Project: Kosh 3

Hi there folks,
after Kosh II died a few weeks back (sticking display card fan & few sparks ) I have been researching and slowly building my new rig, named surprisingly Kosh 3

Name changed: "The Hive"

His Current Specs:

Case: Lian Li PC-7 FNBWX
Processor: Intel i7 960 3.2Ghz
Processor Cooler: Corsair H70 Closed Loop Water Cooler.
Motherboard: Asus P6TD Deluxe
Memory: 3x 2GB G.Skill NQ DR3
OS & Programs Drive: Cruical 128GB SSD
Data Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Display Card: Geforce GTX 480 1.5GB PCI Express HDMI (Fermi)
PSU: Corsair Memory 850W Modular PSU
Monitor: SynMaster 214T (from Kosh II)

I can tell you this from now I'm not a major modder like some of the awesome rigs I have seen on these forums so don't expect anything mind blowing. I actually did alot on Kosh II with paint job inside and out from a vanilla iCute Midi case from Maplins (if anyone wants a before and after pix of Kosh II I will try and dig a pix out from an old HD)

Test fitting the H70 on the Mobo in case, that fan has gotta go. I have an idea ​

I've had these crystal fans (Acoustifan Ultra Quiet Fan) for a yrs after I went out and bought a 2x 120mm Rad (anyone wanna buy a 2 x120 Rad thats never been wet?)that I thought I was going to build into a very old case yrs ago but never went any further than planning stages. LED strip is from Maplins and they have different colours and they come ready build with resistors so all I gotta do is wire up a 12v Molex.

hmmm if I could find a 140mm version too I could pop it in the front of my case

Just small things today, still waiting on a couple of bits before I finally get "The Hive" fired up. Thought I would start to wire up the LED strips and fans. For this I want ALL the lights to go though a switch so I can turn the lighting on and off whenever I wanted.

Working on the LED light strip and installing it on the crystal 120mm AcoustiFan Ultra Quiet Fan. Not bad, will be brighter as I'm only using a 9v battery for testing

A closer look I still don't like the look of that rad on the inside, I need to cut a little of the case to get the piping though without undoing the pipes on the H70

With the tinted window panel. I screwed up putting the tint on as there is LOADS of bubbles on it. Try to make a window or see if I can get someone to cut me one to size & shape of the original, I haven't got the tools or experience to cut

Bubble Bubbles everywhere

Now just trying to work out the wiring so that I can turn ALL the lights on and off with one switch

The Original Lian Li fans came with 4 blue LED's so they have to come out as I wanted a yellow LEDs instead. Keeping with the theme colours of Yellow and Black like a Bee, gettit? CrazyBee Photography eh eh eh?


Removed the blue LED from the original Lian Li 140mm Fan as its not in keep with the Black and Yellow theme I have in mind.


Needed to clear a channel so that LED strip could go though the fan and keep closer contact to the fan body for better diffusion of the light. :dremel:

Testing the lighting (note it will be brighter, using 9v battery)

The LED strip though the holes, much closer to the fan body so light gets dispersed better though out

Testing with 1 unit of LED strip, I REALLY gotta work on my soldering skills, they SUCK

nice man! im usually not a fan of leds but yours look great! yellow leds FTW!

That looks freakin' fantastic!

cj3: Thanks, I figured everyone does blue or red fan leds but I wanted to be alittle different and its more in keeping with the whole CrazyBee thing with me.

Jesse B: thanks, I'm not a major modder like some I have seen here as I don't have the tools or the talent but I do what I can with what I'm given

Well folks, just to let you know that "The HIVE!" is alive.......

I haven't quiet finished everything just yet, still installing and testing software ect but he seems just fine. Will try and finish off the lighting at least this weekend as I need to get to maplins to get some more led strips, May even throw in a Yellow CC in there too if the LED strips not bright enough.

