Build log: HAL 1.0, 8800GTX & E6600

[leimrod]

Just thought i'd post up a picture log here of a HTPC i've been working on for the last few weeks.

 

It would of only taking me a couple of days where it not for parts arriving at different times, things going wrong, like getting the wrong colour parts, a bad BIOS flash...etc

 

Anyway here goes, hope you like it. These pictures where taken over a few weeks, so the comments reflect this.

 

The specs of the HTPC are:

 

HAL 1.0:

CPU E6600 w/ Zalman CNPS8000 lapped

RAM 2GB Kit Mushkin HP2-6400, CL4

Mobo Gigabyte GA 965QM-DS2 (rec 2.0)

GFX eVGA 8800 GTX

HDD 1 x 500GB WD SATA2 wVista 32bit Ultimate

Sound Onboard w/ Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers

PSU Corsair HX 620w

Optical SATA DVD RW 18x

CASE Lian-li PC-V300

Screen 42" Hitachi 1080i Plasma

M&KB Logitech Cordless Desktop S510

Cooling 1x12cm Scythe Sflex, 1x12cm Ultra fan, 2x8cm Papst fans, Lian-li TR3 fan controller

 

Testing out the plasma

 

Here's a picture of the wife playing some flatout 2

 

A picture of "Just Cause" on the 42" plasma. It's probably the most underrated game to be released in a long time

 

The setup as it stands atm. Have to use my crummy old PS/2 keyboard as Spiderman 3 doesn't like my USB Saitek

 

The eVGA 8800 GTX I bought from a guy in the states

 

This is the remote i'm going to use with the HTPC. The lian li case has no front bay slots for IR remotes so I had to get a PCI transceiver

 

This is the CNPS8000 I bought off hopeful

 

Its a little dusty but nothing a can-o-air can't fix

 

First picture of the PC-V300, got this very cheap from peats as it was their display model. Would of prefered it in black but beggers can't be choosers I guess.

 

 

Main order for the HTPC arrives

 

Well an order I made from German site, hardwareversand.de arrived yesterday. I'll be picking up some stuff off a guy I know locally this weekend and then i'll pretty much have the main guts of the HTPC ready to be built.

 

You can tell its from HWV because the tape has germanian on it

 

 

Box shot

 

 

Corsair 620w modular PSU for HTPC

 

 

Had an hour free so decided to void any warranty I might of had and lap my E6600 which is going in the HTPC. Here it is with teh stock IHS

 

 

5 mins in at 400 grit

 

 

10 minutes in at 400 grit. Flat with oodles of coppery nekkidness

 

 

..and 40 minutes later, I'd worked up through 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500, 10 microns. Owww, shiny and reflective... but is it flat?

 

 

Yes it is! A good way to test if the surface is flat is to compare its reflection against some graph paper, if none of the graph lines are wavvy then you have a flat surface.

 

 

[leimrod]

Beginning the build

 

 

Some pics... I might also mention that the missus was on to me about how she never sees me when I get involved with a PC build, so as she will be using the HTPC the most, she is building it under my guidance (although i'll be doing the dremeling)

 

The disassembled PC-V300, this really is a PC builders case, more screws than I need and nearly everything can be easily taken apart. No silicon hot glue in site Although there are some horrible rivets, but I suppose I can live with them

 

Nifty little tool Lian li included to screwing in the stand-offs. Its nice touchs like this that will make me choose Lian li for my next case

 

With all the gut removed

 

The missus installing the stand-offs on the motherboard tray, without using the included tool *sheesh*

 

Installing the 8800GTX so we can size it up to the case

 

THIS is why I need to go medieval on this case with my dremel

 

Side by side comparison to see how far into the case the 8800 GTX will reach

 

 

Modding it to allow the 8800GTX to fit

 

 

The missus went for a walk last night so I was able to dremel away in the sitting room :eek:

 

It worked out pretty well, I only needed one cutting disk. I have a little bit more work to do to fit the front 12cm fans in but i'll wait until I get the 8cm to 12cm brackets off Dirkvoodoo.

