Well, this question has been nagging me the past few days... will the graphics card fit in the case. So as of about 5 minutes ago I decided to answer it.

And the answer is....

Very close call.

My goodness what a small case. How are you going to get air flow? I had to remodel two of my counters to put larger cases in as I couldn't keep the small boxes cool and they just had celerons in them.

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Well, this question has been nagging me the past few days... will the graphics card fit in the case. So as of about 5 minutes ago I decided to answer it.

And the answer is...

YES! But barely... there is probably about 3-4mm of gap between the PCI slots and the HDD bay.

Very close call.

---

- Luke.

Hi Moon...!
Probably not by Christmas, I am still waiting on a few components, see here:

So perhaps sometime round the 27-29th I will have time to get it built! However, it will still be hard to get to my 31st deadline. Oops... just remembered I need to buy a cat5 cable.

Anyway, it was Saturday yesterday, so I finally had time to set up the desk. It took about 2 hours. And here it is in the crunching den (spare unused room)...
.
Usually, the curtains are closed...
And, the actual desk was too big for what could fit, so I had too saw off 5mm to the bottom legs, and 6mm of the side to fit under the other desk.

- Luke.

---

- Luke.

`
Hei Luke - and Ianab too ;-)
I`m just sneaking in here to read
about this - waiting for the big
event to come.. Maybe it will be
up and running for Christmas..? :-)

Good Luck with it!

---

I go with the 'Spread it out with a xxxx' method.

Reason is that you want the thinnest possible layer in the junction. Only enough to fill the microscopic imperfections in the heatsink and chip cover. They look smooth, but if you get them under a powerfull microscope they look like the Himalayan mountains. If you seat them together with no compund 90% of the surface doesn't actually touch, and has an air gap. Lousy for heat transfer.

Thermal compound is a much better heat conductor than air, but it's not as good as solid copper or aluminuium. So any extra in the joint above what is needed to fill in the air gaps is actually making the thermal junction less efficient.

The 'line' or 'grain of rice' may be simpler to apply, and 'good enough', especially if the compund has good flow and spreads out well. But getting that nice thin layer spread out first should give better results.

Of course most of my machines are old salvaged junkers and not overclocked beasts, but stripping them down and replacing the factory 'chewing gum' with a nice thin layer of generic silver paste seems to help them a lot.

Ian

The flow characteristics of MX-2 respond well to the simple technique......but would probably would equally well or better with the straightedge spread technique.

I tried licking it smooth with my tongue once......but that only left a bad taste in my mouth.......so much for that technique.

---

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein
"With cats." kittyman

I go with the 'Spread it out with a xxxx' method.

Reason is that you want the thinnest possible layer in the junction. Only enough to fill the microscopic imperfections in the heatsink and chip cover. They look smooth, but if you get them under a powerfull microscope they look like the Himalayan mountains. If you seat them together with no compund 90% of the surface doesn't actually touch, and has an air gap. Lousy for heat transfer.

Thermal compound is a much better heat conductor than air, but it's not as good as solid copper or aluminuium. So any extra in the joint above what is needed to fill in the air gaps is actually making the thermal junction less efficient.

The 'line' or 'grain of rice' may be simpler to apply, and 'good enough', especially if the compund has good flow and spreads out well. But getting that nice thin layer spread out first should give better results.

Of course most of my machines are old salvaged junkers and not overclocked beasts, but stripping them down and replacing the factory 'chewing gum' with a nice thin layer of generic silver paste seems to help them a lot.

Ian

Well, It's Tuesday afternoon here. I received the Scythe Kaze Master FC and the Razer Diamondback 3G Gaming mouse today.
A few things have changed on my spreadsheet as well...


It's getting really close to the build date, which is probably going to happen 26-28 December. Can't wait!

Also a quick question to you all...
How do you folks apply your thermal paste? Grain of rice, Long thin line, spread out with a credit card, etc... or do you just have any comments about the thermal paste application process?
So far, I like the long line idea... just apply a thin line across the CPU and let it spread out on contact with the HS.

