My rigs.

[ALXAndy]

My rigs. Now feat X8, a 8 core Hackintosh. Feat White Lightning.

Hey all. Figured it was time I would put up some pics of my rigs.

First up, Peewee. Peewee is a Kabini 5350 with a GTX 480 Lightning shoved up its back passage.





It's my media rig. Specs.

AMD Kabini 5350
MSI AM1i motherboard
4gb 2333mhz Geil Extreme memory
GTX 480 Lightning with LED mod
XFX non modular 750w Pro edition (Seasonic)
16gb SSD (booting Win 7 pro X86)
320gb storage.

Nothing too exciting, gets the job done. Runs The Sims 3 and FIFA 13 for when my step daughter is staying, does a good job with movies.

My second rig is The Dark Carnival. It's my all AMD rig.





Specs.

AMD FX 8320 @ 4.9ghz 1.45v
Asus Crosshair V Formula Z
AMD Radeon 7990
8gb Mushkin Blackline (Frostbyte)
Bitfenix Colossus case
Front VFD screen running temps/ram usage etc
Front Enermax Vegas 180mm intake
Floating fans
Corsair RM750 PSU
Custom back plates on 7990, Revodrive and Killer NIC (carbon)
Full PSU housing
Red LED Mod
Corsair H100 modded
Custom power, reset and directbios buttons
Cougar Vortex fans on H100
Xilence Redwings throughout.
Bitfenix Alchemy braids and custom braids.
OCZ Revodrive 128gb
6x500gb Baracuda
Custom covers.
Etched custom window.

ETC. This PC is about to be changed for an 8 core 16 thread Ivy Xeon and Gigabyte X79 UD3.

OK, so now it's onto the brawn. This is my Big Purple Monster (fnarrr) or "BPM".







Specs.

Cooler Master Cosmos 2 case
Intel 3970x Extreme edition 6 core 12 thread CPU @ 4.8ghz 1.37v.
MSI Big Bang Xpower 2 motherboard
16gb Corsair Dominator Platinum 1866mhz
Corsair H110 silver anti kink coils
Corsair AF 140 + 120 throughout, purple LED
Nvidia GTX Titan Black SLI
EVGA 1000G power supply
EVGA SLI bridge
Four Corsair Nova 2 series SSD (60gb) running RAID 0.
Intel 320 series 80gb SSD for boot
Purple and black braids.

Asst pics. Here is my RAID 0 SSDs.





I got them for £10 each. Bargain

Here is the front mod on the monster..



And the GPU fan mod.



I'm far from finished

VRM fan mod.



More to come soon. The Dark Carnival is about to get one of these..



And one of these.

 

[ALXAndy]

SSDs came from an auction site. There are none left, wish I'd bought more now.

The Kabini has been great. Not benched it because I have to install SP 1 in Win 7 and the SSD doesn't have enough room but it passed the gaming test with flying colours last week when my step daughter was here. She spent the week playing Sims 3 and FIFA 13 so it's more than up to light gaming.

May bench it soon, just mad busy atm but yeah, I reckon they;re OK.

 

[ALXAndy]

BPM update..

I pressed on a little bit and now I have finished the GPU fan box. First up I wanted to make some graphics, so I found this pic.



It carries on the theme from the front. Any way, after about 40 minutes here's what I gots.



TBH? that made me less sad about the phone idea. That area is now finished, and I really like how it came out. Here is a shot of the rig, I also found my camera so I was happy about that too



Backplate time. Mark.



Cut.



Sand.



Peel.



Dinoc.



Cover.



Graphics.



One.



Two..



And fit.





Total cost about £9 the pair.

 

[ALXAndy]

And a quick update to TDC. Changed out the FX8320 for an 8 core Ivy and X79 Giga.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so been a busy boy.

1. Made an IO cover.

2. Made a PSU cover panel.

3. Removed all 5.25" junk, ready for the cover panel.

4. Modded the EVGA SLI bridge.

5. Flashed both Titan Bs to EVGA signatures.

Pics.



