Project: Blue-Hellfire

Hope everyone has had a good christmas and santa brought them some bits to help the modding days to come.
Santa (wifey) was good to me this year on the PC bits front.
while i am still sorting out components for the hellfire mod , she picked me up some good bonus bits to hold me over till i can grab the hdwe to continue on the mod.

one of the things i had planned was to pick up one of these and Mod it

wifey clause took care of the "get one" so now i am gonna have to figure out what i want to do to mod it. might actually only get a matching paint job because to be honest it is one of the best keyboards i have used and the laser cut backlit keys are awesome for gaming in the dark.


next thing wifey clause picked up for me is another Saitek toy =o)

works great but somehow it annoys me that it does not have a blue led option for the backlight.. only yellow,green or red (hint at a mod there)
one other thing that i have to work on is how to program the thumb joystick properly because following the destructions didnt help much to get it to yse the common wasd keys.
if i can do that then i can use the command unit to play the 3rd gift wifey clause got me for xmas.

yea yea i know. its not "Official internet crack" like all the WoW fanatics out there but in the short time i have been playing it, i love it. and with no monthly fee's it suits me just fine for the long haul =o)~


last bit of pc gear wifey clause got me was this lil thing here.

Optiquest Q2202wb
22' monitor for me to play games on.. beats the hell out of the 19 i had lol
i think once hellfire PC is done this may have matching paint scheme cause i just hate to have things look out of place hehe.
i can feel wifeys eyes burning into the back of my melon right now at the thought of me taking all the new bits apart to "tweak them" but she knows thats kinda what i do with everything =oX

few short weeks and i should be back to regular updates on the main build again. pissmas is over and most bills are paid so we can afford a bit of playtime here and there to work on the Mods.
cya in a few days and have a Happy new Year!!!!!

WOW, Wifey-claus sure knows how to shop lol, nice kit.

Xmas is over and a new year has begun, time to fit some modding in =o)
decided to install the side window into wifeys machine permanently so lets start there.
her self etched dolphin side panel:

double sided tape from homebase:

a bit of extra protection just because i dont know how much i trust the tape on its own to keep it in place for the long haul:

started with a strip of tape all around the edge of the opening
placed the window where i wanted it and stuck it in place
then followed it up with some epoxy on each corner:

then a bit more on each edge ( i dare this to fall off on me) lol

all installed and waiting on hardware:

speaking of hardware, wifey and I did a bit of thinking, since neither of us does extensive gaming or other extreme bits on the PC we have decided to drop a touch in the proginal hardware list i had first hoped for.
it will still do way more than what we ask of it and believe me they are worlds better than the current 4 and 6 year old machines we are currently using.
and to be totally honest alot of this decision was the money factor.
we have settled on this hardware setup and its all been ordered and on the way for me to mess with hopefully by this weekend.
OCZ GameXStream 600W SLI Power Supply

Thermaltake CL-P0333 Blue Orb FX

Kingston KVR800D2N6K2/4G / 4GB DDR2 800Mhz PC2-6400

5600 Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core ABIT Board Bundle + 1GB Memory

the memory that comes with the bundle will be set aside for a future build as we will be using the matched pairs from kingston in these builds
since they didnt have heatsinks on them and i am a sucker for add ons i also ordered a pair of these
Geil EVO CYCLONE Memory Cooling System

Nvidia® Geforce 9500GT 1GB PCI-E Graphics Card

overall thats the layout of the hardware on the way.
with a bit of luck i should be able to have wifeys machine up and running in about 2 weeks while mine still needs some paint work before i even think about assembly.
cya in a few days as hardware rolls in and i start installing to get atleast one of these 2 builds tucked away.
have a good one.

That's some nice tech. That RAM cooler is interesting. I wonder how it performs.

eh the fun bit is gonna be getting the heatsink and mem cooler to fit on the mobo.
did some measuring last night and i have a feeling i might have to nudge a few things to make the room i need to install them. on wifeys machine i will prolly get away with a bit of a trim of the heatsink fins. on hellfire i might go a bit more drastic and rework the mounting for things a bit to get em to work.
i will get some pics of progress over the next few days and throw them up here.
as for how effective the mem cooler works i would have a problem telling you as since these will have everything fit to them before we fire them up i wont really have a baseline to go by to let you know temp difference. i just kinda like the laser readouts =oX
cya in a bit

Just found this mod this morning, gotta say LOVE IT:D. Really like the handmade fan grills (got a thing for skulls). Completely understand the need to keep wifey happy. Mine gets the bigger desk, she's not concerned about having the same hardware just as long as what she has does what she wants. Keep it up +rep and I'm subscribed. Can't wait to se how ya paint this thing.

