 

 

Bottom intake fan dust

 

 

 

Bottom intake fan so you can actually see the dust

 

 

Area around the bottom fan. This has never been directly cleaned, mind you I've had this case since October of 2012.

 

 

 

Heat sink and top exhaust dust

 

 

Motherboard shots. Mind you the only time this board has been moved was uninstalling the H60, and that was around a year ago. 

 

 

The dustiest (or perhaps most noticeable?) part of the case is the PSU. This has been in for around 5 months. I suspect a lot accumulates because there's not much air flow in that region. Part of it could just be from the textured finish.

 

 

 

 

 

wat, did they send me the wrong package? I didn't order that much

 

 

 

 

I guess it was cheaper to automate it and send it to me in this giant box. 

 

Either that or excessively safe packaging, but at least it's not broken.

 

 

 

Next upgrade is probably going to be an i7+770 or something from AMD if they come out with a compelling chip in the next two years. 

 

ty friends.

[SAV1OUR]

says hes going to fix dust issues has a strand of hair on the top

FIX IT FIX IT NOE! 

[Ryan Leech]

Dat packaging

 

I remember one time when Newegg sent me a box that size with no packing material and my hard drive bouncing around. Somehow it arrived in one piece

[Vitalius]

I found my mention :DDD. LONGINUS! 

[Lachrymal]

Sterile!

[DirkaFat]

How do you keep that GPU from sagging? I don't see a backplate, yet it's so straight...

[flibberdipper]

Cool.

[TheSLSAMG]

Nice. Sometimes I think about how I should have gotten an R4, but I don't regret getting a C70 instead. I still might want to try one though, but for now the C70 stays. Did you see a temp increase CPU wise moving from the custom loop to a 140mm air cooler? I am going to upgrade my CPU and board for reasons that I will not go into for an i7 4770K and Z87 MPOWER (maybe even a MAX.) If any company releases a nice, exciting case in the coming months, I may buy one. For now, I will keep the C70 and consider the 760T and 600T. Maybe an R4, but how is the airflow?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dat 770 doe

[LancerBG]

Polk  :wub:

[Used Rubber]

FARM GOAT

[helping]

I found my mention :DDD. LONGINUS!

Nail polish is a scam dude. I had to blow 10$ on black and red polish to get the color right since they come stock plain old silver.

 

 

How do you keep that GPU from sagging? I don't see a backplate, yet it's so straight...

 

Idk. I laid it flat and put the card in and really torqued those screws. Putting the power cable above the card and getting some tension on that should help as well. The PCI bracket should counteract any force from the power cable pulling a bit.

 

Did you see a temp increase CPU wise moving from the custom loop to a 140mm air cooler? R4, but how is the airflow?

 

Yea, roughly 10c jump, but my WC setup was pretty overkill and I don't have my CPU clocked that high anyway. The airflow is pretty low, but with top vent fans and different fans there should be decent air flow. I never move my fans above 5v and keep the CPU fan at 25%, it only begins to ramp up at 52c.

 

 

 

 

 

dat 770 doe

FARM GOAT

BRO, IM COMING OVER TOMORROW MORNING WE GOIN AT 10.

[adriel604]

Just curious what made you move from custom water cooling to air?  Usually it's the other way around lol

[helping]

Just curious what made you move from custom water cooling to air?  Usually it's the other way around lol

I mostly just did it for the sake of doing it.

 

I went to air since I wasn't pushing my chip that hard and wanted to go for silence instead. 

[adriel604]

I mostly just did it for the sake of doing it.

 

I went to air since I wasn't pushing my chip that hard and wanted to go for silence instead. 

lol nice one.

 

Air is quieter than a custom water loop?

[helping]

lol nice one.

 

Air is quieter than a custom water loop?

A high end air cooler, yes. 

[bamerx98]

There's so much stuff and mining rig mishaps going on in here it's hard to decide an order. Be warned it's pretty long with a lot of pictures ranging from potato to ok.

 

Primary venture was repurposing an old moderate/high end POS into a miner in a ghetto modded case so it doesn't look goddawful or too out of place anymore. 

 

Original parts list and changes:

• ABit Fatal1ty AA8XE
• 4GB Corsair XMS  800Mhz (or 533 idk)
• 9800GTX+ --> GT440 --> Former pair of 2GB MSI 7850's to mine
• 80GB WD Velociraptor (things almost 8 years old nows)
• 500w modular Antec whatever PSU --> 620w Antec Neo
• 3.2Ghz Pent 4 HT from like 2005 or something --> underclocked to 3Ghz, was running too hot with heat sink being choked out.
• Thermaltake Shark, which was abused to hell and scratched and blemished everywhere, seriously needed a new coat of paint. It's definitely not a poorly built case so I was hesitant to throw it out for a sub 50$ piece of lame, but at the same time it wasn't worth spending a lot on a case for a mining PC that would also double as a secondary PC for someone who doesn't particularly care too much about the case. As long as it doesn't look like it was dragged through the street and used to kill 3 people and a dog. 
• The previous owner also managed to get coffe stains on the INSIDE of the case.
• I don't even know
• 20$, won't complain

I don't have much before and after, so this was mostly after:

 

kind of what the front looked like before

 

Plasti-dipping after blowing two holes into the top and bottom

Note that cutting a clean 120mm circle with a jigsaw is somewhat difficult

I also painted the wrong side of the fins (metal pieces on top of the case), not thinking about it when I took it off and painted it, so I had to do those, again. 

