Alpha Three--surprisingly quiet Digital Imaging Workstation
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2004 10:12 pm
I have had numerous requests to post up some info about my power rig, Alpha Three. I figured that since I wanted to line it with the egg crate foam anyway, I might as well shoot some pictures when I was done, so I present to you: Alpha Three!!!
Here are the system specifications:
Antec Sonata black steel ATX midtower enclosure, lined with, "egg crate," foam, with the stock exhaust fan replaced using an AcoustiFan AF120CT,
ASUStek P4P800 ATX i865PE-based socket-478 mainboard with passive Swiftech MCX-159 copper/aluminum northbridge cooler cooler,
Intel Pentium 4 2.6C, running at 3120MHz, cooled using a Thermalright SP-94 and AcoustiFan AF92CT,
Sapphire Radeon 9800 adapter with TweakMonster BGA RAMsinks and a Vantec Iceberq 4,
black Vantec Nexus NXP-205 3.5" fan controller, where all but the PSU and CPU fan hook up to,
the stock case fan mounted on a Zalman fan bracket to cool the VPU, VRAM and northbridge
18GB Seagate Cheetah 15K.3, attached to an LSI Logic LSIU160 PCI SCI host adapter for OS/apps,
three Maxtor Diamond MAX Plus 9-series 6Y060L0 (60GB each) stripped to a Promise FastTrak S150 TX4 PCI SATA RAID adapter using PATA->SATA converters for A/V purposes
and two 512MB pieces of PNY Verto PC3500 DDR SDRAM.
Here's a wide-open shot of the system; the RAID array is in the lower cage; they're PATA drives hooked up to a SATA RAID controller via adapters. There's only three drives now; one of the drives nerfed on me and since I had rebuilt the array without it, I'm just doing without it; when I had all four drives, I was pummeling the 32-bit, 33MHz PCI bus to smithereens anyway; it can get a break this way. I just freshly lined the side panel, floor of the case and the back panel as well as the bottom of the 3.5" bay (where the floppy belongs, had I put one in) with the foam.
Here's a much closer shot of the system internals. The system drive is an 18GB Cheetah 15K.3 mounted inside a ZM-2HC1 and then cooled with a Vantec aluminum sink with 2 thin 50mm fans in it; the assembly is barely visible in this shot, though, since it's in the second half-height bay from the top. The heatsink is an SP-94 with an AF92CT on it, powered through the mainboard header. I cleaned my cabling best I could; I'm not sure not all of you can even imagine how much cabling is actually in this system, and it's not even that bad; Alpha Two had two more hard drives than this, and almost twice as many fans! Every fan in this system, except for the CPU fan and the PSU fan, is hooked up to the NXP-205 that's in the upper external 3.5" bay.
This is a shot from behind; I know, I know, somebody's probably going to get a nasty cut from that. I plan to line it with something but I ran out of the stuff I used on Sigma One, and I'm not sure the spacing on this will actually allow me to put the same stuff, but I'll figure it out sooner or later.
I took out the two lower half-height bay covers and shot this sweet picture of the NXP-205 and the Cheetah, cool and calm in its 2HC1 and with the Vantec cooler mounted underneath; you can just see the sinks from this angle. Every fan in the system, except for the CPU fan and the PSU fan, is hooked up to the NXP-205.
Here's one last shot from out front. I tried to keep it clean and neat, since its predecessor was so tacky and WAY too bright (SEVERAL LED fans, including one mounted in the top blowhole, plus FOUR cold cathodes made for the most insanely bright rig that Alpha Two was).
Any questions? Comments? Suggestions?
-Ed
EDITS: Added specifications and made fixes for typos, spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Here are the system specifications:
Antec Sonata black steel ATX midtower enclosure, lined with, "egg crate," foam, with the stock exhaust fan replaced using an AcoustiFan AF120CT,
ASUStek P4P800 ATX i865PE-based socket-478 mainboard with passive Swiftech MCX-159 copper/aluminum northbridge cooler cooler,
Intel Pentium 4 2.6C, running at 3120MHz, cooled using a Thermalright SP-94 and AcoustiFan AF92CT,
Sapphire Radeon 9800 adapter with TweakMonster BGA RAMsinks and a Vantec Iceberq 4,
black Vantec Nexus NXP-205 3.5" fan controller, where all but the PSU and CPU fan hook up to,
the stock case fan mounted on a Zalman fan bracket to cool the VPU, VRAM and northbridge
18GB Seagate Cheetah 15K.3, attached to an LSI Logic LSIU160 PCI SCI host adapter for OS/apps,
three Maxtor Diamond MAX Plus 9-series 6Y060L0 (60GB each) stripped to a Promise FastTrak S150 TX4 PCI SATA RAID adapter using PATA->SATA converters for A/V purposes
and two 512MB pieces of PNY Verto PC3500 DDR SDRAM.
Here's a wide-open shot of the system; the RAID array is in the lower cage; they're PATA drives hooked up to a SATA RAID controller via adapters. There's only three drives now; one of the drives nerfed on me and since I had rebuilt the array without it, I'm just doing without it; when I had all four drives, I was pummeling the 32-bit, 33MHz PCI bus to smithereens anyway; it can get a break this way. I just freshly lined the side panel, floor of the case and the back panel as well as the bottom of the 3.5" bay (where the floppy belongs, had I put one in) with the foam.
Here's a much closer shot of the system internals. The system drive is an 18GB Cheetah 15K.3 mounted inside a ZM-2HC1 and then cooled with a Vantec aluminum sink with 2 thin 50mm fans in it; the assembly is barely visible in this shot, though, since it's in the second half-height bay from the top. The heatsink is an SP-94 with an AF92CT on it, powered through the mainboard header. I cleaned my cabling best I could; I'm not sure not all of you can even imagine how much cabling is actually in this system, and it's not even that bad; Alpha Two had two more hard drives than this, and almost twice as many fans! Every fan in this system, except for the CPU fan and the PSU fan, is hooked up to the NXP-205 that's in the upper external 3.5" bay.
This is a shot from behind; I know, I know, somebody's probably going to get a nasty cut from that. I plan to line it with something but I ran out of the stuff I used on Sigma One, and I'm not sure the spacing on this will actually allow me to put the same stuff, but I'll figure it out sooner or later.
I took out the two lower half-height bay covers and shot this sweet picture of the NXP-205 and the Cheetah, cool and calm in its 2HC1 and with the Vantec cooler mounted underneath; you can just see the sinks from this angle. Every fan in the system, except for the CPU fan and the PSU fan, is hooked up to the NXP-205.
Here's one last shot from out front. I tried to keep it clean and neat, since its predecessor was so tacky and WAY too bright (SEVERAL LED fans, including one mounted in the top blowhole, plus FOUR cold cathodes made for the most insanely bright rig that Alpha Two was).
Any questions? Comments? Suggestions?
-Ed
EDITS: Added specifications and made fixes for typos, spelling, grammar and punctuation.