Project: Feeding Frenzy Interlude

Time for a little power supply work on the main power loom to the motherboard. A little slice and dice operation to remove about a foot of extraneous cable.

Needed tools: Automatic wire stripper, Opti Loupe, forceps to hold back the sleeving, and a soldering gun.


Feeding&





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Is that a red or an orange wire? ;)




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Now it's time to wire up the 4 pin mother board connection.




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Your kidding, right?

Actually no, he isn't. I'd rather not go into the chemistry of it (basic as it is), but mayonnaise can dissolve the glue thats used in those adhesives, and thus remove it. It's probably better to use a more professional solution for clean-up and sanitation purposes, but it's good if you need something quick :) .

Anywho, cool work so far. I just wish someone was building something wooden around here so I could have a little insight on my project :D .
 
Aqua Computer makes a fan, and these are it. They are the perfectly compliment for the Aquero and AC system (I think), they can be used with an RPM value under 500 and can be started @ 5V.

Just took another look and they look like a rebadged Yate-Loon.
 
Actually no, he isn't. I'd rather not go into the chemistry of it (basic as it is), but mayonnaise can dissolve the glue thats used in those adhesives, and thus remove it. It's probably better to use a more professional solution for clean-up and sanitation purposes, but it's good if you need something quick :) .

Anywho, cool work so far. I just wish someone was building something wooden around here so I could have a little insight on my project :D .

Who would have figured mayonnaise? Do a search for "wood" here on the [H] or at bit-tech as I have seen wooden projects before.
 
Holy CRAP that is some SICK work.

Your project on this LiLi is very similar to my own that I've been doing on and off for a couple months on my PC75. I have not been worklogging it to any level of detail close to this.

Love the level of detail on the sleeving of the power cords - reminds me of blood vessels.
 
Time for some more case work on the PSU part of the chassis. The PCP&C 510 SLI supply has adjustments for varying the three different supply voltages. I want easy access, so here we go with some drilling and dremel tool work. The unit needs a gasket attached to help nullify the twang from the PSU fan.



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Also to balance out the slight lift in the supply I have counterbalanced that with a piece of frame molding I also got from McMaster-Carr.




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First off is the dremel work.



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The other adjustment is fairly inaccessible in this case. So with my dial calipers I located the hole in the right place. Anyone know what that little hole in the bottom is for as it came with the case?



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Holy CRAP that is some SICK work.

Your project on this LiLi is very similar to my own that I've been doing on and off for a couple months on my PC75. I have not been worklogging it to any level of detail close to this.

Love the level of detail on the sleeving of the power cords - reminds me of blood vessels.

Nice of you to drop by and say hi :) What's going on with school?

Wait till you see the hard and optical drive loom. :cool:
 
Nice of you to drop by and say hi :) What's going on with school?

Wait till you see the hard and optical drive loom. :cool:

Headed back in December for the last six months for senior project. On co-op now at GE making digital mammography detectors. (saving boobies!)

If it's anywhere near as cool as the simple freakin 4-pin power connector, I may die.
 
As usual great work TN, you put us all to shame. Interested in your thoughts on my worklog. Suggestions would always be appreciated.

I'm on summer break before my last year of school... FINALLY. Who would have thought it would take this long to become a vaccine research technician...

mwarps... good luck with the boobies...
 
Here's the other end of the 4 pin motherboard connector.


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And gets soldered in here.



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Now we need to make a power loom that goes to the Aquaero and the Aquastream circuit boards.



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Front view of the finished loom.



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And the top view.



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Now we have to run the power to the loom I made above. One of the things many people miss is the real reason sleeving was made for. It was made to do stuff like the below pic. All three of the remaining drive wires are run through the main loom. They will go out to the Aquaero, the optical drives, and also out to the hard drives.



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All ready for some more soldering and finish sleeving.



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All soldered up and ready for heat shrink tubing and sleeving.




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And now it is all wired in and bolted to the case with a cable clamp. This is the side of the case no one will probably ever "see" outside this worklog.



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In case you are particularly observant you might have noticed that there are two sets of wires coming from the PSU side of the loom. I used this set of cables to supply power to the SLI molex on the main board as well.



Here is the SLI molex wire just hanging on the mother board tray before insertion in the loom going to the Aquaero.



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Here is where it is getting inserted into the Aquaero power loom.



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Pretty slick! Well, I mean, the [H]arder ones among us would solder everything directly to their respective boards, which is the sexiest and probably mid-range time consuming way to do it. :cool:
 
Time to start thinking about running power to the optical and hard drives. The three drives on the right are Raptor 74 Gb units and the two on the left are Raptor 36 Gb drives. Once the computer is operational the pair of 36 Gb drives will be returned to WD for some warranty work to repair the SATA cable sockets that were damaged recently while pulling out a cable. :confused: The PATA drive is only there to transfer data onto one of the SATA drives and will then go bye-bye into my junk box. ;)



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Main sleeve in.



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Prepping the optical drives for running the cable.



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Optical drives wired in and secured.



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Making up the loom cables for the hard drive circuit.



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HD loom finished.



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Just took another look and they look like a rebadged Yate-Loon.

