The crate.

AlienALX

Active member
Right. Few changes coming soon at Alien Towers. I currently have a PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, media PC and a server. It's all a bit cluttered. Oh,and a self built NAS.

I've decided to roll most of it into one. Sell the consoles and accessories (because I can't use them now any way, they are behind the TV) and just build one rig that does the audio, gaming and storage sharing. Though to be fair with a decent PC I won't need to actually share the music etc because it will be ran using it.

I thought about removing the hoopty 2080Ti from the loop at mum's and putting the Kingpin in, but I would rather have a complete spare rig. I hate down time.

Loose specs.

1920X Threadripper
Gigabyte Aorus Pro TR4
64GB RAM
2080Ti Kingpin
Gigabyte 850w Aorus Pro PSU (not a splodey one)
Corsair H100
960GB Revodrive
two 1tb SATA SSD
Two 2tb spinning drives

For a case I will be using this.

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It has "slight marks" on one side apparently. I'm not too bothered about that because the price was good and they haven't made them for four years. Given there was only 2000 made and most of them from the looks of it went out to reviewers and influencers? I'm stoked with it. It's painted, so I can always do some touch ups. The most important thing was being able to hold two 240 AIOs with fans on. Most mid tower cases don't allow a rad and fans above the mobo, it's fans only. That extra height seems to come at a high price.... Plus it is large enough to hold everything else.
 
Right, that should be everything I need. The cable extensions were pretty cheap, so I bought two sets. Red 24 pin with the last 4 cables changed to blue, red 8 pin EPS with blue 4 pin EPS (what the board needs) then two red 8 pin GPU and a blue one for the third.

I have four Eloop fans in black. They will all be pushing from the inside out, with one 120mm intake at the rear (hence why I got this only Lian Li on clearance)

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Stripped out the server partially yesterday. More on that soon, but it is still going to be used.

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The case arrived this morning. Was listed on AWD IT as "Case is used, scuffs and marks on right side". I had anticipated this with some official decals.

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However, when it came.

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It turns out it was actually a new case.

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Not a single mark on it and all of the protective film in place.

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I even found my pan.

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I vowed after buying the Phanteks neon RGB kit that I would never use normal strips again. I love the way the LEDs get diffused and literally look like neon bars even though they are not. Given the case turned out to be new and mint I decided to treat myself. Behold, AIRGOO !



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Nice thing is they are half of the price of the Phanteks and don't need a £25 controller. I also CBA using those velcro things. They are annoying.



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It's totally boiling in here. Still, I pushed on and put the board and cooler in.

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Took a while and was quite fiddly, so I tapped out after that. Will have a cool shower in a bit and probably fit the GPU and rad later. One thing bugging me badly was the RAM. I could buy heatsinks (like RGB) but I would need 8 and they are a tenner plus each. Did a quick Ebay search and came up with these for £10 each. You can change the ano fan plate and they come with silver, red and blue. Perfect then.

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The actual crate drop...

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I've used this PSU for over a year, but I did check to make sure it wasn't the splodey one. It's not, very good unit apparently.

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The smoothing caps are a big pain, but I'm using extensions so it's not the end of the world. I also found one of my old hose clamps made for nitrous lines in cars. Work great on AIOs. I think I know where the other two are as well (they be at home).

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Gotta say, that fan has the most beautiful "intake side" I have ever seen. It's even better looking than the sucky sucky side.

Air Goo MF.

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You can see my Mutley medal there. In joke....

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At least I'm the best at something. Swearing apparently.

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Cables. I need to buy a tool to depin 4 of the red wires on the 24 pin, will get that in a couple of days.

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OK. So I found an EVGA SATA run on a 6 pin that fits. It's wired differently, but a quick buzz through it and a comparison to the GB cable should provide me with the last connector. I may not need that many, but I will only know when I start building. Due to that I coughed up for a tool. I don't want to wreck the Phanteks cables, and given I need to remove another 5 I just thought it better to get the tool.

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Especially after the nightmares with that Enermax PSU in the server.

Moving on, the Lian Li fan has a 3 pin connector. Annoying. Thankfully I have found a pinout

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Credit goes to Thrasher on LTT forum. The Air Goo use that connector to join together, so I have a spare male to 4/3pin plus one blocked ARGB cable. So I can buzz that too and swap the pins if needs be.

You know one day I will do a build that doesn't get really technical FFS.
 
Dude, you're getting a Dell! That'll be the day. :D

No I actually did that in 2015 LOL. Bought a brand new Area 51. And took it all apart and modded it within about 10 days :D

Oh ho ! up yours Lian Li.



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I knew it would have to be somewhere. To avoid any confusion in the future I think I will literally just solder in a proper RGB connector. Like they should have done.
 
No I actually did that in 2015 LOL. Bought a brand new Area 51. And took it all apart and modded it within about 10 days :D

Oh ho ! up yours Lian Li.



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I knew it would have to be somewhere. To avoid any confusion in the future I think I will literally just solder in a proper RGB connector. Like they should have done.

You know, I remembered that after I posted the Dell thing. I think you're just destined to mod no matter what it is. ;) I have the same affliction, but I'm terrible at documenting it. I always start out good with pics, but then get lost along the way.
 
