As Yet to be Named Build..........

[jedihobbit]

Originally this was to be a re-boxed "Kermit" with a bit more room to play. However my nemesis (eBay) and a desire to go SLI changed it all. That is why the MSI 785 mATX was replaced with the NF750. Other wise you would have seen some "building" going on. The other goal was to have a “max’ed out” Zalman build as I’ve only used them for CPU coolers and hadn’t realized the scope of their products.

Besides waiting for the mobo from eBay, the flu has slowed me down big-time!! Anyway here are the "known" specs:

CASE: Zalman z7 Plus
PSU: TBD until something by Zalman can be acquired
MOBO: MSI NF750-G55
CPU: PII X4 955 BE
HSF: Zalman CNPS9900-NT
GPU: XFX GTX 285 w/ Zalman VF3000N
MEMORY: TBD w/ Zalman ZM-RC1000
HDD 1: 2 x WD Raptor 74GB (Primary RAID1)
HDD 2: 2 x TBD(RAID0)
Optical Drive 1: TBD
Fan Controller: Zalman ZM-MFC3

Another issue that dictated the move to a larger case was the acquisition of a VF3000N cooler for the XFX GTX 285 that is/was in Kermit. Being of the open style it would not vent the heat out the rear of the case and would require more internal space as well as fans to dissipate the heat. As usual what is happening with another build also impacts things. With the death of the mobo in DreamCatcher and waiting on the RMA from BFG for the 280, I made the other “accidental” purchase of a second 285 with the idea of using that in DC v4. However it seems in the back of my mind was how nice it would be to have 2 x SLI’ed 285! Hence the accidental win of the NF750 mobo.

As the “bigger case” the Zalman Z7 Plus has a very nice drive cage that will hold 5 HDDs……….which caused me to drop the idea of an external dual bay drive box for file sharing and just put it in here. Then I started thinking again (BIG trouble) about how to do the hard drives. With another win on eBay that I hadn’t planned on I found myself with a second 74GB Raptor (currently one in the defunct BluHaz build). With out a window to see Kermit’s RaptorX window I started wondering what it would be like to have the 74s in RAID0 for the OS, etc. Worse than a set of dominoes!!

Anyway to show that there is some “progress” I’ll shortly toss out a picture or two of what I have and we can go from there!

[XstollieX]

Just one question, why are you going to mirror your os drives and stripe your storage drives? Or did you transpose the numbers? That happens to me all the time

[jedihobbit]

Just one question, why are you going to mirror your os drives and stripe your storage drives? Or did you transpose the numbers? That happens to me all the time

thanks and yes!!

Yes me be showing how far into old fartondom I be!

[jedihobbit]

As I need to wait on the motherboard, not much will happen for a while on this build. Need to get DreamCatcher figured out so I can get some of the mess out of the floor…….besides it is inheriting Kermit’s MSI 785GX-E65.

I’ll toss out these pix and give you a little “initial thought” first of the case and then modify those as necessary as things go together!! Starting with “the arrival”
and then go through the customary Case shots first…….oh yeah and by the way got lazy and didn’t edit my toes out of the pix either!



First off these initial thoughts are going to make me sound like a Zalman fanboy (I am) and part of their PR folder…………however that is how it stands until I get a chance to really get into things! And yes as typical of my logs, this one will be long winded with lots of pictures.

You have the “arrival” of the packages after being brought down into the office and then un-boxing the less obvious items. So for now we have the case, a fan controller, the HSF, and a memory cooler. The GPU cooler arrived earlier and can be seen in more detail in a “user review” that I putting together. After that the 285 will join the pile.

Please realize (other than making changes to Oz1a) I’ve only been building mATX systems for over 8 years.

Part of the deciding on this case is the fact that while a full size case it isn’t too tall to sit on top of my desk as opposed to under it. However with the location of the front ports on top, I’ll have to mod my reach a little!

