Build log: (\/)0n0L17(-) II & HAL 1.0

L31mr0d · 03-07-2007 3:52pm

Anti wrote:

If the raptors are sata i might take them, And also the the cpu too. You have a better stepping then what my 170 ish so i might take that too. If the price is right ofcourse

i'll pm you. Can you get raptors that aren't SATA? They are the ADFD revision that came out this year. With NCQ support (removing the PATA to SATA bridge) and the 16MB cache.

You should of given me a shout when you where picking up the RAM. Oh and there are flood warnings for Swords for the next few weeks

Anti · 03-07-2007 4:22pm

Hahah. Oh man. It took 2 hours to drive out and back that day. Traffic was fecking nuts.

KamiKazi · 04-07-2007 2:15pm

lol, just last week i bought a lian li v300.
bought the abit fatality motherboard, havent tried overclocking it yet

L31mr0d · 04-07-2007 2:52pm

KamiKazi wrote:

lol, just last week i bought a lian li v300.
bought the abit fatality motherboard, havent tried overclocking it yet

yeah that one was on my list, I liked the HDMI out on it, but as i'm not using the onboard VGA it was wasted on me. Also the PCI slots where set up weird. Post some pictures of your build, i'd like to see how you set it up.

KamiKazi · 04-07-2007 3:06pm

ill post up pictures in a week or two when im changing the fans on the front, installing a fan controller and replacing the cd/floppy drive covers with mesh.

Inspector Gadget · 04-07-2007 3:13pm

I just came across this thread, and I noticed one small thing - the number on that motherboard you couldn't find (as it was discontinued) made me curious, and as I suspected, it's a socket 939 (AMD) board? You might have been disappointed trying to shoehorn an E6420 into that?

Gadget

L31mr0d · 04-07-2007 3:16pm

Inspector Gadget wrote:

I just came across this thread, and I noticed one small thing - the number on that motherboard you couldn't find (as it was discontinued) made me curious, and as I suspected, it's a socket 939 (AMD) board? You might have been disappointed trying to shoehorn an E6420 into that?

Gadget

well spotted, I usually like to throw at least one error into my logs to see if people are actually reading them or not. Completely unintentionally in my last log I had installed my fan controller in upside down in one of the pictures. It took a few weeks for someone to actually point it out.

I ended up getting the Gigabyte Q965 which is mATX and LGA775.

L31mr0d · 06-07-2007 11:48am

The DFI removed from the case *sniff*

Side shot with the Tuniq and TR still attached.

The eVGA 680i installed

Picture showing the milimeter of clearance between the top fan and the Tuniq

The 8pin power connector location. Why they didn't locate it beside the 24pin power connector I'll never know.

Showing the clearance (or lack of) between the NB heatsink and the Tuniq fan. I actually had to install the Tuniq fan last and just rest it on the NB heatsink. The top screws for the Tuniq fan aren't fully screwed down because the fan is touching off the NB heatsink

Another shot of the lack of clearance. I've yet to recieve my NB fan from the buyer I bought the mobo off in the states which is why it isn't installed yet.

IgsTer · 06-07-2007 2:41pm

nice pics mate..thanks for sharing...

nice pc

DemonOfTheFall · 06-07-2007 4:22pm

Just as a heads up to anyone using an X-Fi in Vista, You can download "ALchemy" from creative's vista driver page for the x-fi. It allows you to use all the good old XP hardware sound accel featurese that you bought that X-fi for

Fair play to creative for stepping up to the plate and delivering something microsoft failed abysmally at. It has been hacked to provid Directsound support for regular audigys under Vista aswell. Google is your friend for the cracked one though obviously

L31mr0d · 07-07-2007 2:04pm

Some more pics...

On my last build I was able to install the upper hard drive cage and have the 12cm fan attached to it. But the 8800 GTX is SOOO long that it won't allow this... so, I removed the top plastic guide rails for the HDD cage and pull tied the 12cm Scythe Sflex fan into place. Hopefully this will help a bit in cooling down this radiator... seriously, the Quad core and 8800 GTX are spewing out some amount of heat. I'd hate to think what my system temps would be if I had the HDD's and PSU in the same chamber as them.

nibble · 07-07-2007 7:25pm

Any particular reason for the fans one after the other.

