# Computer Rework (Picture heavy)



## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

I had to RMA a couple of my computer parts, so I figured it was time I completely tore everything apart and rebuilt. Now, normally I'd post this on the PC hardware forum I frequent, but I see there's a couple of people here who might be interested in something like this. Once I get home from work, I'll start adding pictures of my current progress. Currently waiting on my GPU water block RMA to get back to the store I bought it from, then I've got a large order on the way when my replacement is in.

For reference, this is what my computer looked like before the tear down:


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

So this is what the current state of my bedrooom is. My room is 12'x11', the table takes up 2'x6'. So damn cramped.










So first off was the tear down. Nothing special, no pictures taken. Weird thing was, I found a little buddy hiding between my PCI slots.










My monster of a radiator, the Thermochill PA120.3. Cutom painted too since it was scratched to **** when I bought it. (Second hand ftw) That and some various barbs. Crazy that those cost like, $6 a piece for the small straight barb ones and $10 for the compresions.



















I might have a couple fans. Just maybe. I took them all outside and blasted them with the air compressor. 6+ months of caked on dust is crappy.










Now here we go with the resassembly. I'm just running a temporary computer in here while I wait for stuff to ship to me. (Phenom II 1090T, 4GB RAM, Gigabyte 990XA-UD3R) Ran into an issue with mounting the motherboard vertically though. It was just hanging there, swaying back and forth and didn't feel safe at all. I hollowed out an iMac G3 shell and made it a cat bed, but kept the inner metal cage. Trustly dremel made quick work of that and I now had a bracket to keep it in place.



















Can't stop there though, black paint!


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Speaking of black paint and that shell. Needed something to cover the underside of my hard drive since it's visible through the side panel window.



















So I need to use adapters to power all the fans in my computer. I have far too many to just use my motherboard. Problem is they're all bright and colourful and take up so much room. So of course I went to town on them. Chopped them up, resoldered them, sleeved and heatshrunk. This is the final result. (Last pic is the butane torch I use to heat the heatshrink.)




























And my upcoming order, last bit of stuff I need before I can complete this build.


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## VagueResemblance (Apr 17, 2010)

Hey I have the same torch. Crap, isn't it? Can't even keep it lit in the gentlest breeze.

Actually, posting to say that's an interesting case. Is it one of those double-wide server enclosures with room for a hundred fixed drives?


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Nope, Mountain Mods U2-UFO Horizon. It's a watercooler's dream. However, I could technically fit somewhere along the lines of 27 HDD's in there.

As for the torch, crap as it may be, it beats using a lighter by far.


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## Some Russian Guy (Mar 20, 2009)

Why U buy phenom II when you can wait a little and take AMD FX for the same price ?


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

$170 for the chip, $140 for the motherboard (which is an AM3+ board), and I already had the 4GB RAM. I wasn't going to wait until September. I can just drop in a new chip whenever I want, although a 1090T is overkill for the family computer. I'm just using the 1090T until I get my parts back, then the i7 970 is going back.


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## zookeeper (Jun 3, 2009)

Daa-yum!


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Haha, thanks. I was hoping that I'd have a bunch of updates for you today, but alas UPS lost my package as they unloaded the truck last night and only found it this morning. So now I've got nothing to do on my day off, and I'll be getting the package right before leaving for work tomorrow (3 PM).


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## VagueResemblance (Apr 17, 2010)

GunnyHighway said:


> Nope, Mountain Mods U2-UFO Horizon. It's a watercooler's dream. However, I could technically fit somewhere along the lines of 27 HDD's in there.


Interesting. I didn't know anyone made cases like that nowadays. Expensive, though!



> As for the torch, crap as it may be, it beats using a lighter by far.


True, that.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

UPS dropped off what felt like a Christmas gift. Let the fun begin.

Inspector Kitty must inspect every box I get. Once it's empty, he inspects the inside by sleeping in it. :b

















Packing peanuts. Do not want.










And here's my haul. Time to get to work. :clap










Now I wasn't planning on doing this, but my computer has gotten to be a black/white/blue theme. these red fans are way out of place, so I'm taking a shot at painting them. It's my first time tying this, so I'm doing it on the fan I have a spare of. Sadly, after spraying the second coat (which killed all the red bleeding through), the clamp gave out and scratched the **** out of the paint when the blades hit the floor.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

So update on the fan situation; it turned out pretty nice. I'm currently painting the third fan, with one more to go after that.



