 

This is the area I needed to cut out

 

...and 5 minutes later with aluminum dust all over the coffee table and carpet, the graphics cards in

 

another angle

 

back view

 

As a side note, loving the NB heatsink gigabyte decided to use

 

 

Modding it to allow 2 front 12cm fans

 

 

Well last night I decided to make the final modifications to my HTPC case before the build can be finished. I collected some fans, fan adapters and my "beige" sata drive off a friend. While in Dublin I decided "wth" and bought some cat 6 cables from a tech store then got a netgear gigabit switch from PC world on the way home, i'll be using the HTPC as a fileserver so I might as well make use of the gigabit NIC's both of them have onboard. I also picked up a can of silver spray paint from B&Q's to deal with the beige sata drive issue.

 

The bezel removed 30 seconds after I got it out of the box

 

...and with the newly applied silver paint job, not too shabby if I do say so myself

 

cables and stuff I got today

 

netgear gigabit switch

 

to fit the 8cm to 12cm fan adapters I needed to cut the bottom out of the floppy tray

 

I also ran into another issue with the fan adapters not being able to fit beneath the drive bay. So a quick bit of dremeling and a room full of the smell of burning plastic later I had 2 modified to fit fan adapters

 

Here is both the 12cm fans (Antec Tricools from my P180b) in place

 

The motherboard tray in place, that is one tight fit...

 

... but it DOES fit, to my amazement. The clearance we are talking about here is about 1mm *huzzah* I had to use a flashlight on the other side of it to make sure it wasn't making contact because the gap was so small

 

another angle showing the clearance between the 8800 GTX and fans

[leimrod]

Finishing up lapping and cabling

 

 

Ok so the HTPC is pretty much finished now. Cabling was a ***** and a half. even on my parents HTPC which was in the smaller NSK1300 cabling was easier. But then I wasn't trying to fit in 2x12cm fans and an 8800GTX

 

I wasn't going to lap the CNPS8000 as it was already pretty flat (see pics on page 1), but when I said this to the wife whos going to be using the HTPC she was like "oh I see, you'll spend the time getting everything perfect for your machine, but for mine 'good enough' is acceptable"... lol, plus she wanted to see how the heatsink was lapped also. The whole process took no longer than 15 minutes as the heatsink as already pretty flat, and for some reason I think the copper used in this heatsink is softer than the copper in the IHS. It sanded down a lot more easily.

 

Here is picture of the dust I needed to remove

 

With it cleaned as much as possible. No shops here seem to be selling cans of compressed air anymore so I couldn't clean right in between the fins.

 

Lapped to 400grit

 

finished article

 

flatness test

 

The board after the wife installed the CPU and RAM

 

Picture showing the SB heatsink does not touch the graphics card, like everything in this case the clearance is tight, but there is clearance

 

Picture of mobo tray with everything installed. Included the iMon DT, personally my favourite thing about this rig

 

Side shot showing the wiring up of the iMon and mobo headers. The excess wiring is hidden under the mobo tray

 

Just a simple photo showing why I went for a modular PSU over a standard one. The pile of wires on the left are what I need for this machine, the pile on the right are what I don't. So glad I didn't have to find a space in the case to store all those unused PSU cables.

 

A good hour later, the PSU installed and hooked up, it took some time trying to think up the best way to route those power cables.

 

Rear shot of case, I pull tied an 80mm Papst fan over the slot that allows for the HDDs to be put into the case to give extra cooling

 

side shot showing all the cables tidied as good as possible

 

here ya go conzy, with all the "lids" on? Beside the case is the iMon remote.

 

LEDs on the front bezel

 

The PC booted up for the first time, everything seems fine. The CPU is idling in the BIOS at 28'c which is pretty good imo. I've yet to put in the fan controller so I had all the fans on high, and even at that the machine was still pretty quiet imo. Quieter than my friends Xbox 360 at least

 

 

Finished Main Phase:

 

 

Ok well I just got the HTPC set up, all the network, audio and power block cables hidden under the carpet. I'm going to format the HTPC and install Vista 32bit as the main OS (I want to try out Lost Planet:Extreme Condition at DX10 ) I'll have XP also on their to save any headaches should Vista crap out on me on movie night or something.

