Happy Knife

[mrkambo]

Heyy OCUK!

Welcome to my build log for Knife!


Background:
The way this build started was purely due to my impulsiveness, I've always had a thing for itx builds so it only made sense that my first proper build should be based around a itx motherboard. As some of you may know i've been around on the forums a while now and i've had some decent builds, but they were all aircooled in cases that were as close to perfect as i could get at the time. While planning this build once i had decided on the hardware i wanted to use, it came to the case. I wanted something bespoke and unique but at the same time to be clean, sharp and compact. I hunted everywhere for something that was perfect i wouldn't accept anything less.

After spending days searching and researching and searching some more nothing ticked all of the boxes and it had got to a point where i would have made compromises just to get the build started, until a very brief conversation with JR23 Design's from Parvum. What started as a random idea session over teamspeak and a gaming night, slowly progressed into a concept of which every time we discussed seemed more and more real....

This rig is going to be my LAN rig, some of you maybe aware of the Insomnia LAN events which take place throughout the year, i've attended the last few and safe to say most homely place as a gamer/pc enthusiast to be. I wanted to make sure i could build something which would be more than capable of heavy gaming yet remain compact enough to lug around for LAN's.

Hardware:
Intel 4790K
Asus ROG Impact
Corsair Dominator Platinums 2133
AMD 295x2
Corsair Force GT 120GB's
Silverstone Strider 850w
Bespoke Parvum

Cooling
EK Asus ROG Impact Waterblock
EK AMD 295x2 Waterblock/Blackplate
EK D5 Vario Clear Plexi
EK Fittings Black Nickel
Bitspower Multi 100mm Reservoir
XSPC AX Radiators 240mm X3
Primochill PETG Tubing Clear

As you can see this setup is far from being a slouch, i game at 1440p and these specifications are more than capable of handling anything i could throw at it. After finalizing ideas with Joe he undertook the task of rendering everything for me so i could see what i had to work with.

While these were being drawn and rendered, i was in contact with Joe on a daily basis bouncing ideas of him and seeing what else we could cram into the case, while all this was going on the postman was knocking daily sometimes even twice a day delivering parts. This is where we hit a series of issues which could in the future have catastrophic effects on the hardware and the case. After i received the EK Waterblock for the GPU it came to my attention that the block itself weighs a lot 1023 grams to be exact, now you can guess how much damage this would cause if we didn't find a way to support the card whilst it was in the case. After a short time at the drawing board it was decided we would have a support bar coming out from the motherboard tray which the GPU will sit on top off, this should ensure minimal amount of damage to both the GPU and case. Whilst amendments were being made to aid the GPU, EK included a single PCI bracket for the 295x2, it would be disappointing if we didn't take advantage of this, as a result of this we were able to shave a few millimeters of the height of the case.

I decided to go with the XSPC AX radiators as i like the way they look, and perform very very well, so informed Joe of the decision and more changes were made to the drawing making it that just more millimetre perfect. We discussed multiple ways to set out the loop literally spent 3 hours one night just going over and over and over it seeing if we could make any more efficient changes we decided to keep the pump and reservoir separate purely for aesthetics, pump will be mounted at the front of the case while the reservoir will be on the back wall next to the I/O Shield.

Then came the finishing touches, i like to keep things clean and tidy, so i thought about how i would be wiring the components up and further changes to cable management holes made, i opted to have the power switch on the rear of the case with no USB headers as i wanted to keep the front clean.

Now that the idea stages had passed it was time to see what kind of a monster had be created!

I was absolutely ecstatic when Joe sent me these renders, everything is perfect. He asked me if there was anything else i wanted to add or if i wanted confirmations of dimensions or any other angles of a render. With nothing left to change but the colour Joe once again began the final render of Knife.

Giving Parvum the thumbs up they proceeded to cut and build the case, Joe was kind enough to send me a couple of WIP photos, nothing spectacular just mobile phone photos.

