PC-A05N add-ons: Lian Li BS-03

Just came back from my KL trip for my holiday. Did some changes on my PC-A05N built, take out the HDD cage for better airflow for PSU, leaving only primary HDD as the only HDD unit in the casing. Installed the Lian Li BS-03 side patented fan to improve the air flow of the case, especially the VGA compartment.


Swapped out 500gb HDD now will sit in here as my external HDD, 80gb HDD will keep in my shelf as backup HDD.

Lian Li PC-A05N Water Cooled Mini i7

Phew... finally complete migrating all my hardware from the Old Good CM Stacker STC-01 to this little mini tower case from Lian Li. Specification mostly the same as the previous built but now with smaller radiator, means no more 4.2ghz run. But the Syscooling 120mm radiator I am using surprisingly yield quite impressive results. I able to handle 4.2ghz for prime run but crashed at LinX run. For 4.0ghz, it was on par or even better than Swiftech MCR-320QP from my PC-A6010 setup acting as intake instead of exhaust.

Enough talking, time to show off this little powerful rig.


The hardware components inside. Intel Core i7 920 @ 4GHZ, 6gb Kingston DDR3 1333 @ 1523, ASUS 4890 (3D rendering), MSI GTX260 (Physx mode), Corsair TX750.

Water Cooled components, DD CPX-Pro, Bitspower Bay reservoir, D-Tek Fuzion v2, Syscooling 120mm Copper radiator.

More to come about the ATI + Nvidia Physx run...

DDR3 1333 Kingston Value Ram

Bought 3 stick of 2gb DDR3 1333 Kingston Value RAM last week just in time before the price hike in the memory market hit Malaysia. Bought it with the price before price hike, so glad that I was able to made it just in time for the cheaper ram.

The ram modules I got no longer were the hynix chips, which previous batch of KVR module were using, instead they are replaced by qimonda chips. The hynix according to some forumer over at lowyat forum, is quite OC'able, at least it does ddr3 1600++ CL8/CL7.


So, after getting the KVR 1333 2gb stick with qimonda chip, I tryout how fast these qimonda batch KVR can do. Surprisingly, it does DDR3 1520 CL9 stable, not bad although its not as good as the hynix chip.

With Vista x64 Ultimate, the size of memory does impact performance of a PC. I opted to upgrade to 6gb kit as it benefits more using Vista x64 compare to 3gb Kit. This time I save cost by getting the value ram over performance ram as stated in my previous article, the difference is not much, and I managed to push it to DDR3 1520 just like my previous 3gb Team Xtreem Kit could do. I have not pushed the chip to the max as I do not want to mess up with current settings I got which is 190 BCLK * 21 @ 3990MHZ with DDR3 1520. But I believe these Qimonda batch KVR able to push to higher speed as DDR3 1520 definitely not maxing out them yet.

Energy Efficient Atom Based File Station and Net surfing PC

With the recent increase in electricity billing charges, I decided to built a new machine to serve the purpose of 24/7 downloading, internet surfing, file sharing, web based application hosting energy efficient PC. Talking about energy efficient with processing power that capable enough for full time downloading and internet surfing, I immediately think of the Intel Atom processor.

What is Intel Atom? Intel Atom is Intel's smallest chip. It is built with the world's smallest transistors. As Intel's smallest and lowest power processor, the Intel® Atom™ processor enables the latest Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and another new category of devices for the internet called netbooks and nettops. Intel® Atom™ processors were newly designed from the ground up, 45nm Intel® Atom™ processors pack an astounding 47 million transistors on a single chip measuring less than 26mm², making them Intel's smallest and lowest power processors. All this while delivering the power and performance you need for full Internet capabilities.

There are numerous of Intel Atom motherboard and processor combo available around the market, after some survey and budget tinkering, I decided to opt for the Intel D945GCLF2D, Intel Atom processor 330 Dual Core set. The main reason I opted for the this was due to the cheaper price tag compared to other same solutions and also I do not need HDMI and the better 9300GS VGA from the Nvidia ION platform.

To further emphasizing the power saving capabilities of the Intel Atom 330 platform, I come across some articles over the Internet with experiment done to calculate the exact power consumption comparing Atom 330 and E8500.