Component cooling has always been an issue with mATX so all the fans that come with this case is cool….literally. The Z7 Plus come with provision to mount three 120mm OR 140mm fans and 1 120mm on the rear. Matter of fact Zalman provides 1 120mm LED in the front (mounted to the HDD drive cage), the 120 for the rear, one mounted on the door, and had one in a box inside. That one would be the second one on the door. Also all intake areas come with filters to help keep dust bunnies and their relatives out. Having the bay covers basically vents with removable filters adds to the air flow. Believe most give Antec the credit for coming up with this idea.

There are two versions of this case and the only difference I can find between the “plain” Z7 and the Plus is the Plus gets a neat fan cover on the door that comes with a speed control. For me it would have been better to have gotten just the Z7 as there is a window in the works that will remove that part.

On the inside, for me, I love all the room as shown by the interior view with a mATX mobo. Zalman’s “tool-less” system seems fairly simple and functional, the only exception is while the hard drives are mounted tool-less it requires one to remove four screws for the cage to be taken out. I need to work up some pix to show that later.

Finally where you see the plastic covering is the Zalman logo that lights up blue when powered up. Also in closing it looks like assistant #2 approves as he decided to bed down on the left panel.

[jedihobbit]

BTW my take of the VF3000N cooler that is going into this build is here http://forums.legitreviews.com/about28103.html

[jedihobbit]

It has been sitting idle due to life getting in the way and trying to get up to speed with DreamCatcher AM3.

Still working on a color for the interior, and just how far down I want to break down the case for painting and just how much "cutting" I want to do as I'm time limited.

BTW as DC AM3 has taken the 955BE this one will now have a 1055T!

[jedihobbit]

Finally picked a paint color but don’t know how well it’ll work as it might just look like the natural aluminum. Keep gravitating to white but that has already been used. Going to throw at a few pictures to show that I am doing something (mainly working on DreamCatcher AM3). We have the chassis rear stamped fan grill marked for cutting, the chassis after de-milling the top for painting, and then all the parts waiting for the first coat of primer.



Haven’t done the grill yet or anything as these shots were taken just before crashing at 03:20 EDST.

[jedihobbit]

Total bust on the painting between the humidity, "breeze", and whatevers, back to square one as I'll have to sand and do whatever to undo the mess.

[skier]

Total bust on the painting between the humidity, "breeze", and whatevers, back to square one as I'll have to sand and do whatever to undo the mess.

humidity is the devil

(ruined several coats on my rally modded case)

[jedihobbit]

Well with the fiasco that was my painting attempt I’ll throw out these pics associated with it. Also managed to do one of my worst grill cutouts so this thing seems to be jinxed!

I’m used to working with round stamped grills but Zalman has done “square” on both the side panel and the rear of the case. This allows for going with the different size fans. I bought that new “quick release” type mandrel and cutting disk for the dremel. Also managed a nice oops when the disk grabbed and it went the wrong direction.



The color I thought I’d try is Krylon’s “Brushed Metallic Satin Nickel” to keep with the theme of the coolers on the mobo as well as the 9900-NT Max. Not sure what I may have done mechanically to mess up the pain as I primed first and then painted. However I did what I said I wouldn’t and rushed the time between coats. While they stated 10 minutes between coats (I did 20+) not sure if I should have waited longer. At any rate not only was the color uneven but felt like sandpaper. When I tried rubbing it with a cloth in case the roughness was just stuck overspray in came off all the way down to the primer.



So the plan is (if I get the gumption) will be to de-mill the whole thing, hit is with steel wool, whipe it done, prime, and try the paint again!

[jedihobbit]

Grabbed the drill and dismantled the chassis………this thing is well engineered and fabricated. Meaning it was a bit more to take apart than planned and had to take it down further than I wanted. Now I need to find what the wife did with the steel wool and sandpaper as she has plans to move with the house on the market and has been getting rid of stuff “we” don’t need. The drill is ready to attach and then like a house of cards the pieces are in a pile ready to be sanded, primed, and repainted. Two things need to happen to make this work…….. a drop in the humidity and remembering how the stuff goes back together!!



