Time.Sync.

ALXAndy · 13 Jan 2020 at 23:18

Wanted some more game storage, so bought two of these.

256gb. I am hoping to RAID them, in which case I can use them as the boot drive and my 1tb Intel as game storage. Either or, doesn't matter. It's only for my cross platform Xbox titles.

Paste.

Using Hydronaut this time. And coolant.

And this. The board has one built into the south bridge cooler, my Intel has an EK so this is for the other Phison.

ALXAndy · 14 Jan 2020 at 12:41

Oh sweet man didn't know that.

I've hit a couple of snags, though.

NVME raid on TR is free (yay) but has no TRIM (what you talking bout Willis?). It's also a nightmare to get it booting, as you have to install windows first then set it up there and then it should boot. It's not bios driven it's driver driven in windows.

No trim means no os drive. So I'll raid it for the speed Lols then use it to hold the three cross platform Xbox games I play a lot.

And yeah, coolant is fantastic. I've a funny story about that.

A guy from another forum came over Saturday to buy the board ram etc. I put a towel down in the rig and put a jug under the GPU rotary and removed it. Didn't spill a drop so I removed a cap from the res to release the pressure so the lower loop could drain. Went very well.

I then opened up the other side of the GPU and inserted my blow pipe. It's on the chair in the pic there. I blew info it *hard*. This was with one pipe in the jug and the other half in my mouth.

Sprrrrrrp. Only some div had forgotten to put the cap back in the res and so I was treated to a fountain and free facial. What a Wally.

That's why the screen is all apart, as it all ended up right in there. What a clever place for me to have put that. I noticed some coolant had gotten between the 3mm clear sheet and screen surface so I took it apart and left it all drying.

Now if that were ec6 red? I'd resemble Rodney that time Del left him under the sunbed.

ALXAndy · 14 Jan 2020 at 13:46

Yup it's software driven. You have to replace the drive drivers in DM with AMD ones, meaning you have to basically install Windows to set up that and the array. Then you need to make it bootable and so on.

I'll go that far, but not the bootable bit. I'll just use it for benchmark Lols and my Xbox games

What I am doing, though, is at some point bringing my Intel U2 device to the party.

It's 400gb, 3500 RW and what I didn't know was that they are basically the most reliable drives on earth bar none. That's the sorta drive I want for my OS tbh.

My M.2 card is out, as they'll all be full however once I make a confirmation there's a £20 pcie card that can make use of it. If it's the right one of course. It also uses four lanes, but when you have over 60 who cares right?

ALXAndy · 14 Jan 2020 at 14:05

Won't fit. Vertical GPU.

I'd get away with the card I'm thinking of because it's low profile and I have a spare riser ribbon.

Remember, U.2 are x4 pcie but connect via a weird cable. They're sata SSD shaped but have a huge alu body like a heatsink.

I'll pop up and upload some pics in a minute.

ALXAndy · 14 Jan 2020 at 14:16

OK this is the drive I have.

It's not a SATA connector. You use this cable.

Which I am hoping is mini SAS. Then you connect that to this.

And put it in an M.2 on your board. Problem is mine will be full. I am hoping this is the correct thingermejig.

'cause it's only twenty quid. It says what I need it to say, but I want to just check 100% before I go ahead and order. The U.2 is currently in my triad rig (I'm literally typing this from it) but so is a 240gb RAID 0 SATA SSD stripe that's more than good enough for the OS on this PC. So I wanna pop it out and put it in Time Sync (well, the hell cat).

There you go, that's it there. Being an ES I picked it up really cheap, but man alive it's fast. I got lucky too, 'cause those cables are £45, and the M.2 adapter is £35. I had the adapter with the MSI X99 Godlike (thank god !) and the guy who I bought the drive from sold me a cable for £15 which was a blessing.

So yeah, given TR has many lanes I want to fill them all up now *devil emoticon*.

ALXAndy · 15 Jan 2020 at 14:49

"Hey, I didn't order any Stere-oh, they're SSDs"

I also found a solution for the M.2. This.

No back plate so it's ideal. Poifect.

You simply fit this.

And then connect the MINI SAS cable to the drive. It's a PCIE NVME drive, but it connects with a cable (probably so you can cool it properly as it gets hot.). However, I saw the other day that the Intels are the most reliable DATA drives in the world. Even more reliable than any mech drive. Basically Google use them for their servers, and Linus has been buying some of their older smaller ones. Then a tale of woe from last night....

Last night I had one of those nights that every single one of us dreads. Like, the sort of night where it strikes fear into even the most hardened techie.