I was then surprised this morning by a couple of photos of the finished article, it is safe to assume im blown away by the way it came out.

 

[mrkambo]

Wow... I would buy that!!!!! PARVUM!!!

Id say that's a compliment if I ever saw one

That looks awesome! Would love something custom like this, care to give us an indication of costs? Or is it a case of "If you have to ask, you can't afford it"?

Thanks dude! You would have to speak to Parvum directly to discuss costs, every use case is different, for your requirements you might only have to fork over smaller amount of money, but believe me it's more affordable than you think, drop them a email see what they can do for you.

 

[mrkambo]

Is that build name inlaid into the acrylic? If so they have done a very neat job.

It is indeed

 

[mrkambo]

I have them doing some inlay work for me so that gives me confidence it will turn out well.

This is the second case i've got from them with the inlay work, the finish is flawless

Another awesome looking Parvum build! Can't wait to see the loop in there

Neither can i dude
A lot of planning not a lot of building!

 

[mrkambo]

It's like happy slapping, but you stab them instead.

Yeah this pretty much was the effect i was going for

 

[mrkambo]

Alright guys, time for a very small update, over the last few days just been getting the remaining parts in, had a hard time getting the radiators, for some reason the entire world happens to be out of stock of the only 2 different types of radiators i want, typical ehh?

So i now i have a complete collection of parts it was only fair to start by mounting the water blocks and admiring them.

Before we go any further, i'd like to state on the record, this is my first time at product photography, so go easy on the criticism alright...

I cannot stress enough how gorgeous the EK waterblock really are, the photos do not do them any justice whatsoever. Lets hope the performance is just as jaw dropping as their looks.

When deciding on a new build RAM is always a tricky piece of hardware to choose, between the masses of design options from various manufacturers you also need to take into account the specifications. But we all know of 2 particular kits that are very popular with the colour scheme here. But me personally i have no idea which kit i like.

Which one would you pick?

Here are a handful of fittings that i'll be using, these are Black Nickel from EK

 

[mrkambo]

Well its update time, and all i can say its been a interesting few weeks. Now i know my updates are very slow, but between issues and busy personal life its difficult to find time to just dedicate a hour or two every week to getting this done, but here we go!

The following photos are just taken with my iPhone, didn't have time to get the studio setup for decent photos in between building so please forgive me.

First thing to do was to get the motherboard and the graphics card into the case and see how everything lines up

Those of you with a keen eye will already notice the first issue i came across right here. The GPU support bracket was too tall and in result the GPU was seated diagonally, so a quick phone call to Joe, and he had another support bar with me in a couple of days.

So now its time to get some hardware in, i'm just going to let the photos do the talking.

And this is how its currently sitting while it undergoes some tinkering and tweaking and general tidying up.

So now you're thinking hang on a minute, the CPU block is different, and yes you would be right, see this is where it gets very interesting, upon first boot up, the machine done its cycles of powering on and off and setting up whatever it needed to in order to POST....

It never posted, I was getting various QCode errors but none of them made any sense, but the only common thing between them all is before the system shut its self off, it displayed '00' which according to the guys at Asus means either dead CPU, Mobo or PSU. So out came all the hardware onto the desk removed the loop mounted the intel stock cooler and it powered up fine got into the bios everything looked perfect, so i thought maybe it was me being careless and didn't plug something in, so back it all went in the loop and it had the same problem, so i was stumped. Spent various number of days hunting around checking things speaking to everyone i knew, and none of us could figure out what was wrong.

So i tried it one last time and this time it booted and POST'd fine, made it into the bios everything checked out, went to go into Windows setup all the drivers doing the usual tests and checking everything was ok, then the rig powered its self off, but this time disaster struck, it had killed the motherboard this time.

So quick phonecall to guys up at OCUK, they had a Impact VII in the post, once id received this, tested everything on the bench and yep worked perfect, with high hopes back it went into the case fitting the loop, powered on and nope no POST. Absolutely amazed at this, i decided to get my CPU replaced in case it was playing up, so couple of days later the CPU turned up, back into the loop it went and power on.....nothing, not even a fan spin up, so everything came back out and mounted everything on the desk, and that was motherboard number 2 that had died.

