Modding we will go!

Pics of the case "new and unmolested "
Thermaltake Aluminum MozartTx VE1000SWA Cube Tower

The Ram is
OCZ Flex XLC 2GB (4 x 1GB) DDR2 1150 (PC2 9200)

Went with the
ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48







Wanted to get a PC Power & Cooling PSU but was over the buget so got the
COOLMAX CUQ-1200B 1200W



CPU is a
Intel E8500

No pics sorry

Will be running my 2 150g Raptors in Raid-0

For cooling... hmmm well this i mite have gone overboard with
2 Danger Den 240mm Xtreme2 Radiators

CPU block is a
D-Tek Fuzion v2

Testing

Mobo, CPU, Ram & PSU "video card was Barrett's 9800GTX"





Everything worked great!! "13450 on 3DMark06 stock"

Case mods
First the color ... it's going to be red ... my first try at this end up looking very bad ... so had to strip it all and now going to have a friend take it to work with him and paint it, but wanting till it's all done and everything is the way i want it first

Mounting the reservoir
well i didn't want to use up my 5 1/4 bays and had a dead spot in the back half of the case, so i cut a hole for it and sliped it in ... making up a bracket to hold it there







Mounting the Radiator
using the stock fan loctions would not work, so had to cut the back out and make up a new back plate to mount them on









this is about as far as i got ... still need to cut the holes for the fans .. but a friend is using my 4 1/2 hole saw so need to wait till i get it back

Did a dry fit in the case ... even though this case is huge! inside measurements are 12 1/2" deep 12 1/2" wide and 27 1/2" high .. i'm beginning to wish it was about 3" deeper.. i'll have 10 1/2" of room for the video cards.. which will be tight








the back side with the PSU is going to be very tight also ... with the reservoir and pump going in there does't leave much room

Ok put everything in the back side so you can see how tight it will be ... still have alittle more wiring to do and the return line for the water loop .. but as you can see not much room to work with! thinking of mounting the secound pump above the first one and offset then just enough to get the hose to bass by upper pump ... will be tight but think it will work

It's here!!! and all I can say is w0w! this thing is huge! I have an 1/8" between the video card and fan!

well case is still not done being painted ... going down tonite to see how far he is on it. but this morning "since i don't sleep any more" i figered i would see what i could do about lowering the NB temps ... Barrett had given me a Zalman ZM-GWB2 VGA water block he wasn't going to use .. now being that it is for GPUs i had to find a way to mount it .. i found some old brackets and got them to work .. also found a "new in box" NB cooler which i had to mod to get it to fit on the SB .. everthing is mounted and it looks like it will work .. i wish i could just order a new EK NB block but money is getting very tight ..

Case is back from paint!!! ... although it's not finished .. still needs the out side wet sanded and then 2 coats of clear .. but that can come later ... i riveted everything back together and took a few pics ... let me know what you think!

ok well the water block for the video card got here this morning "Thanks VegasR!!!" ... but thats about all that went smoothly ... mounted the block to the card .. redid some of the hoses ... refilled the loop ... 1hr of getting all the air out ... and then tried to boot ... FAIL! ... i had the same EK block short as everyone else ... i thought since VegasR had no trouble with it .. i wouldn't ... drained loop ... take block back off ... cleaned everything off and started over ... restalled card "no water in loop .. figered it wouldn't over heat in the 30secs to see if it would post" .. FAILED!! ... restall stock cooler ... boots right up! ... at this point 4hrs into it ... i was very very pissed off "at the water block" ... took stock cooler off and dry fitted the EK block ... and thats when i seen what was shorting ... "will add detaled pics later" ... the only thing i could think of was get out the dremel and fix EK's mess up! took 1/16 off the water block "pics later" restalled everything ... and .. ... ..... ...... POST!!!!! ... took a dumb out of work truck driver to fix a block that they designed halfassed ... all told .. what should have been a 1-2hr job took 6 1/2hrs! but working like a charm!

The Mods are still coming ...

few weeks back Xazax flew out to spend a week here with Barrett and I .. he was amazed at how big this case really is and all of the mods I've done to that point .. he also got to see the FX-57 rig and the countless mods done to it "over 120hrs worth" .. I told him that I was not done with this rig and really only got started with the mods ... the one mod that he really wanted to see done was the hard drive mod ... having 2 RaptorX's it's a shame to hide them ... the last few days Xazax has been very sick and feeling alittle down so i figered i would cheer him up alittle and get the HD mod done ... granted it's not all finished alot of little detales to do yet but you can see whats it's going to shape up to be

He forgot to mention the fact I almost lost my thumb to a "High Performance" fan he had purchased. Still got the scar to prove it

the new hard drive cage

moved the PSU out the back 2" to give me more room for the water cooling

using the 90s gave the computer a very clean look .. although not cheap lol

here's a few finished pics "still have the lighting to do working on that right now"

Why don't you just rig a freaking A/C unit to your rig's ass? Sheesh... got enough cooling there to run a refrigerator...at the coldest setting!

Thanks for giving him the idea hgghg4. NOw I"m gonna have to figure out how to run it from his power supply.

Your welcome!

don't need it ... runs fine the way it is

No you will be doing it, just to one up everyone... well in this case 10 up