Hardware changes in my moms old pc

8tg · July 1, 2023

So my mom is getting a new pc, I’ve got most of it ordered for her, probably doing the fractal design terra but that’s a whole different ordeal.

This is documenting a teardown and hardware change.

So this let’s me get back at this thing:

I made this pc for her years ago, around 2017, right as the RX560 launched because that’s what it uses. This is an i7 7700T engineering sample on an evga Z270 stinger with 16gb of ddr4 at some speed that doesn’t work because xmp doesn’t work, and a 4gb msi rx 560.

It’s a very dense machine inside. These were parts I used to prove a point to some losers on the internet that case dimensions are underestimated always. So I put a DRP4 and Rm1000x into it to push the limits of its size constraints. It worked out fine though with some fun workarounds.

The machine has an odd airflow pattern, the cpu cooler intakes from the rear of the chassis, and exhausts into the psu fan intake, which exhausts out the bottom of the system. The RX560 is up there fending for itself but it does fine.

There really isn’t an intake in this chassis by design, some people swap the psu fan around and use the psu as intake, some use negative pressure entirely, I opted for inverted airflow direction.

There is a fan controller back here and I don’t know why. I don’t remember installing it, it’s not connected to anything. It did not come with the chassis and it’s one fan location. You can see the cable extensions used, yes, extensions not custom cables in this tiny box. This was to hide the thicc stock Corsair cables a little better but in what I intend to do to it, im not going to hide the cables like that again.

Here it is open topped, it’s an elaborate mess of cable cramming up there, there is a very specific way this pc comes apart and goes back together. You have to take apart I shit you not the entire chassis to get the cpu power connector out. Because you can’t remove the cpu cooler with with the bottom panel on, and if you take the bottom panel off you can get to the eps connector anyway. You need to remove the psu to get the 24 pin and eps out as well, which means removing the gpu, the cables to the psu (not the extensions though) and then the front I/o before you can slide the psu out.

It’s Tetris in there, and I love it. This PC is a nightmare to work on where if you fuck up like, plugging the psu end of the eps connector into the board, you need to undo like 10 other things just to flip the cable around.

Removing the gpu you see the lack of clearance with the drp4, it touches the ram, hard. And in order for this to work I had to add ram spacers:

Or so I call them, little plastic nubs I think from heat shrink tubing which keep the ram spaced apart.
“why would you do that you dipshit, the cooler can touch the ram and it won’t hurt it”

Thats where you’re wrong, it pushes on the ram so much that it actually causes connection problems with the slot. Using the spacers spreads that load out to the other stick which also flexes a little but provides enough push back to push the drp4 a little bit, and keeps good continuity. Or so I presume, it works consistently and I don’t want to mess with it.

I didn’t picture as much of this process as I should’ve, I replaced the psu with a Segotep one, and put the gtx 1080 mini in there. The psu swap was to make some room for a slightly longer gpu. It’s funny that even with the addition of a pcie cable into the mix, there’s less cable clutter without the extensions. This is just at the expense of not being able to hide the 24 pin as well, it’s very visible. I think that’s a reasonable trade off to have less cables in there.

The Rajintek metis is a really fun case and I wish they’d make a new revision of it with a glass side panel. It’s ITX in a form factor where you need to compromise on something, you can’t do a fuckhuge cpu cooler and psu with a normal sized gpu. Airflow is a real concern and it gets challenging to manage it with hotter parts.

In the future this Pc will get an i3 7350k which I want to get to 5ghz, and the drp4 will manage that no problem, but it’s going to be interesting to see the heat output change.