Zombie Mods - The TVR Sagaris.

[ALXAndy]

Hi guys. So I'm back. Only this time things are a little different.

 

 

 

As you guys know by now I managed to procure a I9/Xeon prototype. It's a six core, 12 threaded Intel CPU. I tried it in a X58 board with no success, which left me brainstorming trying to think of a way to get it running.

 

Let me digress for just a moment. You may have noticed that my next project is called The Bit Tech Beast. Bit Tech is a forum I visit daily and have found the most amazing of forumites there. You can find it on www.bit-tech.net. Over the course of the past few weeks several members there have donated parts to my last project. I will talk more about these parts in the near future, some can be unveiled now. This project's heart will beat by the human kindness of others. A true miracle.

 

Right. So I'm back to scratch.

 

The brains.

 

OK, So obviously right now I have a CPU. But how do I get it working? well, here's a little story for you. The I9 Steambox was set to run an X58 micro ATX board. Friends donated 4gb of memory to the project, as well as a graphics card. I then bought a PSU (that sadly exploded in my face) and the case was obviously heavily customised. So how could I get my CPU running with absolutely no chance of it not working? Well, the only way to do that was with professional equipment. I spent the last two days doing my research and eventually came up with three possible solutions.

 

1. A Dell Precision T3500 workstation. This workstation would work with my CPU (supports all 5600 series Xeons) but came with a couple of caveats. The first was that it only supports a maximum of one processor. Not a problem to me.. The second caveat is that it only has a 525w power supply with one 6 pin PCIE power connector. This is a problem, due to the GPU I wanted to use.

 

2. A HP Z600 professional workstation. Again, you are pretty much guaranteed CPU support. The caveat? they're £600 and up. Not a choice then.

 

3. My third and final solution was the Dell Precision T5500. It looks identical to the T3500 yet comes with a better motherboard. The board does support two CPUs, but, it requires a riser module. It's a very odd thing tbh but pretty cool. The nice part about the T5500 was that it comes with a Dell 875w PSU with four 8 pin (or 6 pin split-able) GPU connectors. Basically it's the same power supply Dell use in the Aurora ALX.

 

The problem.

 

The problem was simple - money. I don't know if you've ever looked at the prices these professional workstations sell for but they were way out of my reach. And then a miracle happened..

 

I was poking around on Ebay and found a company who deal with Dell directly. Basically they had some T5500 barebones rigs. Barebones as in, power supply, motherboard and CPU cooler. No graphics card, no hard drives, no optical drives and no memory. The price was out of my reach still, but after a long phone call explaining my situation they were willing to help me. In the end I bought the chassis, board, power supply and CPU cooler for £170. I have had to borrow money for this, but, it's pretty much a sure fire solution to all of my problems. Obviously the last project can not continue but I will endeavour to strip out all of the goodies I paid money for and use them as I move forward.

 

So here is what I have coming. It borders on both ugly and beautiful.

 

 

I found out that the front silver part is removable..

 

 

So you can bet your ass it will be modded

 

Here is the motherboard in it. Though not quite a SR2 it will do the job.

 

 

A package for me !!

 

So basically I am collecting parcels from around the world here is the CPU in the box it arrived in. A USPS priority box.

 

 

What's insulting is that it took two weeks for it to arrive. Any way, it's here..

 

So this morning I woke up and got dressed. The doorbell went around 9:45 AM with a very odd looking parcel..

 

 

How cool is this?

 

 

What's inside? well it's very heavy...

 

 

Time to undress it..

 

 

D.fucking.roool.

 

 

Ladies, Gentlemen, I present the MSI GTX 480 Lightning

 

Watch this space.....

[SAV1OUR]

this is going to be amazing 

[KieranThePCGuy]

Wow! Definitely looking forward to this!

[The_Strict_Nein]

That has to be the oddest looking board I have ever seen. Those riser blocks are bizzare. Still, looking forward to seeing this one succeed Hopefully!

[JAKEBAB]

i think i like the 480 twinfrozer more than the new cards

[ALXAndy]

i think i like the 480 twinfrozer more than the new cards

 

It's gorgeous. This particular one was only ever used on the 480 Lightning which is what separates this Lightning card from any other and what makes it so rare and desirable. So for example the cooler used on the 6970 Lightning was pretty much identical to the 580 Lightning and so on.

 

I think tbh that the 480 Lightning is the card that MSI really had to think about. The GTX 480 as it released was a total flop and MSI totally turned it on its head.

 

Mind you, you paid for it. Recent Lightning cards have been quite cheap in comparison to the £500+ they wanted for the 480 model.

[Karumu]

that lightning though  :wub:

[ALXAndy]

that lightning though  :wub:

 

Yup. Totally man. It's a violent work of art..

[ALXAndy]

Log 1.

 

So I was instructed by the guy who sent me the Lightning that it needed repasting pretty bad. So I took it apart.

 

 

Clean.

 

 

Clean.

 

 

Repaste, reassemble, life's good

 

 

[Homicidium]

Yes! Glad to see you back with another project, I really hope it's going to be as epic as the Zombiebox, although it wasn't finished

[ALXAndy]

Yes! Glad to see you back with another project, I really hope it's going to be as epic as the Zombiebox, although it wasn't finished

 

Well TBH the Steambox only really needed the hardware fitting and some braiding done. The actual physical case was pretty much finished tbh..

 

It looks like I will be breaking it down back into spares. A shame, but then needs must

[Pulsus]

yey you are back! subde asap

[KrutoyEegrok]

I hope it works

[TheLordofMoisture]

My body is ready.

