Ghost's Build Log [Complete]

[Andi]

Nice

[Ghost]

#2.2 Midplate finished

 

Hey, haven't done an update in a very long time.  I am actually further ahead than this update when writing this so some details may be gone.

 

At any rate, after I cut out the aluminium for the midplate I went on to cut the hole for the frosted Plexi window. Because of my "in-experience" with a grinder I ended up leaving way too much for myself to file. It just meant I had to file for absolutely ages to get the hole down to the size I wanted. After the really long task of filing down the hole I had of course managed to scratch the aluminium so I then had to spend almost the same amount of time sanding down the aluminium to get rid of the dents and scratches from the vice and the occasional whack from the file.

 

Next I went on to actually painting the mid-plate. The undercoat went on really well and after waiting for it to dry I started to put on the top black coat. That's when my issues started. I waited the 48 hours for it to dry but it still wasn't dry. The smallest amount of moisture on your fingers and the black paint would start to transfer over to them. It also meant it was slightly soft and it became a magnet for dirt and flecks of paint and dust. I was disappointed with the outcome overall. It would have looked rushed and horrible if I kept it that way.

 

My original idea was to use 3mm sound proofing foam to raise the level of the midplate so the plexi glass wound be embedded in the midplate and it wouldn't fall out. However, when the sound proofing foam arrived it was gray instead of black. So I came up with the idea of vinyl wraping the mid plate. Nothing could go wrong and I already had some vinyl wrap with me. I put the self adhesive sound dampening foam on (yes I managed to mess that up too, I had to re-apply it). and then started to vinyl wrap the midplate. The end result look surprisingly good and I actually found out that vinyl wrap is surprisingly easy to use and looks much better than paint. When covering small areas I would actually recommend it over paint.

 

The final result was a mid-plate I was happy with. It has a really nice soft feel from the top because of the foam and is hard from the bottom.

 

To support the mid-plate I cut out a small piece of metal, painted it black and used super glue to stick it to the case at the hard drive cages to support. That took a very long time and for the back support I ended up just using a piece of clear acrylic and super gluing that, it was much faster and you can't see it anyway because it's clear acrylic, and most of the time it's under the mid plate anyway. The mid plate holds very well.

 

 

[Ghost]

#3 The side panel window

 

Hey, this is going to be one of the last actual DIY updates in the build log, from now on I know everything I plan to do so it should all go smoothly.  Again, this is an update in the past and I have actually moved on from this but I thought this deserved an update of its own.

 

As you have probably gathered from the title this update is about the window I put into my side panel. It was important for me to have a big window that was the right size to show everything that was important in the build. I could have bought a windowed side panel directly from Cooler Master if I wanted it done perfectly but I didn't like the side-panel they offered. It had a fan mount in it which I hated  and showed too many pointless things, etc.

 

I basically made the side panel window as large as I could within the area I had to work with. From the mid plate to the ceiling and from the back to the HDD cage.  If I had made it a cm wider in any direction the plexi glass would have caught on something. In fact I had issues with that later down the line.

 

My first job was to actually cut the hole for the side panel. Again I was way to generous with the grinder and left myself far to large an area to "correct". Even though the steel panel was only  1mm (or less) thick I soon learned that steel is almost impossible to file down. Its far, far harder than the aluminium I worked with before. Well I knew it was harder but I underestimated it. I ended up grinding the hole down right to where I put the line. It actually came out quite well. Much better than I hoped.

 

After I cut the hole down I had the issue of the bare metal that was left on the place where the hole started (on the edge). My original plan was to re-paint the side panel but after the disaster with the mid-plate painting I knew the best option was to vinyl wrap it. So I bought some matt vinyl wrap and I wrapped it. The only issue I had was that, I used a piece of acrylic as a squeegee to get the air bubbles out (If anyone is planning this use a rubber squeegee). Unfortunately the acrylic was so hard that at the edge it manged to cut through the vinyl and you can see small amount of bare metal. I may paint that in the future with modeller's paint but its hard to see unless you look right at it so I'm leaving it for now.