You could be right. I just like the fact that there is full functionality (and a good price) with the Aquero and it being branded Aqua Computer pretty much guarnatees it (rpm monitoring and 4 speed levels). We'll see just how good they are as I continue to build my hybrid AC system. Plus Yate-Loon isn't a bad fan to rebadge if that is indeed the case. =)


Your wiring work is .... at ridiculously cool levels. I'm so taking some of your techniques ;).
 
Decided a Bulgin lighted switch might add some coolness to this build and the original hole was just the right size. The wire sticking up on the left is from the 470 ohm resistor I soldered to the switch to get the right voltage.

This one is red, but I probably will change it to blue down the line. This will be easily facilitated as I made the switch loom detachable from the box so I can take the front bezel on and off as I please. You can see the four (4) pin polarized connector I used in the upper left corner.



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The back of the switch is a bit longer than the stock switch so I needed to open up the front of the box a bit so the switch solder leads would clear. If your like me you can tire of taking the mother board in and out whenever you want to do some metal work. So I first nibbled out the metal so it would clear and then took a file to clean up the edges. Instead of removing the boards I just made up a portable box made of blue tape to catch any of filings.




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Filing away with the swiss needle files.



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If you think filing really doesn't remove too much metal here is what the tape caught!




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Now that the HD's are in and the fans to cool them I decided that a temp probe on the HD's would be nice as I can then control the front intake fans based on the heat of the drives via the Aquaero. So I sleeved a temp probe. :D




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I fixed it so the probe was wedged in between the HD cage and one of the HD's. Got it all hooked up and decided I had a bad probe as it didn't put out a temp! So I sleeved another one and the same damn thing happened. :mad:



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After the second probe I realized that the tiny thermistor material was getting scrunched. So new idea was in order and I went looking through my junk box. I found a roll of aluminum tape I had picked up surplus a few years back. Just what I need to make this work!




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Looking at the bottom of the HD cage I figured I could just wedge in a temp probe in one of those slots. Also keeps the fans from interfering with the temp probe. :D




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Add a little bit of aluminum tape to cover it, a sticky wire tie down, and it looks like we are done here. :cool:



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Little teaser here:




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...as I continue to build my hybrid AC system.

Your wiring work is .... at ridiculously cool levels. I'm so taking some of your techniques ;).

So where is your worklog so I can check out the eye candy? Feel free to use any idea or technique around here as the more the merrier. :D
 
Your work"man"ship is impeccable Top Nurse!

Subscribed & Acetone (nail polish remover) on the sticky stuff followed up with a little Rubbing Alcohol to clean it up FTW!!! Don't think a nurse would have difficulties finding that stuff :D
 
Headed back in December for the last six months for senior project. On co-op now at GE making digital mammography detectors. (saving boobies!)

If it's anywhere near as cool as the simple freakin 4-pin power connector, I may die.

Glad to hear you are pretty much done slaving around being the bottom link on the feeding chain. Now you get to make the moula. :D

Time to die now?
 
So what's a decent OC for my A8N SLI Deluxe with a 939 AMD 3500+ chip. Been fooling around and came up with this:



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I ran SpeedFan and am slightly concerned about the temps showing like 126C. Anyone know what this represents?



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So where is your worklog so I can check out the eye candy? Feel free to use any idea or technique around here as the more the merrier. :D

I'm still in the process of getting my parts and making hardware decisions. I'm trying to decide whether to get a tubemeter or an aquajet, I already have the rest the AC parts I'm going to use (Aquero, flowmeter, aquatube, blocks, thermal sensor, etc..). I thought about making it a worklog, but your worklog would put it to shame, lol.

Are you using all of your temp probes? I still have trouble placing them. Like the best best way to monitor a CPU block with one.
 
I'm still in the process of getting my parts and making hardware decisions. I'm trying to decide whether to get a tubemeter or an aquajet, I already have the rest the AC parts I'm going to use (Aquero, flowmeter, aquatube, blocks, thermal sensor, etc..). I thought about making it a worklog, but your worklog would put it to shame, lol.

Are you using all of your temp probes? I still have trouble placing them. Like the best best way to monitor a CPU block with one.

You should definitely do a worklog.

I'm currently only using temp sensors on the Raptor's and the return line from the radiator. Also plan on putting in an ambient sensor somewhere and possibly a hot side water temp as well.

For doing blocks the simplest thing is the use of copper or aluminum tape with the flat sensors. Alternatively, you might consider drilling a hole or slotting a block for a probe.
 
I just read through this whole thing, and.......I just about peed myself.

Great work... amazing wiring skills. I am in awe, and now disgusted with my "I used to think my wiring work was clean" machine......
 
I'd think you could get a much better clock on that; My 3700+ (200x11) gets 2.7ghz on stock voltage.

the 126's are sensors that do not exist.
 
This is my first A64. Please enlighten me on the settings, especially the HT settings.
 
1.4v, 245fsb, 11x multi. Memory at 166 divider (2x512 kingston hyperx, 2x512 g.skill zx), 2-3-2-6 2T. 5x HT.