All I had to do was take the U.2 drive out of the Triad and fit two M.2 drives to my new board. Simples. I also had to fit a cooler to one M.2 drive which banana-d it and I thought I had killed that, but I digress.

I took out the U.2 host card and booted the PC. Then realised that I needed to try and clone Windows to the RAID stripe. So I put it back in, terribly fiddly horrible little screw and all. Booted into Windows and could not get it to clone so I rebooted to try again and it got to the PIN screen and the PC shut down. Hmm that's odd. Rebooted, same thing happened. Gave the wires a shove and that was it. Nothing. Dead PC. Removed the GPU and sound card still nothing. Removed the PSU cables from the board, let it sit, cleared CMOS and plugged the PSU back in. The standby light on the board was dim and flickering. I thought "Oh crap, I've either killed the PSU or board".

Reset the CMOS a few more times and still nothing. It just wouldn't start. Fiddled with the switches on the board and yay, it starts. Tried to boot, it shut down again, repeat the entire process above twice.

Then I noticed something. I noticed that my GPU had 8 pin cables on it, but one is a 6 pin. This isn't an issue at all as they are only grounds, but what I had done was slice the plastic so it fitted in the socket. Problem was it wasn't seating correctly. So I had to cut it up a bit and finally got it all working. PC booted, I installed Windows on the stripe and all was good in the world again.

But I got those chills. You know? the "OMG I just killed £1000 worth of upgrades !" and "I don't want (or can afford) to buy a new PSU or board etc".

Thank god. Somewhere in all of this the Killer wifi has vanished, but that happened before. It's a funny little module that sits under the IO, so means taking the board out. I think some Deoxit would sort it out, but I have an Asus PCIE card so that is in there now.

5 hours. 5 hours instead of what should have been 5 bloody minutes !

ALXAndy · 18 Jan 2020 at 21:34

It's an x4 m.2 pcie card. It's a full 16 slot but 4 lanes are wired for the SSD. If you get stuck holler and I'll give you a better idea.

ALXAndy · 18 Jan 2020 at 22:05

The PCIE adapter card came.

Bit annoyed it's that way as the cable goes off in the wrong direction.

No magic smoke. Atto didn't seem right though.

But Crystal is bang on spec.

Now the boring stuff is over I will take a couple of days off and then get stuck in next week.

ALXAndy · 20 Jan 2020 at 22:09

Day one!

ALXAndy · 21 Jan 2020 at 15:54

Then disaster struck.

The pics are probably in the wrong order and I can't fix that on a phone.

Looped it all up and got out my spare PSU. Poured the res full and turned on the pump. Every last drop dumped into the floor.

Turns out that in the under side of the bitspower t piece there lives a G1/4 hole with nothing in it for the temp probe. Which fell into the bottom of the rig and thus wasn't actually in there when I poured the coolant in. But you can't see the hole cause its facing the floor. Right above the screen.

So I've just done my whole day in reverse.

Ffs. Sorting pics now..

ALXAndy · 27 Jan 2020 at 14:23

Finally got it sealed and sorted.

Tried to boot it but it wouldn't start. 8 hour story short the CM riser cable doesn't work on the board. I used a phanteks I had that didn't work with Vega 64 and that's fine, but I didn't have the bracket to hand as I'd left it at my mother's.

It's currently looped and propped up on a box. Will get it in the bracket over the coming days.

But aye it's all working now, just needs some work sorting it out and a few mods I never got around to doing last time due to moving.

ALXAndy · 30 Jan 2020 at 15:21

OK lots more work done. Spent the day wiring yesterday. Getting the USB working properly as AMD chipsets have issues with hubs.

That's all sorted, so I moved into the GPU. I had to make a converter, and the strip was faulty (this is a common theme with RGB) and so the traces were broken so I had to chop one led off and go to the next set of traces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnuv_oIShL4

As you can see, 5 LEDs are way more than enough.

I've got that coming from the USA. I may mod the blue LEDs into ARGB. I probably will, if I can get the bulbs easy enough in the correct size. It's programmable, so you can have it say whatever you want.

The rear fan is badly damaged. I don't know how it happened, but the grey ring is covered in black or the grey has come off? IDK, but I never noticed it before. So that is coming out.

ALXAndy · 1 Feb 2020 at 15:09

Another update. Maybe the last for a few days (I'm tired and beat !). I've now drawn, plotted and cut all of the templates for the RGB diffuser and a PCIE screw cover. I was going to do that (the screw cover) right back at the beginning but it slipped my mind and then I had to move so time ran out.