We’ll also take time to look at one of the components that will be part of the assembly, the RC1000 memory cooler. While probably not needed with all the case fans it still looked kinda neat and was another piece of Zalman to add to the build.

For those of you that may have used Corsair’s memory cooler for the Dominator series this should seem familiar. However where the ones I’ve used have 3 x 40mm fans the RC1000 has 2 x 60mm. While the attachment method looks like a rehash of the Corsair design, Zalman did a few things different. Where as Corsair used two thumb screws at the top, Zalman uses just one but also has a second one that allows the height of the unit to be adjusted. The part that I really like the best about the Zalman is where it clips to the mem slot locks. They’ve put in a rubber pad to grip better.

With the attached pictures I’ll show the retail package, what come in the package, and how it went together. Note in the “leg” pic the two holes that allow one to adjust the height. One of the things I found was being careful when threading the thumb screw in as the threads tend to be filled with paint and may cross thread. I just screwed the thumb screw in first before trying to assemble it.



I did some test fitting using 4 x 1GB sticks of G. Skill mounted in the MSI NF750. Then for S & Gs I just sat the CNPS9900-NT that is for the cpu to see spacing. Here is where having 60mm vs. 40mm fans come into play. When it is all said and done, it’ll be a close fit!



If there is a drawback it would be size (wanted to use one in another build but it was too wide) and for my bling purposes I should of held out for the silver color!

[jedihobbit]

Think I may have come up with the name for this system….. “Death Wish”!!

Couldn’t find the steel wool I wanted to use on the chassis, but did find one of those “sponge sanding blocks” that did almost as well. There are so many nooks, crannies, and whatnot that it won’t be perfect and the one thing I don’t have that would let me be my nic has taken over!!! “God grant me patience NOW!!!”

Anyway started priming some of the parts but ran out of daylight and primer.

Now on to why this should be named Death Wish………remember the original specs??? I was just supposed to lift the contents of an existing computer and just re-box it. As a reminder >>

CASE: Zalman Z7 Plus
PSU: TBD until something by Zalman can be acquired
MOBO: MSI NF750-G55 (was supposed to be the MSI 785GM-E65)
CPU: PII X4 955 BE
HSF: Zalman CNPS9900-NT
GPU: XFX GTX 285 w/ Zalman VF3000N
MEMORY: TBD w/ Zalman ZM-RC1000 (was to use F3-12800CL7D-2GBPI)
HDD 1: 2 x WD Raptor 74GB (Primary RAID1)
HDD 2: 2 x TBD(RAID0)
Optical Drive 1: TBD
Fan Controller: Zalman ZM-MFC3


Well that has changed a bit…………..the final two items arrived today!



Good night, hope I live long enough to build this!

[jedihobbit]

Managed to sand down most of the parts yesterday, re-prime, and get almost a full coat of paint on everything. Finished up one can and grabbed the second on and .........nothing. Had a brand new can of spray paint without any air.



SO swapped it out at the store on the way home from work and finished it up. Now comes a decision before riveting back together, this is a "satin" finish so need to figure out if I want to clear coat it for protection and gloss or not. Also turns out the darn rivits are white not natual as I thought.

[jedihobbit]

Now that I’ve gotten DC AM3 to run on to trying to get this together!! First we have the pieces of the puzzle and the start are I did a bracket I didn’t have to remove. Guess the white rivet heads won’t be too bad. Have to wait to see what it looks like on the rear.



Then remembered something I wanted to look at. In the world of cable management several of the big guns have been putting cutouts on the mobo plate to allow the cables and wires to be hidden behind it. So thought I’d get an idea of what I might want to do.



What do you think??

Now it is time to take a break and feed myself and the two assistants before starting the riveting!

