My Rig: Winter Project 2k3 [56k beware]

[Home-Chicken]

My Rig: Winter Project 2k3 [Cascade]

Well I've finally found some time to post these pictures of my rig! Two days before i left for home, from college, Cathar graced me with an email telling me that it was my turn to get a cascade!!! I decided to order a single pass HC, a Mag2, and use my old tygon tubing. I am upgrading from an old Aquastealth water cooling kit, with a simple maze style water block, BIX, and an Aqua Via 1300. The worst part about the whole project was all of the additional costs for the fittings, padding, and proper tools (dremel/drill). One thing I would like to replace is the current tubing or at least clean them out because some sort of film has developed on the inside walls of the tygon. Other than that I am pretty happy with my current setup. I think the stealthed drives are definately cool looking, and i made sure to put in additional tape that allows me to open the drive manually by touching the lower right hand corner of the drive bay. The shrouds were very difficult to bend nicely. I had to pound at it with a hammer and bend it with pliers, it may not look super nice, but it works. From the pictures you'll notice the heatercore is huge. It's about 8 inches deep, and it's so large that i had to take a chuck out of the optical drive housing of the case. Here's my current setup:

Intel P4 2.4ghz @ 3.2ghz <-- need better chip
Epox 4PCA3+ v2.0
Buffalo PC3700 512mb @ 427 Mhz 2-5-2-2
Radeon 9800 Pro @ core 412Mhz / mem 720Mhz
SB Live Value
2 x Western Digital 80 Gb 8mb cache;
1 x IBM Deskstar 40 Gb;
1 x IBM deskstar 30 Gb
(I pray every night my deskstars don’t blow up)
LiteOn 4X DVD-/+R/-/+RW
Samsung Combo 52x24x52/DVD 16x

Case/Cooling
Cascade AMD + P4 conversion plate
Single Pass HeaterCore
+ custom fan shrouds
+ 4 x Sunon 98 CFM
Danner Mag 2
Tygon Tubing / T fitting
Lian-Li PC70
8 x ThermalTake Smart Fan II
1 x PCmods fan controller
2 x Sunbeam fan controller

 

[Home-Chicken]

 

[Home-Chicken]

 

[adrian nelson]

now thats a cool setup

 

[Raider84]

crazy way to get surround sound. Were those made for speakers or did you just jimmy rig it.

 

[Home-Chicken]

yeah, those are actual speaker stands. About 4 years ago i went to a Mac Con [please forgive me], and i went to the creative booth and noticed they had those surround speaker stands. Well when i got home i went to their website to see if they sold them, and sure enough they did. The only problem was that they were like $150+. So i passed on them for the time being. Well about 3 years passed, and i happen to remember them one day after i tripped over my old speaker stands, and went to their website to check them out. Lucky for me they had a couple left on clearance! i got them for about 70 bucks. Unfortunately they did not fit the Logitech Z-560's that i have, so i had to place a wooden "adapter plate" between the speaker and the pole attachment. I can take a picture of it if you would like.

 

[Home-Chicken]

I'm trouble getting any higher than 3.2ghz with this 2.4c. Would it be better to get a new 2.4c, or get a 2.6 or 2.8. I would like to hit 3.6ghz+ Maybe i should wait until the 533fsb prescott's are released and try to o/c one of those puppies

 

[ILikeMy240sx]

I find that its usually the RAM that holds P4cs back... Same happened to me except I couldnt get past 3.0Ghz...

For high FSB I recommend Kingston Hyper X with BH-5 or Mushkin Level2

Ask the P4 people.. im sure they will help you

Awesome setup btw, esp the surround sound stand.. You think tou could provide me with a link on where to get it? That would be wonderful

 

[Speed_Mechanic2]

Buffalo PC3700 came in only two flavors and one of them is BH-5. Assuming you didn't purchase your memory within the past month, then you should have BH-5, no?

You may get a better overclock with a new processor, but whether or not it's worth spending $170-ish is a decision only you can make. The 2.4C, 2.6C, and 2.8C are all (or will be in two weeks - when 2.8C drops in price) in the same price range - ~$170. The decision which to get is mainly on the multiplier (12X-14X) and how far you expect to go (and how far your memory will go). The Epox v2.0 is an excellant board and should allow you to push your Buffalo PC3700 quite far with tight timings - should the memory actually be BH-5.

Your cooling system seems ideal (8" single pass HC, cascade, strong pump), but what sort of temps are you getting?

 

[Home-Chicken]

Yeah the buffalo RAM are BH-5's so i don't think the ram is holding me back at all. I think i can push about 440+ with tight timings, and much higher with loose timings. Especially since the board can output 3.3volts for the RAM, though i am scared off driving that much voltage across the chips. Everyone tells me BH-5's can handle a lot of voltage though. I'd like to experiment, but that's pretty risky.

The only way i'd change out the chip is if I can sell my current one to make up no more than a $40 difference w/ a new chip. I know a couple of my friends that don't OC, maybe i can trade chips with them, and give them like 10 bucks for the service

It doesn't look like Creative's website carries the speaker stands anymore. Here's a link to their speaker system webpage, you'll notice that in the Accessories banner at the top of the page, you'll see the overhead speaker stands in the picture, but they're not for sale!!! maybe they have a couple left in the warehouse, i think giving them a call to ask couldn't hurt.

Overhead Creative Speaker stands

Now about the temps, when i turn all the fans on high [sounds like a jet taking off] i get as low as 31C with the motherboard thermal sensor. But the sensor's temps jump around from 31 to 39 degrees, it never stay's constant. I don't trust the readings at all. Is there an accurate method to obtaing CPU temps? I do have a spare Aerogate II sitting around that might be able to get the temps, but how should i attach the thermal probe to the cpu/block?

 

[marc999]

Speed_Mechanic2

Assuming you didn't purchase your memory within the past month, then you should have BH-5

Hi there Speed_Mechanic2, we meet again.
As I said when I was talking to you in the mem forum, I just purchased some Corsair XMS 3500 (like two weeks ago). I haven't been able to run mem test yet (long story). Anyway, does this "past month" rule apply to all brands, or just Buffalo?

Nice Rig Home-Chicken. I'm thinking you got only an "OK" chip. My friend just purchased a 2.4 that goes to 3.4 on stock voltage with air cooling (but freakin loud of course). It's some new steping though, MO I believe. Rumor has it that it's rejected EE chips (faulty L3 cache). There's actually extra bridges and stuff on the bottom of the chip as compared to the older steppings. Anyway, you sure did a good job on your rig, you can't help it if the OC gods don't bless you with a golden chip.