Revamp and upgrade: old school style

[batboy]

Hey all, I was active here on the OC Forum many moons ago. I know some, but there are a lot of new folks too. Going to try one of those build log things, but since it's not a total scratch build, I'll call it my "revamp and upgrade log" with the added benefit of being an old school project just for fun.

My current rig was rebuilt in January 2010 and still is a good computer. About 2 years ago, I upgraded the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB, along with freshening up the watercooling loop. About 3 years ago I replaced a failing hard drive. Been a good machine, specs are in my signature. Within the last couple of weeks I upgraded the vid card (previously had a HD 6950).

I have a new CPU and motherboard on order from newegg.com and tracking says it will be delivered on Monday (in 2 days).

Here's what my computer looks like on top of my military surplus desk back in my man cave.

I've had that tower for 15 years. It was part of a Swiftech Q-Power watercooling kit.

An old OC dog tries to learn new tricks.

 

[batboy]

I know some of you love beige boxes and I must admit there is SOMETHING about a beige computer tower.

But, on the other hand, don't you think 15 years of being beige is long enough? Ok, let's strip this thing down, clean the case panels up, and start sanding. I went to my stash of rattle can spray paint to see what I had. Hmmm, bright red, black, silver, dark gray, gold, blue, and white... I immediately grab black and red. But, then I waffle back and forth about the red.

I don't want to go nuts or do a lot of custom work. This is old school style, so I'm just going to repaint the blasted thing with some leftover spray paint. Throw out some ideas. Or perhaps this is more like putting lipstick on a pig?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Looked at the pic, and the desktop pic blew my mind. lol

Well done.

 

[batboy]

LOL, good ole Photoshop. That's not the first time I did the infinity monitor thing either. This pic is from 2006.

 

[batboy]

I did a little wire management to the side panel fan wires. It really looked like a rat's nest. The fan wires were long and I had them both connected to a 3 pin to 4 pin molex adapter (which were also too long). So, I got rid of those crappy adapters and taped up the wires with black electrical tape. Yep, old school. We didn't have fancy sleeves or heat shrink wrap back in my day. A little electrical tape and a few zip ties and you're good to go.

 

[batboy]

Think I have a couple manly colors picked out. Nobody else suggested a color scheme. So, I reckon I'm on my own. Black and gold is good, that was my high school colors and grad school colors. I tried gold paint on a case once. It sucked. I don't want foo foo or gaudy. Let's get some of the little parts painted black, like bay cover plates, power button, reset button, Fan grilles, and filter cover on the front lower panel. I use fine automotive grade sandpaper and sand lightly to scuff up the surface, so the new paint will adhere better.



Hope the mods don't mind that I'm posting a naked picture of my tower.

 

[batboy]

I dug around in my boxes of spare computer parts and found three old 3.5" floppy drives that haven't been used for years. There is no longer a way to connect them to the motherboard of course. But... but... it's old school and since this tower originally had a floppy drive in it, I think I should put one back in just for fun. I have one beige, one that probably used to be beige, but now has turned sort of yellowish, and one black floppy drive. I'll use the black one to match the optical drive. Speaking of which, I plan to put a second one in like I used to do. I already have an USB 3.0 front panel and I did just get a Bitspower bay reservoir that has a window. I'll get a couple blue 5mm LEDs to light up the reservoir. That'll match the blue LED side fans. Just a little low key bling.

I picked out a color that is close to gunmetal gray (actually it says the color is granite on the can). Here is one of the side panels painted to compare it to the original color.

 

[Nebulous]

Woohooo, batz is going "old school" with an "old school' mod theme. Noice! It's looking real good thus far!

I got rid of all my "beige" boxes long ago. Sure wished I saved at least one, but then that's why we have craigslist

 

[Daleon]

I like the color. Dual 5 & 1/4's would look pretty cool in the empty drive bays or could always throw something like this in there since your case doesn't have front audio ports built in.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA50M2EH2349

 

[batboy]

I thought the paint job came out really good. I spray light coats to ensure the paint don't run. I had to repaint the power button because I goofed up on it. It came out good, better in person than in the photo. But, it seems to be missing something. I'm not talking drives, I mean paint-wise.

I thought I'd get some guff about the floppy drive, but at least a few of you like it. I don't have a single 5.25" drive anymore, threw them all away.

 

[batboy]

That photo really sucks, let me try another.

 

[batboy]

I figured out exactly what it's missing. Old school hotrod flames.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Lookin' goood!

 

[Nebulous]

Holy crap that looks sa-weet! Add the flames!!

 

[batboy]

Sheesh, the camera flash washed that second photo out so much it looks beige again. I'll open the drapes tomorrow and get some sunshine in here and try another photo. It must be darker than I thought back there in that corner. This gunmetal gray/granite looks like it could be military spec and matches my desk fairly well. I ordered the black flames (vinyl stick-on) from Amazon. I'll probably use two per side and maybe one on the top. That leaves one leftover, but I don't want it to be too "busy" or too crowded.

