Project: Lian-Li PC-A77F x2 - Photos Pg 2,3,4,5 and 6 (New pics page 6 30th March)

[MrCupHolder]

OK I've been able to find so far two project logs based around these cases. I will say that info I've gleaned so far from these has been great. So I figured I'd add my own to this and hopefully it will help out some others.

Just been thinking, someone labelled their PC-A77F project Jane Doe. Perhaps I should label mine Plain Jane? Why did I think that? Because in the end both of these cases will have no window panels, no glowing fans and currently I'm only going to be cooling on AIR and I want them to be as plain and boring looking as possilbe. I'm a no frills kinda guy.

Also note: This is going to take me a while. I'm in no real rush to get this finished and some of this stuff is new to me so that may also slow me down.


OK so what am I doing. The inspiration for this task has been that I want to reduce the number of PC's I have and to also tidy up the place. So I'm going to get myself down to just 2 PC's and put them both into identical cases so they're neat and tidy.

Currently I own a stack of about 8 old compaq celeron 400MHz's and two other custom built PC's.

One is in an old full tower case and the other is in a smaller Lian-Li case. The full tower case is nice but it is now over 11 years old and I've no idea where I'll find another. Suffice to say it is also a little limited in the cooling dept these days. The Lian-Li case is a little limited in size for what I've had squeezed in it over time and I hate it each time I have to open it to fix something because I find it so cramped.

However I came to the conclusion that I prefer full tower cases and I do like my current Lian-Li case it's just a bit small. So I started looking around at full tower Lian-Li cases and decided upon the PC-A77F as I feel it's the most versatile for any future changes I may end up doing (and I always seem to be doing something)


So this is kind of two projects in 1.

Project 1 is to move my current PC from it's Lian-Li case into a much larger Lian-Li PC-A77F

Project 2 is a new sandy bridge setup in a Lian-Li PC-A77F


However it's not quite as simple as that. Some things in the current PC will move into the new one and others will stay where they are and it's going to require a little testing as I go along to decide which will end up where.

I'll also note that both of these will be cooled on air, and being they live in my bedroom I'll be ripping out the blue led lit fans and replacing them with something else that won't make my PC's look like christmas trees.

At this stage though it may end up looking like this.


So what's in my current PC?
Case: Lian Li PC-60 Plus II
Power Supply: 1500 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower Supply
RAM: 2x 1GB Ram & 2x 2GB Ram
Graphics Card: Gigabyte 9300 GT graphics card *1
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-E SLI Motherboard
Processor: Intel E8500 3.16GHz processor
HDD: 1x 75GB WD Raptor
HDD: 1x 150GB WD Raptor *2
HDD: 3x 320GB HDD's running in RAID0
HDD: 1x 1TB WD Black drive *3

Notes:
1) I bought this when my 7950GT died under warranty and I desparately had to keep the PC running while it was sent back so I could finish off some work, it since died a second time out of warranty and I've not got around to getting anything better.
2) or VelociRaptor, I need to check it out. I had 2x 75GB Raptors and one died. I got this as a replacement under warranty [I've got this running in a RAID0 with the 75GB above. I really need to do some HDD speed tests to figure out the best configuration]
3) The 1TB drive backs up the 3x 320 RAID0 array [I actually have 2 of these drives and one lives offsite so there is only ever one in the PC at a time]


So how do I want them to look in the end?

PC 1
Case: Lian Li PC-A77F
Power Supply: 750 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower Supply *1
RAM: 2x 1GB Ram & 2x 2GB Ram
Graphics Card: Gigabyte 9300 GT graphics card
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-E SLI Motherboard
Processor: Intel E8500 3.16GHz processor *2
CPU cooler: Considering Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
HDD: Pending Testing

Notes:
1) Already have this lying around and it should do the job I had to upgrade to the 1500 Watt when I used to have more things in the PC.
2) I may even try and over clock this one. I do have an old 2.? GHz processor hanging around if I do manage to fry this one that will at least keep the PC running, albeit even slower than it is now.


PC 2
Case: Lian Li PC-A77F
Power Supply: 1500 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower Supply *1
RAM: 4x 4G considering G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL7Q-16GBXH (4x4GB) DDR3
Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 570 DirectCU II 1280MB
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
HDD: Pending Testing

Notes:
1) I'll move this over from my current PC and into this new one.


What have I bought so far?

