Wednesday 2 March 2011

Rebuild!!!

[Alexander the Meercat] OMG!!! [/Alexander the Meercat]

So I've begun refitting all my components (details on Right Hand Side) into the new NZXT M59 case that came yesterday, and I'll outline the ups and the downs for you now.
Starting with downs, out of the box there was a breakage in the cable that connects the DVD Tray LED to a Molex connector (at the Molex connector end) the cable is frayed and it's probably going to take a soldering iron to get it back attached. Bad times.
Also there has been a design oversight in regards to the top 5 1/4" Bay. The case comes with one of those cheap black plastic flaps to "hide" DVD drives, which is all well and good, it is at least removable (after all I *like* my blu-ray drive's front) but unfortunately at the top of the plastic bay slot on the front of the case the corners are rounded. So you can't fit a DVD drive all the way in. You have to use the DVD Drive Cover. Not the end of the world but a small oversight. [edit:is end of world as drive tray will not open -.- ] The only other notable thing is the very shallow depth of the back panel leaving not a lot of room for rear side cable management. Just requires extra effort on my part :)
However! We now move to the ups, the changed design of the case looks to lend itself to a massively more effective cooling setup, especially in Multiple GPU Scenarios. Each GPU has it's own "pool" of air, whereas in my old case airflow to one of the cards was severely limited and the other card had to draw in hot air from around its counterpart. This does seem improved, even if I've had to get stuck in with some fan controls to get the right Temperature/Acoustic balance.
The Watercooling radiator also has two big back vents through which it can suck down cool air (and it does seem to be doing a good job) I've put the two Scythe "Gentle-Typhoon" fans back on Q-Fan mode following CPU temp, will see how that goes, It results in higher idle temperatures but cuts back on any noise (there isn't much) which is useful given the fans proximity to the open vent.
Also a huge win are the front audio ports. They're HD Audio and the cable has shielding so no more crazy graphics card audio interference!!! And the plugs (being new) work perfectly and every connection is nice (no more wiggling!!!)
My other hope from this rebuilding process was that, if the graphics problems i've been having were the result of a loose connection or bad joint, remaking every connection would solve my crashing problem. I even swapped the GPU's over so the recenty RMA'd one is first and ol' trusty is second. Alas it was not to be. First boot was fine (perfect case-case transition, sata ports and all) however after I came back for the second and third boot I got colourscreen locks entering windows! (they were warm boots) Fourth boot (cold) went ok and games started sweet as and ran fine for a good few hours, just wish I could pin down the cause of the locks!!! I'm tempted to say the RMA'd GPU is to blame but they tested it before the sent it and assured me it was fine. May conduct my own testing... PSU is also suspect, going to try and test with my XFX 750w at some point. Ultimately though it may be motherboard and I've pretty much decided that if, after this year's exams, it reaches summer and the system just isn't solid enough for gaming, then I'm gonna drop a load of cash and replace CPU/Mobo/Ram and maybe GPU's too. Will have to see... Anyway, late start tomorrow, Wooooo....

Case pics to follow soon :)

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2 comments:

  1. so I just google-image'd that case. well ugly, man!

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  2. Tis probably why we dont stock them at RL :-P and it looks kinda like an Xbox 360 Slim. But better (and lots quieter) :-P

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