- Luke.

I suggest you visit the Arctic Silver website and follow their reccomendations......

I have been using MX-2 as of late, and it seems to work well with the 'long thin line' application technique. But I think it also flows a bit better than Arctic Silver does.......

I have checked how it does by applying it, seating the heatsink, and running it thought a few full power runs and shutdowns before removing the heatsink to check how well it has covered the base of the heatsink and the face of the CPU...

Many in the OCing forums used to recommend the 'credit card scrape' method with the Arctic Silver products....which I also used with success.....
Apply a small amount to the CPU face.....and scrape all excess off with a good straightedge. A clean, sharp, credit card was the preferred tool at the time (probably a good choice, as you usually had one handy after buying the bits, but it might get a tad tattered in the process). And then repeat the process on the base of the heatsink.
The result should be no excess heatsink compound on either surface, so when you mate the two, you should get a very good thermal interface.

I have become very happy with the thin line technique using MX-2...as it is very forgiving due to the flow characteristics of the MX-2 paste.

---

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow." Albert Einstein
"With cats." kittyman

Well, it is a Friday night, and it is time to post an update. Nearly done with all the ordering, just a few things to go. Over the past few days, I have received the heatsink, the tri-LED fan, my 2000rpm backup Scythe Fan and 1 cold cathode.

Here are the pics...


And here is what is left to order...


I will keep the few that are watching updated.

- Luke.

---

- Luke.

I have received the Thermalright heatsink, the blue cold cathode set, the Scythe 2000rpm fan, and the OCNZ fan.

And oops... I just discovered a problem. And I am not even up to the build phase yet! I just noticed that the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT uses a fan holder instead of the wire clips like the standard model. And the fan holder only takes fans 25mm in depth... the Scythe Ultra Kaze is 38mm.

So I've added a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme wire clip set (NZ$9.17) to my list of purchases.

- Luke.

---

- Luke.

I just follow the instruction supplied by Arctic Silver here. They should know what they are on about.

F.

I use the above, too.

-Dave

---

Luke,
Just finished a build of similar machine. Using the i7-860 and EGA P55 mobo,ith an EVGA GTX 275, tho. I'm hoping to get RAC time around 15k but so far am only at 8000. I have the mobo oc'd at 20% and the 275 oc'd at 8%. Am having stability problems above that. Particularly the GTX 275. If I push it too hard, it faults and drops down to only 50% of normal. Think it may be a Win 7 issue. Won't come back until I reboot the machine.
The 20% on the mobo is a bios option by EVGA (3360mhz). Tried following some oclocking instructions to take it to 4200 but would only run for a few minutes at that speed. Once things settle down, I hope to go back and oc more. But as it is, I should get to the mid teens.
Anxious to see how your puppy performs.
Alex

Alex, that sounds like the nvidia underclocking problem that kicks on some machines. It just goes to 2d mode. You may want to try RivaTuner (guru3d.com) to force 3d performance all the times. Too bad RivaTuner still didn´t see the second gpu on my machines. Sometimes my GTX 295s suffer on that.
You may take a look at your nvidia panel for Win 7, because i read somewhere that vista drivers have a force 3d performance somewhere. Dont have my Win 7 machines around to check that now.

---

...
How do you folks apply your thermal paste? Grain of rice, Long thin line, spread out with a credit card, etc... or do you just have any comments about the thermal paste application process?
So far, I like the long line idea... just apply a thin line across the CPU and let it spread out on contact with the HS.

- Luke.

I just follow the instruction supplied by Arctic Silver here. They should know what they are on about.

F.

---

Lets see spread thin with a credit card or a card like one that's not so valuable as I'd rather not use a credit/debit card for that. The heatsink I have is suffering from dust and keeping It totally clean is very hard to do, So I get higher temps as a result, sigh.

---

My Amazon Wishlist
The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Well, It's Tuesday afternoon here. I received the Scythe Kaze Master FC and the Razer Diamondback 3G Gaming mouse today. So here are the pics...



