Project equk oldskool P4 (2004)

[equk]

This is an old project log from 2004 I found on my backup drive

I'm looking at starting a new watercooling project atm so thought I'd post some of my old work. (remember this is from 2004)

The text is a direct copy/paste from my old blog

Case Before

08/07/2004

I decided to mod my case as it's starting to look boring etc altho it is quite quiet. My CPU temps seem pretty high altho I've been told my mobo is about 12oC out so I decided the best thing was to add 2x80mm fans to the top of my case to blow the hot air (as hot air rises) out using a chimney type of effect.

So I set about measuring etc. At first I did a rough design hand drawn. Then moved onto doing a 3D design to scale.

Next I marked out the centre points etc for the 76mm holes which would be for the 80mm fans and also the window shape on the sidepanel. I designed a small window so you don't see the HDD's, PSU etc as the only thing worth seeing really is the mobo and cards. It also gave me the chance to mount the Cathodes out of the way.

Now it's down to business.

Get the tools out and away we go.

The window was routed out to get a nice non sharp finish on the edges and to have some nice rounded corners etc.

OK, now I have a nice looking BLACK case with some nice BEIGE drives and a SILVER fanbus. So it's time to get the spraypaint out and get spraying.

Next it's time to fit the perspex window and install the components

There is a 92mm fan on the window, a 120mm intake, a 120mm exhaust and 2x80mm fans at the top running at half speed.

The case also has 2x blue 12" cold cathodes (1 above and 1 below the motherboard)

 

[equk]

Hardware Mods

The motherboard I have in the system Abit IS7-E which is known to have problems with the northbridge cooler.

Fortunately I have the version with the slightly better fan.

I'm not too happy about the noise tho and it looks so small so lets rip it out and replace it with a Akasa Socket370 P3 CPU Cooler (will run it at half speed as it's 4000rpm)

I will clean the compound off using lighter fluid as I will be replacing it with arctic silver

Also I robbed a shim from the northbridge of my old Abit TH7-II

Prep the cooler by removing the compound (which looks like bubblegum), sticking on the shim and replacing the mounting bracket with the one robbed from the TH7-II.

here's a comparison between the coolers

it's a pretty tight fit but it's there, it's quieter and it's cooler

Next thing is to upgrade the CPU cooler with a heatpipe tower (it's going to be tight with that northbridge cooler)

Thermaltake Silent Tower

Prep the heatsink (yer it's new but look at what came off on my lint free cloth)

Install the supporting bracket (pretty fiddly)

Spread on some compound thinly (am using Arctic Silver)

Lineup the holes and put the heatsink in place, had a slight problem with that northbridge cooler

so removed it for now.

Adjust the brackets evenly (be patient with this)

Once installed I had room to put the northbridge cooler back

All installed and working

image limit

 

[tinytomlogan]

MORE MORE MORE.....!

 

[equk]

Overclock

GPU Upgrade

My Gainward Geforce4 4200 is getting old so it's time to upgrade to a geforce 6800GT

.....

 

[killablade]

Nice! I've got an old MicroStar PC with a P4 lying around which I might try and fix. Might just do something similar to this!

 

[AMDFTW]

My Gainward Geforce4 4200 is getting old so it's time to upgrade to a geforce 6800GT

LOL

 

[equk]

LOL

This is from 2004

 

[Brooksie]

Ahh I remember my 4200. Brings back memories

 

[AMDFTW]

oryt i just looked at the 'posted today' part

 

[JN]

Every time i see a thread like this it makes me want to build my very first 'high-end' rig all over again.

Pentium 3 650mhz (Slot 1 iirc?)

ABIT BE6-II

512mb Ram

2x Voodoo2's in SLI

Yum

 

[alienware]

Every time i see a thread like this it makes me want to build my very first 'high-end' rig all over again.

Pentium 3 650mhz (Slot 1 iirc?)

ABIT BE6-II

512mb Ram

2x Voodoo2's in SLI

Yum

I never owned a P3 or P2. I used dual Xeons all the way from 99 until 2003 when I finally succumbed and got an XP.

I don't miss the whopping 440 Marlinspike board you needed for them though, or the VHS tape sized CPUs haha. But man they were fast. They absolutely slaughtered desktop CPUs and Win2K just murdered ME (multiple errors).

 

[alienware]

BTW that case you used, is/was it an Antec?

Funny I mentioned my XP, because it was in a Sonata. IIRC the one you modded was identical but didn't have the piano finished (and impossible to keep clean I may add) front.

I built my cousin's Oppy machine into one of those up there, with the first Raptor I had ever seen.

 

[equk]

BTW that case you used, is/was it an Antec?

yer it was an Antec

I still have the system somewhere, not sure how many parts I've stolen from it to fix other stuff but might rebuild it just for nostalgia

 

[tinytomlogan]

yer it was an Antec

I still have the system somewhere, not sure how many parts I've stolen from it to fix other stuff but might rebuild it just for nostalgia

DO IIIIIIT

Ive had that case too, not bad for its age, loadsa places to route and hide cables

 

[AMDFTW]

yer get it built then bench quake or something maybe even starcraft

 

[equk]

yer get it built then bench quake or something maybe even starcraft

Would run those easily as they were out 1998/1999

The system was built for quake3 / unreal tournament / UT2k3

mostly quake3 as I was in a high clan, we had articles in pcgamer magazine and came 3rd in the uk at the quake3 TDM event at insomnia

I even played CS:S on it.

I think the timedemo on quake3 was around 450fps.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Would run those easily as they were out 1998/1999

The system was built for quake3 / unreal tournament / UT2k3

mostly quake3 as I was in a high clan, we had articles in pcgamer magazine and came 3rd in the uk at the quake3 TDM event at insomnia

I even played CS:S on it.

I think the timedemo on quake3 was around 450fps.

Metro or Crysis

 

[equk]

Just found a screenshot of MBM5 + CPU-Z from when I first built it (with diff cooler)

 

[equk]

15/09/2010

I decided to rebuild this system as it's been sat under the desk for ages.

On opening it up it had a layer of sticky dust stuck to everything.

I removed the heatsink from the GPU completely and took it appart, cleaned the plastic out and blew out the dust from the heatsink.

Once that was all done I re-assembled it and it actually looked like it did when I bought it

Next was the CPU cooler which was a mess, I took off the fan and the dust that was on the cooler wouldn't move with aeroduster so had to get a brush and hoovered it all out.

The mobo was also pretty bad, brushed over the caps etc

Ended up using some lighter fluid to clean up the PCI, AGP and RAM slots as the dust seemed really sticky.

I cleaned out the case and even found the original blanking plates but I decided to use my lian-li as it was sat with nothing in it.

(lian li currently doesn't have a hdd cage as I'm borrowing it for my other project)

powered on and all is working

The CPU fan was really noisy as it was something stupid like 5000rpm so changed the BIOS to 60% and it actually seems pretty quiet

Here's the temps etc on the BIOS PC Health Status