Project: Nutman

[Nutman]

Remember the teaser pic?

Well, the package has arrived:

And who sent it?

And what's in it?

Haha, can you feel it?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Once again this project changes direction (and platform). Really, it wouldn't be a Nutman worklog if it didn't contain something totally unexspected once in a while, would it now?

I was tempted and bought this:

And then I had to buy this:

It's a D0 and, according to Google, from a pretty good batch:

And these:

And now I think it's time to reveal a new sponsor:

Specialtech.co.uk agreed to sponsor an EK EVGA X58 SLI LE fullblock for the new motherboard. Thanks a lot!

Adrian at Specialtech.co.uk sent this reply to me, after I asked for a sponsorship:

"Sounds like a great plan. We have been down the sponsorship route before but more recently lots of people let us down by either never finishing the build, losing interest or never really starting it but it's about time we started to trust people again and get back in the game. We'd be happy to send you this block in return for the mentions you suggest.
Let us know your delivery details and we'll get one shipped off to you"

Those words hit a soft spot with me because it IS hard to get sponsors these days. Because some modders don't live up to their responsibility. It's INCREDIBLY important to be realistic and honest concerning your intentions and ambitions. Otherwise, you destroy the bond of trust between modders and sponsors. That's why I sent another email to Adrian, thanking him for the generous sponsorship and also asking if it was OK that I quoted his initial reply in this worklog - to which he replied:

"Please feel free to quote me, I guess some people don't actually understand that we still have to pay for the items they want on sponsorship and we all sit on pots of money and it won't matter to us etc...."

So REMEMBER! ALL of us are influenced from YOUR lack of realistic sense. Don't ask for sponsorships if you're not deeply serious...

Anyway, now when the cat's out of the bag, let's look at more shots of this incredible block::

Uuuh, another package popped in:

..... from yet another new sponsor:

Eddy from EK Waterblocks also wanted to join this project, so he agreed on sponsoring an EK Supreme HF for my I7 920. Thanks, Eddy!

Some more shots of the EK Supreme HF:

I also managed to buy a real EK-4890 block to replace the EK-4870 block currently installed on my XFX 4890:

So, now I have an I7 system, hehe. Sold the old motherboard, the old CPU and the old RAM modules...

Also bought this pretty little thing:

I'm going to use it for controlling all lights, replacing the ugly switches currently sitting in two of the 3.5" front plates. More on that in the next update (I hope...).

Got another box from Coolerkit.dk:

The explanation is that I had run out of IC7 while constantly changing CPUs, GPUs, cooling blocks, mobos and whatnot!

Also, I didn't really like the quality of the cuts I had made when cutting the tubes, when I in the previous update was putting the loops together. So, I wanted to see just how good such tubing scissors really are. Results will be on display in the next update...

Also got a box of casemodding stuff from another danish casemodder - it contained lots 'o goodies:

Going to use some of the stuff for this casemod (at least the UV CCFLs and the inverters - perhaps also the green CCFLs) and quite a lot of it can also be used in my next casemod, which I'm currently planning... (uuuh, exciting?)

Well, had to test all this new stuff, before installing the water blocks. Nothing beats the depressing feeling you discover that your system doesn't work after you've carefully assembled it and that you therefore have to take it apart again. It's a pain, trust me... so remember to test before installing water blocks:

Everything worked 100%, so I'm quite happy.

Then, I started installing water blocks and I started with the graphics card:

And then moved on to the motherboard:

Then, I sleeved the cables for the top UV CCFL tubes and nicely routed them through a P-clip alongside the wires for the 2 temperature sensors and the 2 fans sitting on the top radiator:

Finally, I installed the EK Supreme HF. Not much room between that and the motherboard block!

This is what it looks like with all blocks installed:

Also not much room between the graphics card block and the motherboard block:

And finally, some "candy-shots". Well, I can't do it better with my current camera and the lighting at my disposal. Will definately have to improve my photo skills for my next casemod:

So, yet another monster-update. And lots of surprises, I think.

In the future, I'll try to update more often, producing smaller (and easier to read) updates.

[Nutman]

Psssst... I'm modding again.
New update coming *soon*.

[msmrx57]

WooooHoooo!!!

[Nutman]

Waaaaaaay too long since last update, but a lot has happened (as usual, one might say).
However, I don't have that many pictures to show you today, but much more will come later. Believe me!

First of all, I got a new camera: a Canon 550D and a Canon 24-105 mm. f/4 L IS USM lens. Nice gear, but I'm still learning to use it properly:

Let's get on with the work log.

As you migth remember, I had bought a hose cutter, so I wanted to test it.

I used to use a utility knife for cutting hoses and it looked fine. However, when looking a bit closer, the results were not that great:

So I tested the hose cutter:

And here's the result:

Muuuuch better, eh?