According to the article, they compare a E8500 @ 3.16GHz on Asus P5E3 Premium system with Atom 330 @ 1.6GHz on Intel D945GCLF2, listed below are the data of the experiment,

The main advantage the Atom 330 has is low power consumption - supposedly it has a maximum total power draw of 8W.

Here is some experimental data:
· E8500 @ 3.16GHz on Asus P5E3 Premium: 92W idle, 118W loaded
· Atom 330 @ 1.6GHz on Intel D945GCLF2: 41W idle, 45W loaded
It looks like going to full load from idling at the desktop the Atom 330 only used 4W more - so the 8W TDP figure is quite believable.

Let's say it is being deployed as File Server/Download Server for 24h/day, it would idling most of the time. So let's calculate how much power would be used in a year.
24h/day * 365 days = 8760 hours

Atom 330 @ 41W * 8760 hours = 359,160 W/hr = 359.16kWhr
E8500 @ 92W * 8760 hours = 805,920 W/hr = 805.92kWhr

Now let's say we pay $0.10/kWhr
Atom 330 would use $35.91 in electricity running for a year
E8500 would use $80.59 in electricity running for a year.

Now let's say we are in a place that charges $0.25/kWhr
Atom 330: $89.79 for a year
E8500: $201.48 for a year

Where electricity is expensive, a small Atom 330 based home server would save the cost of the motherboard in less than a year!

The file-station will be installed with Windows XP Professional SP3 O/S with IIS hosting capabilities. The downloading and file sharing task will be supported by suitable software. The system spec is as following:

- Intel BOXD945GCLF2D Intel Atom processor 330
- 2GB Team Elite DDR2 800
- Intel GMA950 Onboard Display
- Built in Audio
- Western Digital 200GB SATA HDD
- Cooler Master 350W PSU
- Lian Li PC-A6010 casing (a bit weird with ITX mobo on an ATX casing)

With this system setup, I can enjoy 24/7 downloading, file sharing in a fairly low running cost with processing power that capable enough to take the job.

Reference: Neoseeker Intel D945GCLF2 & Atom 330 Review

Project: Stacker Revamp Completed

Objective:
Reuse my Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01 casing which sitting in my store room in quite a while.

Scope:

Repaint the casing internals to black colour.
Cut the top panel of the casing to fit 3x120mm radiator.
Repaint the external to Gold + Black theme. ( Not yet final decision )
Mod the case to become more water cooling friendly case.

Casing:
Cooler Master Stacker STC-T01

Water Cooling Components:

D-Tek Fuzion v2 with i7 bracket, Swiftech MCR-320QP, Danger Den CPX Pro Inline pump, Bitspower 5"25 Bay Reservoir,1/2" OD Chrome Barbs, 7/16 ID tubings.

Major PC Components:

Intel Core i7 920, ASUS P6T, Team Xtreeme 3x1gb DDR3 1600 CL8, ASUS 4890.

Phase 1: Repaint the motherboard tray.

Everything were taken down, drill out the rivets to take out the PSU cage for painting and cutting jobs.

Picture above show that the old surface was rusted. It was then being sanded to prepare the surface for spray painting.

The paint station being setup and the paint job has started. Picture above was taken during the mid of paint job.

The final product was quite statisfied by me, at least my first spray paint job went through succesfully.

Post another shot to conclude phase I, it had when through succesfully, the paint job were good and everything went on well. I shall proceed to phase II which involve cutting the top panel to fit 3x120mm radiator next week.

There are change of plan according to the original plan, instead of going for Black-Gold theme, I decided to make it full black and sent it to powder coat to make it pure black edition Stacker. Here are some pictures after the powder coating job and initial built.

Front view with the Bitspower bay reservoir, Scythe Kaze Master, Multifunctional Bay Panel etc

Top View with AC Ryan 3x120mm rad grill.

Shot of interior of the built with all hardware installed inside. With water cooling components, case accessories and PC Hardware.

Close up shot of CPU block, Pump, and Radiator.

The Stacker revamp project have been done 90% so far, there are still to be minor changes in future such as PCI slot covers, Top radiator compartment rear cover, and better cable management. After changing the radiator to MCR-320QP from MCR220-QP I got around 5-10c (depends on ambient) improvement over the previous setup. I can achieve 3.99ghz OC with HT off at core temp at around 66-72c LinX stress test.