I won't try and explain how the diffuser works I'll just build it and post up pics tbh. Much easier that way.

That's all of them cut and two put in place for cutting. Ignore the fact it's red vinyl it's just what I had. Doesn't matter about that, what matters is I can get to points of MM to make things super accurate. Instead of drawing stuff out onto the acrylic and then having pen width issues and ETC for fractions of MM I can just cut them and they're so accurate I could literally assemble a case with no gaps or bits sticking out. TBH? I would say the plotter is more useful for that and I have probably used it far more times for that than making decals etc.

Any way, burnt and badly bruised hands.

Got some cut knuckles in the mix too, so I am taking a couple of days off now. I did do this the other day.

It's nice isn't it? They used to make them for HIFI which is kinda stupid unless your amplifier pulls like 1500w from the wall socket. This one was with a 40w per channel amp so yeah, snake oil at work. However, it's actually really nicely made. Each wire (Earth, Neg, Pos) is made from three strands of solid copper cable twisted.

So, in the rare event my rig ever pulls 1550w (max rated capacity on the PSU lol) then I will be covered. You can't buy this stuff any more which is a shame. People sussed it out eventually and realised it was snake oil. I added the clear 3 pin plug. It had some manky old black thing on there. It was also filthy, so has been thoroughly cleaned etc.

ALXAndy · 3 Feb 2020 at 15:02

I see. Cheers for that

ALXAndy · 8 Feb 2020 at 11:58

The pinnacle of human achievement?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ia_lsJ4lQ

You decide.

Sadly the GPU diffuser is too big (well, one part) so I need to rework that but can't for a while. I only got home Thursday arvo and had to run around town doing errands so that was Thursday gone. Yesterday I had to do loads more errands too, so that was gone also but I'm on new anxiety meds and let's say they're working well. I'm knackered.

Had some problems when I got home too. The PC had somehow gone back to the old BIOS and was being a d word. So I had to mess around for ages. I think I probably flicked the switch accidentally when working blind.

Slow ish progress but hey, fan works a treat.

ALXAndy · 10 Feb 2020 at 14:21

Today I finally finished the GPU LED diffuser. It's a chunk of 8mm acryl, that sits below the block with the LEDs stuck on top. Then there is a grey part that shrouds it in. The issue I had was that the grey part pees light. So I had to glue some acetate (black) to the back. Vinyl was thin and looked patchy. Which meant loads of work and then re polishing all of the edges because they went white from the superglue.

It's not easy when you set yourself a rule "no using power tools in new flat". I had to break that rule twice, but that's it. I also removed a large chunk of flesh from my thumb with the finger belt sander and it's taken two days to dry up.

Couple of notes. It's absolutely filthy and covered in finger marks and the paint still badly needs doing. Few bits and pieces before I get to that, though.

ALXAndy · 26 Feb 2020 at 16:10

Calling it done for now. Couple of things left and will get some pics somewhen.

I need to mount the PCIE edge cover but need to make standoffs and I don't have the tools here. Try as I might I failed.

I need to sort out the USB hubs as they hate the board. Thus the rainbow farts as I can't connect to the main Farbwerk. Other than that though, yeah she's done (for now)

The PCIE edge cover is here on the desk.

ALXAndy · 4 Mar 2020 at 17:33

Then this happened.

ALXAndy · 4 Mar 2020 at 22:44

The GPU was delayed because, and I quote "You chose free shipping". The annoying part is they sat on it for 5 days, then shipped with DPD for tomorrow lol.

It looks like most of us will be jumping brands TBH. Especially with EK charging £200+ for their new CPU blocks. I think Byski and Barrow are going to gain a lot of market tbh. This block wasn't particularly cheap (£79) but then it is a 2080 block as the 2070 Dual uses a stock 2080 PCB. Otherwise finding a block for most of the 2070s on the market is impossible. EK want over twice that though, and that's their old "Cheap and smelly" range, so I expect a big LOL when they announce their next line of GPU blocks. I reckon £250. They are clearly very, very high. That out prices even the mighty Bitspower, and I know what I would choose. Fine dining over McDonalds, thanks.

Expect it to be blocked pretty soon. I do need to give it a solid thrashing before I mount the block though, so will do that here at my mother's in my other rig tomorrow

I can directly compare it to my 2070S "can't be blocked card" too.

ALXAndy · 5 Mar 2020 at 14:03

It's here. Just finished doing the benches VS the 2070 Super. There's less in it than I thought, but the card seems hard limited to 1900mhz. Which is a shame, given the 2070s is boosting up toward 2ghz.