Maju's Cosmos

[Maju]

Bugger, just noticed no pics are showing - bandwidth exceeded. Shall have to try and sort that one later.

@WinMXer.

Yep, had heard that connecting three fans to the kama meter kills it, so have removed the volume control and replaced it with a beefier potentiometer. Hopefully it should be a bit more robust but the best thing is that by using one of the controllers fan channels I can still monitor the fans rpm.

Won't know whether the card still works after trimming it untill I fire it up which unfortunately will be a little while away as I've run in to some major hassle with connecting the tubes up. Might have to bite the bullet and get rid of the DeFuzion GPU block and get another EK GPU block instead - bummer!

Thanks for the feedback people - it's good to hear.

Alas not having computer until it's fininshed i'm limited in internet so sporadic updates as and when I can get to a computer.

Cheers

 

[Maju]

Bit of a go slow week plus bit of a hiccup with the tubing. The elbows arrived but no matter how hard I tried I just wasn't going to be able to get the tube to bend without kinking and when using the elbows the connectors just wouldn't line up.

The results - should hopefully be arriving tomorrow and will look much neater than how I had origonally planned it.

In the meantime have been putzing about doing little jobs.

Sorting out the switches which I have been putting off for ages. Had to move the led's in order to make room for the switches, which meant having to make new mounting bracket.

Holes drilled, dremmeled and finally trimmed with the stanly knife. Then top plate masked and primed

And a couple of coats of paint and clear laquer later

If i'm honest I probably should have put the switches either side of the existing switches but the switches would have fouled the mounting plate too much to easily trim. Still at least they are in and it doesn't look too bad. Just need to get the tubing sorted before I can put the case trim back on and then wire the switches.

Next up another job i've been putting off for a while, Reconnecting the MB power cables

Getting ready for the soldering marathon

and a couple (nearer 3) of hours later

I'm fairly sure i've connected everything back together in the right order - bit nerve wracking to say the least and in the future I think i will definately percevere with the pin removeral tool for a little longer before doing this again

Still it was worth it - ( the clamping bolts will not be staying that long and more than likely won't even be seen )

And from the rear

Unfortunately not all of the smaller screws managed to hold in the perspex as had to use a bit of pressure to hold all the wires in place so have had to use some larger screws. Shall probably swap the others out in order to keep them matched.

Still looks ok though.

Just waiting for the postman now and then I can get cracking with connecting this thing up and discovering whether i've fried my graphics card with the dremmeling.

 

[haofeng]

man, that looks great, i love the way you've dome the mb power cable. very tidy. blue looks good 2...

 

[monkey7]

Woooow man I just LOVE the way you did that MB power cable. Really, my respect, I wouldn't have had the patience to do it.

Not trying to screw the fun, but couldn't you have done the hole a little tighter? It looks like you still have some (3-4mm?) room around the cables. Maybe solve it with thicker rubber? It would be cool to see it being near watertight

 

[Silentsnake]

looool i love the way you done them cables

VERY BRAVE MOVE LOL Hope everything works

 

[Maju]

Thanks all.

@monkey7

patience. you'll see why in hopefully te next update to the log.

On a practical note the hole had to be that large in order to be able to remove te MB socket through the case. If it wasn't that large it would have meant cutting the cables again which I really wouldn't want to do after the length of time it has taken to sleeve te cables.

I think you'll like how i've solved the problem.

 

[Maju]

Have finally finished the work i was doing so am now able to hopefully crack on a bit quicker.

So whilst haven't managed to do a great deal lately it hasn't come to a complete standstill.

So first up.

I wasn't particually happy with the ocz molex power cable as the connectors were in the wrong position for tidy cable management. Of course, this wouldn't do so had to do something a bit different.

First up, back to the circular table saw and a bit of nifty cutting to make a holder for the molex.

which have been fixed in place with some power putty..

Then had to wire and solder it up..

May not seem like a lot of work but seemed to take ages.

with the facing plate attached and mounted roughly in its final position

As you can see have made up my own power leads to the drive bay devices. Note the 12 & 5v wires have also been heatshrinked in order not to detract the eye with the yellow and red wires.

Next up, I am starting to get a bit concerned that this is going to far with reference to my next purchase for this build. It's going to be the best dressed computer this side of the river.

This build is not taking over my life, honest

The tights are actually for the dust filter that ive made for the intake fan of the 2nd PSU.

You can also see the 80mm hard drive fan that has been fitted with cable extended to reach the fan controller without having to use the fan connector cables.

With that done I then set out on the lighting. Origonally I had only planned to use two lighting circuits hence the switch plate as seen earlier in the log. Things changed and I now have 4 new switches on the top plate with all the ascossiated wires. Again a fairly time consuming task cutting everything to length, soldering and hiding all the cables.