Case 1: 1x Lian-Li PC-A77F
Sleeving: Bunch of sleeving stuff from http://en.mdpc-x.com/ (Thanks Wookie for the heads up) [Ordered 27/03/2011][Arrived 11/04/2011]
Case 2: 1x Lian-Li PC-A77F [Ordered 08/04/2011][Arrived sorta kinda, read pg 2]
Case Fans: Noctua NF-P12 120mm Fan (Qty:8) and Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Fan (Qty:4) [Ordered 08/04/2011][Arrived 12/04/2011]
Accessories: Pro Series Male 3-Pin Fan Housing with Hood - Black (CX-M3PIN-BK) (Qty:10) from http://www.performance-pcs.com/ [Ordered 29/04/2011][Received 10/05/2011]
RAM: 4x 4G considering G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL7Q-16GBXH (4x4GB) DDR3 [Pickedup 05/05/2011]
Graphics Card: ASUS GeForce GTX 570 DirectCU II 1280MB [Pickedup 05/05/2011]
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 [Pickedup 05/05/2011]
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K [Pickedup 05/05/2011]
CPU coolers: 2x Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler [Pickedup 05/05/2011]


What do I need to buy?

Got all the major parts now. But I'm sure I'll find something else yet that I need. I think I may need to do another order with Nils. But we'll see how I go.


What do I need to do?

HDD's
As I've noted above my HDD configuration is all over the place and I really need to do some testing with all the HDD's I currently have. I've done some reading up on RAID arrays lately and mine are probably not configured optimally. So I need to do that and then do some testing on both individual drive performance as well as performance of the drives in RAID arrays. Once I've got all that data I'll have an idea of where I'll re-use what drives.

As you will also note I currently have 3x 320GB drives in a RAID0 array. These drives used to be in a RAID5 array for redundancy purposes. This was becuase I've had too many drives fail in the past and I didn't want to lose my important data. In particular my photos, it's a hobby of mine and a I have a 12MP DSLR camera. So I've generated quite a lot of GB of photos these days. However I realised at some point that the RAID5 array won't stop my house burning down or someone stealing the PC. So that was when I bought 2x 1TB drives to backup the RAID array and I keep one of those offsite at all times. Being as I no longer needed the data protection that RAID5 offered I switched to RAID0. I honestly haven't noticed much of an improvement in the speed of the drive however it does give me more space. Being these 320GB drives are old now I'm intrested in seeing how they perform against the 1TB WD Black drives.

Suffice to say being I'm not really able to be without a PC while I do all this it may be a little while before I'm able to do all the testing.

Fans
I still need to work out what fans I'm going to use to replace the ones that come with the case as I don't want ones that light up.

I also need to figure out how I'm going to controll all the fans.
1) Plug them all on the M/B - Don't think I'll have enough spots on the M/B for fans so this probably won't work.
2) Use the controller that came with the case
3) Find some other fan speed controller. If I do though I'd prefer one that doesn't have any knobs hanging off it (so a touch screen model) and also I need to be able to dim (or preferably turn off) and indicator lights on it.

So all up I've got a bit of work ahead of me and I'll be learning quite a bit of new stuff as I go through this change over and upgade.


Running Total: $3338.17

[d1ng0d4n]

Originally Posted by MrCupHolder

Power Supply: 750 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower Supply *1
Power Supply: 1500 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower Supply *1

Notes:
1) I'll move this over from my current PC and into the new one.

Erm, two things mate, why on earth ThermalToss? And I think you miss-typed the wattages if it's the same PSU. Then again, 750w is probably all an advertised 1500w Tt PSU put's out

[MrCupHolder]

Sorry if I didn't make this clear

I have a both 750Watt and 1500Watt Thermaltake Tough Power supplies already hanging around.

Yeah did read around the place that the Thermaltakes are hit and miss with different models as to which ones are any good. Shame I read this after I have already owned them for a few years now else I would have gone for a different brand.

Edit: Also according to the wiki here http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Thermaltake_PSUs the Toughpower series is supposed to be pretty good. So I should be OK. That being said I actually own 3 Thermaltake power supplies and have yet to have a problem with them. I've had at least two other supplies of other brands (don't remember which now) that have fried on me and one killed my M/B, CPU, RAM and GPU in one hit. Wasn't happy with that one.

[d1ng0d4n]

Ah fair enough Keen to see this unfold with pics

[h2oxide]

Originally Posted by d1ng0d4n

Erm, two things mate, why on earth ThermalToss? And I think you miss-typed the wattages if it's the same PSU. Then again, 750w is probably all an advertised 1500w Tt PSU put's out

So very ignorant. Their cases and cooling kits are shit I admit, but TT psu's aren't actually half bad.
I'll be watching this unfold

[MrCupHolder]

HDD Comparisons

OK as mentioned I need to benchmark my HDD's and figure out which are quicker etc to know what I'm going to put where.

