old OC rig suggestions

[c_hegge]

Not bad for the price, but 4700RPM? They're gonna be noisy.

As for the case, use an Antec 1200. Loads of space, tons of cooling, only costs $300, and even uses cheap sleeve bearing fans

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

Not bad for the price, but 4700RPM? They're gonna be noisy.

As for the case, use an Antec 1200. Loads of space, tons of cooling, only costs $300, and even uses cheap sleeve bearing fans

the RPM was't on the box, FYI.

by cheap, $300 isn't, LOL

I'll do some hunting i guess.

[c_hegge]

The after the sentence means I was joking

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

The after the sentence means I was joking

and the LOL at the end of mine indicates that i laughed at the joke.

----

anyway, i have great news:

I tried my extra old case, but it didn't quite fit. undeterred, I grabbed the mobo tray out of it and mounted my board...

the board seems to run fine, as does the recapped graphics card. the only issue is that the chipset fan is wasted; next time i am at fry's i will grab a new mini fan (the old one has rattling ball bearings).

all i need now is a case and 2 cpus...

[ratdude747]

bad news. the usb on the board is dead. supossedly my board had the ok b2 southbridge, but this baord that i have has the b1 with disabled usb

thank god for having a spare usb2.0 card...

[PCBONEZ]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

bad news. the usb on the board is dead. supossedly my board had the ok b2 southbridge, but this baord that i have has the b1 with disabled usb

thank god for having a spare usb2.0 card...

USB 1 sucks anyway.
I'd still use the USB 2 card even if the on-board worked.
.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

USB 1 sucks anyway.
I'd still use the USB 2 card even if the on-board worked.
.

2 things:

header pinns and usb keyboards.

due to this glitch, i'll have to use PS/2 for the keyboard... lame but whatever (I see really NICE ps/2 keyboards for cheap at goodwill, and i also have a stockpile of old ps/2 keyboards).

also, this means no front usb for me... I do have a couple usb cards that give 5 pins, for use with a card reader... but all i have for a spare is one w/o...

i heard usb 2.0 doesn't play well with linux if you are using a via usb card like i am... would an NEC 2.0 card work better? (I have one that needs a new crystal, old one knocked off)

[Scenic]

I've had far less problems with NEC based USB 2.0 cards in general (not just on linux).
The VIA ones are cheaper and usually work fine for the most part, but they occasionally glitch up and just stop working completely.. normal reboot fixes it. Doesn't even need a hard reset or power cycling.

Seems to be kinda random.. i was never able to reproduce it

[PCBONEZ]

NEC is preferred here too.
.
It's not that hard to mod one to support front ports.
Done it many times in the socket 370 days.
NEC cards with 4 ports are really common. Some have 5.
Yank the 'out back' connector on two and wire 5-pin headers to them at the end of about 6" of wire so it reaches the front port connector.
Use shielded wire and use the 5th pin to ground the shield so it doesn't degrade to USB 1.
It's a very easy mod.
.
I won't use a board [myself] that doesn't have PS/2 keyboard/mouse.
USB for that has always eventually lead to some problem or another.
.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by PCBONEZ

NEC is preferred here too.
.
It's not that hard to mod one to support front ports.
Done it many times in the socket 370 days.
NEC cards with 4 ports are really common. Some have 5.
Yank the 'out back' connector on two and wire 5-pin headers to them at the end of about 6" of wire so it reaches the front port connector.
Use shielded wire and use the 5th pin to ground the shield so it doesn't degrade to USB 1.
It's a very easy mod.
.
I won't use a board [myself] that doesn't have PS/2 keyboard/mouse.
USB for that has always eventually lead to some problem or another.
.

yeah, i've done that too... but I'd rather not on this one. i am trying to make it look semi-clean...

since i will likely be getting an old case for this, likely without front usb, i kinda stopped caring. if this board was of the newer types that support usb booting, then i would be more concerned.

as for the no ps/2 thing, my main rig is usb-only, no issues... most newer keyboards are usb anyway, so for that thing, to me, its ok ( I use a keyboard with a fingerprint scanner on that rig).

