Yeeet another here's-my-new-rig post

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KlaymenDK
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Yeeet another here's-my-new-rig post

Post by KlaymenDK » Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:56 pm

Yay, finally I'm in the game!

The schedule so far:
2008-08-23: Decided that I wanted a new pc.
2008-09-14: All components decided upon and ordered.
(...two months waiting for shg.dk to ship an HR-01, eventually cancelled and bought from inet.se instead...)
2008-12-10: All parts are finally in my home! Just need a bit of time ...
2008-12-12: Home alone -- play time! Tore open all the boxes, started putting stuff together...
2008-12-13: It's just past midnight. The pc is is the other room, powered on, idling at 26*C. I have yet to boot my brand new PC-BSD installation.

Oh yes, I know the tradition: pictures!
Here are all the parts, still in their boxes. The parts list is in my old thread.
Image

A bit later, everything is unboxed. Yay!
Image

Here's a (much later) shot of the innards. The fans are running (flash freeze).
Image

Some assorted notes:
* I'm hungry! Haven't had dinner yet, too busy playing with my new erector set...
* I like the look of the shiny black PSU! A shame I'll never look at it again...
* Cablegami is hard. The 8-pin plug above the CPU was nigh on impossible to place, must have taken me 10 minutes. Phew. Also, I had to use an old round IDE cable, because I couldn't make the flat one fit right. Sadly, all the SATA power plugs from the PSU are on the same cable which was a bit inconvenient, but I could make it work (I won't be able to power an additional drive, though).
* The HR-01 Plus is tall! Even in a case like this, there's not more than a centimetre between it and the (here shown open) side panel.
* The case temp at idle is reportedly 35*C, the CPU temp is 28*C.
* The graphics card idles at 52*C.
* The PSU fan is running at ~430 rpm (yes, lower rear holes taped shut). The two top/rear fans are currently hardwired to 12V; I plan to put these on 7V when I have a better idea of the temperatures. It does not seem I'll be getting rpm figures for these, as the mobo only has fan headers for PCM fans (except for the PSU). These are the only fans in the system right now; I've taken out the lower fan, too. I have a third Nexus ready, but as it turned out the space seemed better used for cables. We shall see what it does with temps down there (hoping SMART will be able to tell me).
* It seems the mobo is running on all 6 phases, even at idle. I suspect there's something in the bios (or a driver?) I have still to configure.
* I intend to run BSD on this box, looking forward to fiddling with temp sensors and SMART monitoring. Will try to configure the two large disks as a raid ... but probably not this side of x-mas.
* I have parts left over. Who knew that Nexus fans came with a set of silicone mounts? Or that the HR-01 Plus actually does have a backplate for the 775 version. Not me...

More notes later. Feeeeed meeeeee!
Last edited by KlaymenDK on Sun Nov 15, 2009 1:26 am, edited 4 times in total.

that Linux guy
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Post by that Linux guy » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:02 pm

Build looks really nice. Great parts too.

I've been thinking about picking up the HR-01+, and was curious if the LGA 775 mount kit worked. I know they used to sell one for a few bucks more that had the bolts, backplate, and hold-down piece made for SI 128, original HR-01, Ultima-90, or Ultra-90.

And yeah, I knew my Nexus fans came with the soft-mounts. It was kind of a selling point for me.

kimx
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Post by kimx » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:08 pm

Looking good ;)

Is the rotation of the HR-01 the optimal position? I would have thought that the air flow was mainly front to back, so that the other position would be better.

kittle
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Re: Yeeet another here's-my-new-rig post

Post by kittle » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:48 pm

Nice looking system so far!
KlaymenDK wrote: * Cablegami is hard. The 8-pin plug above the CPU was nigh on impossible to place, must have taken me 10 minutes. Phew. Also, I had to use an old round IDE cable, because I couldn't make the flat one fit right. Sadly, all the SATA power plugs from the PSU are on the same cable which was a bit inconvenient, but I could make it work (I won't be able to power an additional drive, though).
Its decidedly not easy.
But i found (by accident) if you get the 80 conductor IDE cables, they bend and hold their shape MUCH easier.
Also other things, like those little wire twisty things and bag of zip ties can make the process more bearable.

Have fun with the early christmas present!

KlaymenDK
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Location: Denmark

Post by KlaymenDK » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:19 pm

Thanks for the nice words, everyone.
kimx wrote:Is the rotation of the HR-01 the optimal position? I would have thought that the air flow was mainly front to back, so that the other position would be better.
Well, heat wants to rise, and since the two fans are about equidistant from the heat sink and so provide equal airflow backwards and upwards, I thought it best to align it like that. Actually, I don't know how much front-to-back airflow there really is in this case.
kittle wrote:I found (by accident) if you get the 80 conductor IDE cables, they bend and hold their shape MUCH easier.
That's because they use solid wires instead of the more normal bunch-of-leads. But that mid-cable IDE connector was really in the way for how I needed to route the cable. This one is just long enough and so quite tidy. I know what they say about airflow, but don't think it's too big a problem in this case.
Also other things, like those little wire twisty things and bag of zip ties can make the process more bearable.
Yeah, the thing is, I have loads of zip ties ... somewhere. We just moved, see, and my half of the 'office' is, well, pretty much stuffed.

maf718
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Post by maf718 » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:45 pm

Another thumbs up, great build. :)

Re your fan rpm monitoring - the three pin headers on your fans will fit just fine on the four pin PWM headers on the mobo, they are even keyed so you can't put them on the wrong pins. You might not get speed control for non-PWM on some or even all headers though, depends how Gigabyte have implemented it in this generation.

