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VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
Project: Helios Reborn  Reply with quote  

So yeah been wanting to do this for awhile. Plus I have learned that hauling a Full Tower Sli System to a LAN kinda sucks. So I plan to finish this and use it as a LAN computer. Hope you all enjoy!

Along time ago a young, dumb kid built a crazy cool computer (his first one actually). Well now a slightly older and still dumb kid is going back for more.

Helios, my orange acrylic monstrosity of a computer. It made me laugh and it made me cry. It caused me so much work, yet it always served so faithfully. Built on top of the line hardware in 2002 and revised a few times in its life. The old 2.2ghz AMD Barton CPU and ATI radeon x850 pro were pretty awesome. And the computer saw service all the way till 2008. But eventually the sad day came to dismantle the old tired workhorse. For 2 years it sat in storage boxes and pieces waiting for another shot. Waiting to once again resume the LAN warpath. Eager to again devour its foes. It has been through the fire and has the weary battle scars to prove it. well now its time has come again. Finally the sleeping giant silently prepares to once again unleash itself upon the world......

Very Happy
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Core I7 4790K @ 4.7 Ghz
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EVGA GTX 1080 TI


Last edited by VinceVaughn on Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:11 am; edited 1 time in total

Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:41 am  View user's profile Send private message
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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DAY1 (Ok this was the 16th but I am just now getting these online.)

While waiting for some components to get here I decide to do some good ol' DIY.

The lightbus was in the original computer and proved to be competent at controlling my lights. However the panel had one downside....the generic blue LED's. These just didn't match up to the theme of the case. So I decided to do something about that.

The Lightbus....like a fan controller except for lights.



I take'd it apart..... Razz



Here you can see the 8 offending LED's that i will be removing



Soldering is fun!



New LED in with the leads uncut....



And all done.....was a little rusty at Soldering but not to bad for not having done it in years.....



Finished and then reassembled the lightbus....Now for a real quick check of my work......



Yeah! it works!
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Core I7 4790K @ 4.7 Ghz
Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:46 am  View user's profile Send private message
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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DAY2 (The 17th)

Finally starting the actual build Very Happy

Happiness arrives in boxes marked Newegg Wink



A nice selection of goodies.....Was initially dismayed to see the essentially pink fans... Crying or Very sad however once powered and lighted they actually make a very good shade of red which is what I wanted....



Now Starting out with the base of the case....Had to do a minor fix to the lighted case feet I installed so many years ago....



Wanted to change the switch out with a better one....so I raided one of my extra CCFL switch harnesses Very Happy



5 minutes later we were in business!



wrapped each lead in electrical tape and then one around the whole thing to make it look neat and clean....



Bottom fan mounted (including filter and finger guard). Found out I didn't have any wire sheathing left....well at least I know that for version 2.0



Used tie downs and zip ties to make the wire harness look a little better.....



Assembled the rear ducted fan....



The rear panel with the ducted exhaust fan....



The first drive support installed....Helios begins to rise....



The Second one installed.....Just need the back, top and front. And yeah the sides too.... XD



The much revered 640gb WD HDD provides a nice mix of storage and speed....



Rear and top panel mounted as well as the HDD....



Front profile



Modular PSU's are a must in a clear case....hopefully this one will be powerful enough or I may have to upgrade later. Also it just barely clears the top 120mm blowhole....



The side panel and the reason this case is so hard to work with.....no motherboard tray Rolling Eyes



Nice DFI socket 775 motherboard in matching colors. Also as kind of a tribute to the original config which also used a DFI motherboard (DFI LanParty nForce Ultra B Shocked )



More Motherboard Love Very Happy



Installed 4GB of OCZ 1066 DDR2 (Props to my buddy McPoo for letting these go after upgrading)



And for this new frankenstein, a used but very proven heart. A nice E8400 3.0Ghz 45nm Wolfdale C2D (Once again props to my buddy McPoo for letting it go after upgrading)



My metal pineapple of Doom! Very Happy a Thermaltake SpinQ to cool the CPU. Also a homage, as Thermaltake Heatsinks cooled the original Socket A CPU.



I knew it was big, but holy crap online pictures don't do it justice



"The citadel dominates the city skyline" Mr. Green



The graphics card....A nice EVGA GTX 275 (Once again props to McPoo for upgrading and letting me get this little baby)



Installed the card just to see what it will look like.....and yeah I am liking it



And thats it for today.....will see how much more I get done tomorrow....and post more shiny pics Very Happy
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Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:07 am  View user's profile Send private message
Petch
n00b


Joined: 11 Mar 2010
Posts: 57
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Nice man. I have the same motherboard and it's been a rock solid board, that is until I shipped my PC from MD to OK and UPS busted it...

Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:24 am  View user's profile Send private message
Brules
M F C E O


Joined: 23 Mar 2003
Posts: 11074
Location: Konnichiwa, bitches.
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Hahahah that cooler is just stupid huge hahahah! Looks cool though! Smile Cant wait to see it finished and lit up!
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Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:20 pm  View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Nikola
Hung Like a Flea


Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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I love the way that SpinQ looks, so sexy!
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Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:29 pm  View user's profile Send private message AIM Address ICQ Number
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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I love the way that SpinQ looks, so sexy!


yeah I initially loved the regular SpinQ

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106123&cm_re=thermaltake-_-35-106-123-_-Product

However it had blue LED's in the squirrel cage and that ruled it out of this build.....then just browsing around I stumbled on its red vertical brother Very Happy
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Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:48 pm  View user's profile Send private message
Nikola
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Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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I agree, I like the vertical better as well.
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Post Thu Mar 18, 2010 5:35 pm  View user's profile Send private message AIM Address ICQ Number
VinceVaughn
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Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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DAY3: I was tired yesterday so I didn't get alot done (That annoying thing called work is keeping me really busy). But yeah worked on the comp a little. Its going to be a race to get her ready for the LAN tomorrow..... Very Happy

First up the power and reset switch....Why they shipped a orange case with those pesky blue LED indicator lights I will never know....



Nice new Red LED's installed and waiting to be clipped....



Mounted the switch back to the front of the case



And then installed the front panel....you can see all the old case badges still attached as well as the installed CCFL's



The top front bay illumination light....overall an elegant design IMHO as going through the panel with the wire would have been ugly and a pain in the ass...and of course a shiny grill Razz



the CD drive....normally not a problem with the gray casing but it looks unsightly in a clear case....well time to fix that.....



Time to get all art and crafty Laughing



So far so good....



I think CD drives should come in all black.....it looks good



I raised the sides to cover the lightbus. It will hopefully make the bay devices look clean and nice. Plus it will create an isolated, out of sight area to stash cable.



Mounted the cool drive 5.....no drive in it just using it for the awesome red analog guages....


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Core I7 4790K @ 4.7 Ghz
Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:09 pm  View user's profile Send private message
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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Have made a little more headway..... Very Happy


Here I have a couple tri-LED enclosures.....Very nice for spot lighting but unfortunately the cabling is pretty messy with the 2 molex pass thru's....




So I cannibalized a 3 pin connector and stripped the wires....




I'm pretty sure you can see where I am going with this thought process Razz




With a little heat shrink one can work miracles.....




Next up is an old component from the original build....Its a lighted automatic fan controller....it can adjust up to 2amps of fans automatically by the temperature sensor in its tip...




Mounted it to the side of the bay support....purposely mounted it where there is little airflow so its temperature sensor can better serve out the fan-age....




Now for this next bit I have to say thanks to Nikola for his brilliant idea. So the Light controller has a 1/8 jack in for the sound sensitive setting. Originally it was meant to be used with a pass through off the back panel audio. But I felt that this was a little.....'ghetto' and I wanted a cleaner more professional way to provide the sound input....And thats where Nikola came in, he suggested going off the front audio connector on the motherboard. So I researched a little and came to the conclusion that it probably can be done.....so then I had to make a cable for it.....

Started with a audio connector.....




Attached the leads to it.....




Sleeved and taped the end....




Then I hacked up a front audio connector i had and simply matched the pin outs to the audio out....



Pretty proud of that one.....Only trouble is.....I am not quite sure if the realtek software can enable simultaneous output to the rear panel (Headphones/Speakers) and to the front panel (The sound sensitive lightbus). I am pretty sure it can be done....but will cross that bridge when I get to it....


And finally a little cable management and some splicing of fan connectors into a single power distro point....


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Core I7 4790K @ 4.7 Ghz
Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:46 am  View user's profile Send private message
Nikola
Hung Like a Flea


Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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Nice! I like that audio cable!

As far as multiple outputs, I'm not sure if it can do both at once, but for me in Win7 I just right click the Volume Control and go to Playback Devices and change the default output device between Headphones (Creative X-Fi) and ATI HDMI DP Output.

