Andre's Z77 Personal Rig
- Thread starter andrevautour
- Start date
Feronix
New member
Here's a littler teaser for the lighting. I will have another proper big update tomorrow.
That looks well good mate, the black makes it look really mysterious
Still not a fan (no pun intended) of the way the Noctua fans look though
andrevautour
New member
If anyone is wondering how well the MSI 7950 will overclock this is how far i was able to push it when i first got it. the coil whine and fan noise gets ridiculous at this speed and voltage though.
andrevautour
New member
hey man i will reply to the rest of your comments in a few minutes, but the pulsating light on the keyboard in the video--i never have it like that normally, i always have it on low brightness setting i just had it like that for fun.
you can hear the keystokes of the blue switches here if you want:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UebE64OeIR8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgnxwk4-7rI
andrevautour
New member
Here is sort of a tiny introduction video i suppose just what i look like/sound like if anyone is curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTCFoX2z16E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTCFoX2z16E
andrevautour
New member
That looks well good mate, the black makes it look really mysterious
Still not a fan (no pun intended) of the way the Noctua fans look though
can't wait mate
Thank you everyone
I'm working on another update now.coffeefoot
Member
Great photo of the "finished "rig, Andre.That one should be used for something special !!
I really really like those keystroke sound it makes. last time I heard something like that I was in highschool in the info lab and we had really old computers there, some of them had Windows 3.1 and there was a keyboard, an old keyboard there that sounded exactly like that, and I remember always picking that computer just cause the keyboard sounded nice.
Speaking about old computers today I wanted to get a little dirty and dismembered my first computer and cleaned it really well.. as well as I could cause it didn't turn out so well.. the exterior atleast... but the PCB look like new, I am surprised.
I'll post a few pics very shortly.
Speaking about old computers today I wanted to get a little dirty and dismembered my first computer and cleaned it really well.. as well as I could cause it didn't turn out so well.. the exterior atleast... but the PCB look like new, I am surprised.
I'll post a few pics very shortly.
andrevautour
New member
thanks so much! i have lots more details coming up soon and also more of my thoughts on various hardware and other products
I love the sound of the blue switches too. A lot of the other color switches dont make a sound and dont have the same tactile feel and to me they just arent as enjoyable to press.
Some of the old keyboards like the IBM Model M used bucking springs which are really good too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard
Post lots of pictures! I am excited to see it
andrevautour
New member
I'm having some fun sorting through old videos and uploading some of the better ones. I thought it would be fun to post some of them here.
Here is one of me installing and using the Windows 8 Developer Preview back in Nov 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SduH0PLhXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke9VTiOUuwQ
Here is one of me installing and using the Windows 8 Developer Preview back in Nov 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SduH0PLhXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke9VTiOUuwQ
andrevautour
New member
Those Noctua fans look súper classy in that black rig mate! Good job
Thanks man! I completely agree-I love the look of Noctua fans and I love earthy colors in general.
Well that keyboard's keys looked similar to that.. and sounded great.
ok, so I started earlier today to clean my oldest computer and to put it back together cause I took some parts out too. It was very messy, alot of dust has acumulated inside ( my brother used it for a long time after I moved on, and he's not an enthusiast ). So I got a simple brush made from pig skin I belive ( no use using compressed air unless needed ) and got to it. I was surprised that things looked so clean after I finished ( All the PCB's were imaculate ) but it was only dust right? not ... mud.
Here are a few pics of my progress:
In the above pic you can see the motherboard, the CPU, the RAM and the PCI slots PCB that is attatched to the motherboard.
In the above pic you can see the motherboard ( not such a good pic cause I was trying to use natural light coming trough the windo plus the flash can sometimes make things even worse )
In the above pic you can see the PSU. It's a 200W LITEON PSU.
In the above pics you can see the CPU, an Intel Pentium II 266 MHz.
In the above pic you can see the SDRAM 2X32MB IBM RAM. I did try adding ram to this machine but somehow it did not work no matter what SDRAM I tried.
Above is the PCB with the slots that connects to the motherboard.
That is it put together and I tell you that it looks alot better than an hour before.
In the above picture is the graphics card I was using on it. An S3 Trio 8MB VRAM( I think ATI made these, I am not sure ). I bought this hoping it will improve performance in gaming ( integrated one had only 2MB VRAM ) but it didn't, it was exactly the same. The problem was the CPu and RAM.