Below are more pics of the project:

Lian Li Aluminium Bezel with Vent and Filter

Visited Lowyat Plaza last few days, visited one of my favourite store, ATE. Suprisingly, I saw the new batch of Lian Li casings and accesories have reach there. So bought this:

Yay !!! Now my system have better airflow than before, the radiator are taking in fresh air from the vents. CPU temp dropped 2-3c, so as system temp.

This is the only update available at May due to exams. More projects to come this coming June.

Stay tuned...

Something I made to save table spaces.

Recently surfing around the web and see others people's invention to save spaces for a small table. After searching around the market for sources and materials, I made an U-Shaped acrylic mini table alike rack to solve this problem. Its hard to find this kind of thing in the market, especially made by acrylic.

Pictures above shows that how it really help out to save spaces for a table, you would slide the keyboard to bottom of you LCD monitor easily when you need the table space for other job.

The acrylic rack are made using 10mm acrylic and strong enough to hold certain amount of weight, but its not suitable for CRT monitor for sure. I currently got 2 units available for sale as I've made 3 units of it. So if anyone interested, you can contact me for details. Pricing are around RM 85 (contact me to nego).

New Pump, Danger Den CPX-Pro

Its been a while since the last post. Well I've update my PC a bit. Removed DVD-ROM, better cable management and a new smaller and stronger pump, the DD-CPX Pro 18W pump. Temperature decreased by few Cs due to lower heat dump from the pump compare to D4/D5.

Let's the pictures do the talking:

Some add-on to my PC - The Scythe Kaze Master

I purchased the Scythe Kaze Master 4 Channel Multi-Functional Fan Controller last week and its finally arrived to my door step couple of days ago.

The fan controller are meant for 12v fans usage with 12watt per channel.

The Kaze master bundled with plenty of wires and thermal sensors.

A zoom-in view for the Kaze Master.

Excellent built quality and good PCB design.

Finished install onto my i7 system, the Kaze Master serve its purpose to control fan speed (provide a much more silent system and yet flexibility of providing high air flow when its needed) and also provide cool lookings for the system.

Pros:

12Watt Per Channel

Excellent built quality

Can turn off the fan if turned the knob to minimum(full counter clockwise)

Cool looking

Temperature Monitoring

Cons:

Come in expensive price tag

A failed Hybrid Cooling Project

The hybrid cooling project, I got this idea when I saw Dell using their H2C cooling system in their XPS series. What is a hybrid cooling system ? Well, its basically a cooling system that based on water cooling and peltier cooling.

In conventional Water Cooling System, the liquid is cooled by the radiator before returning to the reservoir. The hybrid cooling system basically are based on the same concept but instead of cooled by only the radiator, the liquid cooled by TEC units before radiator. A high wattage TEC module could easily cool a CPU below ambient, so when things cooled below ambient, we have condensation problem. Theoritically with the hybrid cooling concept, the radiator will make sure the temperature of the coolant will stay around ambient temperature.

Here is a quick peak of the Dell H2C:

And here is my own custom built with the same concept but with some low end feature without any sensors nor controllers. But its based on the same concept of the H2c, the liquid coolant ( instead of H2C's gel alike coolant) flow from pump to CPU Waterblock, cooled by the TEC module, then by the radiator and flow back to the reservoir. The hotside of the TEC module were cooled by CM Hyper 212 Air Cooler. TEC used were 90watt peltier if I not remember wrongly.

The time I built this, I was on C2D e8400, i got 2-3c lower only with the TEC module on, and nowhere its near the ambient, so I guess its a failed project.

Major factor of the failure:

-Not enough cooling surface for the coldside of the peltier module, should have gone for dual peltier in parallel setup with a huge copper plate linked to at least 2 or more waterblocks so that the cold side have sufficient contact with the loop.

-The radiator are pulling hot air from inside of the system, and bringing up the temperature.

-Maybe I need higher wattages peltiers.

Lets Built A Silent PC, Sound Insulating My PC

Recently I've been annoyed by the sound generated by D4 pump and cooling fans of my PC, especially when the ceiling fan in my room running in low speed, the "humming" and "whinning" sound make me uneasy with it.

So I've came out an idea to silent the noise generated while not sacrificing too much cooling performance by using industrial grade sound insulation foam and downvolting the fans.

