The Green Demon, temporary LC build

[ssjwizard]

Ok well with the recent death of my 2x GTX 460s the Green Gorilla has been sitting in a closet.... Anyway so I had some free time today and decided to pull the thing out and dismantle it since I had to check all of the components. So on close inspection I discovered that during the shuffle apparently my NB waterblock made contact with one of the resistors on the chip which blew out some chip nearby effectively killing the motherboard...





While its certainly unfortunate that this happened I do get some amusement from the fact that the gigabyte factory HS for the NB had a rubber ring around it to prevent this from happening. How a major WC company didn't account for the fact that sometimes people install tubing pulled very tight and include this is beyond me.

Anyways since I had the rig fully disassembled I decided to finish up a few of the things I left incomplete during the first build, since I have extra time and all.
So In the 21'st century during the age of the dremel it seems that unskilled un equipped youths seem to think that case modding is beyond their reach. I say to you NAY! Before the dremel we had hand tools. Things like sheet metal cutters and files(not the digital kind). So in order to remind people of the old days(and because my dremel needs a new collet) I decided to finish modding this case by hand.

Before

After trimming

After filing


Before

After


Now if you cant operate a pair of scissors and a file maybe you should go back to kindergarten and pay more attention, because as you can clearly see even simple tools can yield excellent results. I have opened up another 10-15% of the surface on my top radiator which should help temps, and NO MORE SHARP EDGES!!!!! Before today I have cut myself atleast 10x on this case, no more, I finger tested all openings and filed them down until nice and round.

In light of the dead motherboard and 2x dead GPUs I decided to take a volt meter to my PSU just to verify that the readings were consistent, which they were. So I drug out my old HTPC board a cheapo Biostar A770E. Sadly it wont support my 8120 but oh well. So I have drug up my sempron 140 which unlocks and my old 9800GT 512MB card, because any desktop is better than working from a laptop(even a nice HP Mobile Workstation like mine) and got this put together.



Since I had it all apart I decided to also go ahead and install my UV CCFLs. Ive had them since before I started the GreenGorilla but never had a chance to install them. As you can see in the picture above I installed the on/off switch to the inverter in the CM 690's weird *** vertical pci slot. So now to some under the desk shots!




Im taking it easy on this rig(kinda) sofar, Ive got my mushkin blackline 1600(8-8-8) running 1333(7-7-7) currently on stock 1.6v. I did unlock the 2nd core on the sempron after an hour of prime 95 @ 3.35Ghz which the core never got over 36C. I just updated to the nVidia 300 beta driver so hopefully I will find stock+official HD texture skyrim playable.................................... Sofar though i'm just happy to be sitting at my desk. Once my GPUs come back and I replace the motherboard Ill be able to find out of the 8120 survived all of this. If it did I say props up to AMD because my FX has been through hell and hasn't complained yet.

 

[ivanlabrie]

That's so cool! such a pity you blew you stuff u.u
I guess I can do some modding with my current el cheapo atx case with only three 80mm fan holes and top psu.
I'm thinking on copping off 1/4 of the case to mae it shorter, reverting it to make the psu sit in the front at the bottom, sort of like those cool and out of stock lian li pc-a05's...
Keep it up!

 

[m0r7if3r]

Just for the record, testing your PSU with no load really won't tell you anything, you need to load it to a few hundred watts and then watch voltages...and even then, a multimeter may not be sufficient as they only take an average voltage, so if you're seeing spikes or something crazy like that, the DMM will not give you any indication of that.

 

[ssjwizard]

Just for the record, testing your PSU with no load really won't tell you anything, you need to load it to a few hundred watts and then watch voltages...and even then, a multimeter may not be sufficient as they only take an average voltage, so if you're seeing spikes or something crazy like that, the DMM will not give you any indication of that.

Yes I know that im only getting a rough estimate and with 0 load its even less informative. However, it was sufficient enough to see that it wasn't idling way out of spec(atleast not for long periods of time) to get me to connect it to a board, and thats at least better than just blindly reconnecting it no? Now that im running a mild load on it I can monitor my voltages(with somewhat decent accuracy) and decided if I think it will be up to handling the FX and my 460s when that gets straightened out.

 

[m0r7if3r]

Just so long as you're aware and don't believe that to be a sufficient test of the full capabilities of the PSU (And also it let me talk about electrical...which I don't get to do nearly enough on this board)

 

[caddi daddi]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuu, i think the file you used is wrong, on sheet metal we allways use a half round ******* and btw, even we school kids know never use a file without a handle...

otherwise, one sweet build.

 

[ssjwizard]

I would have used a half round, or a 1/4" round file for this task IF I could have found it, but I lost a bunch of tools last year to my *%^# little brother and my garage is a mess right now.. As to handles PFT as long as I can safely grip the tool during its intended usage IDC what im holding onto.

 

[Diggrr]

Way to go, ssj!

BTW, I have one file handle for a dozen or so files, none for my needle files, so I end up doing the same thing most times.

 

[ssjwizard]

So the 460s came back in yesterday. Still waiting to have fundage to pick up another 990FX so I can determine the fate of my poor 8120... Wish I had access to an AM3+ board to test it on before buying a mobo... Could be a good chance to upgrade to something else maybe LGA 2011? Well I had a chance to burrn on 460in on F@H last night and put the 2nd in today and ran this quick Vantage run

http://3dmark.com/3dmv/4091506