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Pro/Mini - The Uber LAN Box
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Date Posted: Feb 2 2001
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Author: Joe
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Posting Type: Article
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Category: ProCooling Projects
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Page: 8 of 10
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Article Rank:No Rank Yet
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Note: This is a legacy article, imported from old code. Due to this some items on the page may not function as expected. Links, Colors, and some images may not be set correctly.
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Pro/Mini - The Uber LAN Box By: Joe
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Pro/Mini - The Uber Lan Box - Day 7
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DAY 7 - LAST DAY
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Finish it all, Plumbing, Electrical, everything...
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OK the Status of the last day is this:
The entire electrical system needs to be done, the cooling system will be filled and run for the FIRST TIME, the sealant setup will be tested for the first time, the pump will be run for the first time, and the mobo/CPU setup will be powered up for the first time. So there was a LOAD of problems face'n me, the worst one and the one that could kill the project not to mention gear... a leak. That was the biggest one I was worrying about. Its 7:00pm and I need to have the machine done, and running by 10:00am at LanBurn. I think I can do it. I brought all the gear from the workshop to my apt and picked up the work there, as all the cutting and industrial work is done.
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To make this the ultimate LAN case you need a handle on it.. no question bout it.
So I picked up a handle from Ace, with 4 brass bolts, and 4 1" washers.
You need washers to keep the bolts from ripping out of the case.
At Lan Burn, this was the absolute BEST part of this machine since I had to hike a block with it to get to the Lan!
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Because the CPU is going to get nicely cold, I coated the back of the board around the socket with Silicone to seal the neoprene against the back of the board. It is thicker then the stand offs the mobo is anchored to so it will be compressed against the back of the board.
It extended prolly 1.5" around the socket in every direction.
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You can see how much of a wire'n mess it was right after anchoring the board to the back plate. Getting the DigiDoc5 setup was one of the hardest parts out of all this, with so many wire runs come'n in and out of it.
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This is the DD5 from DH3, I wasn't able to get another one from MacPower due to the Chinese New Year holiday. So I had to adapt this one, I created new wires for the fans. This one will power and monitor 5 fans ( 2 120mm, 1 92mm, 1 92mm in the PSU, and then one run for a Blorb on the video card.
6 Thermal sensors were hooked up also for various temp readings.
Took me quite a while to measure all the fan runs and and make all the connectors. Its 9:00pm Now and its done and ready to be mounted.
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The power run to the pump was done behind the mobo mounting plate to save room and to keep stuff a lil more clean. Also 110VAC can introduce an extra bit of EMI in your case so it couldn't hurt to keep it behind a metal shield. I also ran 2 wires for the pump lamp for the front.
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Ok this is behind the DVD drive and under the res. tank, you can tell there is a good deal of wire around there. you can see the sensor bundle and the power line to the front fan along side the DVD drive.
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Here you can also see how close the fit is between it all.
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at 10:00pm I filled the system, and ran the coolant for a few min, and hit the power switch for the first time.
IT BOOTED, and the CPU within 1 min dropped to -10C at stock voltage and everything. I was using the onboard video for the first test runs.
Now you will notice in the coolant is not in the lines all the way in the pic there.... That's cause I had a problem cause me to put the breaks on the project and it all came to a screaming halt.
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The thing I feared the most happened. The water block leaked. Not much, but I saw one drip hit the bottom of the case. If I would have had the GF2 Ultra in the case it would have killed the card possibly. But I didn't.....
At closer exam it was a seal around one of the hose barbs that was not completely sealing it. In the pic to the right you can see what I did was apply a liberal amount of Plumbers Goop to seal the leak, I had to drain the coolant from the block first. I had to let the goop dry over night. So I finished the electrical work in the mean time.
To say I was pissed about this, is an understatement. You can ask Chip or anyone who was on my ICQ list basically... I was SO CLOSE to being done, to have the entire deal almost come crashing down due to a bad seal. When I asked chip why this happened, it was explained that due to the rapid schedule that I needed this block by he didn't have time to test. He normally tests all his blocks for 2 days, this one was not tested due to me demanding it so fast.
So I finished wire'n up the fans, mounting the hardware, and had a beer. Then I went to bed letting the Goop dry fully. ( the pic above is from when I was just bout to call it a night, all the electrical was done.
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Random Forum Pic |
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From Thread: 12V to 5V rail converter |
| ProCooling Poll: |
So why the hell not? |
I agree!
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67%
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What?
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17%
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Hell NO!
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0%
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Worst Poll Ever.
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17%
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Total Votes:18Please Login to Vote!
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