Ratdude's Main rig V2

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Uranium-235

oh hey rat didn't you say you had an old 3dfx card? If you're looking to do a 3dfx upgrade (instead of nvidia or ati) I have a Voodoo 5 5500. works too

it is a new in box (still in shrink wrap) voodoo 3 2000 16mb PCI card.

I was lookign for somethign with more power than a voodoo 5... remember that my board has AGP (pro) 8x...

[ratdude747]

UPDATES:

1. I got the coolers home... And I swapped the fans:

One of the old fans:



The new fans:



I am swapping the fans because I needed longer cables and the existing fans are too loud for desktop use. I did do a test with an old fan and a new fan powered up... the airflow was not that much different but the noise was considerably less.

2. I also spun up the case fan for the system and found it to louder than I thought. I decided to undervolt the fan by using resistors... I calculated that the fan itself is about 60 ohms (12V / .2A) and that 3 1/2W 100 ohm resistors in parallel woulf create a 33.3 ohm resitor and would be a good choice. I went ahead and made the mod... the good news is that the fan went from 2500RPM (full blast) to 1800 RPM (about right). The bad news is that the resistors get hotter than I anticipated... after doing the math, I am putting them at just over 1/2W per resistor... Oops!

I guess I will want to look for a quiter fan by design or perhaps a temp controlled fan (like the ones in Dell towers, only with a usable tach output). Anybody have suggestions?

3. I will be getting another ECC DDR 512mb stick soon, which means I can run 2gb of RAM...

4. I also will be getting an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB for the system...

[shovenose]

Wouldn't somethign like this work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811995073

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by shovenose

Wouldn't somethign like this work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811995073

Perhaps... I was looking for a more "streamlined" approach... The temp controlled fan idea sounds appealing, if such non-dell fan exists...

[c_hegge]

^
Arctic cooling make them, although it doesn't look like RottenEgg have them. They only have the PWM ones.

I have used the temp controlled ones before, and the noise/airflow ratio seems very good.

[ratdude747]

I wonder if there is a way to use the sensor output of a dell fan as a tach wire... I have a dell fan that I swapped the connector on... but the signal output apparently is not a standard tach output...it reads 0RPM.

[c_hegge]

No, because Hell have a different tachometer signal to normal fans. AFIK, there is no way of reading the Tach signal without modding the fan, but I don't usually go there when I can get Arctic cooling Temperature controlled fas for <$10 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arctic-Cooli...item4cebdf92e5 )

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

No, because Hell have a different tachometer signal to normal fans. AFIK, there is no way of reading the Tach signal without modding the fan, but I don't usually go there when I can get Arctic cooling Temperature controlled fas for <$10 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/Arctic-Cooli...item4cebdf92e5 )

that would have worked if my case used a tradtional fan mount... instead it uses clips (the fan has to be standard dimensions to work):

[ratdude747]

What about this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999617

or, this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999603

[ratdude747]

some cheaper options for a quiet fan that I found:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/282317-003-3...#ht_500wt_1129

the vantec again (I have the 80mm version btw, its a winner)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vantec-SF922...#ht_4268wt_907

either of these two look good?

[Uranium-235]

I just realized, I'll probably be using all of the money from the parts i'm selling to buy the same two coolers you bought

[c_hegge]

None of those four fans are all that quiet at all. I've used thos 'stealth' vantecs before ad they are quite noisy. At 29dB at low speed, that thermoflow ain't quiet either. You're looking for 18dB or under. Here in Aus, we have Arctic cooling temperature controlled fans which are standard dimensions.

If you want really good noise/airflow, then you can't beat Noctua, but they are a tad expensive.

try http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835226039

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by c_hegge

None of those four fans are all that quiet at all. I've used thos 'stealth' vantecs before ad they are quite noisy. At 29dB at low speed, that thermoflow ain't quiet either. You're looking for 18dB or under. Here in Aus, we have Arctic cooling temperature controlled fans which are standard dimensions.

