Project: THROTTLE JUNKIE

[Luke122]

When I started planning this build, I knew that it would have to have a cool name. Not only to get other people's attention, but to keep me focused on the build, and not get sidetracked or lose interest.

I wanted to incorporate my love of high performance machinery and need for velocity, with my insatiable caffeine addiction, and my love of art and music.

The build would have to be clean, sleek, beautiful, and haul some serious ass. Cue up the music....

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0586.jpg

I'm sure you all remember this post.. apparently quite a few of you hate me. ;)

1 – Silverstone TJ07 Silver Tower
2 – 20” Samsung 206BW LCDs
2 – XFX 8800GT 512mb Alpha Dogs
1 – Intel E8400 CPU
1 – Asus P5N-T Deluxe 780i SLI mobo
2 – 750GB Seagate SATA II 32mb Cache HDDs
1 – Creative X-Fi Fatality Pro
1 – Pioneer 20x DVDRW (IDE)
2 – 4gb Patriot PC2-6400 kits (8gb Total)
1 – OCZ GameXstream 1010w PSU
1 – Zalman CNPS9700NT Cooler

Well, the build has begun!

No matter how big I thought my Antec P180 case was, this thing dwarfs it easily.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0587.jpg

Note the drink can for size comparison.

I started by pulling out the mobo tray, since I'll *obviously* be mounting the mobo here.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0588.jpg

I was shocked at the length of the fan wires here, so first things first, chop them down to the right length, and sleeve em up.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0596.jpg

That's better!

I made myself a promise to mod every single piece of this machine, somehow. Now of course, the gpus and hdd's wont really get much at this point, but once the water loop goes in, they'll be getting water blocks, which I consider a "mod"... sort of. Shut up.

Cpu cooler is BIG.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0597.jpg

Must... mod..

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0598.jpg

This cooler has a pair of crazy bright 3mm green LEDs to backlight the fan. This wont do at all! REMOVE GREEN!

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0602.jpg

After you remove the fan from the cooler, pull the sticker off the back. You'll see a little retainer clip here.. pull that off, and you get...

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0603.jpg

See the LEDs? *snip,snip* Ok, no more green LEDs. But Luke, why not just solder in some blue ones? Uhh... I was actually planning on adding them later.. I'll explain that a bit more down the road.

Ok, back together, and all is well. Man that base is like a mirror!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0607.jpg

[Luke122]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0608.jpg

Ok, cooler retaining bracket is mounted. One thing to note here... on this board, the copper coolers toward the back wont let you mount the bracket properly.. you need to trim a tab off the bracket to fit it on.. like so...

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0609.jpg

OOOoooooohh... artsy!


Holy crap man.. that cooler is biiiiiig.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0610.jpg

Yes, that is 8gb ram. Awfully close together.. I think I'll need to add some airflow around them...

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0611.jpg

These are the screws I was talking about.. they need to be LONGER! I'm not sure I trust these to mount the cooler securely enough, so I'm looking for some longer ones. Zalman, if you are reading this, replace them with longer screws!

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0612.jpg

Yes, I sleeved the cable on the fan also.. I left it a bit longer, but I can tuck it in behind, so no worries.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0613.jpg

Here's another artsy shot.. one of the 8800's installed!

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0616.jpg

Damn, that card is big too! Not much clearance around it, but there is some. See?

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0617.jpg

..and..

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0618.jpg

At this point I powered the beast up, to make sure it would post. Oops.. errors. "Bios checksum error. FDD not found."

WTF...

Turns out this thing wont boot with 8gb ram installed. *faceslap*

I pulled out 2 sticks, and it went *BEEP*. I'm looking into the memory issue right now, probably a bios update required or something...

[Luke122]

So here we are in the Bios. Booted fine with 4gb, so I'll continue to research the 8gb issue in a little bit.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0627.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0625.jpg

Hmm... idling around 44'C.. that seems kinda warm.

I wonder why there's so much turbulence around the cpu cooler?

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0629.jpg

Oh.. the rear fans are intakes instead of exhaust.. that explains it. Ok, swapped them around to blow out instead of in.

While I'm at it, I'll pull the top fans, confirm their flow direction, and sleeve the wires.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0630.jpg

When I built Karma, one thing that bothered me was the wiring on the PSU. So what do I do? I buy another one for this box, and end up facing the same issue. GRRR... funny how you forget that stuff that pisses you off.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0621.jpg

I swore I'd go modular next time (this time). Oh well.. I'll just have to make it work.