I actually like the older usb keyboars with 2 port hubs in them... they are helpful for use with usb mice (less cables to the back of the computer).

luckily, my basement keyboard has both a usb and a ps/2 plug (microsoft natural keyboard w/ hub in back)...

edit- remind me, what mhz crystal do usb cards use (so i can fix the old NEC card i have at my old house)?

[ratdude747]

Found a case.

turns out the case from this thread is a fit, as long as any drive in the lower 2 5.25" bays is one of the short lite-on type drives... with one of those there (I have 2 in the system), the ram cleard by 6mm... and the way the IDE cable attaches to the drives, they too clear the ram.

the server in that thread was moved into a dell dimension 4100 case i had... it needed a differnt case to fit in my network cabinet anyway, so no loss here.

once i get a set of MPs for it, i'll take some pics.

[ratdude747]

ok, I just took some pics anyway:



yes, the drives clash. I have a feeling i may be using some spay paint in the future.



full of cables...



you can't quite see it due to the cables in the way, but the ram sits about 1cm from the end of the cdrom drive (all 4 slots usable)

yeah, its a tight fit. note that due to the cpu layout, neither cooler is more than 40% blocked by the PSU. where it is, there is plenty of gap between fan and psu.

ironically, the main reason the case works IS because it is side saddle... it widens the case on the mobo side of the drives, giving the ample space for the hdd to clear the ram.



the board on the tray. the new nichicons and rubycons sure look nice!



a beautiful recapped VRM.



the usb card chipset. why i needed to use the usb card:



note the highlighted "B1". that is the stepping of the southbridge. b1 had the defective, disabled usb, b2 had working usb.

comments?

edit: forgot the specs:

Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW
single 1800+ athlon xp palomino
1.5gb Pc2100 registered ddr
nvidia geforce 5200fx 128mb graphics
usb 2.0 card
40gb hitachi deskstar
cd-rw drive
dvd-rom drive

[ratdude747]

on a separate note, there was an issue i ran into:

the video card int he pics is not the recapped one. the recapped one made the system unstable, or so i think. I'll try swapping the cards back, but if its hosed, then I will need another video card (the card in the pics is stolen from another computer).

[c_hegge]

Nice, although black DVD drives on white cases (and vice versa) are a pet hate of mine

[ratdude747]

i'm thinking of doing a partial repaint on it, with some pattern that leaves the the switch area white but makes the drive area black. maybe a tri tone design?

[ratdude747]

i was messing with GIMP and came up with a possible paint job sketch:



i put in blue since the psu, mobo, graphics card, and usb card are blue. i kept the floppy white since i added a header tot he usb card and installed a white floppy/ card reader combo drive.

more on the header later.

[c_hegge]

Looks alright, although I would have gone silver for the bits that aren't painted black or blue.

[momaka]

Looks alright to me as well, though I wouldn't bother if I were you.

At one point many years ago, I had a similar idea to paint my computer. But then I though, who is going to look at my computer anyways? I know I won't (not for very long anyways), so I stopped caring how my computers looked. As a consequence, cases with color un-matched drives is normal for me now. As long as the computer works, that's all I care for.

[c_hegge]

My signature PC sits right next to my monitor (and ear), so it has to be good looking and quiet.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

Looks alright, although I would have gone silver for the bits that aren't painted black or blue.

that would be self defeating.

i want to keep the switch/led area clean so the text and whatnot isn't covered up. i want to keep the floppy area lean so my floppy/ card reader combo doesn't look like crap.


some side notes:

- the pwr LED went out... its getting voltage and the internal tester board led works, so I'll have to solder in a new one.

- getting linux to work has been hell... when run graphically, the cpu load will suddenly go to 100% and the system locks up. anything being run gnome 3 (shell or no shell) as done this exept for ubuntu 11.10, which makes em think ti is either a cpu issue or a sw issue.