Orange Crush, a revisit...

[AlienALX]

So if you were here in 2015 you may remember the Pockit Rockit. If you don't? it was this.

Jonsbo UMX1 with a Titan Black in it. I bought three for my main rig, but two was best. CPU was poo, a Pentium Anniversary. Any way, I sold off the Titan, put a Quadro in it and gave it to my aunt when my uncle was first diagnosed with cancer. She had gone without a PC for a long time, but now needed one.



And there it remained until Thursday last. When I got it back.

I wanted to do a custom LAN rig that I can take to our lan night once a year (three days in a row). So cheap was in, but Pentium out. So I got this.

Four cores four threads. The RAM in there was 4gb total, so that got replaced with 8gb Vengeance my pal sent me down last year. For the GPU? it is a 980Ti with a 1080Ti cooler on (long story).


This is what it looked like before.

This is the plan.

And so.

So the first job was getting it all out (a nightmare) and fitting the new CPU. The cooler broke (plastic push pin crap) but it works.

So the first thing to do was buy a huge handle. 9", that is what she said.

In brushed stainless. The side window thing (Mayhem grille, was supposed to be meshed but the mesh was crap) is going in favour of this.

So something like this for the side.

The Mayhem one will be going under the fans in the bottom (this was a mod)

Which I accidentally cut a cable relief hole in the wrong side of lmao. That was why I made the cover with silver Dinoc on. But when I removed that look what I got.

Sometimes things were just meant to be.


OK, so first new mod. Cut down the IO PCB. The USB3 header on the board has a snapped pin (I did that way back then) and besides I don't want it in the way of the GPU like it was before.

I will be CNC a front cover plate with some branding on.


Mod two, get rid of the puny whiny top fan and replace it with something with more grunt. Problem is you can't. The fan is 120mm alright, but the holes do not line up with the posts it slots onto. So after a lot of head scratching I drilled the fan screw holes bigger and now it fits.

Next mod, handle.

There is just one problem. Due to where the fan goes you need to move the handle back.

*sigh*


So I needed a radius. That was easy.

Convert into a full circle.

Then use this bit of it.

Machine out four pieces of 5mm, plastic weld and sand.

And finally.

That will be frenched onto the case and painted body colour.


Keeping things cheap this should be about all I need.

 

[AlienALX]

OK well that didn't go well.


The JB had not set correctly, god knows why, and a lot of it peeled. The sides frenched in perfectly though. Back needs some work. Oh and ignore the top, once the handle goes on you can't see the step. Rubber washers will be ordered.


I then had a rush of blood and decided to put some paint on as I could not see how it really looked. This was kinda stupid, as I did not remove the gasket or the IO board etc. Oh well, isoprop it will have to be. But, it seems my anger at the paint coming out like crap through a goose was unwarranted, as it dried nice. Remember, this is just a test area.

Needs a tiny bit more tinkering, but pretty much there.

 

[AlienALX]

OK not done sod all because human malware. Did a little today, though.

Fitted the cooler and replaced the broken RAM latches with ones taken from an old board I found.

So the only thing wrong with it now is the single missing (it snapped off) USB3 header pin. Doesn't matter, not using it any way.

I also began the wiring. I got a bit annoyed at this, as it seems the Cooler Master PSU this was made for has a ton of double wires on the 24 pin. I started tossing them to one side, moaning and mumbling. And then I realised the entire 8 and 6 pin uses 6 double wires. Gosh, I shouldn't have complained lol. I just stole 6 single ones from a 6 pin to replace them with.

So we now have.... One 24 pin that will work on the ITX PSU, one 8 pin into 6+8 pin PCIE for the GPU and one 8 pin EPS. That only leaves one SATA run to be done and a Molex run. That was almost too easy......

 

[AlienALX]

OK so an update.


It has rained pretty much non stop since I started this. That means there won't be any painting for a few months.


Something got me wanting it working now, though. Basically I have 3 PCs with big navi in and none of them will run Fallout New Vegas without horrendous stuttering and crashing. I guess it is just too new for them to have made a driver that works with such an old game. Problem is I have been hankering some NV.


I did have another option though. I have the Xbox 360 version and it does run on my 1x. The problem is that because of how Bethesda treated Obsidian they never updated the game. Like, FO3 has 4k textures and much better draw distances on the 1x. FONV does not, and still runs at 1080p with no AA and the same draw distances the 360 had. So it looks like hot anus.


So, I decided firstly to scrap the case. Mostly because I had a better case in every way (a Q58). I then had an idea. Lian Li sold extra mesh panels because the glass ones are awful. They just make it a hot box. However, they also made them in white. For the white version of the case obs. And they are cheap (£17 a set) and available. So I bought two sets.

Only issue is the Jonsbo cooler is not LP and thus would not fit in the Q58. Not a problem, I got this.

Over the last few days I finished all of the cables (molex and SATA) and started putting stuff in the case.

Yeah yeah it is messy with 0 cable ties but it is only temporary. Basically I am going to paint all of the black parts orange. The white parts will stay white. The main reason I bought those panels is because painting mesh panels is very difficult. The paint I use is thick and it loves to block the mesh holes. As such it can be a nightmare.


GPU in (it's a 980ti remember lmao)

And then onto hacking Win 11 to make it run without TPM, getting all of the drivers on and then finally being able to play FONV at 4k with all the ultra settings.


I present, the temporary skunk !

So aye, that is where I am at.

 

[WYP]

ROG a teasing a new NUC that will be shown at CES. This build brought that to mind for me.

 

[AlienALX]

hah. The badge etc will be going. I had a Strix 6700XT in there last, and wanted it to be a mini me version of what I have at home.


Have now modded NV to the hilt, and finally managed to stop it crashing once modded with the 4gb patcher and NV anti crash (though that didn't work without the 4gb limit removed).


10 hours in now, having so much fun !