 

Cutting the plexi was easy enough. (Yay for materials that are easy to work with!) However, because I made the hole so big I didn't leave myself enough of a ledge on the plexi glass. If I had attempted to drill through it I'm sure it would have cracked. So I resorted to using cyanoacrylate to stick the plexi  onto the side panel. The only downside is that I can't remove it if I ever want to replace it without damaging it. The only thing I'm not happy about is that while filing the edge on the plexi my file slipped and I managed to do a minute scratch in the corner of the window. Its very hard to see though so it's fine.

 

Thanks for reading if you actually got all the way through this. Leave some feedback if you have any! Don't forget there are more pictures in the album linked in the OP. 

 

 

 

[Emperor_Piehead]

looks good  I love windows that size it's one of the things I don't like about nzxt cases or the 900d.

[Parkway Drive]

I'll be interested at seeing your watercooling Ghost 

Love the 690, love the midplate, can't wait.

[Ghost]

I'll be interested at seeing your watercooling Ghost 

Watercooling can look great if you have a lot of money. I don't. I wouldn't hold my breath. This build I'm doing right now will end up looking much better than my main build. That's made for performance and quietness.

[Hazy125]

Watercooling can look great if you have a lot of money. I don't. I wouldn't hold my breath. This build I'm doing right now will end up looking much better than my main build. That's made for performance and quietness.

I'm sure you'll do a fantastic job even on a budget for your loop

[Ghost]

#4 LEDs

 

Hey, this is one of the final updates before components go into the system.

 

I have almost finished the LEDs. I have done all of the soldering and they are now basically ready to be plugged into the PSU. The LED making went quite smoothly. To start off I put sound dampening foam onto the base of the case and covered the foam with some matt vinyl. This gave me a nice soft, flat base to work on and also stopped any airflow through now the disused fan grill at the bottom of the case. I put 7 strips of 6 LEDs under the frosted plexi and then added various other LEDs around the case to remove any shadows from the GPU, etc.

 

I am aiming for really even lighting. One thing I did struggle with was soldering really short sections of wire to the LED strips, especially in the corners but it all conducts so it's all good.

 

In terms of what I have left with the lighting; The in-built LED switch was burnt out due to a short circuit. I have ordered an identical switch from china but it's going to take a while to arrive. Until then, the LEDs will be on for pictures and off permanently for usage.

 

Don't forget to check out the album for more pics!

 

[Andi]

looks nice!

[Ghost]

#5 Final Parts

 

This is a short update before I build. It will outline the components used. So I will start off with the final parts list:

 

• Asus Crosshair IV Forumla
• AMD Phenom II x6 1100T
• Asus HD7790 DCII
• H100i
• CM 690II Advanced
• CM GX750 (Bronze Rated PSU)
• Corsair Force 3 120GB SSD
• Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM

I picked most of these parts because I had them. This computer is made mostly from spare parts. It's a "server"/"media PC". Most of the time it will be an FTP server so I have a "backup" at home for any files. It will also serve as a Computer from my parents so that's when the media PC part comes in but I will also use it for gaming whenever I come home for the holidays.

 

The two parts that were bought for the PC were the H100i and the 7790.

 

I know what you're thinking; why a H100i? Well, I have enough spare water cooling parts (minus the CPU block) to build a custom loop for this PC, however, a custom loop requires servicing and if it did break time at some point my parents really wouldn't have the time to fix a custom loop, so that was out of the question. So why would I pick a H100i for a "server"? Well, the only bad things I have heard about the H100i is the LEDs going bad (staying on white or going off). Well if this happens, white was the colour I need for it and if they go off then I don't mind as I won't be looking at the system anyway. Most other problems are rare and an RMA can sort them out.

 

I could have picked air cooling as well. I wanted a black cooling solution and my "main air cooling" solution was the Dark Rock Pro 2. But that was loud and the H100i was only £30 more expensive. I prefer something that looks more "stylish".

 

So why did I pick the HD7790? Well, Price point. I wanted something for ~£90 that looked good. It checked all the boxes. I'm not really fussed about +/- 5fps either way in gaming. I tend to play "older games" such as CS:S anyway and I will probably be maxing out the fps on that anyway.

