| Author | Message | ||
     Mountainstorm |
Just wondering. I got bit by that bug back in 1999 while recovering from a back surgery. Got into building my own stuff, then got into liquid cooling and lighting and all the bling bling. Finally ended up running a small business scratchbuilding enclosures and assembling some pretty crazy rigs for clients. My background (if it matters) is woodwork and I spent about 20 years restoring, renovating and repairing luxury yachts in S Florida. I've since retired from PC craziness and gone back to my gearhead roots...but I was just wondering if I was the only Bueller bitten by the PC bug. There was a while when I spent 14 hours a day making PC related stuff in my shop...I love to tinker. If anyone is interested I have some pics and vids of systems I built that are a bit out of the ordinary  | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
I'd love to see some pics! I recently built my first computer, but I didn't fabricate any of the parts, and I stuck with air cooled. My old PC was slow, and I needed more for school, so I build a monster! I had so much fun doing it, now I want to build a super small one, and eventually build a case from scratch. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jr0bb/sets/7215762320 5956270/ | ||
| Froggy |
Before I got into Buell's my thing was computers. I always used Peltier or water cooling, and was planning on saving up for a nice Vapochill unit. I used to have the best of the best the moment it came out, but now I am sticking with what I got and just am using it. Core2duo 1.8ghz overclocked to 3ghz, 4gb DDR2 Corsair XMS, Asus $400 motherboard, Dual Radeon 3870 video cards, Zalman Reserator 1 liquid cooling system, 14 hard drives, run of the mill dvd burner, Logtech MX1000 mouse and original G15 keyboard, Steelpad 4L mouse pad with low resistance teflon coated surface, Dell 3007WFP-HC 30" main monitor, Dell 2005FPW 20" secondary, and a Logtech Z-5500 5.1 surround system. | ||
| Loki |
Still runnin my old Monarch Hornet Pro(Lian Li) case. Upgrade the guts when they need it. Now has a 120mm exhaust and a 900 Watt power sup that is external | ||
| Mountainstorm |
Nice sized monitor there for the Home Theatre. That Cooler Master case is well designed and should last you for as long as you want. 14 Hard Drives? lolwut? I thought I was nuts for running RAID0 on 6 WD 74GB Raptors. Props. I'll dig up my pics of "ICE" my first phase-chilled rig. OCing is a reasonable substitute for speeding wouldn't you say?  My "daily driver" is a dual Xeon X5470 rig OCed to 4ghz. OC to live, live to OC  Lian Li is still one of my favorite cases. But if you have not seen a Soldam WiNdy you are in for a treat...stay tuned I'm intrigued by the ever shrinking form factor of PC guts too and I think these gynormous rigs of ours will soon be historical. Especially the crazy long graphics cards that draw more juice than a space heater, it's like the heyday of Muscle Cars. Anyhoo here's one that is definitely different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPB3KXpblQ   American Made case by PC Design Labs (QV2E) that I custom powdercoated sparkly pink for my Daughter. Looks like a little pink barn  MicroATX DFI LanParty Jr motherboard is fun to look at...UV reactive stuff all over it.  Xeon X3220 Engineering Sample CPU is probably overkill for watching Barnie videos but it needed a home. 2TB RAID0 array for all those Wiggles and Doodlebops DVDs.  And of course a ludicrously long and overpowered graphics card...girls need e-peen too. And some watercooling thrown in just because I can and there ya go...the perfect PC for any Gamer Girl My other PC builds are more manly. But this was a fun project. (Message edited by Mountainstorm on February 09, 2010) (Message edited by Mountainstorm on February 09, 2010) | ||
| Wavex |
My current self-built rig isn't too fancy: - Intel Duo Core 3GHz - 4gigs Kingston RAM - Asus P5NSLI Mobo - 3 X 1TB Sata HDD, with 2 of them in RAID-1 config - OS (Win 7) running on 320gigs Sata Raptor 10k rpm HDD - GeForce GTX 285 hooked up via wall HDMI outlet to the 52inch LG in the other room... - Sound Blaster XFi - Logitech Edge keyboard (bluetooth for 10 meters range) - MS Bluetooth mouse (can't find a good long distance mouse...) - 750W Thermaltake Power Supply - Thermaltake Element S mid-tower (which I love)  | ||
| Spiderman |
Mine...     Ignore the dust please | ||
| Mountainstorm |
lol The Element midtower is snazzy. Sounds like a solid build. Spidey my Modder-sense is tingling. Dust and cables are my mortal enemies!  Client build with one of my waterfall reservoirs, radiator mounts, pump mounts and some attention to detail  UV reactive fans are side-lit with UV CCFL tubes hidden in powdercoated C Channels  Hid most of the wiring behind the mobo tray  Mounted the radiator off the back with standoffs. Vid of first boot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRI-BhIszSs That was pretty typical of my client builds. I don't do this work anymore so please don't think I am advertising. No more PC work for me. | ||
| Wavex |
dude that looks sick very nice. I never went as far as to use water cooling, but that's making me want to... props... | ||
| Mountainstorm |
It'll make you want to pee all the time. Here's one of my favorites. I became good friends with the client as we went along and really went out of my way for him. I did every part of this one only one time...the base took about a week to glue up...lotsa strips of plastic. It hides the radiator and fans.     I achieved the effect by cutting out the steel panel and sandwiching it between a piece of blue and a piece of clear. The window I masked and etched with a blast cabinet. I used to fall asleep thinking about this stuff every night. | ||
| Jdemoxb9r |
My next setup http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged .php  | ||
| Jdemoxb9r |
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| Wavex |
