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SELECTING THE DISKS
I wanted to have SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) disks, not only for their
high transfer rate, but also for NCQ (Native Command Queueing).
This feature allows the disk to complete requests out of order. This
allows the controller inside the disk to optimize for performance, and
cuts down on random seeks in opposing directions. Because I was
optimizing the system for multiprogram performance, I considered the
NCQ configuration to be better than the more popular bandwidth-optimizing RAID configuration, which disables NCQ. The
biggest beneficiary of this choice is the Windows login function, when a lot of processes are
performing unrelated disk operations.
Second, I wanted nearly silent disks. The reviews of
the SpinPoint family all remarked on how quiet they are.
Finally, when I looked at pricing, the 200GB Samsung
SP2004C leapt out. For some reason, it was cheaper than its competitors, and even its smaller brethren. I bought two of these for less than $100 each.
SELECTING A CASE AND POWER SUPPLY
The last page of the SPCR Ninja review showed it in an Antec
P180 case. After reading the SPCR review
of the P180, I decided that this was the case I wanted to use. It would have the best chance of handling the enormous power consumption of the
Pentium D 830 while remaining quiet.
Size and weight were not a concern. I have a fairly large home office, and the system was going to be on the floor on the other side
of the desk, out of sight and out of the way. I was a bit concerned about cable management, as cautioned by several reviews, but everything
worked out fine.
Scanning the reviews on SPCR for ideas on power supplies, I came across the review
of the Antec Phantom 350 fanless power supply. However, when I went to buy one, all I could find was the newer Phantom 500. The SPCR
review of this supply was also quite upbeat, and I did like the idea of a "backup fan". It is a snug fit in the P180 case, but with some shoving, everything fits. In
the finished system, the fan never operates, so the supply is silent.
One thing I wanted to be sure of was that the 12V AUX cable would be long enough. It turns out that the 12V cable for this supply has an
8-pin connector daisy-chained to a 4-pin connector. The length to the 4-pin connector is 24", enough to reach the top corner of the P5LD2
motherboard with comfortable routing. This cable is third from the bottom in this photo.
Phantom 500 cables. The 12V AUX
is 3rd from the bottom, and 24" to the 4-pin connector.
SELECTING A GRAPHICS CARD
All of my previous PCs had integrated graphics, so I had never
thought about graphics cards. The P5LD2 uses the Intel 945P
MCH north bridge, which does not have an integrated graphics function, so I had
to shop for a card.
A quick survey on Newegg turned up the ASUS
Extreme AX300SE-X/TD,
a PCI-Express x16 card described in the reviews as a "good all-round
graphics card". After all, something with that many X's in its name
must be good, right? However, my friend at work was derisive. When I
ran PCMark04 benchmarks, I understood why: it scored about 1300 in a system
that was otherwise well above 5000.
So, back to the search. A little digging turned up the Gigabyte
GV-RX80L256V X800 XL.
Even though it has only one more X in its name, it has much higher
performance, and is passively cooled. Of course, it is also more
expensive.
ASSEMBLING THE SYSTEM
I'll skip over some of the initial false starts, and describe
the system that I ended up with in October 2005.
I installed the Ninja LGA 775 adapter with the rails vertical;
this is the orientation expected by most LGA775-compatible heatsinks. In my initial build, I
tried to fully seat the fan mounting wires into the heatsink, which
caused them to bump into the heatsink clips, as shown in this photo
(the fins in the lower part of the highlight are part of the north bridge
passive heatsink; the fan was sitting about ½" above it).
As a result, the fan stuck up above the Ninja and some air flow which
could have helped cool the voltage regulators and bridge chips was wasted. More on this later.
Heatsink and fan mount mechanical interference.