[jedihobbit]

Didn’t bother taking pix of putting it together. It didn’t quit go the way I wanted as there is a bit of warp in the case that I hope will go away once stuff is in place. Anyway first off is a pic of the left panel in place showing the color of the chassis. It is not as dark as I had hopped, as a matter of fact it comes across more “brownish” to me. Then it is on to figure out if I do indeed what to do the cable cut outs….about 75% sure I want to. Will end up using the 700W OCZ as the temporary PSU until the Zalman materializes. Also need to figure out if I am also going with green led fans.

[jedihobbit]

Finally got some time, a spare panel, and desire to start laying out the window. As a side note the side panels are interchangeable….meaning by just turning them “upside down” they will fit either side (excluding the fan of course). Managed to pick up a spare right side panel as I didn’t want to ruin the “fancy” Z7 Plus left side.

Started laying out a “simple” window as I’ll need to at least have room for 1 x 120mm if not two fans. While doing some initial layout I’m really not sure I want to do two fans as even with the window they will cover one third if not a half of what I’m trying to show.

Here we have the initial layout and then some closer look at the corners.



And of course the weapon of choice with a 2” multi-material hole saw……



Now for the attack….



And here is where it sits as several things were brought to my attention. When using a cordless drill confirm both batters are fully charged. Make sure you’ve remember to select the correct speed. As far as the hole saw is concerned, buy a decent setup. The cheapie (borrowed) set’s set screw for the centering drill bit won’t tighten down. As the Allen wrench provided is too small and it needs to be tighten after every cut. Also it is not really cutting the metal cleanly, meaning it is really more wood that “then sheet metal”.

So now I’m charging the batteries for the drill (4 hours) so it won’t get done tonight!

[jedihobbit]

As it turns out I diddled around and eventually went back out to the garage to finish…….bad idea! The drill was up to it but the hole saw wasn’t, cheap (not inexpensive) is – cheap what you get. The drill bit in the mandrel had gotten so loose and the cutting ability of the hole saw so poor that the last hole was wallowed out. Also instead of a clean cut it actually “curled” in the metal.



Now On to Tonight….

Then to add insult to injury I made a major “engineering” layout error. While laying out the centers for the corner hole and the cut on the exterior, an interior fit issue was missed…….



By not paying attention to where that edge brace/stop was located I don’t have any interior edge to lay the lexan on. Also in the two hole shots you can see where the wobble of the hole saw went off center. The only “lucky” thing about it is it is at the bottom.

Up next is laying out the tangent lines to cut by. I’m cutting from the inside this time so if I have a “skid” with the cutting disk it won’t be all that noticeable. Also this will be the first time, other than the fan grill removal, that I’ve used this particular cutting disk.



I stopped at this point for a couple of reasons….. 1. With the other style cutting disks I used I would “score” the cut line a couple of time before doing the final cut. The down side of this is the ref line disappears and can lead to a “wavy navy’ cut. Found out this disk can cut in one pass which allows better control for matching the cut line. 2. Don’t give a rat’s ars if it is 85 (degrees & % humidity) one needs to ware a long sleeved shirt and button the collar! Them sparkies are hotter!!!!

Finished making the rough cut of the window and only used 2 to 2-1/2 disks and was done in fairly quick time. I’m really starting to like the cutoff wheel as it makes a fairly clean cut that only requires a minimal of filing. Think from start to finish (1st cut to final filing) was less than an hour. Which is quit fast for me.

We’ll start with the rough cut out and a few close ups.



After the filing and some sanding of the corners I declared it finished and placed on the case to see if the opening did what I wanted – it did!!



Now I need to figure out how to paint the exterior to match the stock flat / textured surface. Then go shopping for the lexan, and work on how I want to cut and mount one possibly two 120mm fans in the window.

[skier]

my standard "looks good and functions well" placement, minus the lexan cracks

[jedihobbit]

Counter Strike...WHOORAH!!

[skier]

i hate counterstrike btw, about the worst $20 i've ever spent i just used to store all my cd cases on my desk