Julie's Pants

[AlienALX]

Had a lot of crashing. Not GPU related though, but hard drive related. I had the same issue when I built it into the other case.

The 2TB Firecuda 2.5 does not have a retaining mechanism for SATA cables with clips. This means if you use a thick one it will keep pulling out of the socket or moving whilst the rig is on. Last night I got really angry and decided to do something about it. Firstly I half stripped the rig back so I could wire up the two Eloops. When I removed the HDDs I noticed how hot they were. Not that this was the cause of the crash, but a hot hard drive is not a happy one. I have only ever lost HDDs when they didn't have cooling. Eventually the bearings go, having being ran hot.

Then I made the first cover panel. This is before.

And after.

I also moved the Firecuda to the outer slot, which makes it sit higher. This has stopped the cable pulling out. If it happens again? I am going to sugru the motherf***er on. It's really starting to p1ss me off.

Next up is making the cover panel for the other side. Then I will move onto the front cover to replace the glass that sits on the GPU. Not had much time to play with this yet, but did knock up an outer template I can change designs on and etc.

 

[AlienALX]

The hard drive died last night. SMART as crap as ever. Doesn't tell you until it's too late.

I had two drives left over from the last big PC I had. One was a 2tb, but 3.5. So I stripped down the back side and did a mod to get a 3.5 in the centre channel.

Have lost some albums I downloaded since going ITX, but those are all at my flat so I bought an external shell and will bring over what I lost when I come back.

I had three power cuts the other night, so that may well have finished it off. I will still low level it and stuff once I have what I can retrieve off of it.

PCs eh. Spend all your dough on making it look nice then it kicks you in the balls when something dies and you ain't got no cash left

 

[AlienALX]

Right, this is getting modded. I'm not happy with the PUBG temps, and I'm certainly not happy with the GPU temps. I hate air cooling, and this has all just reminded me why.

Card is OK in all scenarios, apart from the game I play. And it's down to weak cooling on the VRAM. IE, air is not capable on this card. So, yesterday after it limping in the cupboard I ripped down my Alienware. I sold the GPU out of it a while ago and tbh? I don't need a huge water cooled PC sitting there rotting. Not with all of the Bitspower gear I have. That's just criminal.

The fun part is the Antec takes two 240mm rads. What do I happen to have? yeah, two 240mm Bitspower rads with four unused Bitspower RGB fans. With the hubs.

So the rig is going full water. There was just one thing stopping me. I HATE buying things I already have, unless it's an upgrade. I bought a Bitspower TouchAqua block for the TR rig and I absolutely love it, because it's gorgeous and beautifully made. I got it on sale for about £50, and I refuse to buy another block. I am not paying £80 for something I already have.

So this is where it starts to get serious, and seriously complicated and techy. I noticed that a lot of TR blocks also fit AM4. I know, I had one. Sadly it was a bit crap because it was alu, and literally 20c warmer than the BP block I replaced it with.

That's a Bykski block. This is BP's AM4 block.

Which TBH if they had spent one more day designing they could have made universal. They didn't, though. So this is what I have.

This is where it will get really complicated. I have a couple of options here.

1. It comes in three pieces. The copper base, the upper dual layer acrylic (clear and a black top plate that's about 1mm) and a steel bracket. I can either drill out the bracket to AM4 spec, then fit it and drill up through the acrylic top (it doesn't go near the water channel) and mount it from the top or -

2. I can drill the holes out of the bracket, counter sink them, put bolts in, put the acrylic top back on so they are completely hidden) and then shove them through the board and spring and bolt on from the rear. This means drilling out the back plate so the bolts so straight through. Now I need to check, but I am 99% sure the case has a large cut out behind the CPU.

OK. So step one, let's start doing some CAD and figuring out if the back plate I have has enough meat on it to be able to be modded.

Step one was socket spec. I got the measurements I needed for the bolt hole spacing and etc, and then mapped it out on some card.

Then set the bracket down on it to see if it can be drilled.

Having poked at where the bolt holes needed to be I could tell there was meat there. So I mapped the CAD template down onto the bracket. It works.

Where the lines cross is where the hole needs to be. Cool.

Obviously I haven't modded any PCs in quite a few years now. The Alienware was the last, in 2018. And I kinda messed up the inner paint, because I couldn't spray it. However, for the past three years I have been restoring old bikes. Not only restoring old bikes, but learning how to paint with Acrylic paints. Not only are they as cheap as F, but with the correct knowledge and a crap ton of filthy hard work you can get show results. Like literally, show finishes. Which TBH? if I was ever to mod another PC I would want it that way.

