Project Cyborgmind: Duo

[Chaos_Being]

Well, it seems like it's that time of year again...time for those who are obsessed with upgrading and tweaking their pc to do a bit of re-building (namely, me )

Nearly a year ago I posted up a project log for the creation of three of my current pc's, which can be found here: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=459291. I am currently re-visiting my "Cyborgmind" build, with some new case mods and some new hardware. The reasons are twofold. One, (the primary reason,) is that I wanted to build my sister a pc. She doesn't have overly demanding computational needs, but she was in sore need of an upgrade (her computer was probably around 10 years old, eek!) So, I planned to do some hardware migration- my computer parts (cpu, ram, motherboard) would go into my wife's pc along with a few new parts, and the guts of my wife's pc would become my sister's pc. The second reason? I like upgrading!

Cyborgmind: Duo is ideally going to be a multi-stage process. I've already begun my work (which I am going to chronicle shortly,) and I am hoping to complete stage one within a week or so. Stage Two, and possibly Stage Three, are mostly further aesthetic mods and things that I want to do, but aren't necessary for my basic goals and pc functionality, so they will "happen when they happen," so to say.

Stage One will of course consist of the hardware upgrades. I'm moving back to Intel, and will now be using an e6600, Abit QuadGT, and 2gb of Geil PC6400. I will still be using my 8800gtx and PCP&C Quad Silencer 750w. I will also be furthering my black and green theme, by painting the inside of my case black, and adding some new green highlights. I also plan to go back and clearcoat some of the pieces that are already green, as the neon green paint I used has a powdery texture that I've never completely liked. I want a smooth, glossy finish instead. Lastly, my goal with this new build is max silence and max performance using air. I had initially planned on watercooling, but as usual, the funding to "do it right" wasn't there (when I finally get into watercooling, I don't want to do a cheapie setup.) So, I am challenging myself by trying to wring the last bit of performance out of aircooling while making my case even quieter than before. In particular, I am going from a four-fan layered intake setup back down to two fans. I used four fans before because I found that two fans all the way in the front created hot spots of air inside the case. To get around this problem, I will be shifting the intake fans back further into the case, and making sound-insulated intake ducts for them. If my cpu temps end up being unsatisfactory, then I will be lapping my cpu & heatsink.

Stages 2 and 3 may be partially exclusive. The part of Stage Two that definitely is not involves stenciling. I want to frost a circuitry design into two of the window panels on the side of my case, and I may also do similar circuity stenciling to the inside of the case, using UV green paint. Stage Two may also involve installing an HR-03 Plus on my 8800gtx, and fabricating a plexiglas duct that would connect to the lower intake fan. The intake fan would blow air into the plexiglas box, across the HR-03 Plus, and out the open PCI slots. I initially came up with the idea when I had thought about running x1900 crossfire, as a way to silence the incredibly loud heatsinks on those cards. In fact, here is the mockup I drew for that- the idea would be the same, except that there would of course only be one card.

The beauty of this setup is that not only should I get better temps on my video card, I would also be eliminating two fans! In addition to the normal stock heatsink, I have been running a quiet slot blower underneath to help exhaust the air that would normally leak out of the slits in the heatsink shroud.

Stage 3 would be to finally go with watercooling. I had been eyeing parts such as the 3x120mm Swiftech rad, either the D5 for the DDC with modded top, D-tek Fuzion, etc. Who knows when I'll get around to doing this, but I definitely do want to try it out sometime


So far over the past week, I have already completed my wife's pc and my sister's pc. I just started working on Cybormind: Duo over the past two days, and I finally made some real progress today. However, the full spread of pics are going to have to wait, as I am getting sleepy...

For now, here are the pics of all the parts I ordered (the Scythe Silent Drive came afterwards, hence it's solitary picture.) I will get some progress pictures up tomorrow

GOODNIGHT!

 

[Chaos_Being]

Alrighty, time for a real update. Although it isn't 100% a part of my official project, I also took the time to take some photos of my wife's pc as I rebuilt it. Seeing as how migrating my hardware into her PC has made room for my upgrade and given me a reason to strip down my case for modding, I figured it would be worthwhile to post up some pics of her stuff as well.

