Alrighty! i just need to fix my heatsinks before i can truly say i'm done with this system. this morning, i spend about 2 hours getting the bottom fin of both of my Foxconn Xeon heatsinks so they'd fit, and it made all the difference. i do need to lap the surface, add thermal grease, and fix the bottom corners, but sound has dropped to almost none. the whole system is running beautifully with Windows 2000 Sp4, with Windows 2000 Revolutions Pack*, and a tweaked Explorer shell to display 32 bit icons.

System specs are:
Dual Intel Pentium 3 Xeon 700Mhz, 100mhz FSB, 2Mb L2 cache
Supermicro S2DGU motherboard with BIOS 2241
1152MB SD RAM, 1-128MB 2-256MB 1-512MB
41.1GB Hitachi Deskstar [another will go in soon]
Soundblaster Live! CT4780
Trendnet PCI LAN adapter
Benq 16x DVD+/-RW
Matrox Millenium dual head GFX card 32MB AGP4x
VIA PCI USB2 adapter
2x 120mm fans: [email protected] fan2@ 600-2000rpm [temp controlled]
1x Panaflow 80mm fan with duct to CPUs: RPM?
Cooler Master Elite 330
Enermax 300W PSU

I'll get some pictures of it as soon as i can, all cables are tied in the back out of sight until they need to be visible. PSU is ducted to take fresh air from front of case, aided by mesh front panel. runs cooler, stabler, and faster than ever before since the Pentium 3's came, they replaced Pentium 2 Xeons.

Some old details of the computer were that it used to run the blazing 450/100/512k processors, the hottest of the hot, it was a struggle to keep it running. it started out by having 11 fans in the system, now there are 4 counting the PSU. there were four 60mm fans, one 40mm fan, four 80mm fans, two 120mm fans, not counting the PSU. When i got the new case for it, it went down to having one 60mm fan, three 80mm fans and two 120mm fans. gladly, i found my Panaflow fan, which has reduced almost all vibration, compared to the Superred fan that it used to have.

In the near future there will be a PCI slot blower fan added in the future to cool the GFX card, and the RAM will be ducted so it doesn't add heat to the CPU heatsinks.

I'll post all the pictures at once, to show the progression of the system, from case to case, CPU changes, and finally heatsink changes. hopefully all the pictures will be had by tonight. I want to thank Silent PC Review for this one, because this system has never been this quiet, and i just thought about using the Panaflow fan from what i've read about them here. it might be old, but its still quiet.

That's fantastic news! I remember that first post you put up plus the super hot P2 Xeons in a bad case--11 fans!

So it should have something like the Panaflo, 2 120mm, and the PSU fan now?

Be careful with the slot blower fans...they tend to, well, suck. Does the Matrox card really need an extra fan on it? One alternative would be the Zalman bracket I had suggested for the CPU's previously--lets you put a 80 or 92mm fan blowing down anywhere from the slot areas to the processor/memory areas. I think it's the FB123, EndPCNoise should have them.

Can't wait to see the pics!

i'll get a screenshot of this bad boy too. running Glass2k makes it look amazing. it used to make graphics terrible, but now its all beter. trillian doesn't give me good transparency, but i can see my desktop right through firefox. in fact, i can see through any program i want to, ctrl+shift+ (0-9) to set transparency or through the right click menu.

when my dad goes to bed i'll get pictures, but he gets annoying when i continuously open the case and whatnot, he always asks me when i'll stop wearing out the screws...well, as soon as i make the heatsinks perfectly flat [the bottoms are a little bend from removing the fins, just need a rubber hammer, block of wood, maybe the blowtorch to make it smooth.

also, i've found that using acetone on a heatsink not only removes dried off thermal grease, but it will remove the annodized surface giving almost a mirror perfect reflection. however, it has a quite toxic fume, so i wouldn't advise using it indoors, or when theres little to no wind...acetone worked better than 99.1% pure alcohol...so i guess that shows that rubbing alcohol is nothing.

those are all the recent shots, as of basically 10 minutes ago.

this is how it started:


i have more pics on my other computer that i can upload later.

this is what it became:


thats the only picture i have of it with the 700mhz processors before the new heatsinks went on.


i originally got the case for looks, but the computer didn't run even half as cool as i thought it would...i was hoping it would be a nice cool computer, but no, it was really hot, and eventually i got it stable, but still hot...then i moved it tothe new case, where it had a little more cooling. now, with the massive heatsinks that come over an inch above the actual processor, its running stable, but a little warm...i've been thinking of moving my DVD burner up to the top again and getting a scythe kama bay for it so i could mount some massive CFM fan in the front, but for now the 80mm Panaflow seems to keep it stable.

the clock speed of the processors is 721Mhz right now, because 784 is a bit too warm for my liking, because i know that the heatsinks aren't making the greatest contact with the processors. hopefully tomorrow i can solve that, by taking a piece of wood, and hammering the edge down until its as level as i can get it... but i'm debating getting a 2u PCI blower fan, or a 1u PCI blower fan...does anyone have one that can give me an idea of how effective they are? i don't exactly want to go out any spend $20 until i know its worth it.