So, yesterday like I said I stripped out the Alienware. Or rather once the WC gear was all out, cleaned and packed up I farmed some SSDs. Gerrofff moi PC oooo arr.

The 1tb SATA drives and the 480 are going into the mini PC. I want that 3.5 out of there, as with extra wiring for the pump, fans, RGB and etc? I need the space.

I will be using red and black Bitspower fittings. I have white cables. That means for the first time ever I am going to fly the OC3D colours. With a badass paint job. And, I think I am already decided on the colours, but will keep that as a surprise.

As a bit of a appetizer let me show you what 3 years of painting with a certain type of paint and learning all of the characteristics gets you.

This is a light ish blue with blue flake. Four stage, every stage gets wet sanded.

All of the paint cost me £20. This one is Blackberry with red flake.

I call it murder purple.

This one is "Jam" orange with gold flake.

And see, it's not just the painting I've excelled at. Bodywork too. Most of these are 25 year old bikes with lots of dents and damage.

Here you can see me working out a dent that was put into the bash guard.

And scabby dropouts.

So yeah, I am well up for painting the Antec's panels.

 

[AlienALX]

Oh and that sexy AIO won't go to waste. I bought the cheapest Corsair one I could get for my other PC, so I will put it in there

 

[AlienALX]

Cooling. I won't be using the pump, top or res. They are all too big IMO and if I could make them fit would look stupid. I have a plan for that.

I call that the money shot. Literally.

Decide on your fittings, stick with them and then order 10m of hose lol.

And the block with the mount plate removed.

 

[Bartacus]

Holy crap dude, you've been busy for the past while now, rolling like those bikes you build! Great stuff, those paint jobs look incredible, especially that purple!

 

[AlienALX]

I've done about 8 this year. I got kinda obsessed, and just caught up in it. 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Lost some weight though lmao.

I got sick of paying extortionate pricing for powder coat. Like, you call them up "How much for powder coating" and they say "Oh about £70". "Cool, it's a bike frame"..... "Oh well then that will be £140".

I hate people who try and use your emotions to screw you. And that's why I've spent the last couple of years experimenting with all sorts of paints, with different chemical makeups, using all sorts of different chemicals (because for example if you go near 1k paint with alcohol it melts it, yet if you take acetone to acrylic it too melts it ETC ETC) and have learned the bloody hard way several times after losing an entire week work on a frame because I got lied to about what the paint was.

And now I have mastered it. Each job costs about £20 in paint, and providing you put in the hard, mucky, dirty work (kinda like this, my method of smoothing out crappy old paint without having to totally take it back to bare metal)

And feathering and filling and god knows what else.

And then wet sanding every layer, before completely cleaning it again and taking a tack rag to it...

And looking like you been stroking Barney's balls.

You can end up with something rather nice. What also happened was I joined a group of friends playing PUBG and then found out one of them runs a professional printing business. Check this thing out.

As such this time I am going to treat this PC like I would one of my bikes. These will be going on the sides.

If you know you know etc, which will be put under three layers of clear. BTW that isn't finished yet, still got a load more to do....

 

[AlienALX]

Ordered that from Bitspower. Shipping was heavy (£40 ffs) but it was on sale for £88. Praying I don't get slapped with customs duties. That said, they are about £300 here, so in for a penny and all that.

 

[AlienALX]

Been tweaking the graphics.

 

[AlienALX]

Update. Could a moderator please change the title name to "Julie's Pants" please? Let me explain. The title character in PUBG is called Julie. This is her here.

If you land with a bot and kill it the bot is usually wearing Julie's Pants. Not what you would think, and they have shrunk a bit in that pic, but they look like this.

Well the joke goes like this. One of my team mate's wife is actually called Julie. So, whenever that player gets a bot he puts them on and says "Hey look guys, I am wearing Julie's pants!". It's never gotten old, and still makes us laugh. I thought that would be fitting... Talking of fitting.....

I have this flow meter.

It's not as big as it looks. However, I was going to take it apart and remove the blade and shaft and use it as a tiny res come fill port for the loop. Like, straight into the pump. It would have been fine, if a bit of a PITA to fill the loop and then have to keep an eye on due to its low volume. What I would have liked is an actual hex tank, but these were notoriously expensive when you could get them (about £150) and it seems Bitspower gave most of them to modders who used like, five. Which IMO looked kinda daft but ho hum, they were the days before distro panels.

Any way, I was poking on Ebay earlier and figured I would just type in Bitspower and see what happened. Bingo.

Made a cheeky offer which was accepted. So, now I can use both, with the flow meter performing regular duties.

 

[hmmblah]

Update. Could a moderator please change the title name to "Julie's Pants" please? Let me explain. The title character in PUBG is called Julie. This is her here.

