My new tower fleet

[paul_h]

Re: My new tower fleet

get winblows, as the original red alert and command and conquer is free so you could play them on old PCs

[bigbeark]

Re: My new tower fleet

Great idea for a thread. Like you I like to assemble boxes with interesting configurations.
I'm going to call my fleet the "Rat Tower Fleet" because mine are rattier than yours, Ratdude!.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

no, my name has nothing to do with computers:

RAT: i have pet rats (and i have won grand champion at the 4h fair 3 times with them)
DUDE: i am male
747: my dad's nickname- he was called the Bolan-747 because his (and my) last name is bolan, and he was as fast as a boeing 747 (or so it seemed; my dad was at one time a semi-professional bicyclist)

and hell no on the windows. i have a COA for xp pro (off a dead dell) but i don't want xp. besides, my eee-pc is dualbooted and for the occasional stuff that needs m$, it does fine.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

Pics of tower #1!



the front. missing a bay cover, sorry. the blue accents on the sides are mesh. It has 2 usb ports in the front.



overview of the guts.



the cooler.



the cooler area again, but focused on the exhaust fan.



the hard drive area. also, you can see the 2 front fans. they are 2 ball bearing, vantec stealth 80mm fans. They are very quiet, but move a lot of air. i got them with the psu (hypermicro had them for $3 a piece, so i said hell yes!). also, i streamlined the front cables with zip ties.



whoops, forgot to rotate this one!

the back.

[stj]

Re: My new tower fleet

you get more airflow & less noise if you jigsaw the steel out infront of the fans & fit a wire guard instead of forcing the air through those tiny holes.

[shadow]

Re: My new tower fleet

Yes a simple wire guard would be a lot better for airflow than those perforated holes.

However at the same time, those holes seem to be some what decent in size. It would be nice if they were a bit larger.
I still have a case at home that has something like 2mm perforated holes! Now that is really bad, dust would just clog up between the fan and the 'fine mesh'.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

for the fan guard, it does fine as is. besides, it is one of those odd 92mm fans with 80mm mounting. a wire guard would not cover it right. i'd rather leave it alone, the thing never goes very fast (it is pwm controlled).



tower 2 is dead. idk why it died, it might of been a cap substittion error:

3900uf became 3300uf

2700uf became 2200uf

topcat's kit was supposed to have a slightly different set of caps. the one i got form him had that instead and an extra 1000uf cap.

now it gives me 4 led's (cpu failure). the 1800+ might have been out of spec, so i tried the original cpu, a tested working 1ghz t-bird. same symtoms.

it had no cmos battery. i doubt that is the problem.

any ideas? if not, then i have no server... nuts!

[seanc]

Re: My new tower fleet

Unplug for a while, put a CMOS battery in, take all RAM but one stick out.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

i put in a cmos battery in vain.

it is sitting for a while... 4 error lights= bad cpu according to the manual.

[seanc]

Re: My new tower fleet

Any bulgers, any backwards? Checked solder joints? Got any spare caps to swap in?

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

tried that... when i put a stick back in, something shorted and i smelled something burning. thank god the bestec shut down when it shorted. its dead now.

well... i suck at recapping. i have no server, a cool but virtually useless case, and a mom who is mad at me for wasting money on caps for a dead board.

what sucks is now i have 2 useless hard drives; nothing i have can run them (remember the gaming box only has one ide channel; the other 2 have cases not meant for such hot-running drives)

[stj]

Re: My new tower fleet

take the cpu out & examine the pins - then put it back.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

umm... something's burnt.

the re-cap was a bit rough, maybe i split a trace or something. having your solder-sucker fail and being forced to use the needle can lead to some ugly recaps.

[kc8adu]

Re: My new tower fleet

tried that... when i put a stick back in, something shorted and i smelled something burning. thank god the bestec shut down when it shorted. its dead now.

well... i suck at recapping. i have no server, a cool but virtually useless case, and a mom who is mad at me for wasting money on caps for a dead board.

what sucks is now i have 2 useless hard drives; nothing i have can run them (remember the gaming box only has one ide channel; the other 2 have cases not meant for such hot-running drives)

just tell mom its cheap education.
as for the smell you probably got the ram in backwards and blew up the vdimm vrm.
i see this often.usually an easy fix.
fixed a ton of the compaq evo boards for this.they seem succeptable to this.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

look. i think i f**ked it up when i soldered it. the needle method was rough on it.

ill probably post a wanted thread in the sales forum. it was in bad shape when i got it... and i killed it.

btw, all caps were in the right way, no bulgers. im sure the ram was in the right way.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

pics of the dead tower #2:



the front. i added a better front vent (see below), 2 usb ports, and better hard drive airflow (behind this bezel).



the new front vent. the cover material is gutter-guard, hot glued in place. also, i dremeled out the existing fan mount so the fan could breathe, as this compact of a case need very good ventilation)



the guts. i mounted the hard drives that way so they could breathe...



the dremeled out side fan mount.



the new side vent. again, hot glued gutter-guard.



the p4 connector i attached to the side fan.



the cpu area behind the psu. that fan (delta-made) moves a LOT of air... notice the chipset heatsink doesn't say MSI... this one has REAL fins... too bad the board is a goner.



the back. i have no idea why i sharpied the fan cover of the psu.

[Sparkey55]

Re: My new tower fleet

look. i think i f**ked it up when i soldered it. the needle method was rough on it.

My method for removing the old solder from the mobo cap holes is to use a partly opened small plain paper clip with chamfered end. Works better than a sewing needle.

[seanc]

Re: My new tower fleet

Ratdude, same process I use, nothing has gone pop on me yet.

Please investigate the source of the burning smell! If it's a mosfet, the fact that it's an older board probably means you can find one/some from another board.
If all else fails, take the caps out and use them somewhere else!

Also, did you install the RAM with the PSU still plugged into the mains, because then I could understand the issue...

Sparky, interesting idea, I'll give it a shot. I snapped 2 sewing needles, sewing pins don't just work as well.

[stj]

Re: My new tower fleet

dental pic comes with a handle on it!

btw, RatDude.
that pc with the hole cut in the front.
i'll tell you the correct method for that - for next-time.

you move the fan from the inside of the metal - to the outside of the metal.
then cut the front plastic skin so that the fan pokes through.
it will stick out about 5-8mm usually.
then screw a grill or - better yet, a filter to the outside of the fan.

[ratdude747]

Re: My new tower fleet

dental pic comes with a handle on it!

btw, RatDude.
that pc with the hole cut in the front.
i'll tell you the correct method for that - for next-time.

you move the fan from the inside of the metal - to the outside of the metal.
then cut the front plastic skin so that the fan pokes through.
it will stick out about 5-8mm usually.
then screw a grill or - better yet, a filter to the outside of the fan.

that would be uglier... the gutter guard kinda looks cool... i may paint it black. also the vent is also for the hard drives.

i used a bent sewing needle... the end was bent so i could twist it out.. what killed it was that it was cold in my garage and the solder didn't melt quite as well.

even if i fixed the vrm, the original issue would still exist. if i was daring, i'd try to fix my abit kg7-raid, but it got smashed and needs some rubycons replaced. i may try it...

edit: a tiny cap is gone from it... idk the value of it... its c474, by the ram slots, my guess is a 16v 100uf.