Project: LEXA

[The boy 4rm oz]

Thanks buddy, I try my best haha.

[gnat]

They are great things Dremels but make sure you don't make the same mistake I did, knock offs are crap, it's a genuine Dremel or it's nuthn.

A small update on my 240mm radiator. I called the retailer today but couldn't get through. I will try again tomorrow.

Make sure if you haven't already picked one up to get one with the variable speed not one with just two speeds or whatever. The variable speed dremels are so much better.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I got the 300 series which is variable speed.

[The boy 4rm oz]

YAY, I have heard back from the place I ordered my radiator from. They HAD moved stores and changed their website so that's why they didn't receive my order (I sent them an email a few days before Christmas inquiring about this). I am going to place an order when they start again in the new year (Jan 3rd I think).

Also I would like your opinions on something. As I was looking at the site where I will be getting my extra fans and grills etc. from I found that they had got this radiator in.
Alphacool NexXxos Pro II REV.2 Radiator (240mm):
http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod6172.htm
What do you guys think? Have any of you used this radiator or know anyone using one? This place stocks the HWLabs Black Ice radiators also but don't have the 240mm Stealth (I will have to ask about that when they open early Jan). Ordering the radiator from this store will save me a credit card surcharge and another postage bill. The radiator is also about $10AUD cheaper than the Black Ice Stealth 240mm but doesn't come with fittings, with the fittings they are about the same cost (fittings are $4AUD each ).

Anyway onto the modding. There is very little for me to do until I get my radiator because I can't paint that last bit of case until the holes are cut for the radiator fans and I can't mount the pump until the radiator is mounted.

I have however almost finished mounting my second to last piece of plastic.
Ok so here is the victim for today , a piece of plastic cut to size and sanded correctly:

Here is how it will be mounted:

I will be using these small brackets to hold the piece of plastic in place:

Here are the first two brackets mounted, I have mounted the bracket on the existing screw holes from the outer disk drive bay and floppy disk bay cover.
Pic:

Here is another or the brackets mounted directly opposite the other two, I had to drill this hole:

And the final one installed on the HDD rack directly under the bracket shown in the last pic, once again I had to drill this hole:

Here is a pic of all the brackets installed in their correct places:

I haven't done any more to this piece of plastic or the last remaining one due to me running out of the screws I was using so no more work with plastic until I get some more.

I was however sidetracked by a little side project.
This is my ASUS EN8800GTX:

I was originally going to remove the plastic shroud from the fan and aluminium fins thinking it would yield better cooling until I found that two of the mounting screws were under the GRAW themed sticker (which is directly stuck into the default Nvidia one by the way). I scrapped this idea and after cleaning as much dust from the fan and aluminium fins of the cooler moved on to my next idea.
Sorry about this blurry pic guys, my camera doesn't like extreme close ups lol.
This is the a pic of the very edge of the PCB (furthest away from the DVI ports):

If you look in the center of the picture above the three capacitors right next to each other you will see the fan cable. Just above that is two little chips about 1cm squared, I have no idea what they do but due to my computer not being in a case I did a bit of poking around while everything was running to find "hot spots" and believe me when I touched these chips I burnt my finger tip quite badly.
Before I can get started on my mini mod I had to detach the fan cable so I could get in and around those little chips.
Here is a pic:

I had a little look in my bits box and found these Zalman RAM sinks. These were originally from a cooler I got for my 6600GT and due to it only having something like 4 RAM chips on board I had 4 left over.
Here they are:

I was originally going to mount the RAM sinks length ways (they are rectangular) so they would get better air flow from my side mounted case fan. Because the default 8800GTX cooler is a little bulky it was a little hard to do it this way so I settled with putting a single RAM sink across both of the chips.
Here is a pic of the sink installed:

The fan cable plugged back in:

And finally the card installed back into my system:

Even with this single RAM sink covering both chips the temp of the chips has dropped significantly at both idle and load. I don't have any actual temp readings but my trusty finger does the job . This is only temporary until I get my water block installed, then I will use two of the remaining 3 and cut them to size so they cover the whole area of the chips (at the moment there is about 3-4mm of chip showing each side of the RAM sink), I will also mount the RAM sinks to get the best airflow inside of my case.

Well that's all I have for now guys. I hope to get some more screws before New Years so I can finish mounting that plastic. Once again sorry for the blurry pictures, it's my cameras fault, not mine. Until then...

Happy Modding.

[jdbnsn]

looking great! very colorful too.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Thanks mate, it's always good to get feedback and +rep from a Veteran lol .

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well I was lucky and managed to go to the hardware store and get the screws later on today. Once I had them mounting this piece of plexi took only about half an hour. So enough talking, lets get modding.

Here are the screws I am using (there are more, these are just the ones I need):

Sorry the pic is from so far away.
Here they are cut to size and with the ends touched up by the Dremel:

This is how I am mounting the plastic. First I put the screw through the bracket and tighten it until it stops moving with a nut, I then put the piece of plastic in place and hold it there using dome nuts. I do it this way to make the plastic easier to remove while in the system.
Here is a semi-side on picture of the set up:

The protected piece of plastic installed:

Here is the plastic installed with the protection removed:

Now I know what your thinking, you are all think why is there a huge gap between the disk drive and floppy drive covers well here is the answer. The very last drive bay is where my reservoir is situated. Due to it being shorted than a CD drive I decided to leave it out of the disk drive cover and make a seperate one.
Here it is:

It is made out of a piece of mesh, it's not done yet. I still have to drill holes and install grommets for tubing pass through along with mounting holes plus I have to fix up the cuts and spray the silver mesh black.
Here is a shot of the CD and floppy drive bays almost finished:

Looks pretty good in my eye and it will look a lot better once I finish the reservoir cover and paint the drive bays black. I also have to do a few minor adjustments to some of the plexi pieces to make them sit flat and line up straight. Until then...

Happy Modding.

[UrbanLegend_NY]

*EDIT: QUOTE REMOVED! -Luke*

Hey those little square things that burnt your finger are voltage regulators. I'm surprised that ASUS didn't put a heat sink on them from factory. Those suckers will get hot enough to fry an egg and get second degree burns. It was a good idea to put a heat sink on them because they will burn out quickly if they are allowed to continuity overheat. Looks like a bulky video card too. My HD2900's are that big too. I weighed them today and they weigh 3 pounds each! heavy lil suckers. good luck with the Lexa project looks like ur coming along good. +rep

UL_NY

[p0Pe]

UL_NY plz dont quote the images to...

looking good as always... nice with the gtx :/...

[.Maleficus.]

UL_NY plz dont quote the images to...

looking good as always... nice with the gtx :/...

p0Pe said what everyone is thinking... You actually don't need to quote an update at all, it just makes the log harder to read.

Looking great though The boy 4rm oz!