Her PC was starting to get a little dated (well, to me anyways.) 3.0c @ 3.6ghz, 1gb of pc4200, Abit AI7, 6800gt, 40gb hdd, etc. etc. It was also definitely a throwback to how I was building my first PC's- in other words, loud. I had a panaflo M1A as exhaust, and a 92x38mm Sanyo Denki as a heatsink fan. Not only was her case loud, it was also a dust magnet due to the overwhelming negative pressure it had. This time around, I was defiitely aiming for something quiet (which is how pretty much all of my pc's are now...I'm not as much of a quiet freak as some of the people over at SPCR, as I still need my overclock ability, but I can no longer put up with PC's that sound like dustbusters.) Before I go into too much detail though, here are some pics.

First off, a couple of "before" pics. I didn't do the neatest cabling job when I made this thing, although cable management is definitely a pain in the Super Lanboy. I planned for that this time though...as I will show soon enough.

I removed all of the parts from her case, and was left with a drawer full of parts, and a very dusty, stripped down metal frame. When I originally built her pc, I didn't have access to many tools or a place to use them in. Thus, I was never able to remove the grill for her intake fan, and the exhaust grill was none too neatly severed with tin snips. This time, I planned to take care of those issues.

So, out to the garage I went! I still need to get a real work bench, so I had to settle for a folding chair...not the best solution by far, but it worked. I also made sure to wear my goggles, face mask, and ear plugs. I don't mess around when it comes to safety when I'm doing this sort of thing. The last thing I need is a metal sliver in my eye, to breathe in a bunch of metal dust (I didn't think I"d need a mask the first time I did metal cutting, and I must say, smelling nothing but steel and rust for a day or so after was not fun,) or to screw up my hearing any more than it already is.

The master at work!

In an hour or so, I had neatened up the exhaust hole considerably, and cut out the grill for the intake fan. The intake grill wasn't symmetrical, so the cutout looks kind of strange. There wasn't much I could do about that.

After some cleanup (and a day or two of downtime,) I began to re-assemble her pc using some of the parts from mine (pictures of my case dis-assembly will follow.) A couple of the new parts on my "big bunch of parts" picture were for her new pc as well- the Corsair 520w PSU, the Sapphire x1900GT, and two Cooler Master "purple" led fans. I say "purple" because it turns out that they were actually UV led fans, which in a way was even better. They're nice quiet fans, and they made the blue grill on her case really light up. I also REALLY liked the modular Corsair power supply. The flat cables in it are a lifesaver for mid-towers like this. I was able to neaten up the inside of her case consierably over it's previous state. Anyways, here are a couple pics of her PC after I was done re-building it.

The final result is that her pc is literally whisper quiet- the loudest thing in there is the 40gb hard drive that is still in there (she needs to transfer her data from it still, and then I may remove it.) As for the other parts in the original collection pic, the only thing left in there that is not going to be a part of Cyborgmind: Duo is the 500gb hard drive. I used that, along with my wife's old parts and a Cooler Master Centurion case to make my sister's pc. It was a pretty straightforwards build, so I didn't bother to take any pictures. Suffice to say, it turned out nicely and she is happy!

With that out of the way, the rest of this worklog can now focus on Cybormind: Duo.

 

[Chaos_Being]

Firstly, a couple of before pics. Like I said before, the green bezel on the top is going to be clear coated so it has a nice glossy look, vs. it's current "powder green" finish. The foam inside the case is going to go (it was mostly aesthetic anyways,) to be replaced with an all-over coat of black semi-gloss paint. The clear holder clips for the 5 1/2" drive bays are going to be painted neon green also, as well as the case feet.

From there I began to strip down the case. I have to say, it was actually kind of a pain because of all the zipties I used for cable management. I had taken the mobo/cpu/ram out first, as I used those for my wife's PC. A few days later, I began to remove the rest of the parts and store them away temporarily. Note the blue exhaust fan- that is going to be replaced by one of the green "Blackfire" UV LED fans; the other one is going to be used on my Ultra-120 Extreme. The other two blue fans are still going to be used as intakes, as they will not be very noticable anyways. Besides, they are nice and quiet, and the green sleeving definitely still goes with my theme.

