Early Season Blues

[OJ46]

Sooooooo, feeling a bit bored (as usual through January!) I've decided it's time to change up the living room PC again, using a lot of the same components as my recent Short & Dumpy ITX build but into a new Parvum case and with a few new tweaks.

Components will be the same Asus Strix ITX motherboard, i7 6700k CPU and mini GTX 1060 graphics card. Can't even remember what RAM I used but, without pulling it apart or booting it up, I think it was 16GB @ 3200. Being a PC that's sometimes left for weeks without being used this will also be 100% air cooled.

Anyway, being Welsh you may have guessed from the title what the theme of this build is... Cardiff Blues

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I won't be giving too much away as I'm waiting on the renders from the guys at Parvum, so don't actually have a final design yet. But I can tell you it will be based on this:



Obviously I haven't made much of a start yet apart from sourcing paint and cable braid in the correct colours (which I got VERY lucky with) but the new PSU and CPU cooler are here, the paint is here and the case & braiding are on order, so hopefully I'll have some proper updates ASAP. As a quick taster...







How lucky did I get with the paint and braiding colour match? This lucky:



The plan is to wait until the case has been dispatched before pulling the current rig apart as we use it for media streaming most evenings through the winter, but a few beers and a bit of boredom could easily see that plan change!

Anyway, hopefully I'll have some cables and a new case to show soon

 

[harvey.l12]

Them colours are looking nice on that fan!

 

[OJ46]

Thanks, I have one more bit of modding to do to the fan to finish it off, so as soon as the plastic filler arrives I'll post an update

 

[JoeF1]

The fans come out lovely!

 

[OJ46]

Thanks Joe, it'll never look as good as a watercooled build but got to make a bit of an effort aye

 

[OJ46]

I never learn... Fun weekend ahead!

 

[LewisRaz]

Thats some good colour matching. Interesting to see what you are doing here

 

[OJ46]

Certainly got very lucky with it, especially as that was the one thing that was worrying me. Could have looked awful if there was too big of a difference between paint and cables

Still haven't heard back from Parvum but they said before Christmas it was mental busy down there, so guessing with the Xmas & NY break backing things up even more it could be a few weeks yet. In the meantime, I've found a spare few minutes to finish the CPU cooler. Being a large fan facing straight at the window I decided to add a bit of lighting, which turned out to be a bit more of a job than I'd originally hoped...

Anyway, I ordered one of these from OcUK



And needed to mount it onto this. As you can see there's a slight issue!



Hmmmmm, maybe I can use these holes instead...



NOPE! Nothing is ever that simple is it?



The corners came off...





Some filler was filled...



...And sanded back



New holes were drilled and the fit checked





The corners were tidied up and some paint was added





RESULT!







And lit up to check it all works



Please excuse the awful washed out photos that make the fan look pale grey, I can assure you it is still blue but Wales hasn't seen any sun today, so that's the results of a camera phone mixed with truly awful artificial lighting.

Before I go, here's a quick video for those who prefer the "Ate a bag of Skittles and puked on the fan" look

Hopefully there'll be more, and bigger, updates coming very soon.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

looks smooth mate! massive fan of those RGB covers !

would be nice if they released 135mm and 140mm but with 120 hole spacing kits in the future!

 

[OJ46]

Cheers mate, I've been very lucky with this build so far with the colours matching so well and then the Halos fitting almost perfectly. If the step had been a few mm further in it could have been a disaster... They really are one of those "Why the hell did nobody else think of this?!" products though aren't they, such a simple idea and so much cheaper than replacing half dozen fans with RGB models

 

[OJ46]

Up next in the "Damn, that was a lucky colour match!" series it's the thumb screws for the GPU #SpotTheThumbScrew

 

[ALXAndy]

Looking good, love the colours. I would have stuck the frames on with 3m double sided foam tape. I like how you shaped them, but those screws stick out kinda bad. Can you paint the heads? would be a lot less apparent then

 

[OJ46]

Cheers mate Yeah, the plan is to paint the heads once the cooler has been mounted so that it doesn't chip when screwing them in, hopefully then it will look a bit neater.

 

[ALXAndy]

Wicked

 

[ahar]

Very nice. Of course something in Saracens colours (double European champions I seem to remember) would be better

 

[OJ46]

Thanks ahar You've certainly had a bit more to cheer than us poor Blues fans that's for sure. When getting to quarter finals of the Challenge Cup is a reason to celebrate you know it has been a bad few years!

 

[OJ46]

So I've been in touch with Parvum and have seen the render, but I'm making a few small changes to the design which could take a day or 2. After that she'll be onto the cutting and posting stage, so that can only mean one thing: Time to kill the current PC and rip his bits out ready for painting & transplanting



The Strix Z270 motherboard complete with delidded and liquid metal'd i7 6700k ready to be rehoused



Cleaned up and ready to go



1060 cooler...



...And board separated ready for paint. Am I right in thinking this is the updated design without the cooling issues?



Shiny



Even if cooling isn't perfect, this should handle Netflix streaming pretty well I reckon!



All going well and almost ready for paint...



...AAAAAARGH!!! Why do they ALWAYS have to use stickers that do this?!



Quick check to make sure the cooler I've spent ages modifying and painting is actually going to fit over the RAM...



SUCCESS. Will also never stop giggling at how huge decent coolers look when used on an ITX board



Now to crack on with the painting so it's ready when the case gets here. Also debating whether to bother painting the RAM or not, was going to do it in either blue or white but once the cables are in as well as the huge cooler it really isn't going to show, so might save a job and leave it black

 

[LewisRaz]

We have the same Mobo. And I have a 1060 too haha. My coolers mounting brackets actually touch the vrm heatsinks it was a very tight fit.

I would save time painting the ram since it wont be on show!

 

[OJ46]

We have the same Mobo. And I have a 1060 too haha. My coolers mounting brackets actually touch the vrm heatsinks it was a very tight fit.

I would save time painting the ram since it wont be on show!

Yeah, it does seem a bit of a waste of time painting the RAM tbh honest mate so will probably just leave it. Will only really be visible if you stick your head in the case and move the cables out of the way anyway

What do you think of the 'board? I had major issues with it on the original BIOS and it seemed to take ASUS ages to fix the problems, but thankfully all good now... At least until the next BIOS update!

 

[LewisRaz]

Yeah, it does seem a bit of a waste of time painting the RAM tbh honest mate so will probably just leave it. Will only really be visible if you stick your head in the case and move the cables out of the way anyway

What do you think of the 'board? I had major issues with it on the original BIOS and it seemed to take ASUS ages to fix the problems, but thankfully all good now... At least until the next BIOS update!

I am loving it. I downgraded my 6700k(really poor clocker. 1.4v for 4.5ghz) to a 6600k (really good clocker 1.3v for 4.7ghz!) and the single core performance difference is noticeable. Got it sat in a Fractal Design Mini ITX Define Nano and its a lovely little machine now over the monster sized (in comparison) h440 atx build.

I havnt had too much bother from the bios. Only got the board a couple of weeks ago so it might have an updated bios already. I should check!