I also suggest the use of CPU-Z over WCPUID.
 
Did I ever mention why I had to build FFI? It was because my normal work computer, after being water cooled for four years, suffered the indignity of having a glass of water being spilled right into the inside! :eek:

Well part of this gig is to recover the information off my RAID 0 array. So the initial drive hookup looks like this.



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So back to the HD wiring:


Here is the power loom going down to the bottom of the case secured with cable clamps.



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The HD in the 3.5" bay is my old data drive that will go bye-bye as soon as the info is placed on one of the 74Gb Raptor's.




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A close up of where the HD wiring disappears.



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And where it shows up under the HD's. The reason for the bare wiring is that I will be needing some 12 volt power for some lighting effects and this is where I intend to get it from.




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If you read the FF worklog you will see that the fan put into the PCP&C 510 SLI is a three (3) bladed affair more suited for a boat prop. And trust me it has a really annoying twang to it unrelated to the air sounds. After discussing this with a PCP&C engineer (try that one with any other imports) I decided to give a try at reducing the reflected sound that reflects back from the wall. So I found something made by Silverstone that does just this as seen below. This bolts onto the back of the PSU.




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Here's the back of the MB tray where I am storing some extra wires not needed.




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Another look of the 4 Pin and SLI wiring from the back.




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Decide that a little black trim might look nice on the long edges of aluminum.




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Some more detail on the Bulgin wiring.



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More FFI later...
 
Did I ever mention why I had to build FFI? It was because my normal work computer, after being water cooled for four years, suffered the indignity of having a glass of water being spilled right into the inside! :eek:

Wasn't me :eek:
 
Ok, I'm digging the Silverstone PSU Acoustic Cover. You MUST give me a link as to where you bought it. Also, does it work as well as advertised?

Looking forward to see how you route the SATA cables.
 
Like it so far. On the hard drive power cables why didn't you use sata connectors over the older molex ones? A lot of sata drives don't have molex connectors. Just seems like your giving yourself extra work to do in the future if you upgrade the drives down the road.
 
Like it so far. On the hard drive power cables why didn't you use sata connectors over the older molex ones? A lot of sata drives don't have molex connectors. Just seems like your giving yourself extra work to do in the future if you upgrade the drives down the road.

The drives I like to use (Western Digital 10,000 rpm Raptors) have both Molex and SATA power connectors. The Molex connectors are much more robust. SATA power connectors get broken easily.
 
Ok, I'm digging the Silverstone PSU Acoustic Cover. You MUST give me a link as to where you bought it. Also, does it work as well as advertised?

Here's the linky

I tried it and it didn't seem to make much difference in this particular installation. However, the noise that bothered me is not air noise, but a tinny noise. After I replace the fan in the PSU I will try again.
 
I remember the engineers saying that a slower fan would lower output... do you really need the 500 watts still? you could probably get away with a slower fan :p
 
Well I see your at it again. I think you spend more money on sleeving than I do on my entire PC :p

Are you really going to SLI 7800s? I was thinking about picking up a second 7800 GT myself this summer, but then I figure why not just buy a single faster card?

The Accoustic Cover looks cool, might pick one up myself but flip it upside down, I want to vent my WC PC out the window for the summer but it's probably not the best for this purpose......

Molex > SATA connectors. I just changed mine I was having way too many problems with SATA connectors falling off myself. I don't really know who thought it would be a good idea to give SATA it's own connector, and then make it so crappy.
 
I remember the engineers saying that a slower fan would lower output... do you really need the 500 watts still? you could probably get away with a slower fan :p

They said the same thing to me so that was why I thought I would try the noise direction thing first. My nephew has the same PSU and he already replaced the fan and hasn't seen any degradation in his rig. Next time the PC is down for some more work I'm going to replace the fan and put in a temp sensor on the main heat sink so I can use the Aquaero to automatically adjust the fan to the temp load.
 
They said the same thing to me so that was why I thought I would try the noise direction thing first. My nephew has the same PSU and he already replaced the fan and hasn't seen any degradation in his rig. Next time the PC is down for some more work I'm going to replace the fan and put in a temp sensor on the main heat sink so I can use the Aquaero to automatically adjust the fan to the temp load.

I know they said that to you :p i read the old FF worklog as you were doing it :p thats why i brought it up :p
 
Well I see your at it again. I think you spend more money on sleeving than I do on my entire PC :p

Are you really going to SLI 7800s? I was thinking about picking up a second 7800 GT myself this summer, but then I figure why not just buy a single faster card?

Yeah I got bored and decided to have a little fun. ;) You wouldn't believe how much I've spent on sleeving and heat shrink. :eek: I think I will start buying the stuff by the roll.

Yeah, that's the issue always with SLI. Should I spend the big bucks for a single card or get the lower class card and pay for two...
 
Yeah I got bored and decided to have a little fun. ;) You wouldn't believe how much I've spent on sleeving and heat shrink. :eek: I think I will start buying the stuff by the roll.

Yeah, that's the issue always with SLI. Should I spend the big bucks for a single card or get the lower class card and pay for two...

I'll split a roll with you. They come in 100 and 500ft :)
 
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