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Fri Dec 12, 2008 11:51 pm

KlaymenDK, you've done a great job! Your cable management is far bettter than mine. I am embarrassed to take a look at my P182. :oops:

KlaymenDK
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Post by KlaymenDK » Sat Dec 13, 2008 1:51 am

loimlo wrote:KlaymenDK, you've done a great job! Your cable management is far bettter than mine. I am embarrassed to take a look at my P182. :oops:
You should see the back of the mobo ... it took several attempts before I got the cable runs slim enough to fit the side panel. The reviews (ond other users' posts) make it seem like there's more room, when in fact there's just as much room as the 24-pin cable is wide.

By the way, some more info, about the hard disk mounts. I had intended to suspend the two large (data) disks in the lower chamber, but guess who didn't plan ahead and bought elastic string? :oops: so they're simply mounted in the stock silicone grommets. The small (system) disk is also mounted with the stock grommets, except I've drilled three new holes in order to mount the 2" drive in the 3" tray. That disk is a bit loose, but since I won't be moving the system around much, that's okay.

We'll see what this does for sound -- I must say that I can hear the disks, but the case is temporarily positioned quite a bit higher than its planned location. The fans almost drown out the disk noise, and I'm happy to say that although they're clearly audible, it's a not-unpleasant low whoosh. Still, it should go away once I undervolt them to 7V.
maf718 wrote:Re your fan rpm monitoring - the three pin headers on your fans will fit just fine on the four pin PWM headers on the mobo, they are even keyed so you can't put them on the wrong pins.
Thanks for the tip! I just had one look, and then sort of gave up on the idea. I will have to do some soldering, though, because as it is the cables aren't long enough to reach (unless I drag them across the front of the mobo, which I won't do).

KlaymenDK
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Location: Denmark

Post by KlaymenDK » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:03 am

KlaymenDK wrote:
kimx wrote:Is the rotation of the HR-01 the optimal position? I would have thought that the air flow was mainly front to back, so that the other position would be better.
Well, heat wants to rise, and since the two fans are about equidistant from the heat sink and so provide equal airflow backwards and upwards, I thought it best to align it like that. Actually, I don't know how much front-to-back airflow there really is in this case.
Some research indicates that this orientation may actually be the better one, because the U-shaped heat pipes are placed horizontally -- if turned 90 degrees, half the heatpipes would be leading downwards from the cpu to the cooling fins.

Strid
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Post by Strid » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:37 am

Looks great - definitely up to SPCR standards!

Why did you decide to get a 8400GS over onboard graphics? What temps are you getting on the 8400GS?

I think Nexus fans are much better at 7 V than 12 V. Makes all the difference to me. :) Mine run at 650 RPM, which is about the lowest they will start reliably at. How is the harddrive noise? (Also are they 3 or four platters Green Power drive, and why do you need two? ) :lol:

Per
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Post by Per » Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:35 am

Looks good, very neat.

How much did it cost you in DKK (and/or SEK as the case might be)?

KlaymenDK
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Post by KlaymenDK » Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:31 pm

Strid wrote:Looks great - definitely up to SPCR standards!
Thanks! I'm extremely happy about this, too. I've now re-routed the HDD cabling so it's even neater, and there's room for the lower-chamber fan (should I need it).
Strid wrote:Why did you decide to get a 8400GS over onboard graphics? What temps are you getting on the 8400GS?
Well I'm kinda picky, I wanted a VGA connector for my current monitor and don't plan to use HDMI, and there's hardly any mobos like that out there anymore.
As for temps, I have no idea. Currently I only know the general temp of the case (35*C) and the cpu (28*C) at idle, from the bios. Haven't had time to install much of anything yet; I'll want to know the gpu and especially also HDD temps. Later...
Strid wrote:I think Nexus fans are much better at 7 V than 12 V. Makes all the difference to me. :) Mine run at 650 RPM, which is about the lowest they will start reliably at.
Just yesterday evening I yanked the yellow wire of the top&rear fans so I could attach them to the mobo headers for an rpm reading. Great. Then I undervolted the fans (thusly) and now I no longer get any readings ... help!
Strid wrote:How is the harddrive noise? (Also are they 3 or four platters Green Power drive, and why do you need two? ) :lol:
I can hardly hear them, only a very slight ticking. Hmm, don't know the platter count, but I can check. I wanted two for redundancy; I'll be running them in either mirrored configuration or using some form of rdiff from one to the other. You know, for digital family photos and such.
Per wrote:How much did it cost you?
The total amounts to about DKK 7.000,- including shipping and the one part I got in Sweden.

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