holy crap! how can you submerge the electronics like that? super thick conformal coating or something??? | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
I saw that on X-Play! Very cool! (Clear mineral oil) | ||
| Jdemoxb9r |
The oil conducts no electricity (unlike water) also with the fans turned off it is 100 percent silent! (and will stay cool for about 6 hours until the fans will need to be turned on again.) | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
Mountainstorm, nice rigs! One of these days I will tackle sleeving my wires. Have you been to [H]ardForum? That placed fueled my addiction, and there are tons of great pics! | ||
| Mountainstorm |
I frequent OverClock.net where I am still listed as a "Vendor" despite having retired from doing turn key builds. I don't really like [H] for some reason. TechPowerUp is a friendly place to learn about this stuff. And if you are snooty and arrogant enough you can join XtremeSystems lol. The mineral oil PC is fun to look at but what mess if you need to service or want to upgrade anything...yuck. Should be a great conversation starter though. I want to set up a passively cooled PC in the worst way...I have near constant ringing in my ears from years of woodworking and I cannot tolerate being near all those damned 120mm fans. I wonder if the heat convection currents coming off our 52" LCD would be enough to draft cool air up through some radiators without using fans...I'll have to experiment with that. Keep posting your rigs guys. It's winter. time for some benchracing | ||
| Fordrox |
Yup me too, I've been building PC's since 96 and still build my own OC'd systems. Even went to college for Network Administration, but never left the manufacturing world. | ||
| Mountainstorm |
OCing can be very addictive and satisfying. I remember getting 133mhz out of my 100mhz Coppermine...thems were the days. | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
Pic and specs of my PC:  Cooler Master 932 HAF case Intel i7 920 w/CoolerMaster V8 cpu cooler EVGA X58 SLI LE motherboard Crucial Tracer LED 3x2GB ram Sapphire 5770 graphics card Corsair TX750W power supply 2x WesternDigital 1T Caviar Black hard drives Windows 7 64bit Home Premium OS Klipsch 2.1 ProMedia speakers Logitech illuminated keyboard and MX518 mouse My hard drives are the only thing slowing my PC down, so next I really want an Intel 80GB X25M SSD. | ||
| Mountainstorm |
Or try a SATA Controller Card like a PERC5 or ARECA1210 and run RAID5 with 4 HDDs. It'll make a big difference in how fast desktop apps run and shortens load and boot times. Onboard RAID is pretty good these days but nothing beats a PCIe controller card for throughput. | ||
| Delta_one |
you know I normally give guys a hard time that "build their own computers" but you really do! those look awesome man. I would take one.  | ||
| Ratbuell |
Wow. I'm just glad when mine turns on when I hit the button. Very impressive stuff. | ||
| Jdemoxb9r |
theres nothin more badass then building your own stuff, whether its an airplane, motorcycle, or computer. | ||
| Mountainstorm |
I was using PC benching as a substitute for street racing as my spine healed up. Then it became yet another obsession. I have a real thing for designing my own cases...or rather hybrid techstations.   Had some fun with the scrollsaw on that one.  A bit chunky but it catches the light in an interesting way. | ||
| Brinnutz |
My old setup.  | ||
| Mountainstorm |
Big enough monitor there? | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
Mountainstorm, I looked into the RAID5 card, but at $300 plus 2 more HDDs, getting a SSD is cheaper, and I ordered one today for a nice price. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16820211412 Now, what about running my 2 1T HDDs in software RAID 0? Could I, should I, and how would I? | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I have a bat, I am about to customize my latest winbox ala Office Space. | ||
| Mountainstorm |
There are some things to know about RAID. RAID0 produces the fastest writes RAID1 produces the fastest reads RAID0 splits (Stripes) data into packets and distributes them to the drives in the array with low CPU overhead. This speeds up writes but slows down reads and if one drive in the array fails the whole array fails. RAID1 duplicates (mirrors) data onto all the drives which slows down reads and speeds up writes but if one drive in the array fails the array continues to function. Theoretically you can survive a crash better with RAID1 than RAID0 and if most of your data on the array is archival or already installed it's a better choice than RAID0. RAID5 is about the best balance of speed and security. Many onboard controllers have RAID5. You need at least 3 drives for RAID5. The array will rebuild itself if any of the parity checks fails. Downside is higher CPU overhead, especially during an array rebuild after a crash. If you have data that you use for work, or simply cannot afford to lose I suggest RAID5 or RAID1. If you just want speed RAID0 is hands down the best choice. | ||
| Drkside79 |
Wow after looking at your setups i need more practice i built my first computer last year and it is no where near as nice as those. Mine looks cramped and messy.  | ||
| Mountainstorm |
Well if you like to tinker it can be an ongoing project. My first builds were crazy messy with wires everywhere: 20 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag. I thought they were great though. One trick is to take the mobo out and try and hide the 24 pin and aux power and any other cables that attach to the mobo behind the mobo. You can tape the wires down or whatever and that often makes a big difference in the clutter. If you have tools you can make some access holes in the mobo tray of the chassis and fish wires through the holes and hide the excess wiring behind the whole tray. There is usually a gap between the panel (door) and tray. Not that it makes it run any faster...but if you like to tinker... (Message edited by Mountainstorm on February 12, 2010) |
