Upgrading Lexa

Mewohkie

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
Messages
88
So my GF decided she wanted me to build her a PC. Not to be outdone, I ordered new parts and am selling her my old ones.

I'm selling her:
Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G mobo
Intel Q6600 CPU
NZXT 500 Watt PSU (came stock with Lexa)
2x 4GB DDR2 1066 Gskill Memory
Gigabyte GH-PDU21-MF 110mm LED CPU cooler
and a full copy of Vista Ultimate
She is Getting the NZXT Nemesis Case (I'm kinda jealous)

I'm getting the following:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 mobo
Intel Corei7 920 (from intel retail edge package)
Apevia ATX-AQ700W-BK 700W PSU
3x 2GB DDR3 1600 Gskill Memory
Gigabyte GH-PSU23-PB 120mm LED CPU cooler

I'll toss up some pictures in a bit. I have to unwire the Lexa and I'm probably just going to put my hardware in it tonight and leave her hardware for whenever she has time to sit down and help (AKA bring me Cold Mountain Dews while I work)

Now would be a good time to try and figure out whats wrong with my CPU thermal censor that is part of the LEXA case temp read-out.
 
Arn't you a nice boyfriend.

Selling her your OLD stuff.

Haha.

+1.
 
Sell your girlfriend your Old hardware, then not work on it until she helps you/ brings you soda?
lul
 
Ok so to be nice I decided to give her my old XFI titanium PCIE sound card my PCI eSata card and my PCI USB card as well as giving her the Gigabyte GH-PSU23-PB 120mm LED CPU cooler
I bought a thermaltake Spin Q CPU cooler. I had to mod an old thermaltake bay drive variable control into the front of my case as well as remove a secondairy CD/DVD drive and move my current LG burner down to the bottom bay. I haven't taken pictures yet cause there is no room to hide wires now but I wire managed what I could and I'm reinstalling everything.

Yes... I am selling her my old stuff. Serves her right for going to Florida last and this week without me :D
 
ok so this Thermaltake cooler is in and it sucks. I have removed the side panel of Lexa just to boot up. Core i7 is all stock settings (not overclocked) and its idling at about 53 C. The fan is rheostat controlled instead of 4 pin CPU motherboard connector. I have the thing maxed out at about 1550 RPM give or take. Id really love to just throw this thing out and get a watercooling system but I have no idea where to start with that. Never watercooled anything before. Will post pictures in a bit.
 
Hardware
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Before shot
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Messy
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Super messy
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Spin Q (this thing sux the more I think about it)
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After
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DSCF0285.jpg

DSCF0290.jpg



Anyone have any suggestions for some water cooling on that core i7 or should I just switch to the stock intel cooler.
 
I'll take my chances with it, every antec I've ever owned has died miserably.
 
So I did some looking and i decided instead of water cooling (I barely have room now) I dropped the money on the ULTRA ChillTec Cooler.
 
Holy ****, why did you get such high end parts and then mate it to a Apevia PSU?
 
Honestly this one was one of the better ones I seen looking around. LoL what is everyone burning Apevia for? What PSU's SHOULD I have gone with?
 
wow it seems everyone on Xoxoid and Newegg and Tigerdirect are misslead. Either way We just got 1000 watt BFG PSUs in at work so worst comes to worse I'll just buy one of those. Maybe I'll mod it into the Plexiglass windowed Case of this one.
 
yeah i wouldnt of gone with the apevia. you should of come here for psu suggestions ha ha and cpu coolers also.
 
Well I'll give it a chance for now, So far its better then my old Antec True Blue and True Powers I had years back that both blew in a day on a P4 machine.

This rebuild is now waiting on the TEC cooler.
 
yeah, ditch that psu like a truckstop skank... its a virus waiting to just take out your parts.. never skimp on your psu choice
 
Yeah its better to switch, because maybe it might burn out something else in ur rig
 
TEC is installed and pix are to come, I was able to wire manage A LOT better this time. I also had to make a Molex connector splitter for some stuff in there cause this anti christ power supply everyone speaks of didn't have enough molex connectors on there.
 
Good job.

The only thing I dislike about the parts you ordered is the PSU like everyone said.

Don't always follow Newegg's customers review.

You should have gone with PC&P Cooling or Corsair.
 
So upon further investigation it seems that Apevia sucks the big one. However this particular unit and any of their other new Warlock series seem to have come quite a long way in terms of performance. I'm still playing around with overclock settings and such but this entire build seems really solid right now.

With the TEC installed I'm idleing at 36C with a slight overclock. Full load peaks at 57C.

Still havent uploaded pix but will at some point.
 
Hey, I'm getting rid of my wife's Lexa too, it's a crap case I think. Don't even know why it cost so much. When I got it for her (she picked it) the support rod going across the case wasn't riveted correctly and is at an angle.

I'm getting her a Lian Li PC-V350, and just mod it out...
 
So upon further investigation it seems that Apevia sucks the big one. However this particular unit and any of their other new Warlock series seem to have come quite a long way in terms of performance. I'm still playing around with overclock settings and such but this entire build seems really solid right now.

With the TEC installed I'm idleing at 36C with a slight overclock. Full load peaks at 57C.

Still havent uploaded pix but will at some point.

is it just me or is something not right here??? 36°c (96-97°f) idle temps with a TEC???

doing some digging, with a stock intell heatsink people are reporting 45 to 55°c idle's with aftermarket cooling im seeing any where from 35 to 40°c.. not includeing water/TEC/phase change. with the TEC you should be seeing more like mid to low 20's, im thinking its an 18v TEC that your running at 12v and its wanting on the order of 20 amps, or its a 12 v tec, and its wanting on the order of 26 amps.. its been awhile since i messed with TEC's, but i didnt think a PC psu could deliver 20+amps down a single molex connector, the 18guage wire is just barly within spec for that load range, and any more than 20 amps puts it over (where 12v at 26A it becomes a fire hazard, it will heat up and melt off insulation, maybe not right away, but it will)
 
Come back in 6 months and we'll see if that Apevia still survives..
 
Replace the PSU... Corsair, Seasonic, PC power and cooling, the upper end Antec and Enermax's are nice. Ive been burned two many times by junk PSU's.. never again.
 
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