Bah!!!
decided to return the mobo bundles back to maplins for 2 reasons.
first off there is no way in hell i can make both the cpu cooler and mem cooler fit in it as the memory slots are too close to where the cpu sits on this board. (pics follow)
secondly come to find out this is a B grade setup (previously used and returned) funny how it doesn't say it on the site when you order unless ya read the real fine tiny minuscule print. grrrr
no biggie, we are opting for a different setup now. just have to wait for the maplins refund so we can reorder the different set.
heres some pics i snapped last night
Damn this cpu cooler is huge =0)

memory cooler is pretty cool as well

motherboard, layout is just a bit too compact =o/

here is where the problem was:

no way i can trim either bit to make them both fit on this board.

heres a few pics of the PSU's

these things are pretty heavy, felt like i was holding a brick lol

wifey wanted me to leave the stickers on here as she is not bothered by them, I on the other hand cannot stand stickers, so they just had to go.

here we go, much better looking now ( atleast i think so)

the bits we have decided on now are
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66Ghz LGA775
along with this mobo
Asrock 4Core1600-D800 LGA775, DDR2,VGA,SATA2,7.1Snd,mATX

that setup gives me atleast workable clearance for both the mem and cpu coolers and to be honest i kinda prefer intel anyhow.

hopefully things work out better with this one once its delivered.
i plan on some more tweaking this weekend so i will hopefully have something more for you by sundayish.
cya then

Sucks about the CPU and RAM cooler mate, that's why I measure before I buy lol. The new board you picked looks good. AsRock make some solid boards at a low price.

i think i will put it down to " a lapse of reasonable judgment " simply because in my head all i thought about was woohoo i am gettin some of the bits i need..drowned out all my common sense when it came to proper research to see if things would fit.:banghead:
no matter tho, i prefer the new kit as i have had asrock boards in the past and never had probs with em.and like i said, if i likes intel anymore i would almost be considered a "fanboy" but we wont go there hehe

yay just what i was looking forward to.
a bit of drama when it comes to returning parts.
be careful when using maplins online to order bits here. they seem to drag thier feet a bit when it comes to returning things.
they were supposed to have the mobo bundles collected on weds, waited till 5 to 6 and gave them a call. oops they couldnt make it that day so it had to be thurs. they finally show up thurs mid afternoon to collect the bits and return them so wifey called them up to let them know they were collected.
lady on the phone tells her " when we get them back here we will test them to see what the problem was" ummm they werent returned for being faulty, they were returned for being 2nd hand and partially built with assorted bits missing in each box , ie: i box had sata cables missing, ide cable missing, back panel cover missing and memory just thrown in the static bag flopping around with no protection, second box had been partially assembled, cpu in board, fan clipped on various assorted other paperwork ( from a dvd drive and multi function panel) thrown in the box again missing back plate and no thermal in either box. when this was explained to the lady on the phone all she said was "Oh, then when we get them back here we will process your refund which normally takes about 14 days" hmmmmmmmph sell 2nd hand parts and make people wait 2 weeks to get thier money back so they can go buy the new bits they need. sometimes i just really dont get it.
and to top it off they were paid with paypal, but since they dont refund by paypal they are sending out a cheque, which will take another 3-5 working days to clear the bank after they send it. Bah!!
i am looking at a 3 week wait before i can order the new kit so in the meantime i will have to find other bits to keep myself busy on the mod front.
on a positive note i did get the vid cards in last night and the ddr2 memory.
stock view

fan virginized

i guess i will start looking for a decent cooler for my card as i just cant stand to leave anything in stock form (wifey tends to shake her head at this tendancy) =ox

on the agenda is a bit of paint work this weekend, maybe modding some of the cables on the psu's so they end up the correct length and finding a place to mount my on off switches for lighting in each rig that wont clash with the builds.have to fit that in around reworking the bath surround in the bathroom..=o/

wish me luck and cya in a bit