[ALXAndy]

Good morning guys, I hope you're all good

 

So right now my mind is in design mode. I have no idea how this is going to go tbh, but I have had a couple of good ideas. Firstly I can not remove and discard the front as it contains diagnostic LEDs that let you know the rig is OK. So I'm still undecided on what to do there. What I do know is that the optical bay will be hosting an intake fan. Again, not sure what size or how I'm going to pull that off but yeah, air cooling is the theme here

 

What I have noticed is that the motherboard is actually mounted upside down in the case. This is absolutely awesome because if I get the side panel right and put a window in it then the menacing 480 Lightning will be on full view. Meaning I can use it as a display focal point of the build..

 

More to come soon....

[alpenwasser]

You just won't stay down, will you? (that's a compliment btw.)

What's under that blower on the M/B? It might not be an SR-2, but

make sure you give us a few pr0n shots of that board. You know,

for research purposes :rolleyes:

And hurray for reverse ATX! It's nice to actually see the side of

the GPU that matters instead of just the backplate.

[ALXAndy]

So it was time for an inventory ! First up a 120mm blue LED fan and a 92mm fan.

 

 

Then a 2.5 mount with some rubber grommets on to stop vibration. This could come in handy but will need to be painted black.

 

 

I've no idea if this works as it refused to play ball in Windows 8. However, this build will be running Windows XP among other OSes so I can enable it in XP and disable the onboard and do the opposite in 7, 8 and anything else.

 

 

Fingers crossed... A huge clump of wires cut from a dead PSU. To you lot this is mess, to me it's gold. You will see me use most of this later.

 

 

Red LEDs, orange LEDs and blue LEDs..

 

 

TIM cleaner, liquid pro and some decent white paste.

 

 

Braid.

 

 

Some drives.

 

 

Check this out. I bought these for the Steambox but never used them. They're Lightning fan grills

 

 

I will definitely be using those, possibly in the side of the case. Then a twin Molex - 6 pin PCIE for the memory power on the Lightning.

 

 

Two +2 wires should I need them.

 

 

And these..

 

 

They're taken from some OCZ 3 Platinum memory. The memory was useless because it was 1.95v so I am probably going to stick these to the ECC memory which is always boring with no sinks on.

[ALXAndy]

You just won't stay down, will you? (that's a compliment btw.)

What's under that blower on the M/B? It might not be an SR-2, but

make sure you give us a few pr0n shots of that board. You know,

for research purposes :rolleyes:

And hurray for reverse ATX! It's nice to actually see the side of

the GPU that matters instead of just the backplate.

 

It looks like the Nortbridge to me dude. I kinda like that cooler tbh.

 

I will most certainly be taking a plethora of photos. The chassis is set to arrive with DPD on Friday so expect tons of pics then.

 

A window is becoming a very strong possibility. Especially if I can place it right over the GPU. It would be nice to see it at work

[Karumu]

some nice stock, those fan grills are awesome, seems like you have alot of stuff. are you gonna rebraid the psu cables while theyre cut off? or leave the braid as is?

[ALXAndy]

some nice stock, those fan grills are awesome, seems like you have alot of stuff. are you gonna rebraid the psu cables while theyre cut off? or leave the braid as is?

 

I will be making up extension cables and braiding them. The plugs on the dead PSU have SATA connectors that can be braided shrink free. As I say, gold man. 

 

I won't dare try and braid the PSU as Dell connectors SUCK. I found this out a couple of weeks ago when trying to reuse some PCIE connectors out of my Alienware that had to be cut out. There's no room for the braid. Horrid things they are !!

 

I have two red PCIE plugs. What I will do is remove the Dell plugs and retain the wires but use my own connectors that will all be salvaged from the dead PSU

 

Not bad for free. I got a complete refund on it and was left to my own devices as to what to do with it.

[Karumu]

I will be making up extension cables and braiding them. The plugs on the dead PSU have SATA connectors that can be braided shrink free. As I say, gold man. 

 

I won't dare try and braid the PSU as Dell connectors SUCK. I found this out a couple of weeks ago when trying to reuse some PCIE connectors out of my Alienware that had to be cut out. There's no room for the braid. Horrid things they are !!

 

I have two red PCIE plugs. What I will do is remove the Dell plugs and retain the wires but use my own connectors that will all be salvaged from the dead PSU

 

Not bad for free. I got a complete refund on it and was left to my own devices as to what to do with it.

can't be bad eh? sounds like it will look awesome!

 

I'd braid my own cables, but i work full time so evenings when i get home is my game time haha, i will probably leave braiding my own cables, since i am getting an RM 750 and they have flat black cables to i may just leave them as is

[ALXAndy]

can't be bad eh? sounds like it will look awesome!

 

I'd braid my own cables, but i work full time so evenings when i get home is my game time haha, i will probably leave braiding my own cables, since i am getting an RM 750 and they have flat black cables to i may just leave them as is

 

I have a RM 750 and I hate to break it to you but the cables are bloody awful. I mean yeah, they're all black but they're as stiff as a board and really hard to work with. I ended up buying all braided extensions for mine.

[SAV1OUR]

I have a RM 750 and I hate to break it to you but the cables are bloody awful. I mean yeah, they're all black but they're as stiff as a board and really hard to work with. I ended up buying all braided extensions for mine.

i use a rm850 and it dont have any issues then again i have a phantom 530 and i have all the space for cables in the world 

[ALXAndy]

i use a rm850 and it dont have any issues then again i have a phantom 530 and i have all the space for cables in the world 

 

My case is more than accommodating tbh. I guess I'm just overly fussy but nothing beats paracord braided cabling.

[Karumu]

i guess i'll see when i get it, maybe as im using a 750D and an RM 750 the planets will align and i will have no issues