I forgot to take a pic of the HDD I am using but it's a WD Caviar Black I think, I am not sure... but it's very old and only 1.2GB of space on it. Enough though for Windows98 which I did install but installing the drivers and all that was crazy bleah. Anyway, "It's Alive!!!" ... again that's what counts.
So as you seen already it's an IBM with a Pentium II processor and I bought this one in 2004.. already 6 years since it came out, so it wasn't new at all. At that time I remember that Athlon XP was the best and most used CPU, already alot faster than this, but it was about all I could afford at that time.
I wish I still had the old hard drive, a 4GB IBM. It was still spinning but wasn't always working, so I replaced it.
Ok, I am gonna cut here, and continue in another post.
ok, so I started earlier today to clean my oldest computer and to put it back together cause I took some parts out too. It was very messy, alot of dust has acumulated inside ( my brother used it for a long time after I moved on, and he's not an enthusiast ). So I got a simple brush made from pig skin I belive ( no use using compressed air unless needed ) and got to it. I was surprised that things looked so clean after I finished ( All the PCB's were imaculate ) but it was only dust right? not ... mud.
Here are a few pics of my progress:
In the above pic you can see the motherboard, the CPU, the RAM and the PCI slots PCB that is attatched to the motherboard.
In the above pic you can see the motherboard ( not such a good pic cause I was trying to use natural light coming trough the windo plus the flash can sometimes make things even worse )
In the above pic you can see the PSU. It's a 200W LITEON PSU.
In the above pics you can see the CPU, an Intel Pentium II 266 MHz.
In the above pic you can see the SDRAM 2X32MB IBM RAM. I did try adding ram to this machine but somehow it did not work no matter what SDRAM I tried.
Above is the PCB with the slots that connects to the motherboard.
That is it put together and I tell you that it looks alot better than an hour before.
In the above picture is the graphics card I was using on it. An S3 Trio 8MB VRAM( I think ATI made these, I am not sure ). I bought this hoping it will improve performance in gaming ( integrated one had only 2MB VRAM ) but it didn't, it was exactly the same. The problem was the CPu and RAM.
I forgot to take a pic of the HDD I am using but it's a WD Caviar Black I think, I am not sure... but it's very old and only 1.2GB of space on it. Enough though for Windows98 which I did install but installing the drivers and all that was crazy bleah. Anyway, "It's Alive!!!" ... again that's what counts.
So as you seen already it's an IBM with a Pentium II processor and I bought this one in 2004.. already 6 years since it came out, so it wasn't new at all. At that time I remember that Athlon XP was the best and most used CPU, already alot faster than this, but it was about all I could afford at that time.
I wish I still had the old hard drive, a 4GB IBM. It was still spinning but wasn't always working, so I replaced it.
Ok, I am gonna cut here, and continue in another post.
andrevautour
New member
Well that keyboard's keys looked similar to that.. and sounded great.
ok, so I started earlier today to clean my oldest computer and to put it back together cause I took some parts out too. It was very messy, alot of dust has acumulated inside ( my brother used it for a long time after I moved on, and he's not an enthusiast ). So I got a simple brush made from pig skin I belive ( no use using compressed air unless needed ) and got to it. I was surprised that things looked so clean after I finished ( All the PCB's were imaculate ) but it was only dust right? not ... mud.
Here are a few pics of my progress:
In the above pic you can see the motherboard, the CPU, the RAM and the PCI slots PCB that is attatched to the motherboard.
In the above pic you can see the motherboard ( not such a good pic cause I was trying to use natural light coming trough the windo plus the flash can sometimes make things even worse )
In the above pic you can see the PSU. It's a 200W LITEON PSU.
In the above pics you can see the CPU, an Intel Pentium II 266 MHz.
In the above pic you can see the SDRAM 2X32MB IBM RAM. I did try adding ram to this machine but somehow it did not work no matter what SDRAM I tried.
Above is the PCB with the slots that connects to the motherboard.
That is it put together and I tell you that it looks alot better than an hour before.
In the above picture is the graphics card I was using on it. An S3 Trio 8MB VRAM( I think ATI made these, I am not sure ). I bought this hoping it will improve performance in gaming ( integrated one had only 2MB VRAM ) but it didn't, it was exactly the same. The problem was the CPu and RAM.