I can have both run at once but it drove me nuts when I had the headphones close enough to hear both. That also may be allowed since the HDMI output was running off of the Realtek onboard sound and the X-Fi is sending the headphone signal. You might have better luck running multiple outs from a standalone sound card.
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Post Thu Mar 25, 2010 3:27 am  View user's profile Send private message AIM Address ICQ Number
Shinare
SEXNOCULAR


Joined: 17 Mar 2004
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Location: Up your butt with a coconut!!
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Lookin sweet!
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Post Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:02 am  View user's profile Send private message ICQ Number
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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Well once all the fans and lights were wired. I was ready to assemble the final system. Needless to say it went without a hitch and a quick power-up showed that everything was working first try. I was really pleased by that. There is nothing like the feeling of spending many hours planning and assembling a build and watching it POST on the fist powerup Very Happy


The system is ready....Honestly the cable management is really good....Alot better than this machines previous incarnations.




Quick shot of of the front bays....have the analog gauges of the Cool Drive 5. The HDD gauge reads off the HDD activity LED and is actually very cool in action. Linked the temp probe to the exhaust of the GPU so that it will ramp up and down quickly when gaming..... And of course the Lightbus and the DVD drive....Still have to clean and buff the 3.5 inch drive bay covers....




I still can't get over how awesome the cooler is.....it absolutely dominates the case...




The GTX 275 was a tight fit but it works and will put down all the power I need on the go. The red and black color scheme is a bonus as well.... Very Happy




The 80mm side fan with filter....This fan is from the original build. Its anodized red color is absolutely amazing.




The side panel with fan mounted.




You will see that only one fan is mounted. The reason for this is actually because of the CPU cooler. It is so massive and tall that it actually prevents the top side panel fan from being mounted. I am still trying to figure out what to do about it. So far I think that I will just mount the fan grill and the filter. Its not ideal but will look better than leaving a gaping hole there or trying to patch it.....I need to get some custom screws to accomplish this though....


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Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
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Post Sun Mar 28, 2010 3:00 am  View user's profile Send private message
Shinare
SEXNOCULAR


Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 13332
Location: Up your butt with a coconut!!
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Mount the side panel fans on the outside of the case?
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Post Mon Mar 29, 2010 12:49 pm  View user's profile Send private message ICQ Number
Nikola
Hung Like a Flea


Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 790
Location: Edmond, OK
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You should duct that hole straight onto the SpinQ! It will be sweet!
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Post Mon Mar 29, 2010 1:00 pm  View user's profile Send private message AIM Address ICQ Number
LightningCrash
Smile like Bob, order your free LC today


Joined: 03 Apr 2003
Posts: 5020
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Nikola wrote: You should duct that hole straight onto the SpinQ! It will be sweet!


if only there were a motherboard and case design that automatically ducted the fresh air right onto the CPU's HSF

Cool

Post Mon Mar 29, 2010 1:35 pm  View user's profile Send private message
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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Mount the side panel fans on the outside of the case?


Thanks to some past experience with this case....I have found fans mounted strait on the outside to be a little 'ghetto.' The only way to make it look nice would be to enclose the fan sides in acrylic so it would blend with the case....This would be alot of work for a couple 80mm fans.....

You should duct that hole straight onto the SpinQ! It will be sweet!


If there were more clearance I would agree totally but the angle would be so steep that it would look funky and wouldn't function well.....

For right now I just mounted the fan grill and the filter as a backdrop...It's not ideal but it doesn't look that bad either.....
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Core I7 4790K @ 4.7 Ghz
Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:10 pm  View user's profile Send private message
VinceVaughn
Cougar Hawk


Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 630
Location: OKC
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Well got her powered up and running just fine....Stressed it for an hour using LINX and Fur Mark to max both CPU and GPU. Ran rock solid with no error's or lock ups. At max usage the 12v rail did hover at around 11.6-11.7 with the lowest reading being 11.39. So I may need to upgrade the PSU in the future (Especially if I OC the CPU) but it should be fine for now (at normal idle it runs at 12.10).

As for temps...It does run a little warm. Which is to be expected as Acrylic is more of an insulator. CPU idles at 42c and hit 60c under max load in LINX. The GPU idles at 50c and initially hit 84c in Fur Mark...although with the fan speed kicked up to 100% it only hit 74c under load.

The software supports simultaneous sound output just fine...just can't get the lightbus to register anything....need to do further troubleshooting to solve that issue....

Otherwise all is good....and I will post pics of the finished build after she debuts at the April LAN Party Very Happy
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Corsair H115i AiO 280mm Water Cooler
EVGA GTX 1080 TI

Post Sun Apr 04, 2010 4:34 am  View user's profile Send private message
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