jonowee's Meh Box

[jonowee]

It's old, and more entry level kit even for it's day, it was not built to handle games.

Coolermaster RC-330 Elite mid-tower case

Before you look inside, this case has no cable management bits and I tried what I could to keep things tidy. And it is a rainbow of mismatched colours in the box.

Mobo: Gigabyte 965P-S3 Rev3.3

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz OC'ed to 2.8GHz, + Noctua U12P SE2 heatsink

RAM: 2x 1GB DDR2-800 OCZ Vista Value, 2x 2GB DDR2-800 Corsair XMS2

PSU: Antec NeoPower HE 500W

GPU: HIS Radeon X1650 (a what?) 256MB

HDD: 2TB Western Digital Green, 750GB Seagate Barracuda 7200

ODD: Pioneer DVR-212

Let me just say this first, I got the Noctua bling before I ever heard of OC3D or tinytomlogan raving reviews of Noctua. I got the giant heatsink because the round Intel stock cooler is pathetic; on a summer's afternoon, in stock settings, the CPU will actually overheat under load.

I could not twist the USB, and power-reset-HDD cables any farther to stuff behind the motherboard or else they will start discounting from the tension.

I have since rerouted the wires connected to the CPU fan header, and stuffed them behind the fat heatsink.

And yes the Seagate HDD is not connected, I butchered a FreeAgent external hard drive because that thing unreliable in its aluminium and plastic 'oven' casing. I don't have enough SATA data cables at the moment.

I have also since sealing off the open PCI slots with a combination of tape and paper card since the case's PCI covers are removable but not replaceable. I decided to seal them because I only have one exhaust fan and the two fans on the CPU heatsink is creating quite the negative pressure system.

This space will be occupied by a Coolermaster 4-in-3 module, to add to that a 120mm fan will be mounted in the lower front section to hopefully reverse my rig into a positive pressure system to keep the dust out.

No space to coil and stuff cables , the cables that need to 'shorten' did not have enough stretch to anchor into the space between the 3.5" rack and the right case wall.

 

[adamjamesroe]

Your RIG is rarther dusty, but nice job with the cables, considering there isnt any room for them.

 

[michaelah500]

Not bad at all...especially, as the first commenter said, as there isnt anywhere for the cables to go.

Overall the system looks nice

 

[noexe]

Hey man not a bad job at all with the cable management

 

[ionicle]

thats not that bad'a pc

 

[jonowee]

The Meh... box just got less meh.



Before:

After:

The 'first's in this update:

• Move from DirectX 9 to DirectX 11.
• Make use of PCI-e power cables.
• Bought SATA cables (usually just scavenged for them.)
• Front panel fans
• 5.25-3.5" cage

In hand the old graphics card feels about the same weight, I'm guessing because of the chunky alu fins and block that make up the vapour chamber.

The key upgrade is to an ASUS 560 Ti DirectCU, I am still playing around with MSI Afterburner to find out what the limits of the GPU are. I'll probably start a separate thread or dig out 560 Ti overclocking thread for some help.

Will it run Crysis?... no, I don't know why. Crysis Warhead functions even if it freaks out at 74°C, and running stock settings yield no positive results for Crysis.

I wanted run the Silverstone Air Penetrator (sic) in the bottom position to throw fresh air at the graphics card, but unfortunately the size/distribution of the perforations in the case create a very noticeable and annoying 'humming' noise when a high enough volume of air pass through them. I swapped the Coolermaster Turbine Master 1.2 on the Thermaltake iCage, which has an open front, which is that little bit quiet than full frame fans. But still had to run the paired front panel fans off the CPU header (~7V) to ram down the speed because the case perforation still don't like a large volume of air passing through them. As you can see, there are some green lines on the case; I marked out where I had wanted to cut out clean openings in the case to get rid of the noise from the perforations in the lower front and rear exhaust fan areas. But that will happen some other time, when I clear other more important projects and can live with computer downtime while modding the case.

An explain of the 560 I'm guessing, getting confused at 74°C.

It doesn't like diagonals.

Updated cable management:

And one last bit, I had to trim off the plastic bits on the video cables so that they would fit side by side of the video card.

With the new graphics card installed, there lies the limits of reducing the system bottlenecks easily. I really can't be bother to find a LGA 775 CPU or a more useful motherboard unless I can find a suitable secondhand market place, so that's the end of the road for performance upgrades in this rig until I save up build the next gen system. I'll probably drop in a second 2TB HDD so I will be able to run backups again, since the the 750GB Seagate can't contain my files any longer.