I forgot to take a pic of the HDD I am using but it's a WD Caviar Black I think, I am not sure... but it's very old and only 1.2GB of space on it. Enough though for Windows98 which I did install but installing the drivers and all that was crazy bleah. Anyway, "It's Alive!!!" ... again that's what counts.
So as you seen already it's an IBM with a Pentium II processor and I bought this one in 2004.. already 6 years since it came out, so it wasn't new at all. At that time I remember that Athlon XP was the best and most used CPU, already alot faster than this, but it was about all I could afford at that time.
I wish I still had the old hard drive, a 4GB IBM. It was still spinning but wasn't always working, so I replaced it.
Ok, I am gonna cut here, and continue in another post.
This is awesome looking! it reminds me of my dad's first custom built pc in 1999 with a pentium 3 & 755 mhz , the first gen geforce 256, sound blaster live etc
i'm just stepping out for a few minutes i will reply to this properly when i get back
it also reminded me of these videos i saw on youtube recently of a guy whos doing a retro build i thought id leave the videos here if you want to have a look
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAIUJCJHGM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc_VzN_mVnA&list=PL5IPTXZSB8lcxQB1fJpdjqA-9iVqqLBGC&index=14
Ok, so that was that.
Now if you remember that I told you about that VRM heatsink I made and you aked me to take a pic or two? Well I did!
I had an older CPU Cooler so I used a grinding machine to cut a piece out of it, and then a saw to cut the pieces. I really felt sorry that I had to cut it into pieces, because it looked alot better as a whole, but in between the VRM's there were capacitors and they were in the way, so I had to think about how to cut the pieces and them stick them back together. if you notice in the pic, I boted them togherther using their own fins and some screwes, which left the individual heatsinks with only 3 fins each..
This is it mounted on the VRM.
I didn't liked it... That's why I didn't keep it. I secured it to the motherboard using the silliest mechanism, I even used thermal pads. But.. it looked like absolute crap.
If I had the tools or the resources... I would have had to paint it so it matced the other heatsinks... it wasnt worth it.
So you asked me how long my 3870X2 is... well it's about 25cm long... maybe more... ( 10-10.5") so it's big.. it's heavy, it has a copper heatsink and an aluminium heatsink. The aluminium heatsink is on the slave core which is closest to the fan, and the copper heatsink is on the master core. it's made out of copper because copper conducts heat better, so it probably stays a few degrees lower than if it was an aluminium heatsink in the same scenario.
I took a pic of the CPU usage while playing Battlefield 3
So do you think my CPU bottlenecks my GPu a bit?
I mentioned you about that stuttering in BF3 with HDD LED activity while it was happening. Below there is a pic with my HDD benchmarked with a program called Crystal Disk Mark, so I benched my 160GB Excelstor and compared it with a WD Caviar Green.
THIS is where I found the benched WD Green 1TB Crystal Disk mark results. Take a look.
I heard that WD Caviar Greens are slow, but if they are slow, mine is slower than slow. Do you think that those speeds could bottleneck the game and delay the game texture loading into the RAM?
I hope I didn't make this too long. looking forward for your updates and replies
Now if you remember that I told you about that VRM heatsink I made and you aked me to take a pic or two? Well I did!
I had an older CPU Cooler so I used a grinding machine to cut a piece out of it, and then a saw to cut the pieces. I really felt sorry that I had to cut it into pieces, because it looked alot better as a whole, but in between the VRM's there were capacitors and they were in the way, so I had to think about how to cut the pieces and them stick them back together. if you notice in the pic, I boted them togherther using their own fins and some screwes, which left the individual heatsinks with only 3 fins each..
This is it mounted on the VRM.
I didn't liked it... That's why I didn't keep it. I secured it to the motherboard using the silliest mechanism, I even used thermal pads. But.. it looked like absolute crap.
If I had the tools or the resources... I would have had to paint it so it matced the other heatsinks... it wasnt worth it.
So you asked me how long my 3870X2 is... well it's about 25cm long... maybe more... ( 10-10.5") so it's big.. it's heavy, it has a copper heatsink and an aluminium heatsink. The aluminium heatsink is on the slave core which is closest to the fan, and the copper heatsink is on the master core. it's made out of copper because copper conducts heat better, so it probably stays a few degrees lower than if it was an aluminium heatsink in the same scenario.
I took a pic of the CPU usage while playing Battlefield 3
So do you think my CPU bottlenecks my GPu a bit?