 

Here are some pics of the setup, notice the great german layout keyboard, I managed to switch the letters around so they match the IE layout, but all the numbers and symbols are messed up. So if you know of any Germans looking for a good wireless keyboard and mouse set give me a shout

 

This is the set up. The resolution is set at 1080p, the text and icons are 2 small at this res for browsing and typing, so I usually have it at 720p for normal use. But when i'm watching movies or playing games I set it to 1080p. The remote has a handy button that allows you to automatically switch between your prefered resolutions. The more I use this iMon remote the more I love it. All the buttons are configurable and the Media Center program is leagues ahead of the one bundled with Vista and MCE.

 

This is the logitech keyboard, mouse and imon remote. The keyboard is super thin and the buttons are silent.

 

Close up of the TV and HT setup. Presently watching the Matrix again at 720p using MPC as the player (best media player ever, end of story)

[leimrod]

Final modifications

 

Well I pulled the Lian li out and got ready to install the mobo and all the other components again... then I realized I STILL had to install the Optical drive cover and the lian li fan controller... much frustration and time wasting followed

 

Here are the side lips on the drive cage that where first to go. A quick bit of dirty dremeling and they where gone.

 

 

 

Next I needed to bend the side mounts back, carefully making not to bend then too fast for fear of breaking them off.

 

 

Here it is lined up

 

 

After some rather frustrating attempts at mounting it and not getting it secure, I realized I needed to drill some holes in the optical drive :eek: Here are the holes lined up

 

 

Here they are drilled

 

 

Here it is finished with the fan controller. Let me tell you this was the messiest mod i've ever done, the amount of holes and bits I had to cut out to make this fit correctly was rediculous. For shame of them I haven't posted pictures of them. Lets just say whats behind this bezel is not pretty.

 

 

Here is a before:

 

 

... and here is the result... was it worth it, hell no! If I could go back I would just sell the flippin thing but I didn't realise it was going to be so difficult to mount. Still its done now

 

 

On a side I really do like the feet on this case, pity they aren't more visible in my HT unit

 

 

Here is the lian li logo on the case.

 

[leimrod]

Setting up the fan controller

 

 

ok well i'm pretty much finished now. Although I still have some BIOS tweaking and overclocking to do

 

Here's just a close up of those sweet copper pipes

 

Here was the headache that was trying to get the fan controller wired up and still not have it block any airflow.

 

Here is where the first thermistor went, wedged in beside the CPU cooler

 

Here is where the second thermistor went, in the gap at the top of the RAM sticks heatspreader

 

and heres where the 3rd thermistor went, down beside the fins on the 8800GTX

 

A shot of the rear, with the IO shield installed

 

... and here it is 10 minutes later :mad: I tried booting up and... nothing, no post, no fans, nothing. I had to take the whole thing apart again and eventually narrowed the problem down to the USB connector for my HTPC remote was connected backwards.

 

Here it is, booting up now, with the optical drive cover working and the fan control

 

Close up of the fan controller. Have to admit, its very simple to use and looks pretty good. You can set the max temp to all the 3 temp probes and it adjusts the fan speeds automatically depending on where the temp is. It also shows HDD activity and has alarms if the temp goes too high or the fan rpms drop off

 

Picture of the completed case

 

Picture of Vista back up and running (finally) Lavalys is reading the idle temps as around 40'c... not sure if i'm happy with this. I might remount the HSF tomorrow with less AS5 just to be sure. I'll let the machine run over night anyway just to burn it in.

[soundx98]

Very nice work log man

Job well done

[leimrod]

Thanks... lol, and it only took nearly 2 months for someone to reply I thought it was so bad nobody wanted to comment on it

[dr_bowtie]

that looks really nice...I just noticed the thread and read it all...thanks...

[Guest Blooz1]

Great job of "engineering" those internal mods for the fans and especially the GPU, leimrod! I have to ask you how you determined that the 8800 would fit in that case? Those 80/120 adapters are an innovative solution to mounting the front intake fans in the case!

 

That's the first time I've ever seen one of those RF controllers. It's a very interesting unit!

 

All in all, a very nice build! I have to apologize for not commenting sooner, but I just never noticed this thread! (But then again, I'm not usually looking at the HTPC section very much!)

[Jachyra007]

I vote for putting this project in the running for being posted on the front page

 

Great job, and overall look is awesome!

[Guest Blooz1]

That's an excellent idea, jachyra007!

 

I'll second the motion!

[radodrill]

that looks really nice...I just noticed the thread and read it all...thanks...

 

Same here

 

Nice work