IO cover.



SLI bridge.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK time to take care of the HDD box. I don't like it stock, so decided to mod it. First up I removed it.



Then cut out the middle parts and then carved the edges



Wrap.



Better.



And then....

 

[ALXAndy]

So to my (pleasant) surprise the postman came with another sheet of acrylic for me It came pretty quick this time.. So this time around I figured I'd do the graphics first.



And assembling.



And then mask.



Then off to work...



Drill a hole and set the donut cutter.



And cut.



And then cut the cover panel I need.



Once that was done I covered the panel.



Applied the graphic.



And that's now done.



And fitted.



OK, so then it was time to cover the pump cover. Light had gone in now mind..



And design and print my graphic for it.



Self explanatory.



And about ten minutes later.



And fit.



Next up. Custom floor cover and SSD display. Don't have the acrylic or vinyl yet, so that will be coming next week

 

[ALXAndy]

I love BPM

Ok I'm not sure exactly how you are doing the black onto the vinyl wrap. You print the image onto some sort of adhesive paper then cut around it and stick on, correct??
Can you tell me what you are printing onto, ie manufacturer name.

Next question, how did you colour your Sli bridge? I tried to colour mine using yellow jel but it looked rubbish. Your purple looks really good so how did you do it?

I was considering purple for a future build and I see you've used the Corsair purple fans. How it the colour in the flesh? Nice and vibrant?

Great work anyway, thanks for any response to my queries in advance

Hi Colin.

I am printing onto basic white paper. When I print I design my graphic, then sit two side by side and flip one of them horizontally. The flipped one gets cut out, then I use a Prit Stick to fix it to the back of the vinyl and cut from there.

I usually give it about a minute for the prit stick to dry underneath, or it can snag the blade and get a bit sticky. I use a combination of scalpels and scissors to cut with. I may do a guide later

The SLI bridge was done using nothing but a purple sharpie. I took it apart and then coloured the back side of the clear acrylic with the sharpie. Then I let it dry (takes about ten mins) then gave it another coat, then one more (so three in total).

 

[ALXAndy]

Let's hear it for sharpie's - brilliant mod!

They also work really well on Dominator light bars so I hear

I'll get my bars soon. Want to get the SSD floor display done first.

 

[ALXAndy]

I'm liking the acrylic work how did you attach the backplates?

double sided 3M foam. I just cut small pieces and place them on top of the screw heads, then put the plate on.

They're not attached strongly so they're easy to get off. I'm not about to turn the rig upside down any time soon so they're strong enough

Two plates covered cost me around £9 for both.

very nice!!!
I'd love to make a psu shroud for my corsair 750D

Hi Jimbaw. For the PSU shroud I used 5mm. It's easier to brace and hold together than 3mm.

 

[ALXAndy]

Awesome, I might make myself a backplate for my 290x but without the dinoc, as I like the look of just the acrylic

Then you'll need to be super careful when cutting and polish the edges. I toyed with the idea then decided to just stick with what I know

 

[ALXAndy]

The issue isn't polishing, that's easy.

All you do is get a nice sheet or block of wood (look in my pics to see mine) and lay a sheet of sand paper flat down on it, then drag the edge over the flat surface.

The issue is that when you cut acrylic, especially with a Dremel, the edges are not straight. This is because of the fact you're doing it pretty much free hand and that the cutting wheel is usually not big enough to fit down through the acrylic without having to tilt the body of the Dremel, giving you an angled cut.

To get that flat you need to sand on pretty heavy paper, and by doing that to 'rip it' back you then need to spend hours sanding to get all of the sanding marks out.

The only part I edge polished was the circle plate for the cooler pump, and I bolted it into the drill lol. Then spun up the drill and applied paper....

 

[ALXAndy]

As promised, a tutorial on making the graphics for BPM.

OK, first go into Photoshop and put together your design. The design used here is for the IO cover.



Once you have that you need to get it into a rough size and shape.