(In one of those pics you can see that I made some markings on the motherboard tray. I had been thinking about cutting some holes in it for cable management. Ultimately, I decided against it as I like to upgrade often, and if I changed the motherboard to one that had it's connectors in different places, the tray would look odd.)





With the case stripped down, I began to work on what will become my twin duct boxes for my intake fans. I had previously been suspending my intake fans with zipties, but that was always a kludgy way to do it IMO. I've wanted a way to hard-mount them for a while. In order to do this, I gutted two dead CD-ROMs so I could use their metal shells. The top part of the shell has the screw holes which will allow me to attach the completed duct to the drive bays. The flat bottom part will of course become the bottom of the duct box, and I plan to use thin sheets of wood as the sides (in fact, the wood I am planning to use, a 1/4" thick Alder board, can be seen in the garage shot in my previous post.) The fan will be mounted in the back, and the duct will extend all the way up to the front mesh panels on my Armor case. I also want to line the inside of the ducts with thin foam, in the hopes that it may act as a kind of "silencer" and quiet down the fans a bit.

Anyways, here are a few pics of the metal parts from the CD-ROMs. Since they normally stick out from the frame in the front, I had to cut them down so they will sit flushly against the mesh bezels.

With all of the pieces taken apart and cut to size, I proceeded to sand down their surfaces a bit, and then cleaned them with some degreaser to prepare them for a coat of primer.

Sanded and ready to go:

Primered!

I applied two coats of primer last night, and I touched up a few spots tonight. I had actually planned on beginning the coats of black paint this afternoon, but I got home too late. The weather has turned oddly cold here the past two nights, so I decided that it was actually too cold for the paint to cure properly tonight anyways (it's supposed to get into the low 40's.) However, the weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week, so I should be able to begin painting tomorrow afternoon. I also plan on measuring and cutting the wood panel, so that can also be painted. Once all of the duct pieces are painted, I will begin to assemble them. Once the case and it's associated parts are painted, I will also begin to work on the green highlight parts. So far, it's coming along well!

 

[Electric Boogaloo]

Did you make a worklog for the original Cyborgmind on [H], I swear I remember seeing that case before...

Anyway, looks neat, I like the frosted circuitry idea and the GPU shroud thingy.

 

[michaLcoughliN]

holy sh*t whats with all the Mobil 1? HAHAHa.. wow..

 

[Chaos_Being]

Yeah I had a worklog on here too, the copy on ocforums was more active though (I never got any comments here,) so I linked to that one.

As for the Mobil 1, that's a ton of old oil that I have been meaning to take to the transfer station for disposal...it's been building up for a while

Hopefully I'll get some preliminary painted pics up tonight!

 

[Chaos_Being]

Small update...

I stopped by Home Depot again (my one-stop modding shop, I swear) today to replenish my paint supplies a bit. I got another can of semi-gloss black, as well as a can of flat clear coat. I've decided that I want to put a clear coat over the metal flaps on the front of my case as a protectant. Ever since I stenciled them, I've been wary of flaking off some of the paint on the lettering. However, I didn't want a super glossy finish, as I had used semi-gloss black paint on them. It's a shame that there wasn't semi-gloss clear, really...

Anyways, I did two light coats of black on the case tonight. I'm going slow on the black paint and feeling out how it will spray and dry. I'm kind of paranoid of getting paint drips and screwing the finish up. Thus, it's a little patchy looking right now, but as it builds up I'm sure it will look nice

More to come!

 

[Chaos_Being]

I put a third coat on everything this morning, and a fourth coat on this evening. It's looking really good! I think all I need to do is touch up a few spots (which I will probably do tomorrow morning before work,) and then let it get good and dry for a while. Then, I can start painting the green parts, and finally do the clear coats.

I also started cutting the wood panels for my fan ducts tonight. I got 2 of 4 of them cut, before the emerging summertime bugs drove me inside (I didn't want to do the cutting in the garage, for fear of getting sawdust on my fresh paint. Thus, I was on the back porch with the porch light on.) I may not have a lot of time tomorrow to work on this, but hopefully I can at least get the other 2 panels cut so I can paint them as well.

With any luck, I will have enough of this done so I can start at least a preliminary re-assemble this weekend.

