Sprocket Resurfaces...

...for air.

After years- at least five, IIRC, of using watercooling, I decided to try air again.
Two reasons behind the conversion- first, watercooling is somewhat of a PITA-especially if you swap parts out frequently.
Second, the new Intels- specifically, the 45nm chips- just don't run that hot.

Also, aircooling technology has advanced a great deal since last I tried it and I figured that for just a few bucks it was worth a shot.

What really pushed me over the edge was rediscovering my TJ06 Silverstone case, buried in a storage closet.
The TJ was the first case I totally fell in love with- I thought then (and still think now) that it was the most handsome enclosure I'd ever seen.
The CM Stacker (the original T-01) that I'd had before- and went back to again- and the Silverstone TJ07 that I ultimately ended up with, were better suited for watercooling (mainly cause they were big) but neither had the look of the original Temjin.

Now, the TJ06 was a seriously flawed design internally- it's claim to fame was a "windtunnel" cooling system that only fit a very few motherboards/heatsinks...it certainly didn't work with anything I had at the time.
It also had a horrible placement of the harddrive cage.
Naturally, within minutes of unboxing the case, both of these items were removed.

Here is one (not mine), unmodified...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...tj06-innen.jpg

I can't remember the last case- if indeed there are any- that I used just as delivered.

Anyway, she went through several iterations- watercooled, of course- that resulted in lots of case hacking and part removal.
Here are a few examples...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ker/weapon.jpg

Chassis was painted matte black and the front was cut to install a radiator.
Note the 120mm hole below the top mounted PSU...this originally held a fan to cool the HDDs and later became a mount for a reservoir.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/loop.jpg
Now the original optical cage has been removed and a smaller one installed. The HDD has been placed up front, cooled by a roof mounted 120mm fan and handles have been added to the top ( don't ask why, I don't remember).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/gpufirst.jpg

I think this was the final version before I got another Stacker and moved on.
At any rate, you get the idea...I chopped up this case mercilessly and threw it into the closet and forgot about it.

Till last week.
I dragged her out, gazed at it speculatively and decided to try reviving her from the dead. Really, she had nothing to lose...

Naturally, all my hardware has changed and all the holes cut for watercooling were now useless, so there was a lot to do.
First up was the roof panel.

The handles and the 120mm blowhole were not only unneeded but also offended my sense of aesthetics- which has changed a bit since I started doing this shit- so they had to go.
The easiest and most useful for case ventilation way of doing this was to just mesh the top- like so...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...er/Newroof.jpg

This also served to make possible the next mod I wanted to do.
The Corsair PSU I now use had the hardwired cables on the side furthest from the motherboard when mounted in the stock position. This subtracted about 6" of length- which I really needed- and necessitated the use of extenders.
However, if I could flip the PSU, the cables would be more properly positioned but the cooling fan would be facing the roof.
The mesh made this possible.

I decided to reverse the Corsair's fan as well...it now draws air from the back and exhausts out the top. While I had the case open- yes, another warranty sticker shot to hell- I removed the redundant 4-pin motherboard cable. This is my biggest gripe with what would otherwise be an almost perfect PSU...they hardwire BOTH a 4-pin and an 8-pin connector, one of which must be hidden, unused. Why they don't just have a single 8-pin and include an adaptor, I'll never know.
Anyway, problem solved.

Next up were the optical and harddrives.
I had no way to mount them.
Back in the day, I only had one harddrive-remember when they used to be expensive?- and one optical (still do).

Now I have four harddrives and absolutely no where to mount them.
Fortunately, I had a Coolermaster 4 into 3 drive cage left over from of my three Stackers (pictured (here).
So, I made a plate bolted to the front of the case (remember, all of this had been cut away at some point), used a 140mm fan and adaptor, and ultimately ended up with all the drives and the DVD burner installed.
I'll get better pics of this later...there's still a lot left to do.

Finally, the whole reason for this exercise...the heatsink.
Whilst cruising Microcenter a few weeks ago, I spotted a Xigmatek cooler that looked quite nice- model 1283, I believe- and it was on special for just $29.95 with a $15 rebate...so basically, $15 total.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/Xigmatek.jpg

Direct touch heatpipes, 120mm fan- I figured I had little to lose.
I also picked up the optional backplate which eliminates the gawd-awful pushpin retention pins in favor of springloaded screws.

