Andre's Z77 Personal Rig

i had a laugh earlier i found the box for my dad's first laptop back in 1995, look at those specs ;)

8315892096_f6518a01cc_h.jpg

Imagine to put a brand new system in that thing, hehe :D
 
Wow although old, that is a cool looking laptop brother.
Looking forward for the "massive update". ( I'll answer your question once I get all the required information ;) ).
 
Wow although old, that is a cool looking laptop brother.
Looking forward for the "massive update". ( I'll answer your question once I get all the required information ;) ).

i agree there is often something intriguing about old looking hardware.

no worries, i know it can take a while to write massive posts and gather pictures etc :)

Enjoy lunch mate!

Always looking forward to your updates :)

thanks! im starting to write it now :)
 
Lighting, hard drives and fan setup

Hello everyone,

I'm back and I have a cup of coffee so I'm ready to write another big update.

I have pictures from a few days in a row now that I was planning on making a few different post about, but since I never got around to it and those earlier ones are a bit dated now anyway, I guess I will just combine those earlier posts into this one.


First a couple pictures from lunch










Okay, now to the first of the older pictures. These are from Dec 30 when I played around with the layout of the hard drive cages.



As you can see here for a while I had the single hard drive cage moved into the position closer to the middle of the case in front of the PSU. I understand having the hard drive cage future forward probably helps a bit with intake airflow at the front, but the reality is i just don't like it there and I dont like the look of it there. It is a pain to attach the cables when it's in there, it's not very rigid feeling, and you can see it through the side panel window, which I don't like.


So I put it back in the stock position near the front and I also added the top secion in and screwed it all together using all the screws you can, and when I was finished it felt much more rigid and sturdy and I think it looks better with both sections in because it looks more symmetrical. I also thought that having the top section removed never really flowed right and never looked right to me.


I took a few pictures that night when I was in there.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8504/8335953642_159f211730_b.jpg[/

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrevautour/8335951702/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8495/8335951702_fcc324fd30_b.jpg


I had the fans screwed in fairly loose so that there would be a larger gap between the case wall and the fan, but I screwed them in tigher in order to make some more space between the HDD cage and the fans fitted in the front.




This is before tightening the fans




You can see here this is a picture of how the front optical bay area looked at the time. I made some changes here as well and I will talk about those later.










For awhile I've had a very minimal copy of windows 7 installed on a spare 2.5" drive (mainly for folding since folding doesn't utilize GPU properly in win 8, but also just for having a play with sometimes) and I was just putting it into the hot swap drive bay at the top of the case when I wanted to boot into windows 7. I wanted to install it more permanently , but I only had the one cage in for a while and it was full, so when I added in the second cage I figured I would add in the windows 7 drive while I was at it.




Here's a picture of my thumb screws I used to mount the PSU. I used 3X silver and 1 black just for a bit of contrast and change from the usual.





I also had to grab some silver screws from my drawer to mount the 2.5" HDD because for some reason I couldn't find any black ones.






I mentioned earlier either in a post or in a video that the screws for the feet of the 650D are covered in a rubber grip sticker, so to remove them you either have to make a small hole it in like I did here, remove the entire sticker all together and try to reattach it when you're done, or you could even cut half of the sticker off exposing the screw hole but still leaving enough to grip (it may start coming off easier if you do that) so I decided to make a small hole and leave the sticker otherwise fully intact because i figured it would be less likely to start coming off later that way.

I know that's a small thing but I figured I would take a picture of it in the interest of being extremely thorough.
















This shows roughly how much space between the cages and fans I had once I screwed them in more.








I know it's another small thing that doesn't matter that much but I just prefer the look of a single unified structure along the front that you get when both cages are installed, and that is part of the reason why I put them both back in.











You may also noticed that space of each side of the front fans where I cut a section wider that the fans needed. I didn't actually plan this, but you will see later on how this was a nice touch when I talk about the lighting later on.






Also notice the fan controller hanging down there. I mentioned before that because of the design of the case and a little ridge on the front optical bay area, you need to remove anything installed in the optical bays before removing the front panel..

This comes into play later when I get to the new way I setup the fans.









Space around the back












Now moving to the next day which was Jan 1 and I took a few more pictures.


