The not really a build log build log

[Lord Pantaloons]

I am pants and this is my not really a build log build log.....I should explain a bit shouldn't I? ok

 

 

When I built my first PC (this one) I wasn't a member of the LTT community, I watched LTT video's and I knew about the forum but I hadn't signed up so I missed the chance to post a build log of my first PC build. Now however I would like to do that...or something like it so when I decided there were a few minor changes that I wanted to make and some serious cleaning that needed to be done I thought it would be cool to make a pseudo build log of it since I didn't make one before. Before I begin I will apologize for the picture quality, my new phone is somewhat defective as the flash will not turn off and the camera will not completely focus, my replacement hasn't arrived yet and I didn't want to put this off any longer because it was bugging me, so lets begin.

 

The Bellerophon

Initially I wasn't going to name my PC but after seeing that practice being commonplace here on the forums(I was a lurker) I decided to name it. I had problems sorting out a good name that wasn't cliche or had been used a hundred times and eventually I settled on Bellerophon or to put it correctly "The Bellerophon" as I wasn't naming my PC after the Greek hero but more after the Royal Navy Dreadnaught HMS Bellerophon which I had read about in a book years ago. The fact that the name was actually that of an ancient Greek hero that killed monsters and went on bitchin adventures was a nice coincidence that I was unaware of at the time but after I found out I thought it was fitting seeing as I would be exploring various digital worlds and punching all sorts of things in the face on this PC. The name stuck and it seemed to match the aesthetic I as trying to achieve with my build very nicely, I wanted something that looked refined but had a strong presence and radiated barely restrained menace, hence the black/silver/white color scheme and the Obsidian 550D(which is intimidating to say the least). I was never a fan of bright, flashy, ostentatious, or gaudy things so the idea that I would be able to build a PC that fit my tastes and let me exercise my OCD thrilled me greatly. After about a zillion different parts lists I finally settled on the following.

 

Obsidian 550D, Asus Sabertooth Z77, i7-3770k, 32GB Dominator Platinum 1866Mhz, x2 EVGA GTX 680 Classified, AX 1200, ODD&BRD, Creative Sound Blaster XF-i Titanium, 256GB Boot SSD, 1TB Velociraptor, and an H100i.

 

The real life poked it's ugly head in and I had to choose whether to cut the build down and get it immediately or wait and get it at some later unknown time, so I cut it down some. I dropped the i7 for an i5, the RAM stayed the same but dropped to 8GB, the GPU's turned into a single EVGA GTX 660 Ti Signature 2 FTW, the BRD and the sound card went away as did the H100i which was replaced by a CMV8. The AX 1200 turned into a CM Silent Pro M 700w and the drives dropped to 120GB for the SSD and a standard 1TB barracuda. I wasn't as happy as I would have been had I gotten everything I intended on getting but eh I still got a PC.

 

Later the second round of upgrades came in the form of another 8GB of RAM, 660 Ti, the Creative Sound Blaster XF-i Titanium, an AX 750, an H100i and another 1TB Barracuda because I wanted to try a RAID 0 array for my games. The H100i was defective and I decided that instead of sending it in for a new one I would just get a different cooler because the H100i is a bit of a pain to install in my case due to the thermal armor on the motherboard. About two months after the second round of upgrades both of the 1TB drives completely died, initially I thought the array had just went belly up but both of the hard drives just straight up kicked the bucket, so they were replaced by a 2TB Barracuda. The cooler problem was still going on though, at first I though I would just put the CMV8 back on but it was huge and a pain in the a** to install without removing the motherboard so I just bought a 212 Evo but after I got it installed I hated how cheap it looked, it completely ruined the aesthetic of my build so that got put in the closet. After browsing Amazon, NCIX, and Newegg endlessly I had the idea to use an 120mm adapter plate on an NH-L9i so I could mount one of the awesome looking Corsair fans facing upwards on it, I looked at the CM Gemin but it wouldn't have cleared my RAM now that I had all four slots filled. I got the NH-L9i only to find that the adapter plate was shorter than I thought I was and it wouldn't clear my RAM, I ended up making a quick trip to Ace hardware (which is basically across the street from my house) for some screws and I used the 92mm fan that came with the cooler as a spacer for the adapter plate to make it tall enough to clear my RAM and it worked "just" then I solved the "Noctua problem" with some electrical tape.

 

Now onto what I did just recently,

 

Aside from the cleaning I wanted to re-route my cables because my 3rd try at managing the mess behind the mobo tray still produced a noticeable bulge on the back panel, this annoyed me greatly. Another thing I wanted to change was what slot my sound card was in, I would have put it on the top PCIx1 slot but the assist fan on my motherboard made that impossible so I just put it between my GPU's, this subsequently made my primary GPU run 7c hotter than my secondary but I dealt with it because I didn't want to remove that assist fan. That changed and it's now gone, with the sound card in the top slot my primary GPU runs at the same temp as my secondary. Another thing I did was to remove three of the fans I had in the case, two on the top as exhaust and one on the bottom as an intake, this was to remove some wire clutter and clean up my build.

 

Now PICTURES!!

 

Here's my dirty dirty case stripped down, time to break out the alcohol and Q-tips

 

Gross

 

Dirty nasty grungy motherboard

 

All fixed YAAAY!

