Time.Sync.

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

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

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No back plate so it's ideal. Poifect.

You simply fit this.

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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 !
 
The PCIE adapter card came.

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

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

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But Crystal is bang on spec.

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

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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.
 
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.

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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.
 
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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.
 
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.
 
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.

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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.

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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.
 
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)

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The PCIE edge cover is here on the desk.

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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.
 
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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.
 
Block doesn't fit.

It seems there are about ten different models of this "dual" and this one has analogue caps. So it's not even close to fitting.

I'm so angry right now at Asus. RTX blocks are so confusing and Asus haven't done anything to make it easier given they seem to change things without any notice.

Not even sure what to do right now.
 
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