Here's a comparison of a WD Black 1000GB drive and a RAID0 array of 3x WD 320GB drives




In red is the RAID array and in blue is the WD Black drive.

This is a wierd looking graph for the RAID0 array. I know I've probably not got it spec'd well but even so.

Well time for bed for today. Perhaps tomorrow I'll check all the settings for the RAID array. Surely I can get it to perform better than that?

[rthorntn]

Ulterior motive alert: Why don't you join the two cases together? ;-)

Reason for the alert: then you will have the skills to do it for me :-)

--Richard

[Creekin]

Originally Posted by rthorntn

Why don't you join the two cases together?

bahaha
thread jack of the century

[rthorntn]

Creekin: Honestly when I read the title I thought that was MrCupHolders plan!

[MrCupHolder]

Originally Posted by rthorntn

Ulterior motive alert: Why don't you join the two cases together? ;-)

Reason for the alert: then you will have the skills to do it for me :-)

--Richard

LOL

You seriously over estimate my skills with power tools.

As I'll explain in another post shortly. I'm not even keen taking a drill to the case to add in two holes that are necessary.

[rthorntn]

Cool, look forward to it!

[MrCupHolder]

Just a small issue with the Lian-Li PC-A77F that I want to point out. I bought this case before doing any reading on these forums and it was only on about the 3rd read of this work log did I notice that someone else had the same issue with the case that I did.

The case has 12 5.25" drive bays. However when you strip the case down you find the it is split up into 4 groups of 3 5.25 bays. So if you have a 4 bay device or like other plan to put a radiator in the place of the bays you have to remove these dividers.



This photo shows a front view of the case. At the points labelled 2 you can see that you can easily put a screw driver through the hole to get a the screw that holds in the tray/divider that separates the 5.25 bays from each other.

However at point 1 the holes between the two layers of aluminium are misaligned and you can't get to the screws.

This means taking a drill to the case. I'm going to ask a friend of mine to do it as I'm not skilled with power tools and I really don't want to stuff up such a nice case as this.

So if you do get one of these cases yourself. Be aware of this. You may think you won't want to remove that divider now but do yourself a favor and at least make the holes. I probably won't remove it myself now either but at least I won't go making a tonne of filings to have to clean up at a later date when the case is full if I ever decide to rearrange things in the case and need to remove it.

[MrCupHolder]

You may all now point and laugh at me

After posting the above graph and seeing how bad 3x 320GB drives run in RAID0 I figured I'd play around with them a little and see if I can get them to perform any better.

I mean I kinda hoped that even though they would be slow 3 of them combined should perform better than a 1TB Caviar Black drive right?

Being as the 3x 320 RAID0 array is backed up onto two 1TB drives (one kept offsite) I decided I'd blow away the array and start again and see if I can get it performing better.

Problem is that my boot drive (2x drives in RAID0) is also run off the same controllor and I accidently removed one of those from being a RAID drive. It seems now that my PC is giving me the dreaded

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

message. I'm trying now to recover we'll see how it goes, but it's taking a while and I'm not able to stop it. I'm wondering now if it was simply trying to boot from the wrong device. Suffice to say that all the testing I had done with HDtach is now gone and I'll have to start over again.

However, when I get the machine all up and running again I"ll show you all the results. I found them rather interesting being I've not done this kind of testing much before.

That being said I did want to upgrade my Win7 license from Pro to Ultimate so this will give me an excuse to do it.

So it may be a few more days before I'll have more graphs of HDD performance.

[MrCupHolder]

Originally Posted by MrCupHolder

I'm wondering now if it was simply trying to boot from the wrong device.

Yep I was right.... now that the repair attempt is finally finished I was able to check the bios and find the boot order was wrong. Woot, easy fix. HDD performance test results incoming shortly.

[MrCupHolder]

OK for those interested I've posted a question about some of my benchmarking results with regards to my raid setup.

It's here

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=949421

Painful thing is now...... one of the 320GB drives has dropped out of the raid. I need sleep now so I'll have to check out why tomorrow.

With the benchmarking I have been moving stuff around in the PC because I did test out a RAID card I had lying around to see if that offered better performance over the RAID built onto the motherboard. Well the card is now out because it offered very poor performance under a number of different conditions. That being said I hope that it's only something come loose as the reason the drive dropped out of the RAID array. Else I may be buying another 1000TB drive as my main data drive and continue to have the two backups. If that that turns out to be the situation I do know how my drive config will end up looking