 

Assembly of my "Custom" NH-L9i

The parts

 

It's just like a sandwich...sortof

 

Topped with a good looking Corsair fan

 

And finished off with some electrical tape to fix the "Noctua Problem" you can't see the tape at all and you can't really see the noctua fan unless the blades aren't spinning and you're looking in at an angle.

 

Here is the cooler actually on the motherboard

 

You can see how close "just" actually is, and why I had to use the original Noctua fan as a spacer

 

Now to do the wiring, the wires may look like a bit of a mess behind the HDD cage but the footprint is a lot smaller than it was before

 

Now just the GPU's and sound card left

 

 

All done, dis-assembled cleaned, rewired and put back together in about 1 1/2 hours

 

 

 

 

That's it, my not really a build log build log

 

Info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellerophon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bellerophon_%281907%29

 

 

Got my new phone, took some new pictures.

 

 

 

 

I found some pictures from when I first built The Bellerophon, excuse the quality they are cellphone pictures taken with an old basic phone.

 

This was taken right after I put the mobo in my case and ran some cables, they are the only pictures I took during the initial assembly

 

 

If any of you have OCD you guys can see why I was constantly trying to deal with the cables, the crappy cable sleeving on the CM PSU was dealt with by using some NZXT cable extensions that had some beautiful sleeving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NohbdyKnows]

Nice!!! wish my build looked as clean as yours 

[helping]

Looks really nice +1.

 

 

May I request a tl;dr on the book though?

[Gung Pow Chicken]

very nice build, did you try and follow a color scheme of B&W or did it just turn out like that?

[Lord Pantaloons]

Looks really nice +1.

 

 

May I request a tl;dr on the book though?

hmmmm... ok things happened then other things happened then some stuff and boom c0mputr iz d0n3

[Vitalius]

Looks really nice +1.

 

 

May I request a tl;dr on the book though?

OP's wall of text crits Vitalius for 9999 damage.

Vitalius faints.

[Lord Pantaloons]

very nice build, did you try and follow a color scheme of B&W or did it just turn out like that?

I was trying to keep it black&silver/white/gray, I'm glad I was able to get exactly what I wanted with minimal fuss.

[Lord Pantaloons]

OP's wall of text crits Vitalius for 9999 damage.

Vitalius faints.

9999 is bs give me a solid 10k crit

[TheSLSAMG]

Awesome, but the PSU label kills it

[Lord Pantaloons]

Awesome, but the PSU label kills it

That will be addressed once my warranty expires.

[Nicktrance]

Nice and clean

[Lord Pantaloons]

Nice and clean

much appreciated

[BlackOutCrisis]

I have a sneaking suspicion that your ghetto cooler is actually worse than the normal stock cooler Have you compared results from the stock NH-L9i to the rigged one? Try and find benchmarks for the NH-L9i and match the settings as close as possible and see if it cools any better if you didn't already test it.

@mrpants

[Lord Pantaloons]

I have a sneaking suspicion that your ghetto cooler is actually worse than the normal stock cooler Have you compared results from the stock NH-L9i to the rigged one? Try and find benchmarks for the NH-L9i and match the settings as close as possible and see if it cools any better if you didn't already test it.

@mrpants

It's better

[BlackOutCrisis]

It's better

Can I ask what the temp difference is and how you tested it? Or are you just saying its better to shut me up? lol

[big_lilo]

I think I read somewhere that ripping off the label off the corsair PSU wont void warranty  (I ripped mine off Corsair HX850 and it looks a lot better) 

 

Another thing I would consider is spray painting the 'crossfire' bridge.... That color is an eye soar lol

[Lord Pantaloons]

Can I ask what the temp difference is and how you tested it? Or are you just saying its better to shut me up? lol

I have a mild 4Ghz OC on my 3570k and I see a max of 74-76c while folding/gaming. In it's normal configuration I saw trips into the mid-high 80's on stock clocks(similar to the stock intel cooler). The only real testing I did was putting the unmodified cooler on to see what temps I got after about 30 min of folding. That was with an open case with my room at about 68F, the temp's I get with the modified version are with a closed case and the room at the same temperature. Really the performance wasn't important as I quickly got past my interest in overclocking so as long as it looks good and keeps my CPU from throttling I don't care too much.

I think I read somewhere that ripping off the label off the corsair PSU wont void warranty  (I ripped mine off Corsair HX850 and it looks a lot better) 

 

Another thing I would consider is spray painting the 'crossfire' bridge.... That color is an eye soar lol

I'm going to get one of those fancy EVGA SLI bridges, they are a bit flash but they go with my rig much better than that Asus bridge does.

[Lord Pantaloons]

I took the sticker off my PSU, it's good.

[Guest Philosophy]

Looks amazing! So clean!

[Lord Pantaloons]

Looks amazing! So clean!

Thanks much, If I knew someone who had a proper camera I would get some glamor shots taken similar to some other peoples rigs so you guys could see it in more detail but I don't know anyone with a good camera. At least the newer pictures are a decent size and quality and not like the pictures from when I first built it

[chedderbob1985]

very nice build man hoping to get mine better soon love you have evga i dig there cards great clean look