Also ended up taking the cathode tube connectors off and spray painting them black, along with the other molex connecting blocks so as not to glow under the uv light and detract from the feel of the rig

Best thing about this was connecting the leads to a spare psu and feeling the satifaction and relief when everything worked as intended

With the lighting sorted then moved onto the the hard drive power supply. Again the origonal leads were far too long and made for some fairly unsightly cable management, forcing the excess cable behind other wires or into avaliable spaces.

No More.

Another session with the wire cutters, soldering iron and gas torch and here is the result

the wire ties are only tempory until the other gfx power leads are made and fitted.

the molex at the top tight connects with the molex power strip mounted to the second hard drive exhaust fan.

And so this is where I am upto at the moment, starting to make the second gfx card power cables, which need to be in place before mounting the pump and signature panel to hide the wiring.

I also made a bit of a blunder and ordered the wrong size sli w/c connector, triple slot instead of dual. In my defence the description didn't make it clear and this is my first water cooled build so i'll know better for next time.

Hopefully the replacement will be here tomorrow along with some more heatshrink so I don't skimp and use too much electical tape instead.

OK, back to it. Hope you like it.

:toast:

 

[haofeng]

looking good man! cant wait to see the finished product, im sure it'll be amazing! The cables must have taken ages to do...

 

[Diablo13]

I have to say you are quite the perfectionist m8. Don't get me wrong it's not a dig. The work you have done is amazing, it's just that I wonder where you get the patience? It looks brilliant and I will enjoy seeing the finished case.

Are you just going to use it as an everyday pc or are you going to exhibit it anywhere? After all the time, effort and money, not to mention blood you have put in to it, it deserves to be seen, in the flesh as it were.Pictures no matter how well taken, can rarely do a job like that justice.

 

[Maju]

Hello

@Diablo

Yeah can be a bit of a perfectionist. Blame on Moon in Virgo (according to a reliable astrolger I know)

And yes, it will be my everyday computer, displayed only in my home. And yes, the photo's dont really do it justice at all.

so

Finally got around to another job i've been hanging back from - Wiring up the power supplies to the gfx cards..

One of the hardest things about this job has been getting the pins out of the plastic sockets. Trying to maintain pressure on the pin removal tool whilst pulling on the wire and pin and at the same time hold the plastic socket steady is tricky. Doing all that and not getting the pin tool to shoot across the room is a trick built up over time.

Anyway. Needed two complete new leads from psu 2 to gfx 2 and needed to shorten the existing pci-e leads.

I had initially started to do this using old wire from a dead wiring loom and electrical tape to wrap the solder joins. After

ing up the length and making the first lead too short I decided to wait till the heatshrink arrived and do it properlly. I also took another trip to my local computer repair shop and for a small donation got another dead psu with long wires on the loom with lots more molex/atx pins.

So first job was to sleeve the power wires like so..

This bit was quite time consuming.

... and some time later the first two leads are ready

Then it was onto the next two. A bit trickier as I didn't want to have to remove the psu.

Again, more laborious wire cutting, stripping, soldering and sleeving.

And after the fourth lead this is what I am left with - although this isn't final fix obviously.

And the aftermath

All I I am happy enough with how it's looking.

With the gfx leads sorted and the two slot card connector arrived I could now start to sort out the tubing of the loop.

Alas can't finish this just yet as I am waiting for another couple of parts to arrive. Hopefully a worthwhile wait as it will make working on the system in future so much easier, plus I really am not sure whether i'll end up using the purple coolant as under uv it glows a bit too orange

Anyway. this is where it is upto at the moment.

- actually not quite true as I have since trimmed the metal slots so the dvi connectors do not foul the case.

Have also been cutting perspex again and have started spraying some test pieces with different arrangements of black and white.

The plan is to shine the uv light through the edge of the perspex and then to either etch, score or leave blank a design onto the perspex so that when the light shines it illuminates and highlights the design.

Don't know if this will work as I hope. Shall find out later.

Thats it for now. Hopefully parts arrive tomorrow so i can continue once more

Cheers

 

[Maju]

At last, some major movement forwards on the build. Bits have arrived and I have been getting busy.

But before they arrived I decided to colour co-ordinate my peripherals, so first up my revamped mouse.

Bloody job that turned out to be. Unfortunately when I was taking the top off of the plastic primer the cap caught the spray nozzle and sheared the nozzle off from the can.

Undaunted I carried on and shortly afterwoods had a horrible paint reaction that resulted with major cracking and crazing.

All in all there are 16 different coats of paint and laquer on the shell of the mouse as a result of several more paint reactions. Still, the end result looks a rather nice shiny metallic purple.

I was trying to fit the water pipe from the fill port but using 1/2" tubing just wasn't working as the tube was fouling the rad mount and side panel release.

Solution, downsize the fill pipe and get some right angle fittings. Whilst ordering noticed that the shop had a 2 line lcd display for £14 so I decided to take a chance and go for it.

Unfortunately the cable supplied was made to plug into a parallel port on the back of the motherboard using the screw in type parallel fitting - like the old printer connectors.