 

 

came out 'k'

It's hard to get good coverage with plasti-dip and the panels especially need retouching after opening and closing a few times. The matte textured finish is worth it though. 

 

"finished" build with a GT440 main and two 7850's to mine

Everything is held in place with double braided fishing line () and chained zip ties to be adjustable and easily removable. 

 

 

Unfortunately the GT440 had to be removed. I didn't factor this in since I figured any given board should be able to power at least 3 PCI powered components, but this board is not any given board. I guess it's just too old to reliably deliver PCI power to three cards, or it just can't handle having two or three video cards in at once. With optimal config I only lost like 20-30 hash while still being usable, so I guess it's not that big of a deal. 

 

When multiple video cards are plugged in to this board it spews out a code which leads to some cryptic RAM error explanation in the manual, then it proceeds into boot loop. Since ABit doesn't exist anymore, and there's nobody online with this problem I was kind of on my own.

 

It even gives the error with only two GPU's plugged in. I could have possibly tried shorting the 1x bus to bypass the issue, but I ended up circumventing it in the most annoying way possible. Turning this miner off is a complete catastrophe. If for some reason anyone ever finds themself in this situation, the procedure to force a boot (I confirmed this is precise and repeatable):

• Switch off PSU, clear CMOS
• Remove all cards except main VGA
• Boot into Windows 
• Shut down, switch PSU off
• Plug in secondary GPU, switch PSU on, then boot. Must be done in approx. 10 seconds.

I don't know why, but if I did anything different it does not boot. Turning the computer off or restarting it from this state will pretty much break it and will have it stuck in boot loop with RAM codes again. As you might imagine it was incredibly frustrating to find out the CPU is now overheating when doing anything remotely intensive (Youtube on an old P4, goddamn inefficient Adobe) since this process would have to be repeated in addition to messing with clocks. 

 

In retrospect, 3 GPU's might work if I did the same jumping process but it would be difficult to pull off. 

LEDs cause why not

 

 

 

dat clearance 

 

 

Completed I think it came out ok

 

 

 

sea of spoiler tags:

Entire family here

 

Picked up a pair of Polk Series 2 monitors on sale off of Newegg. As of right now they're 120$ but regularly go on sale for 80$. They sound really good actually, completely destroys my old Logitech X540 gay'meh'in speaker system. They're pretty light on bass, good mids, strong but not violent highs, which was perfect since I was going to buy a subwoofer anyway. 

 

 

 

Bummed this receiver off my uncle, it wasn't up to the job since he was trying to load like 10 speakers onto it and was using the A+B speaker sets and driving the ohm load on the amp too low. Kept shutting off to protect the amp above ~25% volume. If anyone can tack a date on it, it would be great to know. I'm genuinely curious. Short of calling Yamaha, there is no date on it and the manual miraculously doesn't have a single date printed in it. I know it must be between 1995~2001. Possibly older, but not likely.

 

Compared to the e10, the headphone jack actually sounds virtually the same to my ears with both my AD700 and 990. The amplifier adds almost no audible static hiss on both the speakers and the headphones unless it's turned up to near max volume, some of feedback is actually from the e10 since you can hear the noise changing depending on my PC is doing (source is the e10 line out to RCA. Note line out =/= front headphone jack). An old receiver that you have laying around or can find on the cheap local is a pretty decent substitute to a dedicated headphone amp. Overall impressed. 

 

As of right now, these Polk monitors are seriously efficient. I can't crank this receiver above 1/4~1/3, it's painfully loud and that's not a pleasant listening experience. 

 

Now, before you guys ridicule me and tear me a new one, the fans are on there to keep it cool. A receiver is not designed to be oriented on it's side. It's built to be passively cooled and grilled on the bottom and top to naturally radiate heat. By turning it on it's side, passive cooling is effectively completely nullified. The fans were required to keep it operating cool.

 

Because I don't want to have fans running in my room 24/7 (like when I'm not using it) the PSU the fans are plugged in to is on a power strip with a switch below my desk so I can turn it on whenever. The LED lights here actually serve a purpose, not just to look cool. I have to constantly remember to turn the fans on before cranking the amp, since I can't see the fans from where they're positioned, the LED lights serve as an indicator. Otherwise I would likely forget, and we all know heat is bad. 