Create a new file in Photoshop, for this we're going to use A4 dimensions.

File should be 72 DPI, H = 842 x W = 595.

Then place your graphic onto the A4 file and size it accordingly.

OK, now you want to go to Layer-Duplicate layer. Move this clear of the other one. Now Edit-Transform-Flip horizontally. You should end up with something that looks like this..



NB - there is no need to put the numbers 1 and 2 on there, that's only for this tutorial.

OK. Now cut out your flipped image, or number 2. Then apply pritt stick to the back and stick it to the back of the vinyl. DO NOT dispose of image 1 !

Lay Image 1 down on your desk and as you cut parts of your graphic out lay them onto Image 1. It's like a jigsaw now ! I use the tip of the blade to maneuver them into place combined with patience and a very light touch. It's obviously a lot easier with more chunky graphics..

What you should end up with is something a bit like this..

v

OK. Now take a roll of masking tape and lay it over the graphic. As you do so rub it down, but only rub it onto the surface of the graphic, NOT on the paper...

Be careful, again you need a very gentle light touch. You should end up with something like this.



If something has been knocked out of place, don't worry. You can adjust that free hand in a moment..

OK. Now you need to peel up the graphic from the paper. To rub it down I use the back end of my scalpel. Make sure you've rubbed it down onto the vinyl very hard, otherwise you could lift and leave bits of it behind. Once removed it should look like this.



If the paper gets snagged and tears a little don't worry. Just run the scissors around the edges of your graphic and it'll fall away.

For storage.. There are two methods I use. Method one is to remove all of the backing like this..



And then just put it on a single large piece of backing (usually left over from covering panels) or, I just leave the backing on and remove it before applying.

Either way that should explain the method used. Couple of tips..

1. The adhesive on the vinyl can be pretty strong, especially in the case of 3M. This means your blades and scissors will become gunked. To fix this I simply clean the scissor blades and my scalpels before I begin with TIM cleaner. This breaks down the residues and cleans the blades and scissors, keeping them sharp.

2. The scissors I use are pretty expensive fish scissors out of an expensive chef's set. They need to be super, super sharp to cut intricate curves.

3. As you cut make sure you keep cleaning the waste away. Small pieces of waste can easily look like the parts you want to keep, and it can easily get confusing. Remember - stay clean !

4. I have a 1" thick green oak desk. Thus I don't need anything to cut on. However, I recommend a chopping board or something or else you'll trash your desk. Medium soft is good, don't push to hard or the blade will follow the pattern of the wood.

 

[ALXAndy]

Sorry guys forgot I posted this /doh.

Indeed yes, I use 3M or an equivalent (I've got them in various thickness and colours too)

jimbaw - np mate, hope you come out OK

I'm currently building a massively modded Hackintosh, so I'll post a log when I'm not so busy.

 

[ALXAndy]

@ALXAndy nicely done on your builds so far cant wait to see your Hackintosh...wish I could have more than 1 pc at a time

Truncated. Will post full log updates next..



Here is what I have managed to pilfer, purloin and scavenge so far.

Intel ?. OK so it's basically a 8 core 16 thread Intel IVBE running at 2ghz on all 8 cores. Very low powered, very little heat (this is good, main aim with X-8 is absolute silence..
Gigabyte X79 UD3.
4gb Geil Extreme 2333mhz memory (Apparently 4gb is still the norm on Macs..)
MSI GTX 480 Lightning. The card needs some work and some cleaning up, but it's ****** powerful.
XFX Pro series Black Edition 750w non modular PSU. I bought this for my media rig for £40 inc but it's wasted in there. Gonna buy a 300w and switch it out.
Case - undecided.
Cooling - a huge great brick of Aluminium, originated in an old Dell. I am going to use a 60mm San Ace fan, modded, running on a stand alone fan controller.
Cables. Going to do some braiding with paracord.
OS - OSX Mavericks.

OK. So this afternoon I took apart TDC and removed the UD3 and Xeon. I replaced them with the 8320 and CHFZ that I took out recently.