This is of the paint on the roof of the 650D. I noticed it looked a bit metallic when the sun hit it. Normally it just looks like normal black though.








A couple more shots of the interior as it was on Jan 1 but this time in the daylight











I thought the board looked interesting as the sun hit it, so I took a picture of that.




I screwed in the bottom




Middle


and top




Just to brace it and make it as firm as possible.






Some details of the roof mesh section










and you can see the very messy section of cables. Definitely not very tidy. they have been evolving for a while now as i add and remove varoius things without really doing a proper cable job around the back.











Now we get to Jan 2 when I got my package and I posted a 'teaser' picture of it on here.




The contents were nothing too major, just a NZXT lighting kit











Moving onto Jan 3. I didn't do very much on the 3rd, but I did get the lights out and tried placing it in a few different ways just to get an idea about how I wanted to go about placing the lights.

at this point i was also starting to think about the new fan setup and how i wanted to go about that. more on this shortly.


This is what comes in the lighting kit. it has some small clips to clip up the cable but this time i used the larger ones i had here because the smaller ones didn't seem to stick to my case very well and they seem a bit too small anyway.


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8504/8342574693_c99cf60c1e_b.jpg[/i


I had a bunch of noctua fan extensions, low noise adapters and y splitters which i used to setup the fans

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrevautour/8342567233/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8082/8342567233_3321ed659d_b.jpg



i wasn't super excited about how bulky the sleeving is on the noctua cables though, so i ended up removing the sleeving and just using the bare wire because its much lower profile and easier to route neatly.












you may not be able to see in this picture, but when the led string comes out from the little controller card there is an LED a few inches from the end, so when you bring it out the the edge of the case if you're routing it that way the led winds of halfway in between, so you can actually see that directly when you sit next to it.








I wanted to sort of bring the LED line up behind the graphics card and then along the motherboard area up to the top, then along the top on the right side of the case. that is something i think i've seen in a RV02 or something like that and I liked how it looked. obviously the layout in the RV02 is different but i wanted to see what I could do to achieve a similar look in the end.

















i got all the fan stuff from these 4 noctua boxes












Okay, now onto the sort of main section of this update which is installing the lighting for real and setting up the fans via the motherboard instead of the lamptron fan controller i was using at the front.




The next day I set out to install the lights properly.






Alright, now to the good part.


Note: My plans for this have changed a bit since I've done this, now I am planning on running one all the way around the left side of the case around all the edges, and then I am planning on getting a second one and running that one all the way around the right side of the case and in the roof im going to mount both sides as far as possible to the side so the leds will be shielded by the 1 1/2 inch of material at the sides of the mesh, rather than how its done in these pictures where the leds are exposed by the mesh and you can see them directly as you look at the top.


This way works fairly well, but I want some more even lighting on both sides in all areas, some more lighting on both sides of the front for shining through the mesh, and more light seeping through the back and top mesh etc etc.

So that will be a whole new update when I install the second set of leds and move the current one over to the one side.




Note #2 : In these pictures I show the fan cable and power cable for the leds running behind the power supply. that is a good idea in terms of tidiness, but there is a sharp edge there and it was pinching the cables, plus with the second power cable from the second set of leds it's going to be getting really croweded there and I just dont want to worry about any of them getting pinched and cut. So it's going to be a little less tidy but I will never have to worry about any pinched cables so I think it's worth it.



Since this is already getting so long and I haven't even gotten to the LED's yet I'm going to just end this here and then work on a second post with the LED installation pictures rather than start doing those and run out of characters half way through and have to break it up then.
 
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Imagine to put a brand new system in that thing, hehe :D

there was a project log on here where a guy was taking a very old laptop from the mid 80s, much larger than this with those small screens and trying to modify it and put modern hardware in it. I never really saw anything more of it though I don't know how it's going or what the status of the project is.


the one he was using looked like this


Toshiba_T1100_In_Betrieb.jpg




Toshiba-T1100-25-ani-mic.jpg
 
really nice update mate...
good work as usual :)
my psu should be delivered tomorrow maybe even the led strips...
so i can get on with it again :)
 
really nice update mate...
good work as usual :)
my psu should be delivered tomorrow so i can get on with it :)
maybe even the led strips...

thanks man! i just changed the LEDs around in mine and i have it done up proper now so I will upload pictures then i can do another update!