I'm just glad he turned on first time without any problems

Finished LED crystal fan


Got the H70 Mounted the way I felt would be better so there is some air going across the mobo's heatsink to the left of the CPU keeping everything cool


The HIVE is alive.... Going to change out that top exhaust fan's lights as soon as I get some more yellow LED strips.

regarding the H70: I've seen in some threads people having problems getting this thing in and having the logo on straight. I've never done a H70 before but I got it first time and easy.


Yeah baby, The Hive turned out better than I thought, just get rid of the blue leds and stuff. This is with the tinted side window, still want to re do it.





Just wanted to get some pics up, will do some better ones in daylight over the weekend

Looking good. Will look great once you get those blue LEDs changed out

Finally hooked up the Yellow LED's to the PSU so getting the full 12v now

I may put in a ccf to brighten it up some more but I liking how the LED's on the fans worked out.

P.S you know what now looking at the previous photo of the Yellow and blue LED fans the blue is kinda growing on me now . Oh well too late as I've already ripped the LED's out unless I go buy another blue fan

"The HIVE!" todo list:
1: Get media card reader and install. (Awaiting suppliers)
2: Fix memory problem
3: Mount switches for lights, On/Off & Reset buttons
4: Mount slim CD bay caddy (Awaiting suppliers)

Sometimes booting up it shows 4Gb and not the full 6Gb I have installed, seems to happen more from a cold boot up . Other than that "The HIVE" is yummy

UPDATE: ok tested each stick one at a time in the mobo by just having single stick in the slot and booting up into normal windows. The last stick didn't boot up properly it got stuck on ExpressGate, but after I hit the reset button it booted up fine.

Did Memtest86 v3.5 using that same stick & after 30mins or so 134 errors popped up. Going to test each stick for about 3hrs and if the others sticks don't come up with errors I have found the problem with "The HIVE!"

Reseated the processor and H70 as I have read that sometimes the processor not sitting right can cause the problem I have been seeing with it not seeing all the memory installed. Seems to be a problem with ALL X86 motherboards from what I can tell.

BUT seems that my memory problem is a bad stick.

I put in all the sticks one at a time and booted up, one stick in "The HIVE!" refused to boot, just sat there with fans and stuff going but not ExpressGate or Bios screen.
So going to sort that out soon as possible. I may even get better memory but from what I can tell none are in stock at the moment anyway.

This is how "The HIVE!" currently looks, still waiting for the Lian Li EX-553 SlimCD 5.25" Bay Adapterr & Lian Li BZ-S01 Media Card Reader. Going to mount the switches on one of the 5.25 Bay covers too. Going to do somehting about the light leaking though the bays too & hook up the LED's for the Intake front fan too


Took this while testing out my ram, found a bad stick, returned it to KustomPC, bad stick was confirmed and got new memory pretty quick after.




Got some cable tiding to do, most of those are for the LED strips as I made sure I had extra lengths of wire to make sure I can wire them up anywhere I wanted. Also need to put in the Data drive too


Got an idea for this, something I saw while surfing on installations of H70's


New memory installed and working just fine.

Finally got the Lian Li EX-553 SlimCD 5.25" Bay Adapterr & Lian Li BZ-S01 Media Card Reader. Took so long cause of a combination of waiting stock from suppliers and then the bad weather up there in Scotland but bits are finally here. Will be doing the finally installation of everything this coming weekend.

What's left to do:

1: Drill mounting holds for Reset, On/Off switches & Lighting Switch (May put holes in the CD Adapter

2: Find a way to hook up the power to the media card reader. got a couple of spare Sata power heads I could use. (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1858.html) one of these should do the trick. Even though I have found the media card reader works fine without the extra power, probably just for the eSATA ports

3: Plug light leakage though the front bays.

4: Get a fan filter for the rear 120mm fan on the H70. After just a few months, there was alot of dust on the front intake fan's filter. I could go ghetto on it and use some other material I guess if needed.

5: Finally shorten as may wires as I can and tuck them away somewhere, mostly the lighting wires as they are WAY too long but I wanted to make sure I could put them anywhere I needed till I was happy with the placement.

6: Think about placing the SSD and HD in the SlimSlot Caddy and removing the HD cage completely.

Pics later on....