Project: Antec 900 Revamp

I can only link you to the UK ebay item I bought (several of). I also bought the 3.2mm next size down thinking it'd be perfect but it's too small once there's a wire or two inside the sleeve.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

On another note - I got the second main power cable finished tonight but I'm having a real hard time getting the wires to stay together so the orange black stripe shows nicely. Any suggestions? Cable ties aren't working - not only do they break up the lines, they tend to bunch the cables together, not keep them in a flat 4 - I also tried some hot glue on the side you can't see and that kinda sorta works but really isn't ideal... Anyone got any ideas on how to make the 4 individual cables look like a ribbon cable (for lack of a better way to describe it).

Yeah I know I'm putting a dent in my airflow, but it's going to block, at most, 25% of the front 2x120mm fan intake so I think I can get away with it...

EDIT: Duh!!! Sticky tape on the back - how obvious???? lol

Little update tonight....

Got the second of the main power cables finished. This one has two standard molex connectors on, and a single SATA connector without the orange 3.3v cable. The 3.3 is only used for drive hot-swapping, and this SATA connector is specifically to provide additional power to a USB3 PCIe card so there shouldn't be any issue there...

I also got some goodies in the mail over the last day or so, including, but not limited to, some black cable tie anchors, some black fan screws, some black m3 socket capscrews and some silicon washers.

As you can see in this pic...

All of the test fitting and re-fitting is starting to take its toll on that lovely satin black paintwork. Simply replacing the silver screws with the capscrews isn't going to be good enough (although I DO think they look a LOT better)

I got some silicone washers which are, unfortunately, a touch too large in the outer diameter but they're going to have to do - I like things to look perfect, but at the end of the day, I've always been a function THEN form guy if I have to choose.

They become a lot less noticable with a little distance anyway...

And they fit much better on the power supply thumbscrews.

Next up, I'm going to have to strip the whole thing back down again, cut an intake hole for the PSU fan in the bottom of the case, a small exit hole in the bottom of the case for "something else" which I'm keeping a secret for now, and while I'm dremelling my heart out, I may pop in a couple of cable management holes for the cables I don't want to display.

More soon.... I really want to push this on and get it completely finished so I can get on with my Unimatrix Project...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slaveofconvention

I can only link you to the UK ebay item I bought (several of). I also bought the 3.2mm next size down thinking it'd be perfect but it's too small once there's a wire or two inside the sleeve.

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lol.. typing in the auction title yielded this

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-8mm-3-1-Adhesi...ht_3099wt_1026

:D:banana:

Well that's the stuff I bought alright - idn if that works out as competitive when you ship it all the way over there or not....

ARISE NECRO THREAD AND LIVE AGAIN!!!

OK so it's been a mere 6 and a half MONTHS since I updated this - and in that 6 and a half months, I made ZERO progress - it's downright scary how fast the time has gone but.....

When I was putting the case back together I somehow managed to lose two of the four rubber feet which I took off during disassembly. I just found the other two which is what prompted this little update. I flipped the case over and....

Dirty great scratch through my black paint dammit!!! - There was also a smaller scuff on the opposite edge of the case near the antec design lettering. Time to do something about that - first thing, with any paintwork at all, is preparation - rub the damaged area down so there are no edges where the old paint is scratched.

A quick rough masking up (on my wife's orders heh) - I'm painting this minor repair in the kitchen as it is WAY too cold to paint outside in January in the UK.

And half a dozen light coats and we have an all-black base once more :D

Paper removed and the paint was left overnight to dry properly. As I'm using a Satin finish, there was no need for any flatting or polishing - it's pretty much perfect as it is.

Last thing for this little repair was to re-fit the previously missing feet. If they'd been there in the first place, the scratches would never have happened in the first place. Feet fitted with some double-sided tape, and then a little weight to keep them in place, followed by another overnight wait.

And once again, that's all folks. All I actually HAVE to do at this point, to "finish" the mod, is sleeve the cables for the Video card, and then transplant my PC from the Bitfenix Colossus case it lives in at the moment.

I still have to make up my mind what, if anything, I'm going to do about airflow into the PSU - at the moment, the 120mm intake fan is on the bottom of the case....

So I have to EITHER cut a hole to let air into the PSU as it stands, or flip the PSU so it draws air from inside the case. The former is probably better for airflow, the latter is a whole lot easier so I'm really not sure yet - I think I'll probably go with the easy option just so I can call the case done and move onto a project which is screaming at me to start (yeah it'll be jumping the Q over Unimatrix and Lobo) - we'll see soon :)

And finally, eventually, YEARS later heh - I'm in the final stretch. Decided to give my Q6700 based main pc a boost before it goes into this chassis, so today I went and threw my credit card (well actually, the wife's credit card) at the local computer shop and got myself a few new toys.

I bought a new motherboard and processor along with 8GB of DDR3 for a server upgrade a month or so ago - I've now decided to put the Q6700 based machine into the server, and reuse the motherboard and RAM in my main PC - the dual core processor had to go though - I wanted a genuine upgrade from the Q6700 and the Dual Core just wouldn't have cut it....