i hope the psu works really well for you man! im sure it is good :) are you going to leave the decals on it red or do something with the color of that?

that brand new ax750 looked real nice all boxed up fresh ;) i have always been a fan of the look of those and the gold decals, grille, etc.

i'm also curious about these strange new pci-e power cables on the 760i/860i that i've seen a few times now. it seems instead of using a single collection on the PSU end and then splitting into two full size 6 pin + 2 cables like it does with the ax750/ax850 with these new ones the cables i've seen have been a single pci-e power + a second one kind of piggy backed on. now sure it if comes with only that kind or a choice of both because that seems harder to keep tidy for one but secondly it doesnt seem like it would deliver power as well as the two separate cables?

anyway i'd be curious to see how you find the cables on the 760i
 
Andre, you do great work. I am not ashamed to say I will be stealing many of your ideas on my next project. I really like your attention to detail. Keep the faith !!
 
Hey! Nice Lunch! :)
Alright. So you got LED's. I was glad to see that they're not red or.. blue or green... you know... Honestly, if it there was possible, i would hide them in such a way, that only the light would be visible not the LED's themselves ( just an idea ). Not many places to hid them in a case though but I do like the looks of them, good work.
Watched you moving those drive bays around and I was wondering if by any chance you could turn them 90 degrees so they don't obstruct airflow from the Noctuas so much. But I'm sure you would of found that out by now. The case does look a bit more stronger now with it in place, and those fans must be screaming for space.

You know that this

Toshiba-T1100-25-ani-mic.jpg


reminds me of?
If you've watched "Aliens" , they had something similar that they used to set up the sentinals in that part where they sealed themselves in etc. etc.

Anyway, I still got my first computer that dad bought me and ... it's still working, i just din't use it anymore... but pics in another post :).

The Razer keyboard you're using is pretty sweet, I would be lucky if I had one ( not gonna take a pic of my keyboard - it's the only thing that I cannot show, it's horrible ).
 
Hey! Nice Lunch! :)
Alright. So you got LED's. I was glad to see that they're not red or.. blue or green... you know... Honestly, if it there was possible, i would hide them in such a way, that only the light would be visible not the LED's themselves ( just an idea ). Not many places to hid them in a case though but I do like the looks of them, good work.
Watched you moving those drive bays around and I was wondering if by any chance you could turn them 90 degrees so they don't obstruct airflow from the Noctuas so much. But I'm sure you would of found that out by now. The case does look a bit more stronger now with it in place, and those fans must be screaming for space.

You know that this

Toshiba-T1100-25-ani-mic.jpg


reminds me of?
If you've watched "Aliens" , they had something similar that they used to set up the sentinals in that part where they sealed themselves in etc. etc.

Anyway, I still got my first computer that dad bought me and ... it's still working, i just din't use it anymore... but pics in another post :).

The Razer keyboard you're using is pretty sweet, I would be lucky if I had one ( not gonna take a pic of my keyboard - it's the only thing that I cannot show, it's horrible ).



hey,

i dont like colored leds completely ruin the look of the hardware inside because they make everything monotone looking. white is good because it acts more like a light in a room that just lights things up so you can see but doesn't change the color of each piece of hardware.

for the most part i leave the leds turned off since i prefer a more subtle look, but i like having them in there if i want to have a look inside or show the hardware to someone etc. the side panel is off in the picture but when it's on you can't see any the of led's directly. i have a detailed update coming tomorrow that will show how i mounted them and all that stuff.

honestly i'm not going to move the bays because they look better that way and i i want the cables around the back panel. when you put your hand in front of them when there was nothing in front of them versus with the drives bays there now there is very little difference in air flow really, you probably couldn't even tell the difference if you went looking.

when it comes down to it it's really more of an aesthetics thing, there is really very little if any real world temperature different having the hard drive cages at the front vs in the mid section, i just prefer the look of them both in up at the front and i dont like seeing it through the window when its in the middle section.


the temperatures are sort of like 25'c in the case idle and 31 max in the case under full load, the cpu is 25-30'C idle and never goes much above 60'C under full prime 95 style load. the 7900 serious cards idle at around 30'C normally and never go above 70'C in game.