Typing this post out, I think I'll un-pair the front panel fans now and run the Silverstone off the 12V PWR fan header as the metal mesh 5.25" bay covers don't create as much noise as the case perforations.

 

[dugdiamond]

you need to fashion a large dust filter in front of the front fan

or the rig will need serious cleaning every month

 

[jonowee]

you need to fashion a large dust filter in front of the front fan

or the rig will need serious cleaning every month

No problem, I'm trying to source filter foam to replace the useless open cell foam that Coolermaster used and plug up the hole at the bottom of the front panel which is used as a grab handle for front panel removal.

 

[darkshadow]

I have an i7 950 and a gtx 560 ti, I can run crysis on enthusiast without AA or AF up to 70 fps, never drop below 40. Your cpu is bottlenecking your gpu.

 

[AMDFTW]

what are the temps of the direct cu 2 mate

 

[SieB]

I also have the CM 330 Elite, I hate it, can't wait till I get a 690 II ADV in a couple of weeks. You have done good with it though, personally I can't be arsed doing anything with mine.

 

[Icekube]

I think someone needs a few dust filters

Love those Asus DirectCUII's though v.nice upgrade mate

 

[BigIan88]

Looks significantly neater there matey!

 

[jonowee]

I have an i7 950 and a gtx 560 ti, I can run crysis on enthusiast without AA or AF up to 70 fps, never drop below 40. Your cpu is bottlenecking your gpu.

No doubt. But I've given up on LGA 775; the prices of new Core 2s are too close to Core i3, the secondhand 775 market is flooded with Celerons and Pentiums. The few used Core 2 for sale, people really don't know how to factor depreciation for the prices they are asking.

Yes I know I'll be replacing only the CPU, but I not going to spend that kind of money to use the chip for just a few months.

1155, AM3+... we'll see...

what are the temps of the direct cu 2 mate

Not sure how to answer, but here goes...

Ambient: 29°C

Idle: 58°C

F@H: 75-80°C (Stock 830MHz- top stable OC 959MHz, Nvidia auto fan ~50% ~2600RPM, the coil whine is more noticeable and annoying than the fans.)

The card will jump ship past 85°C.

You have done good with it though, personally I can't be arsed doing anything with mine.

Would it be 'wrong' to stuff the guts of this horrid system in a really, really nice case? Even if the case will likely stay with me for a good ten years.

 

[SieB]

Would it be 'wrong' to stuff the guts of this horrid system in a really, really nice case? Even if the case will likely stay with me for a good ten years.

It wouldn't be wrong

if you are happy with the 330 Elite though, fair play but a better case would make the guts look even better. I wish I had know about cable management and air flow when I bought my 330 because I would have definietly gotten a different case.

 

[jonowee]

This will be the penultimate update to this thread, after that it will be a teaser photo and link to the new rig project log initially, then eventually a rig gallery thread once I have 'completed' the rig and get a nicer camera.

Meh Box final

Trying to avoid repetitive views of the same box.

Instead of starting a desk and work area thread, I might as well add a few photos in this thread.

I'll need to check out HayleyWow's desk thread to pick up ideas of cable hiding.

Added egg crate foam to case, had to trim blocks around the CPU cooler and 5.25" drive cage to even remotely attempt to shut the case.



Following up an idea from Zeals, I got black stockings. What do you know, that supermarket just so happened to have a self-checkout isle. And if you're thinking it, I do stretch back up those gaps at the top when refitting the front panel.

 

[yggdrasil]

I think you'll need a new case soon give that rig a nicer home

Nice Overclock on the CPU. What temps is it running at?

I miss the days of modding cases, I don't do it now since most cases have the options I need besides a few adjustments for cable management.

*Thumbs up*

 

[Ya93sin]

Following up an idea from Zeals, I got black stockings. What do you know, that supermarket just so happened to have a self-checkout isle. And if you're thinking it, I do stretch back up those gaps at the top when refitting the front panel.

At Tesco, there is a screen which shows all the items every self service till has scanned

 

[jonowee]

Nice Overclock on the CPU. What temps is it running at?

Around 60°C folding at this time of the year also with the graphics card throw heat at it and all around the case, idle around 50°C both with around 26°C ambient.

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Building the Fortress.