Reservoir is now mounted to the pump, as well as the pump's cable being sleeved. Need to wait on another order to sleeve that stray blue wire, don't have the right size for single wires yet.


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## RockIt (Jan 8, 2011)

Wow, you have enough stuff there to build your own iPad, like this guy: 




Impressive. I've never done water cooling before. That's something I've always wanted to try but never got around to.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Thanks RockIt! I couldn't do that though, my soldering skills are pretty much non-existent.

Next line of work was the video card water block. It's pretty much one damn heavy piece of copper.




























Next up was the CPU water block. that barb got moved, I just wanted to show off it's shinyness. :b










This is its current state. Everything's put together for the water cooling, so I filled it up with water and am currently leak testing. So far, so good. I've gotta sleeve one more fan, a couple cold cathodes and then 4 SATA cables. Then I'm nearing completion.










And just a little shot I liked.










However, I killed my wallet some more. Made two more orders:


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## bobthebuilder (Jun 17, 2009)

Wow what are you gonna do with that monster computer, play Global Thermonuclear War with WOPR?

Your blankets are also impressive, are those cartoon characters or athletes?


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## Paper Samurai (Oct 1, 2009)

Wow those are some impressive pics :yes Would really like to see the finished article when you get it done.


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## Diacetylmorphine (Mar 9, 2011)

I'm so jeal right now, very impressive indeed!


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

bobthebuilder said:


> Wow what are you gonna do with that monster computer, play Global Thermonuclear War with WOPR?
> 
> Your blankets are also impressive, are those cartoon characters or athletes?


Haha, I do [email protected] from late fall-early spring, when it's not so hot. Otherwise, it's a gaming machine. This is my hobby, and I put money into just like a car enthusiast would into their car. (Although, I am fairly cheap :b )

As for the blankets, you weren't supposed to see those. :blank Athletes would be correct, but that's just a small blanket I've got for the summer, because it's been stupid hot lately and a comforter is way too much.

Thanks for the comments as well Paper Samurai and Disarray. I just got home from work and am glad to report that there have been no leaks. I'm going to rebuild and power it on tomorrow hopefully. However, those two orders (and my 2TB HDD RMA replacement) need to get here before I can call it complete. My progress today besides the leak testing has been the last of the sleeving I can currently do. I now have 7 sleeved SATA cables (6 HDDs, 1 DVD drive which I hope to get rid of in favour of an external shortly), my exhaust fan and two UV cold cathodes. Pics will be up tomorrow. :clap


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## Ohhai (Oct 15, 2010)

GunnyHighway said:


>


I wish I included a penis pump with my PC.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Ohhai said:


> I wish I included a penis pump with my PC.












So how bout dat water jug. About 1L of water in my computer.










Here's the sleeving I was talking about. Tried taking some fancyish pictures, but being directly under lightbulbs doesn't work too well. The SATA cables all look different too because they've all been sleeved at different times with different materials. Need to paint that blue one black now that it's sleeved.


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## zookeeper (Jun 3, 2009)

What's going on here? Are these the cathode tubes?



GunnyHighway said:


>


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

You'd be correct. UV cold cathodes. The water cooling tubing is white, but glows blue under UV lighting.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

piscesvixen said:


> I don't even know half of the stuff I'm looking at in the pictures haha, but it all looks _really_ cool  *I have the same Iron Maiden poster by the way!*


You're awesome.  (And thanks. )

So far...no updates. Been cleaning the house and I actually slapped that temp 1090T setup into my family's computer. I love Windows 7, didn't have to reload at all. It got all the required drivers automatically and loaded up after a reboot.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Here it is. This is _*not*_ completed, however it's in fully functional form. Waterblocks seem to be seated correctly, temperatures are in check. Yaaaaay!


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## zookeeper (Jun 3, 2009)

Nerd question for you:

where do you get your parts from? I've got some laptop fixin' to do, but finding some of the more hardcore parts (like cables) is proving hard to do. None of my regular places seem to have that kind of stuff.


P.S. - looking good!!


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

For general PC stuff - www.ncix.com and www.canadacomputers.com (they're local, so if I need something rush I go there)

Watercooling - www.dazmode.com

High-end sleeving - www.mdpc-x.com

Specialty cables in laptops though, most likely would be easier to look on eBay or go straight through the manufacturer. Another place you can try is Digikey. They have sooooo much stuff, they might have what you need. I find their site a bit hard to browse though, since it's mainly used by distributors.


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## Classified (Dec 7, 2004)

How loud is that thing with all the fans?

Still, it looks like it turned out good. I built a computer case before, and it isn't always easy.