::edit::

more photos!

first off, a screenshot of what it is right now. I'm not sure why the transparency wont work with trillian, but it works with everything else. yes, this is windows 2000 with quite a few tweaks.


there are several tweaks, 32bit icons, a replaced explorer shell to support 32bit icons even in the toolbar by the clock. i've experimented with what progams i can use it with, winamp is a no, trillian just wont do it.


^the original CPU cooling method.


^the horrible source of noise that came upon the first build 2 front 80mm fans. poor CFM, loud noise.


^thats the very first boot for it in XP Sp1.


^just took that..the temps are a little warm because i haven't fixed the heatsinks yet. after fixing and going over the heatsinks with some acetone, it should be clean enough to take at least 10C off those temps.

programs used [final list] to make windows 2000 look so good are:
1) updated Explorer shell...just replace and reboot.
2) Windows 2000 Revolutions pack, maybe in the future Vistapack 2000.
3) Glass2k to give transparency effects
4) Transparency to take the background image away from the desktop icons.

do note the toolbar, and the icons, and look through firefox, literally to see the effect of Transparency. the desktop icons don't have the blue box around the text. programs that don't start with windows are set to.

You have a really cool computer. It's like a vintage supercar! Thanks for the pics.

O_o kinda old, but i redid the rig again, replaced the gfx card [no pics of that though], replaced the soundcard, replaced some cooling methods.


^main shot of the guts


^second HDD as planned, dual boot Ubuntu 7.04 with Windows XP Pro Sp1


^massive new heatsinks


^messy back of...i really need to fix that rats nest, KVM switch turned into a spagetti monster.
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i only gave up on Windows 2000 temporarily. once i get the chance, there will be a third HDD, with Windows 2000 on it... that is, once i get my new CPU and finish the brand new computer.

I love it. I admire you're sticking with such an old machine! I guess if it works... yeah! Just curious, how much did you pay for it back when it was "new"?

well, it wasn't originally mine, it was given to me by a family friend as basically my first high end computer. it had a pair of 450mhz Pentium II Xeons with 512mb L2 cache. since then i've given it more and more.

from what i've read and researched about it, in the condition i have it now, in terms of hard drives, ram, and processors, it would have cost a good $12,000 new. however, since its so old, its probably only worth a fraction of that today. but i like it, it does everything i need it to i can't complain.

i've had to update the BIOS to use the processors, the 512mb stick of RAM i have is ECC, and a different refresh rate, so its not shown in the count. however, its still used by the system.
i've also had this issue where the SCSI ports that are onboard are not active anymore, and have yet to re-enable them...
theres also some random issue with the motherboard where an ethernet card in PCI slot 3 will not be able to access internet...the GX chipset is still working very well though, i have better graphics on that rig than anything but the Pro Macs i work with in school.
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i wanted to go for 900mhz Pentium 3 Xeons with 2Mb L2 Cache per chip, however, it turns out that my boards limit is 700 unless you have a custom BIOS that was made, however it wasn't a public release, you had to contact SuperMicro to get it, i dont think they have it anymore, and i can't find it anywhere on their website [including their Beta BIOS folder].

basically, what i'm waiting for is next year, when the rig turns the big 10.

hrmmmm, how are your caps doing? any big bulgy ones? since it's kind of a new fad to have solid state caps or what-not, i wonder how these old boards hold up...... [?]

Nice machine. Love the Matrox card.



If you go back further in time -- 40 years -- that system would've been worth billions!

Further still, and it would be hailed by civilization as the machine of the gods, able to compute anything imagineable!

Much further back, and it would just be a strange object and smashed to bits. (Noooo, you Neanderthals!)

no buldging caps, all are in good condition, provided no one sticks their hands in and decide to give them a tough stress test.

slowly but surely i'll be replacing all of my single core systems with dual core/dual processor systems. two systems left to replace, as i wont bother with the laptop.

since this machine is [at this time] the most powerful one in the house, its not going anywhere. mods to it certainly help.