 

[Chaos_Being]

I actually got a pretty decent amount of work done tonight, although I'm not exactly where I was hoping to be. I was hoping to get a few things mounted into the skeleton of the case, however the paint was still lacking a bit on the motherboard tray and a few other easily visible areas. I have touched up those spots with what should hopefully be the last coat. Other than that, the paint job isn't perfect (there are some imperfections from dust here and there,) but considering it was my first time painting a computer case, it didn't turn out half bad. Most of the problem areas are in places that won't be visible once the case is re-assembled...that being said, I think I need to rig up some dropcloths next time to keep off the darn dust!

In addition to putting the last touches on the case, I also began to paint the trim pieces. The case feet and drive clips were primered, and then given their first coat of neon green. Depending on how the green turned out, I may give it another coat tomorrow morning, or I may go straight for the glossy clear coat. I finished cutting out and sanding the wooden panels for the intake ducts as well, and coated them with the last of my 2nd can of black spraypaint.

With what I could do with the painting tonight completed, I realized that I still had time...and that I may as well start preparing the hardware, even though I didn't have a case to put it in just yet. I assembled my drive enclosure first. I hadn't mentioned it before, but I'm also re-using my 74gb raptor. The quiet drive was basically an aluminum enclosure which sits quite snugly inside a metal box that is mostly lined with dense foam. Two thermal pads sit on top and below the inside enclosure which are supposed to wick heat away to the outside part. We'll see how well it works soon...

I then decided to get some work done on the motherboard and cpu/heatsink assembly. While I've heard a lot of good things about the Quad GT, I've also noticed one ongoing negative issue: excessive heat on the PWM's and NB. I've seen a lot of different ways that people have gone about remedying it. I decided to completely remove the thermal pads on the NB and the PWM's, and replace them with MX-1. I left the shims on the heatsinks, and put a little more thermal paste on than I would feel to be normally necessary, as I had read about some instances of poor contact after removing the stock pads. I'll find out soon if this worked- hopefully I didn't screw anything up!

Before:

Chipset and PWM's exposed:

Heatpipe cooler removed- note the thermal pad on the PWM heatsink. It had a dried, flaky kind of texture.

Cleaned up!

Lastly, I installed the CPU and my Ultra-120 Extreme. I went ahead and got a shot of the IHS while I could...I didn't have a razor available, so I checked to see how flat it was with the edge of my credit card. Instead of the norm (concave,) mine seems really convex! Depending on how well this thing oc's (I've heard mixed reports about my batch,) I'll definitely be considering lapping this thing. As for my U-120-Ex, it has the same grooved base as everyones, so *shrug.* Installation was easy though, now I remember why I like Thermalright heatsinks so much. I slapped one of my new Blackfire fans on there too...the green fans are going to look great inside the all-black case I think!

Speaking of the case, it should be dry tomorrow and hopefully it won't need any more touching up. Thus, I should be able to assemble the greater part of the pc tomorrow, and experience the "moment of truth" with new hardware- aka, will it boot up? Stay tuned.

 

[AMD_RULES]

looks great man. I cant wait to see the final results

 

[Chaos_Being]

I've had quite a busy weekend getting Cyborgmind: Duo together, but I've had some great successes! It is up and running, and currently going through an Orthos blend test at stock settings to make sure everything is good and stable, before I do a bios update and start overclocking. Temps are great- the cpu is idling in the high 20's or low 30's, and loading in the mid to high 30's at 1.35v, 2.45ghz (Abit puts a small oc on by default it seems.) Better yet, the PWM/NB reseating was a total success- the PWM's are idling in the mid 30's, and loading in the mid 40's. My ambient temperature is ~24c. The true test will come with some voltage/fsb increases of course, but so far, so good!

I have a lot of pics, so I'm going to split them (and my progess notes) between the last two days. Saturday, 5-12-07 first:

I started the morning by bringing the case inside to be rebuilt. The last coat of black on the case's "skeleton" did the trick. I also finalized the coats of clear on the green trim pieces and the front "flaps" throughout the day- I didn't take picutres of them, but you'll see them assembled onto the case soon enough. The green case fans proved to provide a nice contrast, and the motherboard color definitely went well too. I'm glad that Abit is getting back to more blue and black pcb's, instead of the burnt orange color!

