War Machine! (^_^)

Well, derp!  Where I have been?  Dunno.  Just kind of distracted, I think. (>.>)

But, one thing happened lately.  My graphics card went all kaboom. (>_<)

So, how does one replace a GTX580 Classified?  Well, with a GTX980 Classy, no? =^-^=

So, I got the speedy new card and started poking at the clock to see what I could squeeze out of it.  While I was at it, I decided to play with the voltages and clock of my CPU as well. (^_^)

Eventually, I got the CPU clocked stable to 4.5GHz.  And GPU is just skirting 1.5GHz.  Plenty fast for my junkbox.  But… Well… I ran the Unigine Valley Benchmark and my fans got annoyingly loud. (>_<)

Oh, and, running Prime95 would send my CPU totally into thermal shutdown in under a minute. (>_<)

So, yeah, hot.  HAWT, I TELL YOU! DX

As usual, I decided to solve this problem by throwing some money at it. (^_^)

End result has me running a big ol’ pump into a Phobia waterblock, then an AlphaCool Monsta 120 radiator, then*, then another AlphaCool Monsta radiator… This time a 240. (^_^)

What’s with the *, you ask?  Well… There isn’t yet a full-card waterblock for a GTX980 Classy.  It’s a big frigg’n board compared to the reference and most other customs…  But, I hear one is coming out on Tuesday. (^_^)

So, that * fills a void which will be my graphics card’s waterblock. (^_^)

It’s already running tons better.  To start, it actually RUNS Prime95.  That’s a start, no?  =^-^=

Beyond that, it’ll run it for well over an hour without a glitch.  Time to start poking at that clock again. (^_^)

Also, for looksies, I added some chassis lights.  Now, not regular every day lights.  NEOPIXELS!!! XD

If you don’t know, NeoPixels are some trick little RGB LED strips available from AdaFruit.  Each LED along the strip can be assigned a colour at any given moment. So, I got to work with some Arduino code to drive them according to an analogue input. (^_^)

Stick a thermistor circuit to that analogue input and suddenly I have a heat-map-ish colourful display of the computer’s current temperature. (^_^)

What comes from this is dim and dark blues for room temperature times, like bootup.  Then it goes to cyan and green and yellow, and orange finally to red.  So, depending on any given load, I can get a really quick eyeshot of how warm my machine’s guts are getting. (^_^)

But, what happens after red?  I mean, it kind of is entering the realm of overheat at that point.  Well, I worked that out too.  CHAOS MODE!!! XD

If the temperature passes red in any way, it starts flickering and blinking.  The further it goes, the more intense the flickering gets and the more the other colours start popping in to add to the show. (^_^)

It also has a couple PWM outputs driven by temperature.  Someday I’ll make a driver circuit so that I can use it as a fan speed control.  But, for now, blinky lights do the trick. (^_^)

Here’s a collection of pics of my ghetto-fab computer box. =^-^=

DSC03840

This is a shot in the side.  Still plenty of fans going, but, all nearly noiseless. (^_^)

DSC03844

Here’s cool green mode.  Generally it’s this colour at idle or when watching Youtubes. (^_^)

DSC03845

Warm orange comes about after about a half hour of Prime95 or a plenty long SL session. (^_^)

DSC03847

Finally, a shot of teh gutz.  The 120 radiator hangs from fan screws through the case.  Interestingly enough, the case has pre-cut holes and ferrules to run hose through.  They aren’t perfectly aligned, but, not crooked enough to be a problem either. (^_^)

Also, the 120 radiator is on 1/4″ spacers.  So, the case fan still blows out and through the radiator.  But, the radiator also has a pull fan hooked up to a speed controlled fan jack.  So, they can fight it a little with the gap letting air go where it pleases. (^_^)

The 240 is up front.  So far they’re fixed speed fans.  They’ll be what I speed control by the Arduino in the coming future. =^-^=

So, there be it!  I ain’t got overheats to worry about any more.  Once that GPU waterblock comes out, things gonna get reeeeeally quiet. (^_^)y

 

About Imnotgoing Sideways

I'm a Second Life avatar with my own cookie jar! (^_^)y
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