f***! where did that pic go!!
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...&hl=monitor

@ Ripken

Is this the picture you are talking about?

haha! there it is! thx

i swear down...if i had the money i would so have a set up like that maybe not as many monitors..but 4 or 5...games would look amazing

Yeah my neck would probably hurt at the end of the day with that kind of setup.

Realize the kind of video card you would need to play a game at that resolution and reasonable framerate...

Correction Jeremy... Video cards, cards. You would need many many cards...

maybe.
you could get one with tv out, and get one of those huge TV setups....

24 monitors is just like one with FSAA 24x, not much.
...



FSAA 8x + aniso 6x requires more power.

why why why why!?

of all the custom rigs!? why did someone make that! lol

my junker...took with a junky digital camera




the camera is 7 years old and captures a 4500RPM CPU fan...i have no clue how..

i cut and bound the cables myself, and the case fan is where a whole fan scoop used to be....looks better to me, the guard is so no stray cables get sucked in and chopped up, because that fan blows all the hot air out.

yea...my computers in school don't exactly look so hot...but i'll get pics of those at a later date..yea, i have 2 computers in school. one is just being built, the other is for work, until i graduate, then it comes home.

you guys just kill me on your cable management

i don't have room to make it any neater, honestly...the computer is barely over a foot tall and wide. i just made it so that there are no wide ribbon cables to trap heat or prevent air from entering the front, because it does go in, and if you put your hand on the front you can feel it...of course theres much work to be done to make it better, but its 5 years old, its not going to last long enough

My specs are as follows:

700W AOpen PSU
Gigabyte 6-Quad mainboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13Ghz CPU
2 x 1Gb Corsair DDR2-667 RAM chips
GeForce 7900GS 256MB PCI Express display card
NEC 16x DVD Writer
1 x 320Gb Seagate SATA2 HDD - OS & DATA
3 x 320Gb Seagate SATA2 HDDs - TV Series
1 x 300Gb Seagate SATA2 HDD - Software & Sundry Stuff
1 x 400Gb Seagate SATA2 HDD - Movies and Vid Clips
1 x 250Gb Seagate SATA2 HDD - Games
1 x 250Gb Seagate SATA2 HDD - Music, Music DVD's etc
Total = 2480Gb

CPU Temp = 38C

My Table


I've run out of space to put the new hdd


The Case in question


Anyone volunteering to sort out this mess?

i'd almost expect a 3+ GHz processor with all that in there...

how hot does that baby run with all those drives at 114F a piece?

It's a Core 2 Duo chip - I WISH it was 3+ Ghz

I haven't checked the system temp since the upgrade last week - still need to tidy everything up. CPU temp is 38-40C. Will update as soon as I've tidied it up

Please tell me you have a backup drive for your data!!

nope - but I have a friend with a similar rig and identical data backup

I'm with Ripken on this one, where is the cable management?

I hate messy cables!! Especially with me having a window side panel!

my cable management is purely makeshift. i just wanted to mod it up a little before it dies, because i might have just given it a few more years. not to mention how the thing is built..the power cables coming out of the PSU are to the left looking at it through the 5.25" bays, so i can't really mod it up to change that and get them completely out of the way.

im still waiting on a powerpack for the dual Xeon motherboard, so i have no computer to fall back on, im stuck with what i have for the next month or two...i either find a new PSU or i find one thats smaller and less power consuming than the 600W one. either way, i need it to run the comp. its got a case loosely fit together, i just haven't put on L-Brackes yet because i don't know how big the PSU will end up being. i found one on Ebay that is a last resort, so if all else fails thats what i've got to get. im hoping that the computer my friend is about to dump has the right stuff for it....oh well...i've got a trip planned to go to a local school that just takes whole computers and dumps them, so if i can pull out some goods i will. that includes as much RAM as i can, processors + fans/heat syncs and hard drives...and one power pack that suites my needs.

that wireless USB, is that an internal cable or part of the PCI card, because i've never seen that before, but thats a sweet lookin rig

Its a Bluetooth adapter (for my fone software).