After I got the first batch of hardware installed, I decided to start tackling the intake ducts. I had measured them before, but I had to make sure that they actually fit inside the case before I permaently assembled them. A little bit of painter's tape later, and I managed to squeeze one of the ducts in. It was a little tight because of the paint inside the bays, but otherwise they fit perfectly inside 3 bays.

Encouraged that all of my work had not gone to waste, I went ahead and permanently assembled them with some JB Weld. The bottom duct proved to be a bit more of a pain to get in, but after a bit of frustration, I got it installed as well.

With the ducts installed, it was time to get everything else in and wired up so I could do a boot-up test. This last part of the assembly was the only part that proved to be a little disappointing. I couldn't get the cable management as neat as I wanted to, primarily because the cables for my uGuru panel were too short to reach the uGuru & USB headers on the motherboard. Well, they actually did reach, but I had to stretch them over the motherboard, which I didn't like doing. Nothing is blocking airflow...but it just wasn't as neat as I was hoping (although definitley not that bad. I suppose I could always extend them a bit.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH... It worked! Like I said before, the temps were good, as I saw in the bios (it was the first thing I checked.) I really liked the backlight led's on the motherboard as well...very cool effect. The Blackfire fans were a little louder than I expected...I knew that they weren't "quiet" fans per se, but I was still a little surprised. I toned them down a bit using the onboard fan utility (one of the things that I really love about Abit boards.) The only thing that was strange is that I couldn't seem to change the CPU fan speed...perhaps I'll have better luck when I update the bios. Overall, even though I've lost two fans compared to my old build, the pc is still about as loud. I guess that isn't a bad thing. I got Windows installed, then went to bed around 1:30am.

 

[Chaos_Being]

Sunday, 5-13-07:

Today I finished up what I didn't have time to do the day before. I did the last little bit of cable management, so I could get the back panel on (I still had the un-used cables dangling down the back of the motherboard tray the night before.)

After that, I went out to the garage to recover the rest of the trim pieces. They turned out really well! The powdery texture of the green paint was covered up with a nice glossy finish- it definitely gave them more of a "complete" look. The matte clear coat on the front "flaps" turned out well also, and now I don't have to be afraid to flake the stencils off, hehe.

With it all together, I took the opportunity to do a cleanup of my desk and the room I was doing the build in, and then the pc went back onto my desk for driver installs & windows updates. From there, I installed CoreTemp, CPU-Z, and Orthos, and since early afternoon it has been stress testing. So long as it proves to be stable, the overclocking will begin tomorrow!

So, as of today, Phase One of the build process is complete. I'm not sure when I will begin to work on the first half of Phase Two (the window frosting,) as I definitely feel like I need a break from building PC's for a little while- I've been going non-stop for a few weeks. However, once I finish with the overclocking, and getting my fix of PC gaming again, I'll be sure to tackle the next step.

 

[OldMX]

Looks very nice, good work

 

[W6FO]

Man, WTF sells A.C. Ryan fans? I don't want crap LogiSys or Sunbeam when I can have A.C. Ryan.

- JT

 

[Chaos_Being]

I got them from www.performance-pcs.com. They sleeve them for free too

 

[W6FO]

PCS was naturally one of the first places I checked, they only list some wacked "special edition" A.C. Ryan fan on their site. Bummer.

- JT

 

[Chaos_Being]

Ok, it's been a frustrating past two weeks, as this PC just didn't want to become stable! What ended up being the problem was that it needed more vcore to become stable on an Orthos blend test, vs. small fft. So, when I thought I had gotten a stable cpu overclock and began messing with my ram settings, I spent several days messing with the ram and motherboard settings to no avail, before out of frustration I raised the cpu voltage again- and presto, stability!

I didn't get to my goal of 3.6ghz, but I was able to overclock my ram some, so I"m pretty happy. The cpu is running at 3.4ghz, 1.49v, and the ram is at ddr2-945, 5-5-5-15, 2.15v.

It's definitely going to be a while before I do any more modding, as I am simply happy to have it up and running- meaning, it's time to play some pc games again