Allargando's rig

[Allargando]

Managed to borrow one of my suitemate's cameras, so I took the opportunity to take decent pictures of my rig.

I wasn't able to take many, but it's better than nothing. The camera was good enough to make my cpu fan (which spins at about 2500 rpm) look like it was standing still.

that last one is a bit blurry because my hands shake, you might be able to make out the folding display on the monitor

going over the rig specs:

Asus A8N sli-deluxe

AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ (currently at 2.4GHz)

Thermaltake Silent Boost RX

HIS Radeon x1950pro

2x1GB OCZ platinum dual-channel ddr400. 2-3-2-5 @ 2.6V

2x512MB Corsair value select dual-channel ddr400 at same timings and voltage(I was really surprised that the valueram runs at those speeds. The spd is 2.5-3-3-8)

Ultra X-finity 500W psu (mirror titanium finish)

36GB raptors in raid0, WD caviar 320GB sata3.0 gbps, generic 250GB sata

 

[Rastalovich]

Nice solid setup m8.

Love that uploaded @ watermark turn into an OC3D feint icon in the corner or summit XMS

 

[krzysiek.uk]

What is that sat tv you got ?

 

[Allargando]

did a little searching and managed to find it

http://www.mediacollege.com/equipment/samsung/tv/lt/ltp2035.html

I don't remember exactly how much it cost, but I think it was around $400 USD (~£200) when I bought it 2 years ago

 

[krzysiek.uk]

Nice one

 

[Allargando]

Alright, got my lapping kit yesterday.

It ended up taking the whole day (started before-lapping temp monitoring at about 3pm, finally got everything put back together at 3am)

my rig didn't post at first, but luckily it has vocal error messages.

my x1950pro wasn't being pushed in all the way due to the nut on the thermalright HR-05 sli/IFX that I also put in.

so then, on to the pictures.

pic1: all the parts used



pic2:blurry shot of the nice finish on the thermalright part



pic3: HSF and cpu to be lapped. I was kinda surprised that the half-grain of rice sized blob of ceramique spread itself out that much. Guess a bad seating wasn't a cause of the high-ish temps.



pic4 & 5: cpu after cleaning, on the packing foam that came with the thermalright part (which I ended up using when I lapped the cpu)





pic6: bottom of the heatsink before lapping, not anything remotely close to reflective



pic7 & 8: work area. Small and cramped, had to take a lot of care as to not stain everything black





pic9: drop of water on the heatsink and a pane of glass showed me that it was concave (water boundary in red)



pic10-11: cpu after lapping. When doing the flatness test, the surface tension of the water lifted the cpu into the air along with the glass





pic12: heatsink after lapping. Didn't get a mirror finish, but at least it was flat



pic13: nforce4-sli chipset, it's a mess...and it didn't really clean up



pic14: HR-05 sli/ifx installed after a little difficulty



pic15: cpu back in socket after drying for about 3 hours



that's more than enough for one post, next one has a few more case shots and temperature comparisons

 

[Allargando]

shots of the back of my case, the 3rd one is there just to show how much it really does light up back there. The second pic doesn't really do it justice.

All that blue glow is from the cold cathode. PSU fan doesn't have any led







front of case





other side of the case, where I stash all those wires.



now for the results:

before (idle-load):

after(idle-load):

my bios says that I'm running 2.4, but everything in windows says I'm running 2.0 :stickpoke

My D drive has gone missing too, it's reported in the bios but windows doesn't see it

*update*

used another sata port on my mobo and now D shows up again. Audio was wonky too, must've messed up the FP audio connection cuz it's working again now. DVD drive didn't like being in the secondary ide, moved it back to primary and windows detects it again (it was missing, just like drive D)

idle temps were taken after 30 minutes of doing nothing

load temps were taken after both instances of memtest86 reached 100% (cpu usage at 100%)

 

[Allargando]

Alright, it's been a while but I finally upgraded.

Borrowed another suitemate's camera, and took some shots. (It would've been nice if I didn't shake so much though :/ )

Asus P5Q Pro

Core 2 Quad Q8200

2GB OCZ Reaper ddr2 800

Sunbeamtech Core Contact Freezer + OCZ Freeze

Same case (though I did take some tin snips and a metal file to the rear fan grill), same everything else

as soon as I seat the cooler properly I'll be writing a review on it (current temps reported by coretemp are 62, 46, 55, 55... something's not right here)

I was pleasantly surprised when the ram came, as I didn't really care for the model in pictures of the ram on newegg. It's a step down from the flash of ReaperX's, but still some nice eye candy on the other side of the acrylic side panel window. Sinks + pipes are nice and thin too, which is a good thing as the module in the first dimm slot is pretty much right against the fan on the core contact freezer

Mobo layout is good for the most part, my qualms being the sata ports and the location of the floppy connector. My Mid-tower case doesn't leave much room on the bottom (a cm or two at best) which makes it hard to connect the floppy to install raid drivers. 3 of my 4 sata cables lock into place, and the layout of the sata ports have the cable releases facing eachother making it near impossible to remove them

 

[WC Annihilus]

=|

 

[soapsupah]

cool rig, and congrats about the upgrade, nice gear you got now. also i think i saw a hack.// Rebirth game out there! my otaku sense is blinking like crazy.

 

[Kerotan]

Looks good, I got ReaperXs and they are nice but the standard Reapers are also very sleek imo, Probs would of got them instead if the one's I got weren't on offer last summer.

 

[Brooksie]

Some nice parts their, stick the camera on auto focus or something

 

[Allargando]

cool rig, and congrats about the upgrade, nice gear you got now. also i think i saw a hack.// Rebirth game out there! my otaku sense is blinking like crazy.

Yep, it took me a while to find Reminiscence...and Redemption was everywhere.

I enjoyed all 3:rocker:

Some nice parts their, stick the camera on auto focus or something

Thanks

The camera was more like a flip video recorder, there was pretty much only a power button, a capture video button and a picture button.

auto focus (and image stabilization) would have been nice

 

[General_Chris]

hey nice rig ya got there i think i saw your video once u runned vista on a athlon 1.2 ghz right xD and a FX 5200 xd