[weazel6265]

Wow, you are going to have a freakin hurricane in there. I wish I could get that kind of system. New components are addicting though.

You could always make the psu into a modular one, I remember seeing somewhere that someone did that. Or just cut off all the extra wires, and worry about adding them back in later when you do an upgrade, which will probably be about 10 years from now, based on your components.

[FrooP]

um... did you sawed a piece of pcb from your 8800? shouldnt be there some kind of holding hook? looks cool \m/

[p0Pe]

this is gonna be one sweet rig with alle the minor NICE modifications:D

[Luke122]

um... did you sawed a piece of pcb from your 8800? shouldnt be there some kind of holding hook? looks cool \m/

I didnt saw it off, the piece you are talking about is nearly 3 inches back from that point that you are looking at. :) These are long cards!

Weazel: I did consider doing that, but I'm sure I'll end up adding more hdd's and stuff... water cooling for sure.. so no point in chopping out cables just to add them back later.

Pope: I'm just doing the small stuff now as I build; I'm still planning the big stuff, but mostly I'm just dying to start benchmarking this mofo. :D

[The boy 4rm oz]

Very nice rig, the build is coming along nicely. Mobo trays make is sooooooooooo much easier to install a system lol.

Also, with your RAM issue, I had a similar problem while making my brothers PC. I was using Vista Home Premium 64bit and it wouldn't boot past the BIOS with more than 2 gig in the motherboard (2 sticks), he is also using Patriot RAM. It may be that vista will only recognize 2 gig (or 2 sticks) before installation. After the installation of Vista I installed the other RAM in my brothers computer and they worked fine.

EDIT: 44*c Idle is pretty good considering you are using an E8400, my E6600 used to idle at 36*c and the E8400 would be a lot hotter than that.

[BerticusPryme]

hurry up I want to see it live in all it's glory. I demand more energy drinks!!!! Looking good so far. cant wait to see it fully running.

[Lord Ned]

Jeeze that's alot of PSU Cables.

As for it only reconizing four GB, what OS are you on? And 32bit or 64 bit?

[Luke122]

No no, it wont even post with the 8gb in it.. just comes up with checksum error. A bit of quick surfing suggests a bios update might fix it, so I'll try that tomorrow morning.

I'm just doing some research for something cool I want to add tomorrow. ;)

[b4i7]

nice luke....cant wait to see what you are gonna do

i did the same thing to my zalman fan when i got it....cept i only switched it out with another zalman hsf :D

[DZ469]

Yes, that is 8gb ram...

At this point I powered the beast up, to make sure it would post. Oops.. errors. "Bios checksum error. FDD not found."

WTF...

Turns out this thing wont boot with 8gb ram installed. *faceslap*

I pulled out 2 sticks, and it went *BEEP*. I'm looking into the memory issue right now, probably a bios update required or something...

Hahaha, the man with a ton of hardware cant even get it to work :D
Just kidding, hope you get the problem worked out so you can enjoy
all that PC awesomeness. :up:

[Luke122]

Heh.. I honestly just booted it up with 4gb, saw that it was running warm, and shut it back down. I'm at home today with the family, so no work on this today. I'll get back onto it first thing in the morning tomorrow.

I'm stoked to see who won the Modders Challenge!

[Xpirate]

Luke122 is just bragging about his new hardware with this worklog :)

I am green with envy!

[Luke122]

Update!!!

It's been a rough week.. sick Wednesday and Thursday, Friday was super hectic at work, so I didnt get much done. Tonight (Saturday) I spent a bit of time on this project. Mostly planning, but I did get a couple of things out of the way.

First of all, I did the bios update, and yay! 8gb of ram! It's all good now.

Second, I chopped the connectors on the 2 - 120mm fans on the top down to a more manageable length, and spliced them both onto one molex connector.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0581-1.jpg

I also reversed the one closest to the front to blow into the case. My reasoning on this was that the 8gb of ram was awfully close together, and the Patriot heatsinks dont look all that "beefy". With the first fan flipped to blow in, the ram is directly below it, so it'll get a good constant airflow coming in.

The next thing I worked on was a bit of planning for the cable management. I decided to drill a couple of holes to route cables.. I want to keep as much out of sight (completely) as possible.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0582.jpg

Also, I decided that the mobo tray needs some "love". I'll be cutting a slot into it to allow the mobo power, front panel connectors, SATA and IDE cables, and gpu power cords to pass through the tray from behind.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0583.jpg

This is just a quick and dirty plan for the slot, I'm already revising it a bit. I'll also be adding a plexi shield to hide all the cables a bit, and to place some lighting/etching effects.