Concurrently, I also wangled a trade with a friend for a new Gigabyte P45 motherboard- he wanted SLI (which my P35 had) and I didn't (but I was interested in the newer chipset...more about that later...).

Although the case modifications were only half finished, I installed the board anyway just to see what would happen.

Here's how she looks at this point...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...er/Newside.jpg

Hidden behind the black beauty panel in the top left corner are the harddrives and the DVD burner. The four silver knobs are a fan controller.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/Newwires.jpg

Still working on the wiring.

After a heartstopping few hours when it wouldn't POST- turns out it takes more effort to seat the RAM than I've ever seen- she ran.
Like a bat out of hell actually.

This chip- my second Wolfie- has never been a great overclocker.
On the P35 board the most it'd do at stock voltage (1.25v) was 3.6GHz.
4GHz was possible but I wasn't comfortable with the increased voltage needed to get there.

On the new P45 board, it hit 4GHz at only 1.1v and it's currently running 4.2GHz at 1.2v...still under stock!
Once I get everything buttoned up, I'll see just how high she'll go- I'm thinking maybe 4.5GHz...on air.
That's ridiculous.

Some bench/temp shots...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...rock129089.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ock1290810.jpg

That's 45 minutes of Prime 95 ( a good sign) and she's topped out at 44°...pretty bloody good, I think.

And, just for grins...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...rock129086.jpg

This burst speed is about 700MB more than the same array on the older ICH9 controller.

Finally, PC Pitstop Overdrive test...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...prock12908.jpg

So, here we are.
Whew.

There's more to do before the case is finished.
If the weather cooperates I hope to be done by the weekend.
I knew this post was going to be long- I tend to ramble a bit- so breaking it up into parts is probably good for all of us.

Now I have to go shovel some snow.

Hey man glad you see your playing with your parts again. What board is that? I don't remember you having that one. Also do you have any more shots of the fan controller mod there?

It's a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R.

The fan controller is a Sunbeam- the same I recommended to you- dismounted from it's faceplate and put into that cover plate.
When I do the final pics I'll get some better shots.

Is that the CPU cooler you recommended to me.

It's friggin' huge. :blink:

Will it fit...what case?

Yup, same one.
It should fit any of the cases we've been discussing.

I do have a gripe with the design...the fan mounting, actually.
The fan is held on with these rubber "push-pin" type thingies.
They work fine and the fan is isolated from the sink, so it won't vibrate.
But...once installed, the fan blocks access to two of the sink's retaining screws, making installation in the case very difficult.

I've designed (well, "designed" is too strong a word- I've visualized) a fix which ya'll should see in the next installment.

The enzotech was the same, fan blocking the screws. With mine you could install the fan last and it was OK. Is this possible on yours?

Design!? I cant wait. BTW have you ever though of doing a clock mod somehow building a clock into a rig or at least a case?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Detale

The enzotech was the same, fan blocking the screws. With mine you could install the fan last and it was OK. Is this possible on yours?

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It can be done, but not easily.
The mounts are like rubber bands and must be stretched to install...this requires a fair bit of force, more than I like with the heatsink mounted to the board. Also, you might note that the sink is quite close to the casefloor and there's not a lot of room to work with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Detale

I cant wait. BTW have you ever though of doing a clock mod somehow building a clock into a rig or at least a case?

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No, I rarely think of clocks anymore.
For nearly ten years I thought of little else and it's out of my system now.

44C is brilliant fella! was that the average temp or the highest temp?
Will you do a longer stress test?

Last night I ran OCCT for 6 hours.
Frankly, I was amazed it survived that long...I was expecting it to crash out much sooner but it didn't, so I stopped it.
For the unitiated, OCCT is a stress test that seems more rigorous than Prime95.
Systems that will run Prime all day long can crash within minutes under OCCT...

At any rate, this was totally unexpected...I figured the system was stable enough to run Windows at 4.2GHZ but probably flaky under stress and this proved untrue. So far, at least. This new board's BIOS is much different than the older P35's- lots of the options are Greek to me and I left pretty much everything on "Auto" till I can do some research.

To answer your question- I haven't seen any temp over 46°c.
However, the case has yet to be buttoned up (sidepanels installed) and it is winter...room temp is @ 18-19°C, so things may change.