If you want really good noise/airflow, then you can't beat Noctua, but they are a tad expensive.

try http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835226039

I see... I may go that route then...

edit- found them cheaper ($10 shipped) http://www.microbarn.com/details.aspx?rid=103024

[ratdude747]

updates:

the board came in today... and I found out that the coolers did not fit... the scews are the wrong thread and the brass studs are too long.

I was able to mod the coolers though:

1. I removed the exisisting springs and scews from the coolers. I then used a hammer, pin punch, and a vise to hammer out the brass studs. I slipped and gave myself a blood blister (ouch).

2. I went to the local hardware store and bought some m3 x22 screws (x8) and some #6 washers (x8).

3. I installed the coolers using the screws; the washers keep the scre heads from slippign through the holes in the cooler. I used the amount of unused thread in the bottom of the backplates as a guide to get the cooler flush with the CPU.

Other notes (after system build):

- the 3ware card didn't like my hdd... my guess is that it has to do with raid and it beign a caviar blue... either that, or the card doesn't like single drives. I moved the hdd to port 3 of the onboard SATA.

- for now, I am usign ATI radeon X1300 256mb from my shuttle box untilt he 9800 pro 256mb comes in... question: which card is a better performer, the x1300 or the 9800 pro?

-I got it booted and got F@H running... 4 virtual cores of it (2 CPUs with HT).

-so far, the cpu temps are about 50-52c (internal CPU readout, mobo sensors say 47-47.5). Not bad, right (for 3.2GHZ gallatins)?

[Topcat]

pictures...............jeez!

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Topcat

pictures...............jeez!

of what?


(they will come... soon...)

[ratdude747]

Here are the few I have:

the board before I installed it into the computer:



close-up of the hacked cooler mounting:

[Topcat]

Very nice! I got close to a decade of 100% rock solid service out of that board! In all that time, it was running 24/7. I only shut it down when it became clogged with dust bunnies and needed a blowjob from the air compressor

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Very nice! I got close to a decade of 100% rock solid service out of that board! In all that time, it was running 24/7. I only shut it down when it became clogged with dust bunnies and needed a blowjob from the air compressor

I thought you sent me the NOS one?

(I am happy either way)

some notes:

- it is LOUD... the fan swap helped but even with a dell temp controlled fan, it is kinda noisy... trade off I guess
- for some reason the two SATA DVD+RWs have to be set after the hdd in the boot list for the hdd to boot... the SATA controller must not like optical drives (it treats them like hdds, resulting in a no boot.



some pics:

overall:




Yes, it is a bit cramped.

The cooler area:



the cards (note the gap where the 3ware card used to live)



the back:



Look good?

[momaka]

Are there supporting backplates behind the CPUs on the board? Are they thick and sturdy?
- If not, your heatsink bolt mod can seriously warp the board over time. At the place I work, we get Xbox 360s all the time, and when people usually apply a similar heatsink bolt mod, the damage is usually worse than from the original X-clamps.
Then again, the Xbox 360s also run a bit hotter than your CPUs, so that contributes to the damage a lot more.

2. I also spun up the case fan for the system and found it to louder than I thought. I decided to undervolt the fan by using resistors... I calculated that the fan itself is about 60 ohms (12V / .2A) and that 3 1/2W 100 ohm resistors in parallel woulf create a 33.3 ohm resitor and would be a good choice. I went ahead and made the mod... the good news is that the fan went from 2500RPM (full blast) to 1800 RPM (about right). The bad news is that the resistors get hotter than I anticipated... after doing the math, I am putting them at just over 1/2W per resistor... Oops!

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I guess I will want to look for a quiter fan by design or perhaps a temp controlled fan (like the ones in Dell towers, only with a usable tach output). Anybody have suggestions?

As for the fans being too loud - maybe you can run them at 7V (red wire to 12V, black wire to 5V) or 8.7V (red to 12V and black to 3.3V

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Look good?

Yes.