Soldato
A right odd one this. Not often you get a chance to cut apart and mod a modern Alienware Aurora.
The chance is here though, so hey, time for some fun.
Backstory.
Back in March there were some Alienware Aurora chassis doing the rounds on Ebay. They were pretty cheap. Basically you got a Dellienware Aurora chassis, 875w 80+ silver PSU , set of Delta fans wired to the electronic PIC controller they use and a rebranded MSI X58 micro. £325 all in, not bad.
So yeah, I got one in black and my mate hesitated and ended up with a Lunar Shadow. Mine? well mine went together in about ten minutes with the I7 950 etc that I already had. Mate then decided to push his thumb into his jacksie and sit on his elbow for months, calling me from time to time to waste my time speccing up all the parts he needed, only for him to lose interest again and go off the boil.
This went on until about two months ago, when he finally bought an I7 920 D0, 6gb Dominator GT (not the red sort but the ones just below) and a Zalman Extreme cooler for £130 used.
He then ordered four 1tb drives. And then when looking through his local Gumtree he found a guy selling the ALX model in black, 5870 CF, 12gb ram, BDRW 1tb I7 950 for £650. Basically the guy had pulled a swifty through work and ordered it to sell on but he didn't want to ship it, hence the price.
So that was him sorted. By that time I fell in love with the Lunar Shadow one (easier to keep clean
) so he agreed that if I sorted his ALX out (put in his best parts, fit an SSD and get it running) that he would trade my black case for his silver one. We did that and he took the nice unmarked black panels from my case and fitted them to his ALX.
He phoned me a few days ago saying that I could have the following -
The case (with scuffed side panels)
The motherboard
The PSU
The 920 D0
DVDRW
Leftover 1tb Baracuda
For £200. How could I refuse?
So, I now have it arriving on Monday. And when it does it's going to be modded. Basically I have ordered some white carbon wrap for the side panels (can't paint in winter) and will perform numerous mods to improve the cooling. This is it here (well, it was it when it was new).
This is what I have planned for the side panels leaving the top and front black.
And may do the bays hidden behind the door too. Hardware specs will be -
I7 920 @ 4ghz (really easy overclock on the bios out for the Aurora now).
3 GB triple channel Gskill 1600mhz
875w 80+S psu
Pair of EVGA 295 co op (was thinking about trading them but think I'll keep them now)
3x Compaq CQ1859S monitors (Nvidia surround)
NZXT sentry fan controller (just want it for the system temp and the time)
And whatever else I have lying around in my boxes of goodies
The chance is here though, so hey, time for some fun.
Backstory.
Back in March there were some Alienware Aurora chassis doing the rounds on Ebay. They were pretty cheap. Basically you got a Dellienware Aurora chassis, 875w 80+ silver PSU , set of Delta fans wired to the electronic PIC controller they use and a rebranded MSI X58 micro. £325 all in, not bad.
So yeah, I got one in black and my mate hesitated and ended up with a Lunar Shadow. Mine? well mine went together in about ten minutes with the I7 950 etc that I already had. Mate then decided to push his thumb into his jacksie and sit on his elbow for months, calling me from time to time to waste my time speccing up all the parts he needed, only for him to lose interest again and go off the boil.
This went on until about two months ago, when he finally bought an I7 920 D0, 6gb Dominator GT (not the red sort but the ones just below) and a Zalman Extreme cooler for £130 used.
He then ordered four 1tb drives. And then when looking through his local Gumtree he found a guy selling the ALX model in black, 5870 CF, 12gb ram, BDRW 1tb I7 950 for £650. Basically the guy had pulled a swifty through work and ordered it to sell on but he didn't want to ship it, hence the price.
So that was him sorted. By that time I fell in love with the Lunar Shadow one (easier to keep clean
) so he agreed that if I sorted his ALX out (put in his best parts, fit an SSD and get it running) that he would trade my black case for his silver one. We did that and he took the nice unmarked black panels from my case and fitted them to his ALX.He phoned me a few days ago saying that I could have the following -
The case (with scuffed side panels)
The motherboard
The PSU
The 920 D0
DVDRW
Leftover 1tb Baracuda
For £200. How could I refuse?
So, I now have it arriving on Monday. And when it does it's going to be modded. Basically I have ordered some white carbon wrap for the side panels (can't paint in winter) and will perform numerous mods to improve the cooling. This is it here (well, it was it when it was new).
This is what I have planned for the side panels leaving the top and front black.
And may do the bays hidden behind the door too. Hardware specs will be -
I7 920 @ 4ghz (really easy overclock on the bios out for the Aurora now).
3 GB triple channel Gskill 1600mhz
875w 80+S psu
Pair of EVGA 295 co op (was thinking about trading them but think I'll keep them now)
3x Compaq CQ1859S monitors (Nvidia surround)
NZXT sentry fan controller (just want it for the system temp and the time)
And whatever else I have lying around in my boxes of goodies