I hadn't mentioned in the first post that I also modified my Zalman GPU cooler.
Stock, it has a weenie little 70mm fan embedded in the finnage and that little bastard was very whiny at full speed. I removed it and strapped two 80mm fans on, which cover the entirety of the sink. I haven't done any testing of this setup yet but Everest is reporting idle temps in the low 30's.
Everest also shows that the two harddrives it can access SMART data for (it can't read from a RAID array) are running at @ 25°c- even during defrag.

Humorously, Everest has no idea what this new P45 motherboard is- it asked to send a report to Lavalys the first time it opened. I figured, "why not" and said OK. I haven't installed the supplied Gigabyte monitoring app yet so I don't know what extra info might be available- if any. It'd be nice to see north/south bridge temps but I doubt that Gigabyte sensored them on what is essentially a budget board (this thing was only $110 from Newegg).

After I finish construction of the case- there is still a lot I want to do which will probably require total disassembly at least once more- I'll spend more time playing with the platform.

Awesome! Looking forward to the updates.

Keep the pics coming; I imagine mine will be mighty similar, huh?

Parts should be here in about ten days or so...I hate doing things on a schedule, but there it is. :huh:

What did you end up getting?

Won't pull the trigger until after the weekend (probably), but I'm going with the list I was given - it all makes too much sense.

This computer guy I got, he's pretty sharp. :whistling:

Still have to resolve the "which case?" issue.

Hmmph.

The case is simply a matter of money.
Either go with the $50 Centurian or decide to spend around $100 more and get something like this.

Going with the Centurian, then. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by j2k4

This computer guy I got, he's pretty sharp. :whistling:

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I think we have the same guy. He's great 'aint he? He had a thank you thread here somewhere ;)

Clocker What GPU cooler did you get again, I'm too lazy to search the threads for it. Also how did you attach the fans? I noticed the board doesn't have ESATA on board, I thought that is like a deal breaker for you no?

Now I know you are working with the Corsair 620 same as mine but what cable are you using for the HDD's I don't have that one, is it a mod or aftermarket? In case you don't know what I mean...
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/8860/newwiresha1.jpg
It looks like there are a series of 4-4pin connectors on 1 wire Mine only came with 2 on a single line. This would clean stuff up in my WC case a bit, Oh I'm opening her up a little at a time BTW.

That is the stock Corsair SATA wire with relocated connectors.
I need to locate a cover for the bottom one.

Since I've used this same model PSU on several builds I have lots of extra cables to play with.

The board does not have native eSATA on the I/O panel but does have a two port eSATA breakout for the backplane.
This is getting modified and installed up front.
That's one of the last main fabrication jobs left to do...I'm saving that up with a few other things so I only have to strip the case down one last time (hopefully).

This will require removing the front bezel (which is all metal, held on with eight screws) but before that can happen the front plate, which holds the hard drive cage and the DVD burner must come out.
Here is the front bezel showing where the stock front USB/1394 ports are located...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...Stockports.jpg

Right above those is where I'm going to put the eSATA ports.
With those connected, I'll have seven of the eight motherboard SATA headers filled.

This is the Zalman VGA cooler.
The fans are held on with zip ties for now, if the modification works out I'll figure out a more elegant method later.

Edit:
Added another 100MHz to reach 4.3GHz.
Had to bump the CPU core voltage up to 1.268, which droops to 1.25 under load.
Finally got a 10 second SuperPi run and picked up a few points on the PC Pitstop test...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ck12120813.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ck12120814.jpg

Tee hee.

I ran OCCT for 15 minutes to generate some heat but did not continue to see how stable the system was.
Temps still did not exceed 50°C, so that looks good.

I'm guessing- with no real evidence- that I've hit the wall with "Auto" settings and will have to decipher the BIOS settings to get any higher (or indeed, to stay here with any pretense of stability).
That silliness will have to wait for another day.
Right now I need to concentrate on getting her all properly assembled.

I can't say I've even looked at the Corsair cables to think of relocating them, but if you have time could you take some cloes-ups of them so I can check em out please. Thanks man

OK, no new pics yet but some progress has been made.
The new lower front plate has been completed (yeah, I know I haven't shown any of that stuff yet) and this morning I should complete the install of the RAM cooler.

I should have gone ahead with the install of the front eSATA ports but didn't for two reasons.
First, it requires completely stripping the case down to gain unfettered access to the front bezel. This is a giant PITA and frankly, I was feeling lazy.