So this went on for a little while, 1 dead Z87 Impact, 3 dead Z97 Impact and 4790K replaced. Now you're thinking, this guy is crazy hasn't found out what is wrong and keeps blowing stuff up as if its cool thing to do, now i cannot stress enough the amount of help and advice i was receiving from people, the guys on the forum were in their spare time hunting around for problems, giving me suggestions to try.

So one evening i was on the phone to Joe, we were actually discussing another build which will soon follow and we were discussing what water blocks to use, when i randomly suggested if a waterblock could short and kill the motherboard, because that's the only thing in common with all the deaths taking place here, so after this conversation the following morning another call to OCUK and had a CPU only block sent to me, and i got the rig stripped down and all the bits cleaned and the new block installed and went to power on and nothing, so with a massive blow i was back to square one, and after some motivational talk from the forum members, a forum said he had a spare 1150 rig i could borrow to literally stress test my components to see if something else was causing issues.

After picking up the testing rig i had been given a G3258 so into the Impact it went under the loop, hit the power switch and we had power! So while filming the QCodes on the rear and watching what the BIOS was doing on the monitor, i saw the following messages

Updating iROG1
Updating iROG2
Updating iROG3

Then the rig shut off, i thought to myself oh dear thats another board dead, then just as i had given up all hope the rig fired back into life on its on accord and everything was working, the pump was pumping, GPU had power and display, the BIOS was showing the correct data and the QCode display was showing perfect POST, so i shut off the rig and attempted to install the 4790K for the final time. After assembly hit the power switch and it was alive, everything was working fine, CPU variables were correct, POST'd spot on, into Windows it went.

After spending 5 hours carefully monitoring every single mm of the rig i came to the conclusion it was alive and stable, so what did i do to celebrate.....as any gamer would do...

This concludes the update, the rig isn't finished not even close, i have it in a state where it working and stable, Im still not 100% confident in the rig with so many hardware issues until i can find out what caused the motherboards to die it will remain on the side.....

Stay tuned folks.....

 

[mrkambo]

Nice man

Thank you

I'm glad it's all working for you now but that is really unlucky to killed 3 motherboards. Still, at least it's working now however I'm stumped as to what is causing you the problems.

Anway you've persevered through it, hope the next update goes better

Well i have a theory, because the way the motherboard were dying i think there was a defect on the full cover waterblock causing it to short out on the VRM's, but i cant really prove that thery unless i risk killing another board which for no is not on my list of stuff to get done, but maybe......

Very clean build.

Cheers, it'll be a lot cleaner once i've changed all the bits that need changing

Looks like a very nice compact build, unlucky on the motherboards though.

Can i ask, how does the airflow on the bottom rads? Where are the intakes/exhausts?

Rich.

The bottom case panel, is ventilated, with a similar cut like you see on the front, the rear case panel is also ventilated and cut out similar. As the fresh air comes from outside the case its pushed to the rear with the front rad fans, i have noticed a few dead spots, and this will be addressed in the very very near future, i mean the temperatures aren't out of control, its not a massive issue but its only fair that while the rig is in its building stages all problems should atleast be given the opportunity to be corrected.

 

[mrkambo]

It looks clean now for a.small case nice work

Thanks

Looking very nice mate.

I think I'd have packed it all in and moved into a wooden shack to live out a peaceful life without technology after all the problems you had! GJ for solving them

Thank you, ahh mate you have no idea, still so many issues i've had which i haven't documented.

 

[mrkambo]

From the video you posted it is pretty obvious why it was not booting... Over current protection on the MB kicking in.

If you put it together like that with other motherboards as well then it would explain it all... And it was not the water block at fault.

But it looks very good! I like it.

Interesting, could you be as so kind to explain how you know this? Only because no one else seemed to have picked up on it.