Its a USB PCI card. It has 2 external ports and 1 internal, so I hide the bluetooth dongle away inside

Cheers, I do like to look after my rig (it gets air dusted every so often as well, lol)

thats awesome

about the best i can do is have a PCI ATA/66 card in my comp and then have ODDs and the masters and HDD's as the slaves...it looks interesting because i usually just let it hang out onto my desk

but im thinking of playing musical computers, taking this thing upstairs with the sound card, and having the 1.4GHz down here with no sound...we'll see, i think i still need sound all over, but i want the faster computer down here..its an interesting situation for one who has little money to spend.

This is a really old computer, built around 1999. It features 10 IDE drives, which was a rare for that time. It runs Linux. I still have the box, but since it has two 120mm fans in it (among other fans), it is very loud when running. Four of the drives are 45 Gig drives in a RAID-10 on a 3ware ATA-66 card. There is still room for a CD-ROM and floppy, too.

-John

Click Here For Full Size Picture

wheres the mobo in that mess? jk

what type of mobo is that? i have one from 1999 that could have that many SCSI drives, but it'll only have IDE, for the speed really. i could get a 250GB SATA drive, but i have no SATA plugs on any of my computers, making it somewhat useless. although my Super S2DGU has two UW SCSI inputs and one UltraSCSI inputs along with 2 IDE and a floppy...it is a server really, but i don't have a PSU for it. [bummed by that]

i should be getting one soon.

I don't remember the model #, but it is a Gigabyte mb. IIRC, it does not have SATA on the mb, just 4 IDE. I also use a Maxtor 133 (non-raid) card in their, too...maybe 2 of them.

I don't have pictures yet but here are the specs:
CPU: Intel x6800 core duo extreme
Memory: 4 GB OCZ DDR2 800 Platinum Rev 2
Mobo: EVGA 122-ck-nf68-ar NVIDIA 680i chipset
Video: EVGA 768MB e-GeForce 8800 GTX (2 in sli)
PSU: Enermax Galaxy 1000 watt
Cpu cooler: Vigor Gaming Monsoon 2 active tec
Case: Black Thermaltake Armor with optional 25cm side fan
Sound: Creativelabs XFI Platinum
Storage: Four 500 gig SATA 2 3gig hard drives, 1 is external
Plextor 755SA SATA Dual layer burner
HP dvd/cdr&rw burner with lightscribe

The Build has change a couple times it started out with 2 ASUS 7950gx2's in Quad Sli on a ASUS P5N32 sli Premium, now it will be the EVGA board and two 8800gtx's in sli, they are faster and DX10 compliant. When the first build was done the rig was some what quiet. The loudest thing was and still is the Vigor cooler, but it works so well, CPU temp 31c (idle) and 37c (under load), that I live with it. The only other thing I will add is a dedicated water cooling system for the video cards when the blocks are out.

Pictures will follow this weekend.

if this is true then you are the luckiest man on earth!

Gross....

The video cards must make a fair bit of noise....

So you just go out and buy whatever's the most expensive thing on the market at the time, huh... $$$

Freecell must run really fast on that baby!

:-)

-John

Hahahahahah!

Imagine just how fast solitaire would run...

Pong would be crazy fast!!!

Guess it's my turn now.

Here's a picture of my computer desk.



The desk was custom made by myself with a single sheet of laminated presswood (39$).

On the left is my APC Back-UPS Pro 500 with my power switches on top.

On top is a Viewsonic E90F Monitor, Logitech Media Elite Keyboard, MX-518 Mouse, and Speakers. Left of the screen is my eDimensional AudioFX Force Feedback Headset and next to that is my old reliable AGFA Snapscan E50 Scanner. Below my scanner is a little space that has my Dlink router, cable modem, my games and below that is a Canon S-520 Printer.

Now to the good part. THE BOX... Here's the picture first.



The case is a Antec Sonata 2 with little modification made to that air duct thing. I cut the and sealed the upper part to suck in fresh air an blow it directly on the video card (ATI AIW X800XT Stock) wich keeps it at 40C idle and 58C full. Notice that i kept all those wires out of the way to help with air flow.

The motherboard is a MSI K8T Neo 2-F (Socket 939/VIA KT800/AGP). CPU is a AMD Athon X2-4200 with stock cooler (the CPU never really goes above 41C). I'm using 1 Gig Corsair TwinX DDR400 of memory.