OK, suddenly I couldn't find my Kingston RAM, so I had to buy some new ones.

I got these which also fit the colour scheme much, much better:

I spent hell of a lot of time sleeving hell of a lot of cables - more on that in the next update, so here's just a little teaser.
It's the quick connector for the HDD LED, Power button, Reset Button and Power LED:

Yes, I had promised cutting down on the size of these updates, so I'll stop here for now.

Hopefully, you won't have to wait long until the next update.

[SXRguyinMA]

lookin good!

[billygoat333]

this project is looking good! How do you like that board?

EDIT: meant MOBO, I have been looking for a good x58 board.

[Nutman]

this project is looking good! How do you like that board?

EDIT: meant MOBO, I have been looking for a good x58 board.

Thanks.

I haven't REALLY had any experience with the board yet. I just checked it was working and then put the waterblock on it. So the heavy testing is still to come.

lookin good!

Thanks!

A new update will be posted later today.

[Nutman]

Super short gap between 2 updates, woohoo!

Yes, it's all relative, but by my standards this is super short, hehe.

People had told me that they thought I should the fan cables all the way to the fan motor, so I started doing that. I "only" applied heat shrink on the part that wasn't sleeved by Nanoxia.

A "Before" and "After" shot:

All fans done:

Fans mounted on top radiator with UV CCFLs on each side:

Powered up:

I mounted the radiator and powered up the UV CCFLs:

Then I tidied up the fan and CCFL cables for the top radiator. I had bought some MDPC P-clips:

And some snap-caps to hide bolt heads:

Continued sleeving my PSU and the pump cables.

My girlfriend thought it'd be funny to photograph me in action while sleeving:

So I had to make a geeky photo of her aswell. She needed something to put into her hair for a party, so, naturally, I suggested MDPC sleeve.

One last shot of the pumps after sleeving.

Here I am testing the pumps and, sadly, it sounds like one of them is only running at 3/4 speed. I'll have to monitor its RPMs using my Aquaero one of the next days:

[Nutman]

Did lots of modding this weekend - mostly cable management, but also some other tasks.

For instance, I sleeved the non-modular cables of my PSU.

I didn't need the 4-pin EPS cable, så I cut it off internally and heat shrinked the stubs:

The 8-pin EPS cable was way too long, so I had to shorten it.

In this shot I am controlling the length:

Having found the correct length, I soldered the wires back together:

Earlier I had sleeved the ATX 24-pin cable (see the previous update, where I am heating up heat shrink), so the PSU is basically done - only need to sleeve the modular cables:

As mentioned in the previous update, I had finished sleeving the pumps, but during testing I could hear that one of the pumps were only running at 3/4 speed.
Or, at least I thought so...
I plugged in my Aquaero the get a read of the RPMs on each pump. Turns out that one of them was only running at 40% (app. 1550 RPM), while the "healthy" was running along nicely at app. 3750 RPM.
So I scratched my head over this for quite a while. I took the pump apart, checked the soldering, the magnets, the wires, etc.
Finally, I hit myself hard and switched the 5V+ and 12V+ wires so they sat like they were supposed to....DOH!

Ok, now the pump was running fine again, so here are some shots of the final results:

Now, for a while I had been pondering on how to mount my Aqua Computer Multiswitch LT in the case.

Being a model LT it has no 5.25" mounting brackets, so it had to sit elsewhere in the case.

But then I had a look at the PCB and noticed the same mounting holes as on my Aquaero!

Got hold of some long bolts and attached the Multiswitch on the back of the Aquaero:

Nice solution, I think.....

Ok, since I was handling the Aquaero, I wanted to put some carbon film of the mounting brackets, as these didn't look too pretty:

You might have noticed that I put some longer bolts between the Multiswitch and the Aquaero. The black bolts were simply too short...

On to testing the Multiswitch:

Worked fine with LEDs, but for some reason some of the CCFLs (or maybe their inverters?) drew too much power, resulting in various errors such as Aquasuite crashing, CCFLs refusing to turn off, etc.

Really weird, but in the end I managed to find a good combination of CCFLs and inverters, so everything turned out just fine.

I had purchased a LED strip from Dioder-online.dk, which I'll cut in appropriate length and put behind the motherboard.

I tested it on the Multiswitch - it plugs directly into a 12V+ source and the light is very powerful! It apparently contains quite a bit of UV light, because all my UV reavtive stuff lights up when the LED strip is on. You can't see it with your eys, which will only see a bright, blue light - but the camera manages to catch it, as seen in this shot:

Commencing to cable management - what a crappy task.... min next case, which will be built from scratch, will definately be optimised for intelligent cable management. Just wait and see...

I will end this update with a couple of shots of the state of the case as of yesterday evening:

[SXRguyinMA]

lookin good!