Computer Techie Toolbox Round-Up:

Computer Techie Toolbox Round-Up:

After about a couple of years with little work to do, I've built and refurbished a few computers in the past few months.

Again, better than MacGyver's

Dispensable spare parts
For instance, I used a Pentium 3 to boot a Phenom with a broken pin

1. Scissors
2. Wide plyer/wirestripper
3. Pointed plyer
4. Wide Philips/flat screwdrivers
5. Magnifying glass
6. Multitool pocketknife
7. The screwdriver that comes with Noctua SE fans
8. Multi-bit screwdriver

Mini screwdriver set for repairing and cleaning laptops.

Assortment of parts: (Label the boxes!)

1. Screws, sorted!
2. Pins
3. USB sticks (I like to keep special purpose USB sticks separate and labeled)
4. Flash RAM
5. Small cables (CrossFire/SLI,molex adapters)
6. Stickers
7. Misc++

Toolbox:

1. Pens
2. CPU cooling paste
3. Glue
4. Tape
5. Antistatic wristband
6. Q-tips
7. Other tools!

A straight fan can improve RPM

Keep your rescue and OS disks sorted!

1. Retail Diagnostic CD's
2. Retail Driver CD's
3. Your own accumulated custom driver compilations
4. Windows/Linux OS CD's
5. Live distros
6. Rescue distros
7. Forensic distros

Sunsway/ST Lab PCI ATA133 2P SATA-PATA cards

Updated:  May 10th 2012

This is a PCI card that basically has two IDE ports. You can upgrade the BIOS on the card and get a Medley RAID controller feature, which will give you RAID modes 0,1 and 10.

While I was experimenting with some faulty hardware, power to one of the 4 disks in the RAID must have failed, and while the disk was not missing from the Set, per se, something had happened to it.

And lo and behold, their driver software delivers (Silicon Image Software). It rebuilt two disks that had problems. While the rebuild took place, Windows complained about a faulty hard disk presemt.

Various stages during RAID rebuild

Various stages during RAID rebuild

Good drivers !

RAID monster Redux

So the first build was a lot of work and shortcuts were made. Screws not fitted, no cable management, no extra cooling, etc.

The summer is coming and that means hotter indoor temperature. Better fit those extra fans now! It will surely extend the lifetime of both the disks and the computer.

I had a whole bunch of Akasa & Noctua voltage reducers to decrease the overall noise level of all the fans.

System seemd to average at around 26 degrees celsius according to Speccy. :D Room temperature is 25.1. So that's pretty decend. That machine runs 10 hardisks, a Phenom 960T, 4 GB of 1066Mhz RAM + 10 fans. It only runs a limited 64MB old Nvidia card at the moment. This rig draws about 197 watts, So the fitting of 10 fans increased the watt usage by about 10, even after ALL of then was fitted with voltage reducers.

Work in progres! 

80mm fan attached with softmounts, diagonally :)

Rear fans & PSU fan:

1. 2x80mm rear exhausts and a stock Phenom fan
2. 1x80mm internal intake
3. 1x80mm external intake

Front intakes: (Both covered with dust filters.)

1x120mm Akasa (SYSFAN)

1x80mm Somethingsomething (power siphoned from molex)

Cable managemnet done!

Custom fitted 120 and 80 mm fans blwing on the
side of the lower 6 disks trough chassis holes

Finished ! With a 8mm green led outtake in front of the CPU fan.

Tech: PC building and casemod

PC mechanix

Useful Things you can do to your box:

* Add silencing isolation. Havent done that yet.
* Add special silent PSU fan(s) Not done that either!
* Install a control panel for adjusting fan speeds:

* Add water cooling to the CPU. Water near my CPU? Nope.

* Install heatsinks on RAM and hardisks. Here's my RAM heatsink:

* Generally install as many fans as you can.

 That was my twin top 120mm fans, a rear blue led 120mm fan and lastly an 80mm fan (should have been 140) green led fan on the bottom, and a red led 120mm fan in the front.


Cool but maybe not Useful Things you can do to your box:

* Install neonlight everwhere (bulbs mounted on transparent CPU heaksinks are awesome)
* Use neon-wire in ie. your keyboard
* Make own fan-grills
* Install glass doors/walls: This came standard on my CoolerMaster HAF 922 Tower. I rather prefer heat outtakes on the sides, but this tower has so many outtakes that the glass wall is worth it!