L31mr0d · 07-07-2007 8:07pm

nibble wrote:

Any particular reason for the fans one after the other.

There will be a greater negetive pressure with 2 fans meaning more outside air will be pulled through the air filters, also the CFM will be kept more or less constant, whereas with one fan the air pressure would drop off before it would reach the graphic cards intake fan. Thats the theory anyway.

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 1:30pm

Ok, well I was fiddling around with the fans in my system there on the weekend as I was getting horrible temps with the QX6700. So I put all my fans onto the fan controller and turned all their RPM's up to max.

My idle QX6700 temps idle at 45'c

I really need to overclock this CPU to get it to at least 3.2Ghz, but at these temps it doesn't seem possible.

So my options are:

A: lap the QX6700 and try some different orientations of the Tuniq, and as a last resort get a higher CFM fan.

B: Don't even bother and just move the e6600 thats going into my HTPC into my main rig and overclock that and leave the quad sitting in my HTPC until a game is released that will actually make use of it.

What dya's think?

Anti · 09-07-2007 1:43pm

ID lap the cpu and tuniq. I dont understand how the qx is so high. I installed one in a friends pc with a ultra 120 and a coolink 38cfm fan. And the idle temps didt pass 30c. And that was with the crappy paste therm supply with it.

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 1:48pm

could be just a bad chip... well i'll probably lap it, then try some different Tuniq orientations as its already lapped.

How should I apply the TIM on the QX? Is it 1 line or 2? As there are 2 Dual cores in it?

Anti · 09-07-2007 2:11pm

I find the lines a load of crap, it dosent spread properly and leave air bubbles. I find that if you wrap some clingfilm around the tip of your forefinger, and apply the tim to that and just rub it on the cpu it works much better, as you can rub it into any scratches or dips/dents. Thats what i did for my friends QX.

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 3:12pm

well frankly i'll try anything at this point. Nothing makes you seriously consider water cooling like an overheating CPU. Add to that my NB is roasting and my 8800 GTX is belching out shed loads of heat and you've got a system itching to be watercooled.

Also, when I read the first part of your reply I thought I was in PI for a second, lol

Anti · 09-07-2007 3:19pm

haha

SwampThing · 09-07-2007 3:40pm

I'd like to stick my oar in here, if you don't mind.

It's all well and good pumping lots of 'outside' air into the case, but if you can't exhaust the air at a similar rate and in some sort of 'linear' fashion, the air inside the case will end up swirling around and may in fact reduce your cooling capacity. by linear I mean there ideally should be a traceable air flow in and out of the machine.

A somewhat silly example.
Picture a funnel, wide side facing direction of movement. As the funnel accelerates, the pressure on the air at the narrow end increases and forces more air through. But, at a certain point, a column of air will build up in front of the funnel, causing turbulence and actually reduce the pressure and volume of air flowing through. This has a scientific name but I've no idea what it is.

You've two fairly powerful 12cm fans sucking in air at a rate of knots, but don't have comparative exhaust fans or vents.

Is it possible to make these fans exhaust fans? If you maximise the air flow out of the case, that will create greater negative pressure, thus sucking in more outside air.
Or, weird as it sounds, try the rig with just one intake fan. Sometimes less is more!

It's worth an hours investigation before taking the QX out of the machine, no?

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 3:58pm

SwampThing wrote:

You've two fairly powerful 12cm fans sucking in air at a rate of knots, but don't have comparative exhaust fans or vents.

How do you draw this conclusion? All of the 12cm fans in my system are Scythe S-FLEX 1600RPM, 63.7cfm of which I have 6.

Thats 1 drawing air over the bottom HDD and out around the PSU. 2 used for intake in the upper chamber. 1 in the middle of the Tuniq and a further 2 being used as exhausts, at the top and at the back.

I have thought through the fan configuration at length and this, imo, is the best possible setup for this case. It creates enough negative pressure to pull air in through the dust filters but also allows a good exhaust around the HSF.

