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

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

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*

DirkVoodoo wrote:

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.

Well i've done it a fair few times now so i've managed to throw all the stuff I need for lapping into 1 box. I found the majority of time wasted when lapping is getting all the stuff together. Plus I have the process down so i don't need to keep checking the surface every 2 minutes, seeing if i'm doing it right.

Its as simple as:

1. Place both index fingers and thumbs on each corner of the CPU then lap up and down 20 times (arbitrary number)
2. Rotate 180' then repeat (this will make sure you are lapping both sides evenly)
3. Change grit levels and rotate 90', repeat steps 1 and 2 until all the previous horizontal sanding lines are removed
4. Continue repeating steps 1 to 3 until you have moved up through all the grits or you are happy with the finish.

Anti wrote:

Ah youve twisted my arm.

Ill do it tonight Expect a angry phone call if i feck this up :P

lol... watch some video tutorials online (there's loads) and just don't apply too much uneven pressure when mounting. People never worried about chipping the core with older AMDs that didn't even have an IHS, yet now people are so paranoid about it. Afair, all you have to do is score around all 4 sides between the PCB and IHS until you have worked your way through the glue holding the IHS on. DONT push the blade in, even if its taking longer than expected, and use a new blade. Also post a log

... and hey, i'm only making the recommendation here, if you have meatballs for fingers with a shaky disposition maybe think about something else

Mathew Reilly wrote:

Hi L31mr0d..am having the same prob with the q6700 at yourself.
Also using the Tuniq 120 to no avail.
Have ordered a lapping kit and am going to lap both heatsink and cpu.
Did you cpu temps drop much?

I haven't lapped my QX6700 yet, the one in the picture is the E6600 going in my HTPC. I'll probably lap the QX6700 this weekend. But, from reading around, the QX6700 runs hot, you can get lucky with one that runs cooler, but the majority of them are known to run a lot hotter than the C2D's, as the C2Q effectively has 2xC2D's on the one PCB.

Ok well my itchy build finger couldn't wait till the weekend so I decided to pull my Lian li PC-V300 apart and install the Gigabyte mobo so I could measure up what parts of the case i'm going to have to cut out to make the 8800GTX fit... man its only when I had it installed did I realised how big this thing is. I'm hoping to fit 2x12cm fans in the front for intake, we'll see how it goes anyway, I might need to get some low profile 12cm fans as logistically i'm having my doubts.

Oh and i go to install teh mobo, and the first thing I need, the I/O plate is missing from the box. Un-fr33kin-believeable... this whole build has been a comedy of errors, here are the problems so far:

1. Guy I bought the eVGA 680i off in the states, sent me a sealed RMA board that included NO cables, NB fan, I/O plate or manuals. He is still waiting for eVGA to send them out to him.

2. I won't even go into it, but lets say the tango Dirk Voodoo has had to go through for me to get OCuk to send out the DVD drive I wanted has been the worst customer support i've ever seen. I wanted a silver sata dvd drive that dirk was going to throw into his order. They sent an IDE DVD drive, he returned it for the silver SATA one, they've now sent a Beige SATA drive. We're leaving it at that, i'm just going to get a silver bezel for the case now.

3. I ordered a Silver lian li fan controller from Italy, they sent me a black one, which i've had to return

4. The I/O plate from teh Gigabyte board I ordered from HV is missing. Also the keyboard they sent is german, but I suppose that was my own fault :rolleyes:

BUT... I just watched "tenants from hell", and in fairness, with perspective, having a tenant fill my bathroom with bags of feces would be a lot worse than any of the above

Some pics... I might also mention that the missus was on to me about how she never sees me when I get involved with a PC build, so as she will be using the HTPC the most, she is building it under my guidance (although i'll be doing the dremeling)

The disassembled PC-V300, this really is a PC builders case, more screws than I need and nearly everything can be easily taken apart. No silicon hot glue in site Although there are some horrible rivets, but I suppose I can live with them


Nifty little tool Lian li included to screwing in the stand-offs. Its nice touchs like this that will make me choose Lian li for my next case


With all the gut removed


The missus installing the stand-offs on the motherboard tray, without using the included tool *sheesh*


Installing the 8800GTX so we can size it up to the case


THIS is why I need to go medieval on this case with my dremel


Side by side comparison to see how far into the case the 8800 GTX will reach

Yeah I basically need to remove the tray for the floppy drives so I can fit the 8800GTX in

SwampThing wrote:

Your missus has lovely hands as well.

Yeah sorry about the gratuitous hand nudity :rolleyes:

Only another 30 minutes of work now and I can get home and start dremeling...

Anti wrote:

good job man. You must have a steady hand. If i were you i would use some rubber around the area where you dremeled so as to not damage your wires.

@hopeful Yeah i would have used a drill, but i didnt have it at the time. Still it was fun dremeling untill my tips of the fingers turned white.

Well I also have a set of metal files, so when I was finished dremeling I filed down all the edges as smooth as any other edge in the case.

Also, Dremels come with drill bits? If you didn't drill the rivets out what dremel bit did you use to remove them?

awhir wrote:

he means the door of the case or what ever you call it for htcps.

thats what I thought, but there won't be any problem with closing up the case. I'm routing the cables atm, and its proving to be a bitch to have them not obstruct the fans. Thank god there is space beneath the mobo tray

Ok so the HTPC is pretty much finished now. Cabling was a bitch and a half. even on my parents HTPC which was in the smaller NSK1300 cabling was easier. But then I wasn't trying to fit in 2x12cm fans and an 8800GTX :rolleyes:

I wasn't going to lap the CNPS8000 as it was already pretty flat (see pics on page 1), but when I said this to the wife whos going to be using the HTPC she was like "oh I see, you'll spend the time getting everything perfect for your machine, but for mine 'good enough' is acceptable"... lol, plus she wanted to see how the heatsink was lapped also. The whole process took no longer than 15 minutes as the heatsink as already pretty flat, and for some reason I think the copper used in this heatsink is softer than the copper in the IHS. It sanded down a lot more easily.

Here is picture of the dust I needed to remove


With it cleaned as much as possible. Harvey Normans don't seem to be selling cans of compressed air anymore so I couldn't clean right in between the fins.


Lapped to 400grit


finished article


flatness test


The board after the wife installed the CPU and RAM


Picture for PeakOutput showing the SB heatsink does not touch the graphics card, like everything in this case the clearance is tight, but there is clearance


Picture of mobo tray with everything installed. Included the iMon DT, personally my favourite thing about this rig