If you land with a bot and kill it the bot is usually wearing Julie's Pants. Not what you would think, and they have shrunk a bit in that pic, but they look like this.

Well the joke goes like this. One of my team mate's wife is actually called Julie. So, whenever that player gets a bot he puts them on and says "Hey look guys, I am wearing Julie's pants!". It's never gotten old, and still makes us laugh. I thought that would be fitting... Talking of fitting.....

I have this flow meter.

It's not as big as it looks. However, I was going to take it apart and remove the blade and shaft and use it as a tiny res come fill port for the loop. Like, straight into the pump. It would have been fine, if a bit of a PITA to fill the loop and then have to keep an eye on due to its low volume. What I would have liked is an actual hex tank, but these were notoriously expensive when you could get them (about £150) and it seems Bitspower gave most of them to modders who used like, five. Which IMO looked kinda daft but ho hum, they were the days before distro panels.

Any way, I was poking on Ebay earlier and figured I would just type in Bitspower and see what happened. Bingo.

Made a cheeky offer which was accepted. So, now I can use both, with the flow meter performing regular duties.

Thread title updated. Would you mind editing your first post with the explanation?

Nice find on the hex tank.

 

[AlienALX]

Will do in a bit cheers dude.

 

[AlienALX]

Well that was a nice turnup. Whilst browsing Bitspower the other night I noticed they did these really pretty radiator guards. Usually I wouldn't use something like this, but given the rad is hanging off the back (and could be damaged and looks a bit ugly) I quite fancied one.

As luck would have it when I searched a classified forum I use there was indeed one for sale listed in September.

Which hadn't sold. Cheeky offer #2, it's now mine

 

[AlienALX]

Quick update. I finally got over to the PC today. I pulled the AIO off to make sure the block would seat. The area of concern was here.

It seems to fit. Just. I may have to grind it back a bit. That's not as horrible as it sounds.. We will see once I drill the holes and do a test fit. Good thing is when it's in it will look like a big old monoblock. Talking of holes.

I've ordered 8 of those. Really don't want to use odds and sods.

 

[AlienALX]

Stop plugs came today.

And after much deliberation I chose the colour and FX scheme. It has been ordered also.

 

[AlienALX]

Right, last of the shopping has been done.

These are to couple the res to the pump top and flow meter to the res.

These will most certainly need to be on the GPU.

Got a in line filter too.

Two more fans. Might push pull the rear, we'll see. Spares are always good any way, and they are good value.

And I bought this EK conversion kit for £1.50. It's literally for nothing more than making sure my holes are dead perfect. So in other words, it's sacrificial.

 

[Warchild]

Don't you think the filter is completely unnecessary or a waste of time though?

You are reusing your rads I assume, so they are flushed with no flux, you're also using a new coolant so its completely clear of contamination.

in the chance that you get debris inside e.g from shaved/fragmented acrylic inside your tubes, these filters when they get stuffed or blocked, impact waterflow heavily. Most people opt for the Aquacomputer filters as opposed to inline ones.

I have only heard bad things about the BP inline filters.

 

[AlienALX]

Hmm, you may have a good point. I did think about that when I bought it. I can always just use it without the mesh as a sort of window. Most people put the res in the left side of the rig where the mobo is. I'm not. The CPU block is not clear, so I will probably put it in line with that somehow so I can see the coolant.

I'm not sure how Cryofuel is made up either. I know that Mayhem and XSPC are now fully switched to water alternatives like VG and PG etc. And, it is a little thicker than water. So yeah, probably a good call to just use it as a window of sorts.

 

[Warchild]

Hmm, you may have a good point. I did think about that when I bought it. I can always just use it without the mesh as a sort of window. Most people put the res in the left side of the rig where the mobo is. I'm not. The CPU block is not clear, so I will probably put it in line with that somehow so I can see the coolant.

I'm not sure how Cryofuel is made up either. I know that Mayhem and XSPC are now fully switched to water alternatives like VG and PG etc. And, it is a little thicker than water. So yeah, probably a good call to just use it as a window of sorts.

Its waterbased but also has a base of propylene glycol, but not even EK now how much of that is in there. Its weird though that the Clear is a good 3C lower in temp than their cry navy blue.

 

[AlienALX]

I tried Mayhem's black. I really liked it, until my rig leaked. Now I have a lovely grey stain on the carpet.

That was mostly why I bought the black hose in the first place tbh. So I could use clear coolant and not see it pumping around once it was dirty. Plus the PG makes it a bit yellowish any way, and it dumps this odd greasy/fatty deposit after a few months.

I only got it because right now it's the cheapest.