You know, I remembered that after I posted the Dell thing. I think you're just destined to mod no matter what it is. ;) I have the same affliction, but I'm terrible at documenting it. I always start out good with pics, but then get lost along the way.

As I get older my want to fiddle is definitely waning. That was why I built the AIO powered dream rig over two years ago. It has never had a minute down time, apart from that time when the 6800XT hose got really hot because I clicked "Rage Mode" in the driver (hint - DO NOT DO THAT) and the hose shifted just enough to make it into a fan blade. I took off my cans to make a drink during a PUBG session and was like "What's that noise?" then it dawned on me. I literally stripped half of it whilst it was still boiling hot and made it back three games later to continue. By then though I was bloody annoyed.

Going back to Rage Mode. God knows what AMD were thinking. "Let's shove over 300w into the card at 2450mhz !". That is why I don't like buying AMD GPUs. The drivers are just completely crap and unprofessional. That said when I turned it off the temps dropped massively and I dropped back to about 250w.

I don't mind a small bit of buggering around now to get the build done properly. I don't want to be taking it apart again.

A rig that works every time you turn it on and never really needs bothering with other than a clean now and then is seriously underrated.
 
Whoa, almost missed this, you're putting in serious work! Again! :D Good stuff, you made a good call on the RGB.


I've been tossing together a rig from old parts for my GF, and I made the mistake of digging out some Aquacomputer RGB crap I bought a while back, a Farbwerk 360. Aquasuite is just about the worst RGB software I can imagine, it's a horrendous hemorrhoid of a crapplication. And it doesn't seem to run bog standard 5v RGB lights, even though the connectors are there, so it can't drive my Fractal RGB fans. All of this mess because she wanted pink, sigh, LOL!
 
Wow. That tool is actually insane. I've never used one that required absolutely no force whatsoever and no yanking and wrecking your hands. I figured I would be there all day, it took about 5 mins to do all of it !

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I originally did 4. I thought I was brave doing that ffs. But it wasn't enough, 6 looked better. I then changed two of the blue 8 pin to red (so it works out the same on 3 8 pin PCIE) and removed the extra 4 pin from the secondary EPS (I need an 8 and a 4).

So the cabling is done.

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SSDs were in a bad way. Labels were torn and scraped. So I tarted them up a little.

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Still waiting for more decals. That said you don't see much of them any way.

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Rear fan in, first hose clamp fitted.

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GPU and tons more wiring later.

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I've also double clamped the hoses. Stops them from pushing out onto the case window.

I managed to get the RGB working beautifully. It comes out of the mobo into the left side of the lower strip, up the case into the right side of the top strip and out of that into the fan. So any chase effects go around the case beautifully. Right now she's farting rainbows as I am way too busy on the software side to worry about it.

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I ended up going with the SB ZXR.

Still to do. Get more extensions on the fans and fit the hub to the floor of the case. Then fit the memory coolers and wire those in.
 
Right so as per the purchases thread this is undergoing a change. New board and CPU.

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New fans.

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X6 and this.

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Going on the cooler.

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New extensions.

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And a new case.

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I fitted the fans yesterday but immediately noticed the logos were all upside down with the cables coming out of the correct side. So I cut some 3M black stickers.

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Rear.

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The other two of those are going on the rad for the KP.

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Getting vert mounted with the other cards I am using behind it.

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Will be using the Revodrive in there and this.

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And putting wheels on.

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I will also be using the two 1tb SATA SSDs you see in the floor of the rig there. Only I got this for those.

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And have two of these to liven them up a little.

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Why does no one make 2.5" RGB cover plates? seems like a missed opportunity to me to sell stuff.
 
OK so today the rest of the parts arrived.

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Cooler is new. Well, unused I should say. Bit dusty, but probably from being a display model or something. None of the bits were opened.

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Next job was fitting the NVME. Thankfully the top one that is wired into the CPU directly is separate from the rest of the tank armour.

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So that didn't take long.

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I then started to experiment with the cooler. However, it refused to align itself (the mounting holes). I was beginning to worry that it would not fit, again due to the tank armour. There are no instructions with it, just a QR code, and by then I was balls deep in mess so I couldn't reach my phone. Turns out the arms on it rotate and move outward ffs.

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So I dry/test mounted it to make sure. All was good. Sadly you have to screw it in from behind, which I have never liked, but oh well once it goes on it's done.

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After a little bit of a session.

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Easily one of the nicest cases I have worked in. The NZXT took me three times as long to hook up all of the fans and RGB, and I had to undo it quite a few times too.
 
Vinyl came in today. Lighter than ideal, but it will do.



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I don't have any SATA extensions left, and I don't want to waste a whole run with the nasty angled connectors all up the side. So I got two of these.

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Have used them before years ago.

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It's a pain, but I don't want to spend over £100 for the same thing (2tb storage) when I have it already.
 
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Got a 32gb kit, and it was only about a tenner more for the RGB.

I had some of the Klevv RAM back in the DDR3 days and it was gorgeous to behold. Very expensive then, though. Apparently now they have been bought out by SK Hynix, hence the quality still looks great but they are Corsair or less prices.
 
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