Will this be your next mod? http://www.pugetsystems.com/mineral-oil-pc.php


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Haha, oil is still quite far away from what I need. Water cools plenty well for me. It's actually not terribly loud. Most of the fans are "medium speed" and create more of a hum than anything else. Once the headphones go on, I can't hear anything else. :b


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## Think_For_Yourself (Dec 7, 2010)

gtx570? Noiceee. Also you have a link to that case? Thanks


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

http://www.mountainmods.com/computer-cases-u2ufo-horizon-c-21_70.html

There's a couple other models there. I technically have a U2-UFO Horizon since the motherboard tray was originally horizontal, but I flipped it vertical. The plain U2-UFO has the vertical motherboard tray.


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## zookeeper (Jun 3, 2009)

GunnyHighway said:


> For general PC stuff - www.ncix.com and www.canadacomputers.com (they're local, so if I need something rush I go there)


That's my two main sources too. NCIX for when I need stuff, CC when I want it _now_.



> Specialty cables in laptops though, most likely would be easier to look on eBay or go straight through the manufacturer. Another place you can try is Digikey. They have sooooo much stuff, they might have what you need. I find their site a bit hard to browse though, since it's mainly used by distributors.


Awesome. Thanks. I'll check out digikey.

And ebay if it comes to that. (blech, ebay!)


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Nils, the guy behind MDPC-X, is AMAZING. Package got here today.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Sleeving! I didn't order any red though, so I guess Nils tossed it in as a sample.










And here it is on the cables. It took 2 hours for those 4 cables (minus a bit for computer browsing), I've got 12 more to go.










Turns out NCIX gave me the wrong length for one of the cables, so I had to complain to support. However, they said they're express shipping me a new cable with the correct length, at no charge and I don't have to send the old one back.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Done the big one! This took a while, and I think I'm finally getting a hang of getting the ends to look nice and clean.










All that's left is for that one cable to come in, then I can get to finishing sleeving that. I've gotta get to work tomorrow on creating the SATA power cables and sleeving those. Getting quite near to completion.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

Finally done.

Firstly, we have the SATA power cables. I originally planned on having sleeving between the connectors, but the space was just far too short. I just covered each cable in heat shrink so that they would be black and hidden as intended. (There's glue left over from tape that was on the heat shrink, I had to scrape that all off. :mum)



















Now, here's where my heart dropped. I had this panel in my closet because I was too lazy to put it on before. turns out a lot of stuff got piled on it by my mom, and it's pretty much destroyed. Paint is scratched off quite a bit, as well as the pexi being scuffed up. Sadly, something I can't fix.










Did somebody say cables?










And here's the finished product. I'm really happy with how it turned out, cables are pretty invisible, even in the light.


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## zookeeper (Jun 3, 2009)

Looking good!! Seems like you enjoy the building process almost as much as using the finished product.

And it's soo much nicer than mine! :lol Mine's a jumble of cables and junk, and when I need extra cooling I just pop the side open.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

I tried posting a message around when the server was having problems. Anyways, I enjoy the hardware build, the watercooling can get a bit annoying at times. I never used these types of hose clamps before, but they are an absolute pain in the *** to use if you want to hide the protruding parts likes I did. The modding is where it becomes a real love/hate thing. I love the work that comes out of it, but sometimes I just want to light my table on fire and walk away.

As for the looks, that was the number one reason of the rebuild. I figured I had the spare time, I'd make this thing really look nice. (and destroy my wallet at the same time) As you can see, my case is stupid with wires everywhere, the key is shoving them where they can't be seen. :b

And thanks for keeping up with the log and posting Zookeeper.


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## TheExplosionist (Apr 13, 2009)

Wheres the phase change unit ?

I used phase change CPU cooling when I was 18/19. It was loud and expensive.

Now I use watercooling, albeit a much uglier design with a 420mm radiator sat on top of the case. I'm no longer obsessed with overclocking.


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## GunnyHighway (Sep 28, 2010)

TheExplosionist said:


> Wheres the phase change unit ?
> 
> I used phase change CPU cooling when I was 18/19. It was loud and expensive.
> 
> Now I use watercooling, albeit a much uglier design with a 420mm radiator sat on top of the case. I'm no longer obsessed with overclocking.


Have no need for it, I'm not really into extreme OCing. Higher MHz is nicer of course, but the money and upkeep needed for something like phase change is insane compared to water. Plus, I think water gives computers a neat look with the tubing, especially the white I chose this time around.


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