A few things have changed on my spreadsheet as well...


It's getting really close to the build date, which is probably going to happen 26-28 December. Can't wait!

Also a quick question to you all...
How do you folks apply your thermal paste? Grain of rice, Long thin line, spread out with a credit card, etc... or do you just have any comments about the thermal paste application process?
So far, I like the long line idea... just apply a thin line across the CPU and let it spread out on contact with the HS.

- Luke.

---

- Luke.

Looks loike you are about to hit the MAGIC NUMBER SJ

That might happen anytime in the next 24 hours.

Luke and others, You ought to See My thread that's entitled: Plans of Mice and Men... sigh

---

My Amazon Wishlist
The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Hey there Ian.
Can you vouch for the accuracy of the readings? Because I've read alot of reviews and forum posts of electricity usage meters and I've seen many of the brands described as woefully inaccurate...

Thanks for the link anyways friend.

- Luke.

I wouldn't say they were Lab quality or anything, and I dont have a good power meter to compare it too.

But I did plug it in with a 1kw electic heater, and the meter read 998 watts. Maybe that was a coincidence, and Chinese power meters may only be as accurate as Chinese heater elements.

I dont know how accurate they are if the Power Factor is not 1.0, that may cause inaccurate readings. It should be in the ball park though.

Ian

Looks loike you are about to hit the MAGIC NUMBER SJ

---

@SJ: Thanks for the products! I believe my case has fan filters pre-installed... but I'll look into that deeper at a later point.

A little update here as well... I will be buying myself the desk tomorrow after work. Only problem is that it is too high so it doesn't fit, so I have to saw about 2-2.5 inches off of the base. And then to make it look nice, I'll have to sand it etc. But I'll do that in the weekend.

I was also taking a closer look at the monitors today, and I found Dell din't include DVI cables, instead they gave me crappy VGA... you'd think with a HD monitor they'd include HD cables, no?! So, that's 2 more items that I'll buy from the local tech shop this weekend.

I'm also scouting for a electricity usage meter, however, we don't have Kill-a-watt's in NZ, so does anyone know or use another brand that I may be able to purchase here?

- Luke.

Sounds good, Remember for carpentry, Measure twice, Cut once. As to No kill a watt, If NZ followed Japan or the US or some other countries too numerous to mention(in the Americas), You could probably buy one, sigh, But I know that's not how It worked out. :o

HP on their Monitors that I've seen they provide for both, But on the HP PC that I have they only provided VGA, No DVI and a 300w psu that means either very limited expansion or none at all, Hence why there's no way to turn off the built in video when one has a real video card in the PCI-E slot. And have I tried flashing the Bios? Yep, No luck, usb fdd isn't supported, The HP does know what a bootable cd rom is, but the cd I use does not use ms-dos(dr-dos) and as such the flash program won't flash the Bios, So I have the old internal (teac) fdd on standby waiting for the fact that I'd have to open up both sides of the HP PC case to find the power connector for the fdd and to plug in the fdd cable on to the motherboard, then I should be able flash the Bios of the HP Bios(ms-7184/3.47) with an MSI Bios(ms-7093/3.90) and that should then solve a few other problems too.

---

My Amazon Wishlist
The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Hi Luke

Dick Smith has a little power meter like a Killawatt.

http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4b249c610046ef522740c0a87f3b0699/Product/View/M7319

I got one like it from the Warehouse for $20, but you never know if they have them in stock

Ian

Hey there Ian.
Can you vouch for the accuracy of the readings? Because I've read alot of reviews and forum posts of electricity usage meters and I've seen many of the brands described as woefully inaccurate...

Thanks for the link anyways friend.

- Luke.

---

- Luke.

Hi Luke

Dick Smith has a little power meter like a Killawatt.

http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4b249c610046ef522740c0a87f3b0699/Product/View/M7319

I got one like it from the Warehouse for $20, but you never know if they have them in stock

Ian