8-Core Bulldozer at 3.1Ghz - that should give me a slight improvement over the 4 core C2Q at 2.67Ghz :D

I bought 8GB of RAM for the server upgrade - and figured "why not?" and got another pair of 4GB sticks.

I expect a good improvement in performance going from a 4x 2.67Ghz with 8GB DDR2-800 to an 8x 3.1Ghz with 16GB DDR3-1333

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slaveofconvention

Ok so the "next time" I mentioned in the last update is STILL next time - for now, I took on the hardwired cables.

Stuck a screwdriver straight through the warranty label on the OCZ PSU and cut the 4 pin 12v cable out. The vast majority of motherboards use the 8 pin version now so I don't see me needing it.

At the same time, JUST IN CASE lol, I cut the cables long enough to resolder and reattach and put some shrink over the ends to make sure they stay isolated inside the PSU.

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Remember this? Dammit - I need the 4 pin connector for the new motherboard *bangs head on desk*

Currently tearing my office/workshop apart trying to find the cable I took out - I made a point of making it re-attachable but that won't help if I have nothing to re-attach....

just use the 8-pin, it'll plug in and work :)

It wouldn't fit - caps on both sides of the 4.

On another note - built-er-up, turned-er-on and smelt the smoke and got deafened by an alarm.

PSU is (apparently) toast - was the first time this PSU had ever had power so I'll never know if it was DOA or if I killed it but *shrug* doesn't really matter anyway. One thing I never mess with is a dodgy PSU so it (along with all that lovely sleeving) is going straight into the bin.

On a more positive note - with the PSU from my server installed - fired up first time - all cores and all 16GB ram recognised and W7 is installing as I type.

I honestly thought I was in the home stretch with this damned thing lol....

So Windows installed faster than I've ever seen - with zero drivers installed I got an initial CPU and RAM score of 7.5 on the Windows rating - hopefully I can tweak those a little and things generally will improve with updates :)

nice :D

motherboard only has a single PCI-E slot so now I have to find a new way to run my 3 screen display dammit. I currently have a 4870 in the primary slot running a 22" and a 4350 in the second slot running a pair of 19"s

I can either:
Buy a USB video card - overpriced and very poor performance
Buy a new motherboard with two PCI-E slots - expensive for a good one but best for overall performance
Buy a new video card with eyefinity support - not too expensive if I can compromise on graphics performance - not really a problem as I don't really game on the PC anymore
Buy a PCI graphics card as a second card - probably the cheapest and easiest option

Argh - I'm never gonna stop spending on this upgrade lol

I say get the mobo. I picked up a 5x PCI-E mobo on newegg for 125. It should last a long time.

Well the Antec 900 based system is now (wait for it) at the computer shop.... yeah I know but I suspect (strongly) a faulty motherboard and they won't change it without testing it (which is reasonable). Course, they didn't earn any brownie points by informing me that the colours looked garish.....

Irrespective, the motherboard is going to be replaced by an AsRock 970 Extreme3 - I'm just waiting to find out if it's going to cost me £70 or £15 heh

What inputs do the monitors have?

the 22 is vga only, the 19's are both identical with vga and DVI

Ok so I got my PC back from the computer shop today - in exactly the same state as it was when I dropped it off - they hadn't had time to look at it yet.

Well I say in exactly the same state - exactly the same except for the bit of paint they pulled off by sticky-taping my address label to the orange top front section. Fortunately it isn't in an easy-to-see location but I have no doubt it'll bug me enough to eventually repaint it.

I bought the AsRock 970 Extreme3 motherboard too, so tonight is copying all of my data back onto the Q6700 system, followed by a rebuild and reinstall using the new board.

Wish me luck lol

Sweet paint job mate, brilliant mirror finish on it, you made this case look awesome. 8):up:

TY Waynio - it should look good - most of it was done 4 or 5 times till I was happy with it lol.

Win7 Installed now and I'm running a 1 hour OCCT test on it to see if the stock AMD CPU cooler is up to the job or if I have to raid my Media Centre for the frankly awesome Noctua cooler I reviewed a few months ago

So everything seemed to be just fine - a full 1 hour OCCT test produced no issues and peak temps of about 52 degrees which, while a little on the high side wasn't unexpected with the stock cooler.

Then I noticed the CPU seemed to be locked into 1.4Ghz, which was kinda odd as both the BIOS and computer properties were correctly identifying the chip as a 3.1. One BIOS update later and everything seems to be working properly - the chip is sitting at 1.4 when idle, and 3.1 under load with the occasional self-overclock to 4Ghz (which never lasts long) BUT.... I'm running another OCCT test as I type and I'm seeing temps in the mid-high 60's. That's OK as it's still within the specifications (just) but it leave me with ZERO room for overclocking so I think a new HSF is definitely the order of the day. Later on this afternoon I'm going to pull my sons's PC and the Media Centre to bits and try those coolers - my son is running an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro and the Media Centre the awesome Noctua NH-C14 unit I reviewed last year. It'll have to wait till this afternoon as I need to go out and buy some more TIM as the stuff I have lying around is seriously cheap low-end junk heh