Building my own DIY Desk PC

[faytleingod11]

A little more progress

Cut out the io for the gpu and made sure it fit by using the shield, just like with the mobo. It ended up fitting almost perfectly. I figure with a little finishing it'll look great. 

I don't really wanna remove all the hardware from the desk to paint it. Should I remove the threaded inserts for the stand offs? Or just tape over them or something. 

[faytleingod11]

Warranty well and truly voided. Hooray!

 

[faytleingod11]

The shroud on this thing was only held on by six screws. Three on the side and three behind the fans. After removing it, it took me aobut 45 minutes of taping to get it taped of to my satisfaction, but think the end result was worth ti. The original promo stuff said the shroud had modular components, but they were all held on with plastic rivets, so there was no obvious way to reattach them if I were to pry them off. So I did the best I could  to change it to match my white and black them. I felt like there was too much black and not enough white. Any advice on accents for the card? It now looks just a little off.

[Damascus]

Obviously I can't see it in person but that looks really good in the picture.  What color will the background be? 

 

I like the ratio of white/black BTW

[faytleingod11]

Just now, Damascus said:

Obviously I can't see it in person but that looks really good in the picture.  What color will the background be? 

 

I like the ratio of white/black BTW

Thanks! I was hoping not to overdo the white, but too much black is boring. 

Initially I was think black for the interior, Then grey, then black again, now I'm thinking a black enamel, something glassy. Or maybe dark grey. I'm gonna have to do test swatches or something. 

[Damascus]

Yeah, matte black wouldn't work as well for you as it did for Linus

[Damascus]

Oh yeah, do you have LED lightstrips?

[faytleingod11]

6 hours ago, Damascus said:

Oh yeah, do you have LED lightstrips?

Not yet. I have my eyes on a corsair set, but I'm about 100 dollars over budget, so I need to wait till some spare money shows up. I keep adding bits and bobs and its adding up

[faytleingod11]

Everything is starting to come together component wise. I need to come up with some kind of platform for the graphics card that would allow it to be supported and not interfere with the riser. I was thinking dowels with foam tape on the end. 

All the component cutouts are done, and just need cleaning up with edging. 

The io looks exactly as I hoped, but I guess I never really looked at the connectors

Looks like I'll be needing an adapter to use these on the mono header. Anyone know if these work very well?

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007PODI1W/ref=pd_aw_fbt_147_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K55RRPA345R26Q8JWSKD

[faytleingod11]

Just realized I forgot the power button

 

 

 

[Damascus]

Don't have the brand but in theory should work fine.  My case has very similar looking connectors

[faytleingod11]

I drilled the hole for the power button too big. I though it was a .5" barrel but that was too small. So I tried 9/16". Too small. I couldn't find my 5/8 bit, but I figured it was too small anyway. So I moved up to 3/4. Much too big. The button goes in and out without catching. So now it's either trying to hot glue it in place or finding a bit and trying again. 

[Damascus]

I'd give hot glue a chance. Worst case you  need to cut it out and patch a slightly larger hole

[faytleingod11]

I think the basic construction will be done tonight. I wasn't willing to buy a 52 dollar set of attachments to drill 6 holes, so I'm free handing the vent holes. Pretty rough so fat, but I've got everything more or less fitting. 

The mobo is about a millimeter away from being too close to the radiator. And I had to make some unexpected adjustments. With a chisel since my drill died. 

I had to dig in about a quarter inch to get the radiator to fit. The width is almost exactly 3 120mm fans wide

[Damascus]

Lol, looks better than mine, still needs a lot of work

[Damascus]

On 3/16/2017 at 5:30 PM, faytleingod11 said:

Not yet. I have my eyes on a corsair set, but I'm about 100 dollars over budget, so I need to wait till some spare money shows up. I keep adding bits and bobs and its adding up

How much do you want for the GPU (970 mini)?  It seems perfect to tide me over into VEGA

[faytleingod11]

1 hour ago, Damascus said:

How much do you want for the GPU (970 mini)?  It seems perfect to tide me over into VEGA

Lol. A former co-worker of mine just swooped it up earlier today. He's actually buying my old rig off me. He's still running a 6350 in his. So I'm looking to run an actual server off the other side now. 

[Damascus]

Just now, faytleingod11 said:

Lol. A former co-worker of mine just swooped it up earlier today. He's actually buying my old rig off me. He's still running a 6350 in his. So I'm looking to run an actual server off the other side now. 

Nice! glad they got a much needed upgrade

[faytleingod11]

 

1 hour ago, Damascus said:

Lol, looks better than mine, still needs a lot of work

Metal is a whole other beast. Its much less forgiving. I've modified many an oem Chad is for after mark gpus. 

My intake vents are pretty much garbage

My second attempt is significantly better

[Damascus]

Just now, faytleingod11 said:

 

Metal is a whole other beast. Its much less forgiving. I've modified many an oem Chad is for after mark gpus. 

My intake vents are pretty much garbage

My second attempt is significantly better

Wow, huge difference.  What do you think of the fan grills you got?  I'm still deciding what to go with

[faytleingod11]

10 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Wow, huge difference.  What do you think of the fan grills you got?  I'm still deciding what to go with

I had thought they were metal, but besides that, they seem nice. The mesh is very fine and I like the way they look. For 7 bucks apiece on amazon, if say they were worth it. 

[quan289]

15 minutes ago, faytleingod11 said:

 

Metal is a whole other beast. Its much less forgiving. I've modified many an oem Chad is for after mark gpus. 

My intake vents are pretty much garbage

My second attempt is significantly better

 

-removed images-

Don't know if you want to redo it (especially it going to be covered by the fan grill), but what you could have done is drill multiples of holes right at the line of the circle (on the inside) and tap the circle out (similar to this). Afterwards, removed the jaggy parts leftover with your jigsaw and sand it down. This may allow you have a more cleaner circle.

[faytleingod11]

14 minutes ago, quan289 said:

-removed images-

Don't know if you want to redo it (especially it going to be covered by the fan grill), but what you could have done is drill multiples of holes right at the line of the circle (on the inside) and tap the circle out (similar to this). Afterwards, removed the jaggy parts leftover with your jigsaw and sand it down. This may allow you have a more cleaner circle.

my main problem was was using a flawed measurement on the first hole, which i drew on both other holes, and drilled a 'center' hole. It ended up being too big and that caused all my marks and holes to be off which made drawing new things harder. I ended up using a cookie cutter my wife had that was the perfect size and tracing that  in the center of where  the screens were screwed in. I should have done a dozen thing different, but hot glue and bondo are gonna make of the difference. Your method would have been much less harrowing than just using my jigsaw to cut in a circle. I thought i was gonna snap it and have shrapnel in my eyes a few times.  

[faytleingod11]

Assembly is coming along great! Everything fits where it should and everything seems to be turning on and functions as it should. Unfortunately without my cablemod cables I'm having to put off cable management, so don't judge too harshly. 

This is the basic mock up of where things will be

And this is the setup I'm using so I can actually run this thing

And everything is looking great so far!

[Damascus]

7 minutes ago, faytleingod11 said:

And everything is looking great so far!

WOO, that grey looks great!