I mentioned you about that stuttering in BF3 with HDD LED activity while it was happening. Below there is a pic with my HDD benchmarked with a program called Crystal Disk Mark, so I benched my 160GB Excelstor and compared it with a WD Caviar Green.
THIS is where I found the benched WD Green 1TB Crystal Disk mark results. Take a look.
I heard that WD Caviar Greens are slow, but if they are slow, mine is slower than slow. Do you think that those speeds could bottleneck the game and delay the game texture loading into the RAM?
I hope I didn't make this too long. looking forward for your updates and replies
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andrevautour
New member
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
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
thanks for watching the video
i'm having fun with the videos, so i have a bunch more planned and i have quite a few queued as well. hopefully some people enjoy those.sometimes i keep the leds off but at night when you're not doing serious typing but just casual use it's nice to have the led's on low brightness.
i love simple, quality classic aesthetics as well--i think we see eye to eye on a lot of aesthetics tastes. i still have one of the hp keyboards from the 2006 pavilion and some other old crappy keyboards in the basement. i dont have the one that came with the 2002 pavilion but the space on that was fairly broken after i was finished using it.
the nice thing about something like that filco is that it has that minimal classic look thats not so flashy like the razer, but its really high quality as well so it's kind of not totally obvious that you have a high end keyboard.
thank you! the only thing i have ever been fully happy about is the apple 27 inch led cinema display. the build quality of that is so high its just unbelievable. the entire back frame is one piece of machined aluminum like the unibody mac book pros. and little things like the stand is ROCK solid and doesn't budge at all and the tilt is so smooth and has just the right resistance so make it feel like it's floating in oil as you tilt it ,not too light feeling etc its just about perfect in every way.
of course the cinema display is really expensive so you can't expect cheap monitors to be even close to it quality wise, but even something like dell's 27 inch 2560x1440 IPS display which has the same panel in it or similar one anyway, and those are just as expensive, the build quality on those is good but its still plastic so it doesn't feel as high quality as the cinema display.
the unibody macbook pros are good too but the non retina display ones had bad airflow so they get really hot and loud. on the new retina display ones they added vents at the sides and improved the fans and airflow a lot so they are really quiet. i know what my next laptop will be
i dont think i've ever seem a windows laptop that felt like it was good quality to me now matter what the price range.
most things though are good quality but there are always some things about them that are not as good as you would like or a bit different that you would like or whatever. the same thing applies even with high end cars and other things like that
the hard drives aren't made to turn out of the box because generally with most newer cases the I/Os of the drives needs to be at the back of the motherboard tray, so the cage needs to be positioned so the back of the drives is facing the motherboard tray.
i love the look of the noctuas too. i generally love all earthy tones i think ive mentioned that already. the nf p 12's and f12s are my favorite fans of all time.
a single one at 800 rpm which is the low noise spec speed is literally inaudible you can not hear it at all if you ear is anymore than a few inches away from it. the full speed for them is 1200rpm and you can hear it a tiny tiny bit at that speed but you really have the strain your ear to even notice a single one at full speed . when you have 4 or 6 of them in a case if they are all at 800 rpm or 700 you can hear that the system is on but only if you really strain to hear in most cases you will never notice that it's on at all . if you have all 4 or 6 at full speed you can hear it a tiny bit but its just a really smooth high quality air moving sound there is absolutely no motor noise and any other type of bearing noise etc etc.
(moral of the story is they are really good) but of course as with other things that are good they are expensive
your heatsink looks good! very creative idea taking the cpu heatsink and cutting it up. did you notice heat issues with the board or were you just making one just to be on the safe side?
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Well I have heard that cheaper boards ( like mine for example ), have bad quality mosfets and they say that there were cases where they simply melted while overclocking. So long story short, too many volts might do that. Indeed I have noticed them getting pretty hot, but I think they are designed to go even over 100C without issues.I mean... my graphics card runs hot at 85C for years and it's good... not to mention the cards VRM's ( I can seen the VRM in action from voltage, Amps, temps in Riva Tuner ) go sometimes close to 100C.
Anyway, the mosfets only got hotunder PRIME95 testing and nowhere near as hot in a game like BF3 which is CPU dependant. SO in the end I figured that I don't really need the heatsink and it looks like crap too.