 

At any rate, I have all the components ready and waiting. However, I am still waiting for; a PWM controller for the LEDs, a replacement for a switch I broke in my case which will control the LEDs; rubber sheets to make grommets in the case, black foam to put over the rubber sheets and for sound isolation and lastly para cord to sleeve the PSU cables.

 

Once all that comes in I will be building the PC.

[ixi_your_face]

Oh man! Dem parts.

 

Cant wait to see it done!

[Ghost]

#6 - Sleeving

 

So I have just finished all my sleeving. I used heat-shrink less sleeving which is actually much easier to do than sleeving with heat shrink. No need to be as accurate. I used 550 paracord for the sleeving (bought it off eBay for around £7 for 100 feet) and I actually preferred working with it rather than MDPC. It gives a lot more room for error, knowing you can waste a few meters of para cord without caring much compared to losing a few meters of MDPC.

 

I also used the cable lacing technique alpenwasser used in his build and it turned out looking really nice. It took a long time but I think it was worth it.

 

I don't have pictures but I sleeved a 4 pin (CPU) and 6 pin (GPU) on top of the 24 pin. I only did 3 cables as that's all that will be going into the motherboard that will be in view.

 

[WunderWuffle]

#6 - Sleeving

 

So I have just finished all my sleeving. I used heat-shrink less sleeving which is actually much easier to do than sleeving with heat shrink. No need to be as accurate. I used 550 paracord for the sleeving (bought it off eBay for around £7 for 100 feet) and I actually preferred working with it rather than MDPC. It gives a lot more room for error, knowing you can waste a few meters of para cord without caring much compared to losing a few meters of MDPC.

 

I also used the cable lacing technique alpenwasser used in his build and it turned out looking really nice. It took a long time but I think it was worth it.

 

I don't have pictures but I sleeved a 4 pin (CPU) and 6 pin (GPU) on top of the 24 pin. I only did 3 cables as that's all that will be going into the motherboard that will be in view.

 

Looks great, Ghost!

[alpenwasser]

Oh, cabling pr0n! :wub:

Agreed about paracord being rather forgiving, I actually quite like working with

the stuff. And nice to see some lacing!

[Samdb]

Man, those cables look good!

[Ghost]

I thought I'd put up a pic of my test fitting.

 

[Vitalius]

I thought I'd put up a pic of my test fitting.

 

Image not loading for me. Might be a work filter or something but not sure. They usually always load for me.

And it works fine when I quote it. Da fuq?

[Nicktrance]

Image not loading for me. Might be a work filter or something but not sure. They usually always load for me.

And it works fine when I quote it. Da fuq?

 

It's not working for me either way...

 

Love the cable p0rn though .

[Ghost]

And it works fine when I quote it. Da fuq?

No idea. You can always "view image source" if images don't work.

 

At any rate heres a pic with the GPU mounted.

 

[Vitalius]

No idea. You can always "view image source" if images don't work.

 

At any rate heres a pic with the GPU mounted.

 

DSCF0110.JPG

Looks awesome.

I cannot do that when the image does not load. Right clicking produces none of the usual options. Oh well. It works now. No matter.

[Ghost]

I've put in the H100i and routed the USB, audio and IO connectors. I may do something about the colours.

 

[ixi_your_face]

I've put in the H100i and routed the USB, audio and IO connectors. I may do something about the colours.

 

DSCF0134.JPG

 

Mmmm, long exposure. 

 

You could mess w/ electrical tape see if you can hide it that way

[Nicktrance]

No idea. You can always "view image source" if images don't work.

 

At any rate heres a pic with the GPU mounted.

 

DSCF0110.JPG

 

Didn't work that way either, it's working now though... weird.

[Ghost]

So the build is finished. Here's a final picture.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

[Ghost]

Just to be abit critical mate, but that plate behind the motherboard could have been cleaned up a tiny bit, the outside edge seems a tiny bit off. More of a nitpick than anything though

 

Otherwise that's very very tidy. Good clean build

The midplate got pushed down while pouting the front IO and USB connections. That's why there's a gap. The plate doesn't go the full way behind the motherboard, just around it and its just a rubber sheet, not a plate.

 

And Thanks!