I have all 6 of these fans on a fan controller, the first 4 (2 intakes, CPU and bottom chamber) being on rheostats going up to around ~11v. The last 2 on a 3 way switch which allows for "OFF, 5v, 12v". I chose this because I usually have them on 5v, but when gaming I would rather be able to ramp them up to their highest volts to exhaust heat as soon as possible.

I personally don't think I need to change anything in this setup, a part from maybe using higher cfm fans, which i'm not prepared to do atm due to their noise levels.

The only thing I can think of that is causing the build up of heat is that the 8800 GTX is effectively partitioning the upper chamber as it is so long. I really need to think of a way of getting air to the CPU

DirkVoodoo · 09-07-2007 4:08pm

I think swampthing is referring to "choked flow" as a result of the Venturi effect, perhaps?

I don't think this will happen as the mass flow rate of air is not high enough and we are dealing with two different temperature air streams, so convection will have a large part to play in how heat is removed from the case.

I say lap the dastardly chip! I'm getting cold feet about lapping my ultra, as I still haven't finished properly lapping my Zalman 9500.

EDIT: Perhaps mod the rear of your case to fit a 120cm fan to the expansion slots, if any are free, so you can suck air directly away from the 8800? Or maybe its time for a new case? Also, I see your two intake fans in the pic above are a bit dusty, clean them pronto! Not gonna drop temps a huge deal, but they look gross

SwampThing · 09-07-2007 4:16pm

That's him, Venturi - I picked spuds with his auld lad!

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 4:24pm

Nah, that dust reappears as soon as I remove it. I couldn't be bothered anymore getting rid of it.

The reason I haven't already attached a fan to the expansion slots is that I WANT the air to move up to the CPU. If I where to attach another fan to the expansion slots it would effectively just be funneling the intake air, along the side of the 8800GTX and out the back and it would never get to the CPU.

Personally I don't think the Tuniq is getting hot enough compared to the CPU temp. Lapping will be the way forward. I'll pop in the E6600 I have lying around for the time being and lap the hell out of this quad core

DirkVoodoo · 09-07-2007 5:32pm

I've noticed the same with my ultra. The case and my room get quite warm, while the heat sink itself stays eerily cool. Meanwhile my idle temps right now (window open, good breeze, ****e Dublin weather) are 32C for an E6600 at stock with a front and rear case fan...somewhat higher than anandtechs review (mid 20s for an X6800!!).

awhir · 09-07-2007 5:48pm

How about selling ur quad and then pick up a new cheap 1 in 2 weeks

the E6850 looks very nice ! the Go steppings do 4ghz no bothers.

OR

new case/watercooling can be very fun and make ur system look cool.also watercooling can last ya a long time (well not the block )

L31mr0d · 09-07-2007 5:51pm

Nah, I don't want it to look good I just want it to be functional. Get the right balance between quiet and overclockable. I'd say a quick lap job and reapplication of the TIM and roberts your fathers brother we have a quad idling at 28'c *fingers crossed*

L31mr0d · 10-07-2007 11:20pm

Well the order from HWV arrived yesterday. I'll be picking up some stuff off Dirk this weekend and then i'll pretty much have the main guts of the HTPC ready to be built.

You can tell its from HWV because the tape has germanian on it

Box shot

Corsair 620w modular PSU for HTPC

Had an hour free so decided to void any warranty I might of had and lap my E6600 which is going in the HTPC. Here it is with teh stock IHS

5 mins in at 400 grit

10 minutes in at 400 grit. Flat with oodles of coppery nekkidness

..and 40 minutes later, I'd worked up through 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500, 10 microns. Owww, shiny and reflective... but is it flat?

Yes it is! A good way to test if the surface is flat is to compare its reflection against some graph paper, if none of the graph lines are wavvy then you have a flat surface.

DemonOfTheFall · 10-07-2007 11:35pm

L31mr0d wrote:

Computer porn. Fair play

DirkVoodoo · 11-07-2007 12:06am

You are getting far too good at that lapping L31mr0d, I can see you running around your house lapping loose change, sponges and of course the pet cat.

Is the wireless keyboard an english layout? Good choice on the PSU, as Timans said, they are great PSUs.

Build log: (\/)0n0L17(-) II & HAL 1.0

Comments