Second, it's not a trivial mod.
Although it only requires drilling four holes and creating two rectangular openings, the final result is completely exposed and visible. I've learned that forcing myself to perform such feats is usually a bad idea and since the front bezel is my favorite part of the case, I want to wait till I'm confident of the outcome.

Detale:
About the Corsair cables...you don't need pics from me, this is completely self-explanatory.
If you have any unused cables left over look at them. If not, pull one from your case.
Now, look at one of the 90° fittings- on the back you'll see a little cover which just pops off. Remove it.
You'll now see that the wires are simply pressed into a metal fitting which pierces the insulation and touches the inner copper wire. The wires are easily removed, leaving the wire somewhat mangled. This was not a problem for me since I was moving the fittings much closer to the PSU end...there was plenty of virgin wire to work with between the PSU terminal and the first stock connector.

Because the Corsair wiring is all black, special attention must be paid to the polarity of the connector. I left the stock connectors in place till I was finished so I could verify which wire was which as I installed the new parts. Then all you do is cut the excess wire away flush with the edge of your new end connector.
Just to be safe, I verified polarity with a DMM before hooking up to the real components.

You can do it, it's easy.

^ Yeah, I did the same thing to one of my Corsair SATA power cables. My optical drive is at the top of the case, while two of the hard drives that also need a SATA power cable are at the bottom of the case, so I took the attachment off the wires, matched up the wires, and put the attachments back on so that they lined up perfectly with my drives. Extremely easy to do. I found a tutorial on the net a few days ago, so I'll try and look for it for you Detale.

EDIT: Here it is - http://www.gam.net.au/pcmods/satapower/3.html

Scroll down to where it says "Type 3 - Remove inline 'self crimping' SATA Power Connector (Type 3a, Type 3b)", and it'll tell you how to do it. (You don't have to take off the attachments on the ends of the cable if you don't have to relocate them.)

Perfect...that's exactly how it's done.

Guys thanks so much. I'm on this tonight. Clocker I completely agree when doing a mod, or anything that will have a finished look to it. Don't do it unless you "feel" it. otherwise it will come out all fucked up. You said to me once Patience is a virtue and big surprise, you're right ;)

I said that?
Jebus, I must have been tripping.

Quite right, Patience is a nice girl from Stratford, Connecticut, as I remember. :huh:

Also a GNR song ;)

That, too.

Hey, I have a question relative to my build, but it belongs more properly in "Software", so that's where I'm posting it.

Please take a peek.

Done.

you named it after the guy in the jetsons.....we all know you did

Well no the man was named Spacely Sprockets and he was in the business of manufacturing Sprockets. I wonder if the is a computer out there named Cogs???

Actually, no.

Sprocket was named for the biggest, meanest Airedale bitch I ever knew.
She was a great dog.

So anyway...today in Denver it's 50°f, tomorrow will be -5°f.
Damn Canadians and their Polar Express.

I figured that if I was going to be in the garage, cutting and hacking, today was the day to do it.
Managed to get quite a bit done and what's left can be done inside.
Onward and upward.

First up was the eSATA port relocation.
I dithered back and forth whether to do it or not and finally decided I'd kick myself for being lazy, so it was on.
Turned out not be as difficult as I'd feared but even so I only did one (I have two ports to play with), figuring not to push my luck.
Started by removing the door and the lower front panel...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ker/LFBare.jpg

Then I laid it out and did some drilling and filing...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/eSATA.jpg

And the finished product...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/eSATAout.jpg

Reinstalled the lower front panel...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...er/LFront1.jpg

I'm glad that's over with.

Next up was a minor bit of work that's been driving me crazy for weeks.
I had purchased an OCZ memory cooler a while ago but the mounting method absolutely sucked. Basically it clamps to the end of the DIMM slots but in my application it interfered with the video card.
Not a lot but I didn't like it.

This morning I machined and threaded a 3/8" aluminum rod and mounted the fan unit to the case floor.
Like so...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...er/Inside2.jpg

Much better, I think.

So now Sprocket sits proudly, looking like this...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v78/clocker/Side1.jpg

Oh, because he asked nicely, here's a shot of the fan controller from the back- just for Detale...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/Sunbeam1.jpg

And that's it for now.