More to come soon....

[The boy 4rm oz]

YAY RAM works, what was wrong with it, drivers?

[Fallen]

have you also thought about splicing the fans in the rear aswell? also what about swtiching them out to leds when you get the water cooling componets? are you going to watercool your ram? cause oxide have a nice muli channel cooler for them.

[Luke122]

have you also thought about splicing the fans in the rear aswell? also what about swtiching them out to leds when you get the water cooling componets? are you going to watercool your ram? cause oxide have a nice muli channel cooler for them.

The fans at the rear wont be spliced together.. they are plugged into seperate places on the mobo so I can monitor their rpm's separately.

When I get the watercooling system, I'll be swapping ALL the fans with uv blue ones, doing blue UV coolant, and UV lights in it. :)

I'm working on some acrylic accent pieces too, so I'd like those to be uv blue as well.

[Luke122]

Another (small) update:

I'm tired of looking at this pile of parts, and cant wait to get things together. So, I just figured "to hell with waiting". I'm going ahead with assembly, and will pull things apart to mod as needed once it's together.

First problem: SLI on this board (2 gpus, not 3) needs to use the two blue ports, the outside ones. How is this a problem? The only PCI port on the board is right between them, meaning that using my XFI sound card probably isnt going to happen.. it sits right up against the bottom 8800gt, which means not nearly enough airflow around the card. Even if I add a fan there, it's got nowhere to exhaust.

*sigh*

The XFI card will now likely end up in my HTPC, which isnt all bad I suppose. It's not a low profile card, but that's fine.. the Zalman cooler on the HTPC board is too tall for a low profile case anyways, so I'll likely end up getting something a bit bigger. Wife says as long as it's not ugly, and we can have a remote, she's cool with it.
</sidetrack>

I'll be checking out that Vlite link that was posted today, to build a stripped down Vista install for this machine, and will be *hopefully* finishing assembly today, and starting on the benchmarking. :)

[Luke122]

Yay for the internet!

http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v184/3/40/887440496/n887440496_2205292_8710.jpg
COOKIE MACHINE!

[The boy 4rm oz]

Hahahahaha awesome find, I want one soooo bad lol.

[Luke122]

Update! Feb 1st

**pics to follow shortly**

I finished the rough assembly last night, and I have successfully installed Vista Business x64 on it.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/cpu-gpu-z.jpg

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/Throttle1.jpg

Cable management? What cable management?
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0595.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0596-1.jpg

I decided to go ahead with the SLI, and added a third card to run the second monitor. Third card is a 7200gs, passively cooled. Not anything fancy, but it'll drive the other monitor just fine for apps.


This OCZ powersupply just got another strike against it too. The power plugs for the GPU's are 6+2's, and the clip to hold them into the card is too wide to fit on the 8800's. I plugged them in, but it's just pressure/friction holding it together right now.. the clips arent doing a damn thing.

1.3TB is a TON of disk space. Took awhile to format....
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/hdd.jpg

[BerticusPryme]

cant wait to see it man. I got all my stuff in as well.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Can't wait for pics buddy.

[Luke122]

So you might be asking, "WTF? I thought you said 8gb ram?"

Well, I did.. and it didnt work at first, then I did the Bios update, and it worked, then it didnt work again. It's flaky.. sometimes works, sometime doesnt. If I only install 4gb, works everytime. It's not bad memory, because I swapped it all around, and tested with each stick, and seems to just be an issue with running the full 8gb. I'll worry more about it later.. I just needed to get this machine running and into service ASAP.. which is why it's all assembled like "half assed".

[Luke122]

Hello again everyone!

(first, scroll up! I added more pics a couple posts back!)

Thanks to Ovride and Berticus, I've discovered why my SLI isnt working.

APPARENTLY.. having 3 GPU's in the same machine isnt the issue.. the issue is that all 3 are Nvidia. In order for the SLI to work, then third GPU must be ATI, so the Nvidia software doesnt try to take control of it.

Yeah.. that chokes me too.

[Spawn-Inc]

cool, i got the same score for vista, accept my 5.7 is from the gpu not cpu everything else is 5.9 :).

interesting how that nvidia ati thing works...