Initially, I planned to have the CPU heatsink air
flow towards the back of the case, with a fan mounted on
the front side of the heatsink, blowing through it
towards the back. This worked quite well with the 300SE
graphics card, but when I installed the X800 card, this proved to be a
poor choice, since the CPU was well cooled, but the graphics card
overheated. After some experimentation, I concluded that putting a fan
between the GPU and the CPU heatsinks cooled both quite well. This
works because almost all of the cooling in the X800 is from the
heat-pipe (upper/solder) side of the card, and even minor airflow
provides good cooling. The radiator on the component side of the card provides
at best nominal cooling, since it is poorly coupled to the GPU chip.
This photo shows the same fan as above, from a different
angle, to highlight the positioning between the CPU heat pipes and the GPU heat
pipes. The CPU cooler is the aluminum above; the GPU cooler is the
yellow metal below.
120mm fan between the Ninja (above) and the X800 fanless cooler
(below).
The P180 case GPU cooling duct ended up being a complete dud.
First, the fan housing collided with the heat pipes on the X800 card. Second,
the vent on the back of the case short-circuited the airflow across the
motherboard, and caused it to overheat. In the end, I removed the
entire GPU duct, and blocked the vent with foam.
I also replaced the stock thermal tape on the X800 with Arctic
Silver. This significantly reduced the airflow needed to keep the GPU
cool. This replacement is a bit tricky; the heatsink is actually in
two parts that sandwich around the board. To disassemble, you need to
remove the retaining screws, then pry apart the two-sided tape on the
sides of the base plate that makes contact with the GPU chip. The pry
points are highlighted in this photo.
Where to pry the two
parts of the X800 cooler apart to replace the thermal compound.
Cable management in the P180 case was fairly simple. The only
issues were the some of the power cables. The Phantom 500 has
a standard size main body with a fan assembly added to the back. The cable bundle sticks out
through the fan assembly and needs about another half-inch or so to
splay to various parts of the system. This would not be a problem if
the center fan of the P180 were removed (not a good idea since the
disks in the lower bay would get no air flow), or if the power supply
fan were removed (turning the 500 into a 350 and voiding the warranty), or
the center fan were thinner (which can be done by swapping fans with
the upper bay, or by replacing the stock fan). I went with a thinner
fan. I routed the 12V AUX cable over top of the back fan and had some slack left over.
Attaching the disk drives to the P5LD2 is
straightforward if you read the manual carefully. To support two HDDs with NCQ,
I needed to connect them to the SATA1 and SATA3 connectors. The DVD/CD drive
must be attached to the blue IDE connector, not the red ones. I needed to create a floppy with the ICH7/NCQ drivers from the
motherboard CD in order to install Windows.
One decision during assembly is what to do with the extra
power supply cables. Since they exit the supply at the top, the natural impulse is
to shove them into the gap above the supply. However, this blocks the
airflow across the radiative top heatsink of the supply. It is best to tuck the unused cables either under the supply or
on the sides, where airflow is not important. This photo shows what I
ended up with.
Put unused cables under the Phantom 500 to maximize airflow over its
top heatsink.
There were a few issues with the case that arose during
assembly. The motherboard rear I/O panel is especially cheesy and it buzzed like crazy;
it took some serious bending of the EMI tabs to provide enough
pressure to stop this. The PCI blank panels are tinny and don't seat
well, and they rattled. This was easily overcome with a bit of tape.
The front plastic panels for the 5 1/2 inch bays buzzed, which was
fixed with a bit of tape. The stock fan for the power supply bay was
too thick. All the P180 stock fans were too loud for my taste even on
the low setting, and in the end I used only AcoustiFan DustProof fans, which produced a much
quieter system. The fat P180 lower bay fan was particularly loud and obnoxious.
Having spent a lot on the fans, I decided to splurge a few dollars more for the AcoustiFan
silicone fan gasket kits. These were easy to install for all but the top fan. A minor case mod,
followed by some shoving and cursing resolved this. The mod consists of bending the mounting tabs slightly, as shown in this photo.
The top case fan mounts with only two screws; bend the fingers to make room for the silicone gasket.
Toward the end of the assembly process, I decided to line most of the box with AcoustiPack
foam, in the hopes of sucking up a few decibels. I couldn't really tell any difference in the sound, but it looked better. :-)
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