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

 

[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

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[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!

 

[OJ46]

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!

You definitely dodged some issues buying it later, when I bought mine if you set XMP profile the board wouldn't even POST, then they'd fix that but M.2 drives wouldn't be recognised, the 'fix' for that would then break XMP again etc was a right mess! They'd even post new BIOS updates on the website only to pull them again a couple of days later, so obviously the board was released with major issues that should have been sorted before it went on sale. Either way, works like a charm now so will stop complaining lol

Damn, you really were unlucky in the silicon lottery first time round, the 6600k sounds very tidy though. My 6700k is running 4.6GHz @ 1.34v (iirc) on the main build but I'll leave the 6700k in this one at stock clocks, going for cooler temps rather than maxing test scores

 

[OJ46]

Right, first up sorry for the lack of updates but unfortunately the case still hasn't been delivered, so not really a lot for me to be getting on with. Still, I've made a start on some of the smaller jobs.

Cables sorted



Primer thrown down on the GPU



Also decided I wasn't happy with the finish on the front of the HALOS, so repainted that at the same time



Fan and GPU shroud nearly done







Going to add some white writing to the light blue area but still undecided on what to put. Current thinking:

EVGA GEFORCE GTX 1060
CARDIFF BLUES GTX 1060
CARDIFF BLUES 2018

Also going to add part of the Canterbury logo, in white, to the centre of the CPU fan



So that should tie it all together quite nicely. Happy with how it's turning out so far anyway (ignoring my awful painting skills!) and hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, I might even have a case to put all these bits in. Until then, laters

 

[OJ46]

Perfect timing! Checked before posting and the case hadn't shipped, checked again now and... It looks like we'll be building sooner than I thought

 

[OJ46]

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[OJ46]

Quick mockup of the front panel logo using plain paper. Now I just need to remake this using vinyl and backlight it... Should be fun!



With a white dust filter behind the fan vent



Super happy with how this case has turned out, the top is also stunning. Cheers Shaun @ Parvum

 

[OJ46]

Still having issues getting the case finished as the Delphinium Blue I wanted to use for the front right accent and internal rear panel is no longer available in 5mm, so onto Plan B. Now going to have to cut these panels in white, find vinyl the same colour to cover the front accent panel then use 3mm Delphinium Blue to 'skin' the inside... Why can't things ever be easy?!

So, what has been done? Well I did a bit of testing using different vinyls and different brightness EL Panels for the front panel and have settled on this, matt finish vinyl with fairly dim EL Panel. Note this was a rough test, so ignore the air bubbles and crap alignment!

Also got hold of some 3mm Delphinium and 3mm Navy which will be used to skin the inside and possibly make covers for fans etc. Pretty happy with the colour match on both





Especially when compared to my Blues jacket, it's like they based the kit on my PC build



The Navy Blue acrylic should be with Parvum this week so all panels should hopefully be here middle to end of next week, then, hopefully, it's build time!

 

[OJ46]

UPDATE: Its now been 144 days since I paid for the case and still no sign of it being delivered. As you can probably imagine I'm getting more than a little ****** off at this point, and am very close to sending the white panels back and scrapping this build entirely. What's even more of a shame is I was also planning a quick M-ATX build for my brothers little'un when funds improve (quick mock-up in spoiler) but that definitely won't be happening after the stress of this one as I'm very quickly falling out of love with custom PC building. Over, and quite possibly, out

Spoiler

EDIT: Just realised it has taken that long for the case to arrive that the build is named "Early Season Blues", but the season has ended and the Blues have been crowned European Challenge Cup winners before the build has actually started. Guess at least part of that sentence should cheer me up!!

 

[OJ46]

shame, still waiting on the window panel for my Frosted case a year today - received the revised panels but nothing on the main window which was 7mm transparent and not a typical panel - so case missed going to EGX 2017 (Was going to sit next to 8 Packs) and case flatpacked off to computex this year

Damn, that's not making this sound promising mate! Remember that build well, was a stunner but it must have been gutting missing out on an opportunity to showcase it properly like that

Looks decent.

Thanks Hopefully one day I'll be able to start / finish it!

 

[OJ46]

That's probably the quickest / easiest / least stressful option!

Just wish I had the ability to design the panels myself as there's bound to be companies out there willing to cut the panels if Parvum aren't interested in doing it. Could even do an aluminium / frosted acrylic hybrid then and do something a bit different. Might be time to download some new software and start learning...