[Ap1thy]

ill trade you a pci-e x300 for one of those 8800gt's :D

sucks about the ram, probably just because the board is so new it has bugs which need to be ironed out

[The boy 4rm oz]

Awesome, I get a score of 5.4 on Vista with my rig, my HDD is the weakest link followed by RAM. I am getting another HDD and another 2GB of RAM so I should score higher lol.

[Luke122]

Berticus linked a good deal on an x1550 (I think it was..) Sapphire gpu, so I'm looking for similar deal from a supplier who ships to Canada. Damn you Newegg. :(

Tomorrow night I'll be getting access to a complete workshop, so expect to see the beginnings of some very wild plexi pieces to go into this case. Shields, covers, structural replacements, etc. :D

I also got another 200pack of resistors, so now I've got plenty of "gizmos" for building "thingamabobs" to into this build. LEDs+Plexi+caffeine fueled lunacy = win.

I'm off to drink another Full Throttle.

[Luke122]

OK, it's minutes to midnight, and I'm working on the modcast, plus I'm OC'ing throttle.

Currently, she's running at 3285mhz, with a 1460mhz fsb. Last test run on 3DMark06 gave me 15,100 and I'm about to go again.

I'll keep posting updates on the scores, and will throw up some screenshots once I hit the OC ceiling.

Apparently there are problems with the E8400 and how it reports the core temp, so I am doing this VERY CAREFULLY and VERY SLOWLY. More updates to come. :)

[The boy 4rm oz]

Awesome OC mate. I haven't tried mine yet but get around 12.5K at stock on my rig.

[Luke122]

This just in, 15,469! This puts me #3 overall for similar hardware configs. I still have some room to go I think.. I *JUST* got Ntune to work, and bumped up the gpu's *a bit*. This is going to ROCK. :D
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/15469-1.jpg

Just to prove the OC, and that the temps arent reporting correctly..
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/status.jpg

[The boy 4rm oz]

You have a lot more head room buddy, go for it. Then save up for a w/c system and do some more lol.

[Luke122]

On water I should be able to hit low 4's on the cpu, and definitely push the 8800's to the max. :D

I think I need better ram too..

[The boy 4rm oz]

Haha well I know for a fact that the RAM I have can be clocked at double their speeds (check out "My System").

[Luke122]

Update!

Today I decided to stealth my dvdrw drive.. the black front just didnt look good on the all aluminum case.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0595.jpg
See what I mean?

Here we go!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0001.jpg

First, I relocated the eject and status LED from the drive. This was done simply by removing the casing from the drive, desoldering 2 pins on each, and soldering in wire.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0004.jpg

At the end of one wire, a switch was added. Just a regular momentary switch, this one used to be a reset button on a "lesser" computer.

Next, I added an ultrabright blue LED to the end of the other wire. Blue and silver ftw. :D

Here we see the wires exiting the back of the drive.. I'll clean it up more soon enough.. patience.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0007.jpg

I'm working on a very cool placement for the eject button, so keep watching for that.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0009.jpg
Room for the eject just to the right of that Firewire port I think.

What do you think?
Open
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0011.jpg
Closed
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0012.jpg

Can't tell its even there. :D The stealthing was definitely an easy mod, and I recommend it to everyone. :D

Also, I decided to pull one of the 750gb hdd's, and just go with a single drive. The other 750 will go into a second machine that I'm building for my buildroom, and I dont honestly think I need 1.4tb anyways. :D

As a result, I moved the remaining drive into the first drive cage, and will use the second for storing excess cable from the PSU. Yay! Innovation! Not really.

I stopped overclocking last night when I hit a final score of 15,749 on 3DMark06, and decided that was quick enough for now. The temperature reporting on the CPU has me a little worried, but honestly.. the base of the cpu cooler never seemed to get even WARM at that speed (3.3ghz.. fsb 1489, mem 850mhz) so I'm sure I had some more headroom. I'll figure that out later.

Also, since I have two monitors, I'll be disabling the SLI when I'm not gaming (most of the time) and driving the two monitors with the 8800's.

Ntune DOES work on x64 XP, as long as you dont try to go into a few settings. I could modify the fan speeds on both cards, and the clocks without trouble though, so that's all I really needed anyways.

Plexi work is in full swing now, I've got a few very cool pieces made, just waiting for some lighting effects, and I'll post them up in a few days when they are complete.. plus I have no pics of them yet, so meh.

[jdbnsn]

Nice job on the stealth!

[The boy 4rm oz]

Very nice stealth buddy.