Well I've always found the Noctuas as being attractive... that design and color practically trademarks. One day I wish I could get my hands on a new case and some high end hardware and put some of those fans inside and make me my dream rig. or one of those small form factor rigs jus like the one Linus built... small.. quiet, cool and ... POWERFUL. For now.. all I got is me dreams
I'm glad you liked my heatsink... you don't have to be nice, just say that it sucks
. I do have a decent idea about how to build and adapt and mod things, I just don't have the tools.
BTW, I gathered some info for another post about the second PC I bought back in the days ( with my own money this time ).
Anyway, the mosfets only got hotunder PRIME95 testing and nowhere near as hot in a game like BF3 which is CPU dependant. SO in the end I figured that I don't really need the heatsink and it looks like crap too.
Well I've always found the Noctuas as being attractive... that design and color practically trademarks. One day I wish I could get my hands on a new case and some high end hardware and put some of those fans inside and make me my dream rig. or one of those small form factor rigs jus like the one Linus built... small.. quiet, cool and ... POWERFUL. For now.. all I got is me dreams
I'm glad you liked my heatsink... you don't have to be nice, just say that it sucks
. I do have a decent idea about how to build and adapt and mod things, I just don't have the tools. BTW, I gathered some info for another post about the second PC I bought back in the days ( with my own money this time
).
andrevautour
New member
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
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
Well I have heard that cheaper boards ( like mine for example ), have bad quality mosfets and they say that there were cases where they simply melted while overclocking. So long story short, too many volts might do that. Indeed I have noticed them getting pretty hot, but I think they are designed to go even over 100C without issues.I mean... my graphics card runs hot at 85C for years and it's good... not to mention the cards VRM's ( I can seen the VRM in action from voltage, Amps, temps in Riva Tuner ) go sometimes close to 100C.
Anyway, the mosfets only got hotunder PRIME95 testing and nowhere near as hot in a game like BF3 which is CPU dependant. SO in the end I figured that I don't really need the heatsink and it looks like crap too.
Well I've always found the Noctuas as being attractive... that design and color practically trademarks. One day I wish I could get my hands on a new case and some high end hardware and put some of those fans inside and make me my dream rig. or one of those small form factor rigs jus like the one Linus built... small.. quiet, cool and ... POWERFUL. For now.. all I got is me dreams
I'm glad you liked my heatsink... you don't have to be nice, just say that it sucks
BTW, I gathered some info for another post about the second PC I bought back in the days ( with my own money this time
oh yeah well when you look at the box on the higher end board theres lots of talk about the quality of the mossfets and chokes and all that jazzz i wouldn't be surprised if some lower end boards with sub par cooling would have trouble with heat when overclocked.
On the other hand im sure there are lots of cases where even if you took some of the heatsinks off of a board is might still be fine for a long time. it's hard to say for sure how much good each thing actually does.
it's definitely a good idea and i'm sure it would work , sure it's not the most polished looking thing but in that picture they didn't stick out or anything
very good! go ahead and post that anytime
i'm still going to reply to your last large post ill get to it soon
andrevautour
New member
Here are some pictures of the cinema display that i took earlier today.
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oh yeah well when you look at the box on the higher end board theres lots of talk about the quality of the mossfets and chokes and all that jazzz i wouldn't be surprised if some lower end boards with sub par cooling would have trouble with heat when overclocked.
On the other hand im sure there are lots of cases where even if you took some of the heatsinks off of a board is might still be fine for a long time. it's hard to say for sure how much good each thing actually does.
it's definitely a good idea and i'm sure it would work , sure it's not the most polished looking thing but in that picture they didn't stick out or anything
very good! go ahead and post that anytime
Thanks!
You know, when I went an looked at this board on newegg .. there were so many negative reviews.. that for a sec I belived that I am blessed and that the board is so bad.. it must of been some sort of miracle that it worked and still works till this day. I don't know what's up with that, but this board is really really cool. It does everything I want and need without any problem.
I am not completly happy with the onboard sound chip audio quality to be honest. That ASUS board had a VIA sound chip and it sounded absolutely marvalous... the highs were loud and clear with no distorsions... the only conabout that chip was that I couldn't asign every jack to do what I want it to do like with the Realtek chip I have now... I can assign every jack to play only the Front speakers which is stereo.. all the sound is played likeyou would have a stereo setup...simple, just how I like it. The sound is decentbut I am not happy with thehighs... they have a little bit of distorsion when the audio signal on that specter of the frequency is strong.
I am very picky about sound, I have built my own Audio system... out of pure junk, but you'd be surprised how well 30 year old speakers can sound at a few Watts.