Unfortunately my motherboard only has a parallel connector of the bare pin type.

Not to be detered an old floppy cable comes to the rescue.

A while later

My only concerns are whether the pins have breached the adjoining wires and have created a short between the wires.

Also, I am not 100% sure the wires are wired up in the same order on the MB as on the display. Shall have to check that out on the internet before I connect the display up properly.

As I am not mounting the display in the drive bays this required a bit more modding with the dremmel.

Have since completed cutting and bending the metal frame of the display, sleeved the ribbon cable and exteneded the power lead to nearly a meter long

Next up was the pretty mammoth task of cable management. You have no idea how long it took to do this, suffice to say you'd need more than one hand to count the hours.

Then onto cutting and fitting the tubing, plus rebuilding the case

Fitting the two graphics cards with the solid sli connector was a bit of a struggle but have managed it. Am about to fill the loop for the first time so I just hope that nothing leaks as it's going to be a MAJOR pain in the arse if there is a leak.

Right, thats where I am upto at the moment and I now have to give the laptop back to my friend. Hopefully the next post will once again be on my own computer - as long as the trimmed graphic card still works

 

[Diablo13]

Don't even think about leaks at this stage m8. With all the attention to detail you have put in , I'm sure it will be fine.

Nice mouse by the way. With all them layers it should be quite a durable paint job.

Are you going to do the keyboard like that as well? Sorry I shouldn't give you any more ideas like that or you will never finish it, LOL.

 

[Bungral]

Mate... All this work has worn your nail varnish off.

Leaks can happen to the best of us.. But if ya get one it might not be as difficult as ya think. I had one once that just required the barb tightening.. Didn't have to drain or remove anything.

Good work though

By the way.. Is your fill tube coming out of the spare side of the bottom gfx block?

 

[Maju]

Cheers all

Well filled the system last night and thankfully no leaks.

Onlyproblem that I have now is that the cold cathode tubes are only lighting up about 3-4 inches of the length - which is a problem. I think that it is becauseof all the extra wire running up to the switches.

Not sure how i'm going to sort this one out.

As a tempory fix I have just bypassed the switch on the main uv tubes and will have to live with the rest until I find a solution. Don't know whether it'll work if I just swap the polarity of the switch - ie instead of the switch being in the +'ve line put it in the negative so that there much less wire in the +'ve line ?

Time will tell.

@ Bungral

I wondered if anyone would notice that.

The fill port connects to the top of the res so that I can take the top shroud of and use a funnel and fill port. The fitting on the gfx card leads to a bulkhead quick connect fitting so that I can drain the system easily without having to turn the computer upside down.

Might end up doing this sooner than later as I am not entirely happy with the colour of the cooling liquid.

@ diablo13

Yep, the keyboard is also on the agenda, as is (if I feel brave enough) the shroud on the lcd monitor.

In the meantime I now have to fire this beauty up and see if it will load.

More to follow soon

 

[Bungral]

What colour did ya go with?

 

[Maju]

What can I say.....

Bugger should cover it.

Alternatively .... it didn't work.

Looks pretty but that is no consolation.

When I turn it on it posts ok and I can get into the bios. It then shows the loading bar for windows and then .... nothing. The screen goes blank where the user name box comes up to sign in.

Not sure where to go from here.

Have tried swapping the power leads over - no change.

have tried a power lead from each psu to each gfx card - no luck.

have tried running both cards from the 700w psu - nada.

Have an awfull feeling that i'm going to have to drain the system, reconfigure the water fittings and try each card seperately - major hassle.

When Ifirst turn pc on it shows that it recognises the gfx card - the one that I trimmed the pcb (recognises the bios ##05 - the new card is ##15)

plus and correct me if I am wrong but if the card wasn't working wouldn't it be the case that I couldn't even see the bios screen.?

Also when the screen goes blank the HDD light is still twinkling merrily away showing that it is doing something, I just acn't see what.

Any ideas people.

cos at the moment I have 5 weeks work and effort and a very expensive but pretty pile of stuff doing nothing in my living room.

Hope someone can help.

Cheers

ps, you gotta laugh.

 

[Ham]

Sounds to me like the hardware is fine, and its windows being windows. Try a liveCD to verify this.

 

[Barry]

Sounds like a windows Issue.

Tried re-installing it?

 

[Bungral]

Rather than draining to remove your gfx card, just pull the power on one of them and just slightly pull it clear of the PCI-E slot if you can? Or is it rigid connectors between the cards? Hmmm can't remember from the pic.

 

[Maju]

Things are looking up.

I am writing this post on my computer using Knoppix. So while that in a way isn't marvelous news at least it shows that the graphics card works.

Big relief I can tell you.

Looks like a reinstall of windows coming up.

and of course I also need to put the wiring back together after I pulled the loom to pieces to fiddle with the power lead arrangement

Ho Hum