[Luke122]

Update:

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0016.jpg

I've sleeved all the cables from the case now, fans included. I was planning on also resleeving my PSU cables, but I havent got enough sleeve left to do it all!!!!!!

DOH.

I decided not to mount the eject button into that small front panel with the USB ports. It could probably work, but I want it to look really good, so I just added a bit of extension to it, and I'll be putting the switch on the back of the case.

I also picked up a can of blue paint to paint a few of the pieces for the case, I tried to match the color to the sleeves as closely as I could, and I think I got a pretty good match. :)
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0002.jpg

I also trimmed down the clips on the PCI-E connectors, as they were too wide to fit on the GPUs. On the left, stock. On the right, modded. :)

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/lukifer122/PICT0001-1.jpg

Next up, lighting effects in the case. :)

[The boy 4rm oz]

I love that blue sleeving, looks fantastic.

[clicker666]

The computer is looking great. I really like the stealthed front.

I've picked up a P5N-T Deluxe as well to use with my E8400. If you've got any settings you'd like to share with the class I'd be more than interested in discussing them in a separate thread.

[Luke122]

The only thing I can tell you for sure is to unlink the memory, or you wont be able to overclock as well. I set the memory clock and the fsb separately, and stability hasnt been an issue yet at all.

Also, the temp sensors on the CPU are wonked.. you'll see some crazy numbers. Mine said 105'C, and then -27'C. I just took my time with the clocking, and raised it slowly, checking for stability all the time.

CPU cooler base never even got WARM at 3.285ghz, so I must be doing something right. :)

[cooldud02123]

what is the fastest you can get that thing going

[Luke122]

what is the fastest you can get that thing going


I got to 3.3ghz on air.. and it was perfectly stable. I probably could have pushed harder, but my concern with the temperature sensor not registering correctly stopped me.

Once I get the water system on (this summer maybe), I'll push for 4+ghz. :)

[cooldud02123]

wow dude that would be nuts ok so i have a ? for ya witch one would be better for gameing e8400 or the q6600

[Luke122]

That's actually a good question.. BerticusPryme and I have basically twin systems, except his is q6600, and mine is e8400.

I havent done ANY gaming on it yet, but I hope to change that as soon as possible.. I'll let you know.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I have a Q6600 and it plays games just fine. I score around about 12,500 in 3DMark06 at stock and will overclock once my water cooling is all set up. Vista gives me a score of 5.4 with my Q6600 scoring 5.9.

[cooldud02123]

all cool i am stuck on this one cuz i would like to get the best one so u like your q6600 did u have any prombles with it

[The boy 4rm oz]

No problems at all buddy, works great. See if you can get the GO version if you want to go for the Q6600, less power consumption and heat.

[BerticusPryme]

exactly. I have the GO and i got mine oc'ed to 3.2 on air and it ran stable but I backed i down to 3.0. I am loving this thing.

[cooldud02123]

ok cool thanks for the info

[Spawn-Inc]

I have a Q6600 and it plays games just fine. I score around about 12,500 in 3DMark06 at stock and will overclock once my water cooling is all set up. Vista gives me a score of 5.4 with my Q6600 scoring 5.9.

you only get 12.5k with your quad and gtx????? something is wrong even at stock speeds.

and to cooldud02123, got mine at 3.5 on air with max temps of 50C. and i've had it to 4.11GHz on air but with -9C air temps.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Yeah I know 12.5K is bad. It was just a bad run.

[Luke122]

Return of the living dead.. thread. That sounded better in my thoughts..

Anyways, some of you may be wondering, "Whatever happened to this project?" Others will say "Typical Luke.. start something, dont finish it."

I left this system behind at my last job, since it was technically their property. I've recently been in contact with them though, and there's a strong possibility that I may get this machine back.

I just had to dig it up and look at it again to see if I was imagining the hardware list, or if I actually did go as nuts with it as I thought. Turns out, "I did go pretty nuts with this build." At the time, this thing was a SCREAMER of a system.

One thing I completely forgot about was the Tri-SLI capable mobo. SO.. if I can get this back, I'll add a 3rd 8800gt, and resurrect this build.

Cross your fingers guys. (and gal.. I'm sure there's at least one woman on this site..maybe)

[The boy 4rm oz]

Wow, it's been a long time since I have visited this forum (any forum at that). Glad to see you may be making some progress on this soon Luke, good luck :thumb:.

[p0Pe]

its alive:D crossing fingers and toes for you buddy;)