 

 

It was somewhat difficult to pick one. Contenders were a Martin Logan Dynamo 300, and a Polk Audio 10", but Martin Logan putting something out at 130$ is like Ferrari making a 15k consumer car, and I wasn't really sure what I'd be getting minus the branding price hike, and the Polk subwoofer seemed to not have as powerful low end extension and had a few mixed reviews.

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this one, it can go from fun "rattle rattle" back massage type bass to well blended accurate bass, meeting the balanced "hidden speaker" goal. Only issue is there is a small hole in frequency response between the transition of subwoofer to midbass, but I'll probably have to play around with the frequency crossover more and phase sequence more.

 

jk

 

+1 for soft foam padding

 

840 EVO (for sale btw, to be added in classifieds shortly) and 12" ruler for scale

 

 

 

 

well, it's kind of big as you can tell. I didn't have anywhere good to put it except for on my night stand, so no more alarm clock and lamp. I'm just going to have to man up and hellen keller my way to the bathroom to take a piss at 3 AM because I've got my priorities straight. 

 

 

Minor blemishes, it's not nice to have but I suppose it's nothing major. At 150$ I won't take too much off especially for what it delivers.

 

 

ages ago with phugly H60 and 6850 CF

 

Threw out the H60, did a custom loop, moved up to a 7850 at first then added another a month later. (Blurry photo, all I had)

 

 

Redone.

My old watercooling stuff will also be up in the classifieds soon. 

 

 

Current state and move to air. (Note. in all the photos the PC is on, the fans are just running at minimum RPM)

I'm sure at least @TopWargamer @WoodenMarker and @Vitalius should recognize the shiny red fork 

 

 

Glam shots. For a plastic front door, it's honestly one of the things I like the most about this case. 

 

 

 

since I told @SAV1OUR I would

Top of case for reference. This has to be wiped down and shaved every two weeks or so. Consider that my room is carpet, probably going to put in wood soon but moving all my stuff....eh I'll have to do it over the break before summer semester.

 

 

Top of GPU, it's been here for around 1.5 months, so I wouldn't expect much. The heat sink ended up blocking out the light from the camera ):

 

 

Bottom intake fan dust

 

 

 

Bottom intake fan so you can actually see the dust

 

 

Area around the bottom fan. This has never been directly cleaned, mind you I've had this case since October of 2012.

 

 

 

Heat sink and top exhaust dust

 

 

Motherboard shots. Mind you the only time this board has been moved was uninstalling the H60, and that was around a year ago. 

 

 

The dustiest (or perhaps most noticeable?) part of the case is the PSU. This has been in for around 5 months. I suspect a lot accumulates because there's not much air flow in that region. Part of it could just be from the textured finish.

 

 

 

 

 

wat, did they send me the wrong package? I didn't order that much

 

 

 

 

I guess it was cheaper to automate it and send it to me in this giant box. 

 

Either that or excessively safe packaging, but at least it's not broken.

 

 

 

Next upgrade is probably going to be an i7+770 or something from AMD if they come out with a compelling chip in the next two years. 

 

ty friends.

 

Just wondering but for the 7850's my friend has two of them and I was trying to get crossfire working what driver are you using that uses both cards

[helping]

Just wondering but for the 7850's my friend has two of them and I was trying to get crossfire working what driver are you using that uses both cards

Any driver should work? There is no specific driver needed. What appears to be the problem?

[bamerx98]

Any driver should work? There is no specific driver needed. What appears to be the problem?

he's running the 14.6 driver and when he plays any game even bf4 the first gpu gets used but not the second was there a trick to get them working?

[Bagmup]

he's running the 14.6 driver and when he plays any game even bf4 the first gpu gets used but not the second was there a trick to get them working?

Has he enabled crossfire in CCC?

[bamerx98]

Has he enabled crossfire in CCC?

Yes sir

[helping]

Yes sir

He's running in full screen and at least 8x/8x slots, right? 

 

what board?

[bamerx98]

He's running in full screen and at least 8x/8x slots, right? 

 

what board?

He's running a Asus M5A99x Evo R2.0 with a 6300 and a corsair RM 850 watt, I have tried both cards in the top slot and the only game that uses both is bf4 with mantle enabled 

[helping]

He's running a Asus M5A99x Evo R2.0 with a 6300 and a corsair RM 850 watt, I have tried both cards in the top slot and the only game that uses both is bf4 with mantle enabled 

Does he have Thief to try if it works?

[bamerx98]

Does he have Thief to try if it works?

He does not have thief 

[helping]

He does not have thief 

has this been a problem for a long time? Even if so, has he tried rolling back to older drivers?