Build time! Wish me luck!

[Andyf]

looks awesome, But I'm sure I'd just bosh it within a few days. For now I just want to get the thing working.

True about the wire management- I thought it would be much easier, but I was suprised by how difficult it is- I can't see a way of making it cleaner without modding holes into the Mobo tray, and feeding them round the back. any ideas? One problem is that its pretty hard getting my fingers in there, (urg- paid the price for buying a silly cpu cooler!), and that combined with the resistive force of 20 odd very stiff wires, makes cleanup no joke.

Anyway, the GPU won't be back for a good while it seems, so I think I'll use the time to get everything cleared up a bit better, and fit all the Zalman controller wires- which will no doubt aggravate the situation

 

[djmaddogfreak]

I was gonna suggest that you would use the time to clean up the wires. I unfourtunetly am not very good with recomending good wire managment, i could use a few pointers myself. It's tough cause I have an IDE cable and 2 tubes for my water cooling kit along with the fan controller and other things. This is an old pic

I will take a newer pic soon. I hear that reversing the Hard Drives has been a good idea, but maybe running wires behind the rear bracket. I have also thought about putting in like a fake floor on the inside of the case, it would make it look nicer, and I could just run the wires under the floor. Check around the threads for wire managment, lot's of good ideas. Also, lemme know how u like that fan controller, i was thinking about getting the same one...

 

[Andyf]

looks really good if you ask me. Anyway, shouldn't make too much difference given its liquid cooled.

I did a clearup and fitted the Zalman. Still Pretty messy but a big improvement. I can't see myself going to more effort without a complete mod, theres just not enough space to allow for any significant gain over this. Here are some pics. Sorry about the poor quality: phone camera in dark room:

Still pretty messy, see? The really silly one is the cable running diagonally up and left from the PSU: its a 3 pin Molex that runs to the top, powers the two fans, and then loops all the way around to power the zalman! I came to putting the Zalman in, but really couldn't deal with undoing all the zip ties and re-planning the molex arrangement.

Do you think it will be OK having all 3 on one wire?

the little black wire out the bottom right is a thermocouple, destined for the GPU when it arrives. I have one on the intake, one on the HSF base, and one on the exit fan (like to know whats going in and coming out- comes from working in gas turbines I guess)

Heres a close up of the CPU thermocouple. The HSF rises up to the left, you can see a DIMM to the right

Looking forward to getting this thing going now. Any suggestions to improve things a bit?

heres a close up on the main wire channel, just for good measure:

 

[Andyf]

Well, the Zalman seems to work! so do the thermocouples. maybe. Heres a pic

You can't see the numbers very well in the pic. Its not quite that bad in real life, although you have to look reasonably dead on. Fan adjuster seems to work, obviously if you set more RPM than the fan runs on at 12V, it just maxes out, but anything under works really well. Nice feature, rather than a 'scaling' method like most other controllers.

Thermocouples seem OK, it is about 20 degrees in here, and having booted for about 1min, and just turned the CPU fan down for a second, the CPU gauge rose to 23. very satisfactory.

My PC is apparently sucking up about 114W, which seems about right, given no GPU, although reviews suggest that this becomes inaccurate higher up the range.

Basically, it does everything it says on the tin- if you have the money, I say go for it!

Anyway, can't wait for my RMA return (which incidently hasn't had any news- 2 days and they can't even take literally 5 mins to plug a GPU in to a computer. I mean I know they're busy, but really....)

 

[djmaddogfreak]

thanks for the kudos, i am pretty proud of my system. Your wire management looks good too, it's functional, wires are out of the way, and it looks pretty clean.

As for the fan controller, i was also looking at this one...

 

[Andyf]

phwaaar. Looks real nice. Hope you can spare two drivebays!


Still no movement on the RMA. Whaddyou reckon, 2.5 days- Time to get the phone and bonk some heads, or leave it till next week?

 

[jonny_uk]

Give them a ring andy, even if its for them to tell you to wait abit longer for them to "process" the rma, at least you'll know they havent just slung the gpu in there warehouse and forgot it or something!

And your wires DO look abit messy, i mean with that amount its going to isnt it without some serious modding, but as the guy said above its functional and it shouldnt cause any heat problems in the Antec as its well ventilated.
On the note of ventilation id highly recommend buy a 120mm fan for the side window, it will help keep that GPU cool.
The fan just pushes onto the 4 pegs, couldnt be easier.

 

[Andyf]

Yeah, I liked that idea too, but as you know, the Antec sidefan sits at 45*, and it gets in the way of the TRU120E. I could turn the TRUE sideways, exhausting into the big top fan, and see how that works, but maybe for another day.

Yeah, the wiring acutally looks better than that generally, Those pic look really bad, and I was careful to ensure all the open spaces and fan bays are completely clear. still, casemod might be the next big thing. I could use the time to do it now, but I'd rather wait and get everything running before having a go.

 

[AhBeng]

Nice. i like tat. looks awesome.
is it easy to install ?

 

[Andyf]

easy, lah