I was going to leave the LG optical drive in there and put in a nice Asus DVD burner that I have on hand. But, they don't match and the LG sometimes doesn't read right. It write's right, but the read ain't right. So, I found an Asus Blu-ray combo drive. Sometimes old school needs new tech.

Another new tech thing I'm adding is a 512 GB m.2 NVME SSD drive. I have a Samsung 960 Pro on the way.

I'll post more tomorrow. I still have one 5.25" bay vacant if I can figure out what to put there (not another floppy drive though, one is enough).

 

[JLK03F150]

The updates are looking good so far. Looking forward to the flame job.

Maybe a nice looking fan controller for that last 5.25 bay? Not sure how you are currently controlling them all.

 

[batboy]

My fans are out of control.

The two side panel fans have 3 speeds and each has a little switch. That's the extent of my control over fans. I don't have a single one on a motherboard header. I might just leave that bay vacant in case I want to put something there in the future. If I still want a flow meter, Koolance has one with a display that fits in a 5.25" bay. That display that Daleon posted a link for is really nice: card reader (my printer has one), USB 3.0 ports (already have front 3.5" panel), temp display (that would be sweet), fan control, etc.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA50M2EH2349

Ok, this morning I pulled the case panels back off and stripped out all of the drives. I had a forgotten third drive in this rig that was disconnected (WD 10,000 RPM Raptor). I found my original build post from 2010 where I talked about making this fast drive the boot drive, but had trouble with it. I ended up using a different drive, but eventually figured out that since that drive had been part of a RAID, it probably just needed to be reformatted. The other Raptor in the RAID was making noise like a bearing going out, so that got tossed. For now, I removed the Raptor, but who knows, I might use it for a boot drive. I changed out the crappy LG optical drive for nice Asus. I stuck the LG burner back in as a place holder for the Asus Blu-ray internal drive that is on order.

Here's a photo of the rig with the drives removed.



I put it all back together to see how it looks. Yep, looks like a computer. I love how the side fan grilles look painted black. It definitely needs those black hotrod flames. My wife don't get why I put the floppy drive in. I said, because it's old school. She says, but you can't connect it, so it won't work. It's totally worthless. She don't get it... LOL... it's just for decoration and for fun.

 

[batboy]

I put the barbs and slider mounting things onto the Bitspower reservoir and gave it a trial fit. I plan to install it into the top bay, so I can access the fill port (just take the top panel off). But, as you can see from the pics the old reservoir is still there right now. I need to spend some time backing up the system today, so now is not the time to tear it the rest of the way down. Tomorrow, I'll take some photos of the unboxing ceremony.

 

[batboy]

I spent half the day cleaning off my hard drives and organizing folders. It's been 2 or 3 years since I did a major backup (I keep my critical stuff backed up onto flash drives). I burned 8 DVD-R disks to back up family photos and other important files. Now, I'm in the process of uninstalling software and moving everything I'm keeping from C: drive to D: drive. The plan is to reformat the C: drive partition, so it's no longer bootable. I'll then use it for file storage. I have a couple options for the boot drive. One is to use the 960 Pro m.2 drive that I have ordered and the other is to use a 320 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 RPM for the boot drive (found it today in a closet, sealed and never used, it's been on that shelf for probably 5-6 years). First I wanted to use the m.2 SSD for a boot drive, but now I'm leaning toward using the 320 gigger as the boot drive.

Windows 7 64 bit or Windows 10 64 bit?

The tracking for the newegg shipment says it's on the delivery truck and will be delivered on Aug 14 by the end of the day.

Here is what should arrive in a few hours: i7 7740X (was on sale), Asus TUF X299 Mark II (excellent motherboard), G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3600 2X8GB (15-15-15-35), Samsung 960 Pro 512GB (promo code got me $10 off). I also have bits and pieces ordered from a couple other places (got a package on Saturday from FrozenCPU).

Once I have the big ticket items, I'll tear down the water loop and see what 2 years of using only distilled water looks like. I saw a few green specks in the reservoir. Bet I got a bit of algae.

P.S. The black hotrod flames have been shipped and are due to arrive Thursday or Friday.

 

[Daleon]

Use the 960 Pro for boot. I have the same drive and its very nice. You get about 465 GB of space out of it. Windows and some downloads is right under 100 GB used on mine so far. I'll load a few of my main games on it and will still have tons of room for size creep over the next couple of years.

Sux finding an unused drive like that. The 320 would have made a fine boot a long long time ago but not anymore. I had one of the first Intel X25 40 GB SSD's and it was a huge step up from my Raptors at the time, its not even remotely close anymore. Could use it for cold storage or throw it in an external case.