Looks good man as usual. I still haven't gotten my copy of that key yet :P . Also, where'd ya get that Bezel?

The bezel on the DVD is a Lian-li part.

What key?

Not to break balls but do you know the part number or where to get it. I'm still looking for a decent one for the front of my TJ07. I did a quick mod where it was a flush blank brushed aluminum plate so it looked like a cover but when you pushed it the tray opened As if it were a concealed drive, but I couldn't get it to work right 100% of the time and I gave up on it.

This key!!!
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/699/side1nl7.jpg

BTW man I don't think I said thi but noice cabeling job in this pic. good work ;)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...er/Inside2.jpg

Does that foam silencer stuff really work? Did you buy that foram or is it something you had around the house?

Awesome!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Detale

Not to break balls but do you know the part number or where to get it.
Does that foam silencer stuff really work? Did you buy that foram or is it something you had around the house?

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Bezel here.

It's not really specifically "silencing" foam- just packing from various motherboards, etc.
I use it cosmetically.

Anyone care to speculate on the effect of a 4G OC on the E8400's lifespan?

If temps aren't crazy, what's the harm?

It ain't the temp you need worry about, it's the voltage.
Default core voltage is 1.25v and my comfort zone ends at 1.275v (which is extremely conservative). I've seen 24/7 chips running at 1.35v- and higher- but reports of performance degradation after a few months concern me.

Maximizing what the chip will give you at stock voltage is enough of a challenge for me.

I've never had a chip long enough to worry about "lifespan".
AFAIK, all my old chips are still running just fine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clocker

It ain't the temp you need worry about, it's the voltage.
Default core voltage is 1.25v and my comfort zone ends at 1.275v (which is extremely conservative). I've seen 24/7 chips running at 1.35v- and higher- but reports of performance degradation after a few months concern me.

Maximizing what the chip will give you at stock voltage is enough of a challenge for me.

I've never had a chip long enough to worry about "lifespan".
AFAIK, all my old chips are still running just fine.

---

Certainly nothing wrong with a certain Opteron.♦

Sounds like I could cruise around 4G with a slightly extended lifespan, then, eh?

Honestly, it's going to be a crapshoot.
No way of knowing till you actually get running.

My first Wolfie was golden, would run 500 x 8, no prob.
The second, not so much.
The third is a killer chip but the thermal sensors are stuck below 50°...absolutely no movement at all. Once the chip heats up (i had to disable the heatsink fan), I get sensor movement of 8-9, which is good.
This does not affect performance but makes temp monitoring useless.

Which is fine by me actually.
Part of the move to air was a general desire to quit obsessing about performance.
The chip will throttle if/when it gets too hot, beyond that, it really doesn't matter.

Well crap.
A real brain fart just erased all the pics I had for this update.
Oh well.

It all started when I discovered that my new eSATA port didn't work.
Actually, the port itself is fine (whew!) but the opening was not large enough for the cable to seat fully. Turns out I had forgotten to account for the difference in material thickness between the TJ's bezel (.116") and the breakout panel the port was originally mounted on (.036").
A bit more filing to widen the hole was needed and this meant disassembling the front panel again.

The filing took but a matter of minutes- you'd best believe I checked with a cable this time- and I decided to take advantage of the loose panel by installing a "clear CMOS" switch.
The location of the CMOS header on the motherboard is extremely awkward, now I can clear it by just opening the front door and pressing the switch.
This will probably come in handy as I begin to explore some of the more esoteric BIOS settings.

I also decided to reconfigure the HDDS but I'll get into that later.
I rerouted some wiring, specifically the parts that run behind the motherboard. There was too much bulk back there and it made putting the sidepanel on a bit difficult.
Much better now.

I've also decided to redo the upper front panel in the door but it's too damn cold for garage work today.
'Twas -12° when I got up and it's only warmed to 6° this afternoon.
Seems like a good day to drink and watch football.

Since I screwed up the pics of the PC I'll leave you with an image of my poor frozen car...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...r/FrozenRX.jpg

Shame all the pics were lost. I had the same esata problem when I did this to my Antec 900. I guess it's one of those things you forget about until you try to connect the plug. I had to mount the plate on top for it to work right on mine. Thanks for the link *ordered :) Glad you worked it out man. Jesus I thought it was cold in NYC this week. Oh and it's always a good day to drink ;)