MAJOR UPDATE
So I've spent all my spare time in the last 24 hours in a trance-like state working on this thing and I'm now in a position where I'm happy with it for now.
It's been a long time since the last update and I got a new toy in the meantime: the Nikon D5200
So all of the following photos were taken with this camera. I'm really enjoying using it (first DSLR) although I'm a massive camera noob so sorry for the poor quality and composition of pictures in advance. In the future I'd love to invest in some kit and get the knowledge to match some of the great quality pics we see on build logs here at OcUK.
So before I received the case boredom was striking hard, so something I decided to do was remove the motherboard heatsink(s) and spray it the red parts black for a super-stealth look!
Removing the heatsink was very easy - just 8 screws in total on the back of the motherboard. As you can see the whole thing comes off as a single assembly connected by the heat pipe.
Pleased with the way that turned out.
Fast forward a few days... a wild package appears!
Much head-scratching and umming and ahing occurred over the next hour or two as I assembled the case. Photography rather fell by the wayside I'm afraid.
The THUNOR Parvum R1.0 taking shape...
And there she is. Case fully assembled. It's an mATX chassis but looks easily large enough to fit a full ATX board. The side wall only extends around 2/3 down the case though so that prevents the use of an ATX board (unless modded). There is capacity for 3 x 240mm radiators: one at the front and two on the bottom.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had asked Justin at Parvum for a standard ATX layout and as you can see the case they delivered is reverse ATX. I immediately sent an e-mail to let them know this and am waiting for a response - I hope they will send me the requisite parts to allow a standard ATX assembly (I think it'll take a new side-wall, left-side panel, back panel and top and bottom panels...
In the meantime - with the amount of time I'd waited with all those shiny new components sat on my table - I set about a reverse ATX build, even if it is temporary.
motherboard in place. The space you see below the side-wall should be separated by a panel which I guess you could call a false floor. However, with this piece in place you'd need to drill through the acrylic (or go with ridiculous routing) to connect tubing to a radiator on the floor. It also drastically reduces your options on the placing of the pump and res.
Motherboard in place - side panel on.
Some cables connected and fans fitted. Coming across problems with radiators already. With a radiator in the front and on the bottom I'm struggling for space as the mounting bracket I have for the pump means the pump is fouled by PCI-E cables. So for now - unfortunately - I am going with a single 240mm radiator for CPU+GPU and a single 120mm fan in the front. Spoiler alter: so far idle temps are fine (mid 20s) but not tested under load yet).
Again, I'm sorry to say that photography fell by the wayside as I embarked on tubing up my first watercooling loop. The pic obviously shows leak-testing, the results of several hours effort which left my fingers red raw and my patience frayed. The layout of the loop is far from ideal and a couple of the bends are very tight and the tube is close to kinking. The order is res/pump > radiator > CPU > GPU > pump.
Nice colour on the Mayhems pastel red
I was happy (and surprised) that as the evening went on no leaks appeared. I left it running overnight and woke up this morning to find no leaks
so onto plugging everything in!
Oh God! the cable jumble... I think a nice modular PSU upgrade may be a wise investment.
Installation of one of the two 15cm BitFenix Alchemy white LED strips.
With everything powered up it was time to turn this bad boy on!
Ew, why is the power LED green?
To quote Dimitri from Hardware Canucks... the first boot goes without problems! Windows is installed from a USB stick and I'm up and running. Installing all my programs and temps are around 25-30 on CPU and GPU.
Noise is audible but not too loud. We'll see how it sounds under load. I've been considering replacing the SP120s with either Darkside GTs or EK Vardar fans to reduce noise.
Aside from the PCI cables - which look cack and need fixing - I'm pretty happy with the way it looks.
Pretty
Not so pretty a picture, but here you can see the placement of one of the LED strips, and in the bottom left my drain valve, also sprayed matte black.
Final shot for now showing the back of the case.
Phew, writing all that felt like a marathon! I'm looking foward to playing some games on it tonight and seeing what kind of temps it's getting with the single 240mm rad. I'll also be cleaning up the cables (looking into solutions, tips welcome) and taking some nicer photos in the near future.
I hope to get the issues with the case resolved soon. I have to say my experience dealing with Parvum has been quite disappointing. My wait time was over twice what they originally said and the case is not exactly what I wanted.
The inlay on the front is nice but I had asked for the name embedded in a red hexagon - Parvum style.
I think they should send renders of what the finished product will look like to the customer before they cut it. If they had done so I could have pointed out what was wrong with it, but ho hum.
As I've said in another section of this forum, communication with Parvum is very poor. I wait for days for a reply and generally receive a fairly unhelpful one-line reply. I know they're busy - especially with the launch of the L1.0 - but I don't think it excuses neglecting customers who have paid a lot of money for a premium product.
Sorry for the rant, I hope the coming weeks will see some resolutions of the problems I've had with the build, and in the meantime I'm looking foward to getting to grips with what I've built. Until next time...
Cheers