so those are the temperatures as you can see they are so low you can even turn the case fans right off and it will still be fine because the cpu cooler and gpu cooler are good and there's lots of passive air flow so im definitely not worried about temperatures at all im more concerned about aesthetics and little things that i like / dont like and just fixing the thigns i dont like like that hdd cage in the middle.

i have seen Aliens but it's been a while so I dont remember it exactly but I can imagine them using something like that. Probably the same sort of thing in "The Thing" as well. I love the look of the Toshiba T1100, i think it looks great. it's fun looking at stuff from the past



I'm excited to see the pictures of your first computer! I am some pictures of the early stuff I had but I wish i had taken lots more. some of the ones i do have are in that computers through the years thread of mine. please post as much as you want here as often as you want i am always excited to see pictures i can never see enough pictures :)


The razer kayboard is pretty good except for a few quality things like some of the leds flicker and the one i have is actually warped so the sides are higher and it rocks back and forth if you have all the rubber feet in place. there is a video where i talk about it in more depth if you want it's poster a bit earlier in this thread. i also dont like the front on the razer. it's definitely way better than any silicon dome keyboard though by a long shot and the LED's can be really bright. the build quality other than the two things i mentioned is really good too, it's really heavy and solid and you can't flex it. it's a shame for the other quality control issues though. the 2013 edition is supposed to be a lot better but i wound't get another razer though.

razer basically has kind of shotty quality control from what i've experienced and heard, but that doesn't stop them from charging premium prices.



i do know that i like the cherry blue switches and that my next keyborad will have blues again. my dad uses the Mionix Zibal 60 which is gorgeous but it has black switches and they are too heavy for my liking. i also like the nose and tactile feel of the blues the reds are the same weight but dont make noise and i dont like those either. the only small downside of the blues is they are noisy at night but i dont care about that.





i really like the das model s ultimate right now

http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-ultimate/

IMG_0818.jpg




i also like the filco majestouch ninja which is kind of a combination of the uninscribed keys but it does have inscriptions hidden on the front faces of the keys

http://www.diatec.co.jp/en/det.php?prod_c=774


FKBN104MCEFB2_01.jpg


e_FKBN104MCEFB2_02.jpg



and other things im looking at include stuff like the ducky shine and steel series 7g



As far as mice go I've had a couple of razer's for years now a death adder i use every day and a lachesis which looks good but i dont like the feel of it. We also have a mamba here that my dad uses but i dont like that very much either (it's fine)


i definitely can't complain about the quality of the death adder though because i've used it everyday since 2006 and it still works perfectly.

these day's i really like the RAT mice and i think i will probably get a rat 9 as my next mouse.

we had a rat 9 here when my dad was picking his mouse but he picked the mamba. i liked the rat way more though.
 
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I did watch the video you made, saw the keyboard and heard everything you had to say about it. Personally I never used one, just cheap keyboards, but it looked pretty good in the video, with the lights coming on and off ( I really wish I had some of your stuff :) ). But I'd prefer the LED's turned off or on very very low intensity if possible, I don't like flashy things, I sometimes like things that feel classic. the keyboard int hose pics remind me of my first keyboard that came with my first computer which I STILL HAVE! :))

You seem very thurough when it comes to aesthetics and you never seem fully happy with things, or you get tired of them fst... the things that looked better than how you had them before they will one day be unsatisfying to you. this happens when you're an enthusiast, it happens to me too, but I can't really afford to be ( I open up my case and fix this and that all the time ). last night I took my CPU fan apart cause it's making this noise and when it spins faster it gets annoying, so I fixed that for now ( quality fan for a stock fan, it has 2 steel ball bearings ).

So they do turn ( HDD bays ) ! Yeah I knew they don't obstruct that much airflow cause they have those big holes that allow airflow, plus the Noctuas have good CFM, I wonder how one of those sounds turned up all the way to the max ( never seen one live before ), cause I really like the looks of Noctua fans.

Yeah I am excited to show some pics too, I actually took a couple of pics of that heatsink I made for the VRM so I can post them here. I'll post my first PC once I get it clean and back working again ( put in an old HDD cause the also old IBM HDD it had has died and I feel sorry for that, wanted everything it it... to be original ).

I really like the looks of this

FKBN104MCEFB2_01.jpg
 
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