Pictures above shows that the sound insulation foam I am going to use on the project.

The foam attached to the side panels.

The foam attached to the bottom part of the system.

The concept of using those sound insulation foam is to prevent noise generated by vibration. As we know, vibrations generated by pump and fans tends to generate noise when came into contact with metals. The sound insulation foam's capabilities of absorbing those vibrations will definately making sure that there are no noise generated caused by vibrations.

Next we proceed to downvolting part. As we know, our Power Supply Unit(PSU) used for our PC able to provide 12V,7V, & 5V DC voltages.

From the pic, we can see that there are 4 wires in our standard 4 pins molex which used in every PSU.

To work with 5v mode, we connect the red wire(+) of the cooling fan to the red wire and black wire(-) to the black wire of the molex.

To work with 7v mode, we connect the red wire(+) of the cooling fan to the yellow wire and black wire(-) to the red wire of the molex.

I tweaked mine to 7v mode so that I get decent air flow and low noise from the fans.

Fans tweaked were 2x2000 RPM which cooling the radiator. The intake and exhaust fan were controlled by a fan controller which come with PC-A6010.

i7 built...

After long months of funding and selling of my old rig, finally got a chance to built a new Intel Core i7 rig. The Core i7 are Intel's latest Quad-Core microproccesor based on Nahelem Microarchitecture. Unlike its predecessor the new i7 chip no longer rely on the ancient front-side bus that connect all of the current-gen intel CPU cores. Instead, cores will connect and communicate via a high speed interconnect, also noticable changes are outs of the needs of external memory controller, which Intel relied on gluing two dual cores chip together under the IHS to make its quad core cpu in the past, now they are placing all four cores on a single die.

The most noticable changes and significant improvement for the i7 are the built in memory controller. Instead of memory access going from CPU through Motherboard Chipset, now with the IMC, it eliminated the needs of front side bus and external memory controller, the result is dramatically lower latency compare to the older Core 2 and P4 based system.

The i7 CPU is designed to be very wide chip of capable of executing instructions with far more parallelism than previous designs. But to keep the chip feeding, the i7 feature an intergrated tripple channel DDR3 controller.
Another feature of the new Core i7, the Hyper-Threading. The Hyper-Threading partitioned the CPU's resources so that multiple threads can be executed simultaneosly.

With an improved loop detector routine, the i7 will save power and boost performance by detecting larger loops and catching what the program asks for. Besides that Intel also polished its branch prediction algorithms, Branch predictions are those yes/no questions faced by the CPU, if the CPU guess wrongly, it has to drain its pipeline and restart the process. So with the improved algorithm, its offering incredible performance improvement. (Reduced delays in fetching data with the new IMC and Branch Predictions algorithm)


References from Maximum PC issue Dec 2008.


Enough of Crapping, lets show off some of my built.

The spec of my built is:
Intel Core i7 920
Asus P6T
TeamXtreem DDR3 1600 CL8 x 3
GeCube ATi Radeon 4850
Corsair TX750W PSU
Lian Li PC-A6010 Casing

Cooling Gears:
CPU:
D-Tek Fuzion v2, Swiftech MCR220QP, Swiftech MCP-650, Swiftech Micro Reservoir.
GPU:
Scythe Musasshi

The overview of the new system.

The internal view of the system.

The top view of the system.

Cooling Concept of My Built

The case cooling are base on passive air cooling concept, which a case cooled by more intake fan then output fan. The blue arrows in the picture above represent cool air or cool liquid while the reds represent hot air or hot liquid.

In genaral, Liquid Cooling consist of several components, they are Waterblock, Pump, Reservoir or T-Line andRaditator. The waterblock are cooling plate that transfer heat into the loop from the Intergrated Heat Spreader of CPU or GPU. The pump are moving the liquid inside the loop and the Radiator transfer the heat from the loop into the air with the help of cooling fans. The reservoir and T-Line basically are for bleeding purpose.

So how a liquid cooling system works ? From reservoir or T-Line, the liquid sucked into the pump, then pumped into the waterblock and absorb the heat from the CPU or GPU or other components, depends on what block we are using, then the heat were released to the air around by the help of cooling fan by radiator then the cooled liquid move back into the Resevoir/T-Line.