And the board.



I also spent ages removing the horrible stickers on the fans.



The case. It's a toss up ATM, but I want something professional and mean looking. Many years ago I had a IBM Intellistation M Pro which was dual Xeon. It had a slatted front, which I fell in love with. Here is the case.. £28 or so, expect it to be cut to within an inch of its life.



It comes with a window, which will save me £6 or so.



And the top panel.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so I got some stuff done. First I took apart the graphics card and broke it into the component parts so that I can modify it. Here are the parts to be modded.



Apologies for the quality of the photos. It's now very dark here.. OK, so whilst I was away I saw these.



Which are very good for creating a key on plastic. I did the main body of the plastic with these, then hit the rest with P600 wet. The back plate has also been wet sanded, both are now cleaned, dry and ready for paint.

 

[ALXAndy]

Been working pretty hard today. So the parts for the Lightning are now in flat white. Here they are..



The back plate.



The other back plate.





And all together.



I will now leave those to harden for a few days, and if I like the way the white glitter sprays I will coat them, then hit them with laquer.

Also today I have been making the cooler. I have made parts for it, will post more on that later What I need to do now is convert the Nidec fan that's on Dell connectors to a 4 pin PWM. I've found this..



So at some point today I will need to crack out the solder iron, braiding and so on.

 

[ALXAndy]

OK so here is the case. However, it's not together ATM as I'm saving that for later



And the mountain of pig iron I freed..



Had about 20 rivets to drill out and then some pretty severe cutting. But it's where I want it to be now

Edit. Forgot to upload the photo of the finished cooler

 

[ALXAndy]

Any way, time to talk about the top, and how much I hate it.

As you can see from the photos of the case the front has that lovely slatted late 90s IBM Intellistation look about it. Sadly, unlike the photos it's not matte. It's gloss, but it's really horrible gloss that has absolutely no place on the rig at all. That's why I've not taken any photos of it yet. Now the front is lovely, nice and solid too, but the sides of the front (the side edges) are the same as the top. It really is putrid.

Now I thought about just masking up the case, giving those shiny areas a quick sand and then blowing on some matte black, but then I had an idea. This stuff is relatively new, but basically it's 3M with a twist.



White matte glitter vinyl. So, what I intend to do is cover the entire top, cut out the nasty button panel and cover it in and then mount my own power button. Instead of taking out the mesh and painting it white I will take it out, cover the top white and then just put it back in as is.

Not sure how this will look tbh, but it'll look a darn sight better than the crap it looks now. I've also not seen this vinyl used yet on a build and it should go nicely with the white glitter painted parts

 

[ALXAndy]

Update. The Postman came just as I said "Oh come on Postman I want to get modding !" which was kinda strange.

Anyhoo, lots of stuff came. I got white glitter spray* white heatshrink, the fans for the GTX 480, and the fan and controller**

So here is the fan and controller**



The fan. This is going in the front***



I've already moved the stickers around, so this side is bare.



Oh, and the white GPU fans.



OK, so I had an idea. I did not want to mount a silver 3.5" panel in my PC as it would look kinda stupid. As you've seen I have already chopped out the bay (in metal from the inside of the front of the case structure) so I had no way to screw it in any way. So, I took it apart like this.



And then bought a knurled knob (hehehehe) and did this.



So I ground out the back to make it flat, drilled a hole and simply mounted it into the actual case panel. This clips in and out very easily. Here is the knurled knob (hehehehe)



*s.

* The glitter spray does not have any glitter and is just white spray paint. So the white parts will go back together as they are.

** Sadly the fan controller only works with the 120mm supplied fan. This is not an issue as I will just use it for the front intake.

*** The front of the case does not have a mount for the 120mm fan. It is not on the plastic part, and wasn't on the metal part I cut out. Strangely it does have a dust filter in the front :?

All very, very odd. Any way, I have made a plate that carries the fan (will be glued into the front panel) and have began painting it black.

More later guys, be good !

A.