There's also a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS hidden behind the air duct. On the right side are two Western Digital Raptor 74G that keeps all my data safe and my games speedy. And finally... There are two dvd's on top. One is a regular LG DVD drive and the other is a Plextor PX-708A that keeps all my stuff backed up.

My system is running Windows XP Home with all the latest drivers and updates. I have 35 Processes running on idle when fully booted. Boot time is about 40 seconds (time between pressing the power on button and everything loaded). I Scored 6050 in 3DMark05 (Demo). Nothing is overclocked and all is nice and cool, no hiccups, bugs or instability.

I super satisfied with this setup and will run it for quite a while before i change it.

Question, what those 2 massive switch like things on top left of ur desk???

My computer is on a Seperate 15 Amp Breaker. The line goes directly from the breaker box directly to my desk via a jonction box. Then it is split in the 2 switches that control 2 power outlet each.

One switch controls the UPS (PC, Monitor, internet) and the speakers. The second switch controls the printer, scanner and whatever. I only open the second when i really need too.

So when after i shutdown the computer, i switch the power off. This way, i know that there's nothing sucking juice for no reason.

I feel that the computer likes it better this way. It has it's own line of electricty that's filtered by the ups to make it nice and clean.

Never notice that some people who have wierd computer problems never questions the power outlet ?

When I built my house 10 years ago, I also had a dedicated circuit for my compter equipment. This room is now the guest bedroom, because the other guest bedroom became my daughter's bedroom three years ago. I guess I can make it my office again in about 17 years.


-John

i just got them today, and i still have plenty of wiring to perfect, but i got a single 300mm cathode and a 3 speed lighted fan for my little PC...the wires are definately tricky...i had it on my desk for a good couple of hours trying to reroute all the cables, and i got somewhere...as soon as i can clean up my makeshift job [so i can see how it looks] i'll see what i can do about pictures, this time i'll use my sisters camera...6.1megapixel...i wish i had a nice camera like that.

Two words - cable management.

The first PC is my main PC, Demia.
*AMD Athlon x2 3800+ retail
*DFI Infinity (non ultra) nForce4
*eVga 256MB PCI-E 16x nVidia 6600
*2x256MB Kingston PC3200 DDR
*Seagate 7200.10 320GB 16MB cache sata2
*Ultra Wizard case No, it is not an antec case, I hate antec cases!
*Lite-On DL-DVDRW w/ lightscribe and DVDRAM in a usb2/IEEE1394a case
*Sound Blaster MP3+ USB
*Sun GDM-5410 21"
*RCA RT2500 Home Theatre headunit/amp/radio system (I *HATE* computer speakers, they sound horrible!)
*Windows XP Professional RTM (32 bit)
*Windows XP Professional x64
*FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE i386
*FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE amd64
*MS-DOS 6.22

The second PC is my server, Phobos.
note: the picture is a bit outdated
*Tyan Patriot BX dual slot 1
*2x P3 600E Slot 1
*4x256MB ECC/registered PC100 SDRAM
*200GB Western Digital WD200BB PATA
*120GB Seagate 7200.9 8MB cache PATA
*ATi Rage 128 16MB AGP
*Sil0680 PATA
*Intel Pro/100+
*SB16PCI
*old minitower case
*Windows Server 2003

The desk picture shows Toshi, my faster laptop.
Note: The desk picture is somewhat outdated, I have moved and changed the look of some of my setup as well.
*Toshiba TE2000
*P3M 1Ghz
*256MB PC133 SODIMM
*20GB IBM Travelstar
*Windows XP Professional RTM (32 bit)

Other:
*Dash (Compaq Armada E500 P3-500 BX chipset laptop w/ 40GB HDD and 256MB ram)
*Taz (Abit BP6 w/ dual celeron 433)
*Roto-Router (WRT54GSv3 w/ DDWRT) (the only penguin I *EVER* care to have in this house)

Cable management is really easy to say when you only have 1 h/d and 1 or 2 cd/dvd drives. try 3 cd/dvd drives an internal card reader, 4 h/d's a floppy and a zip drive. (I KNOW OVERKILL, RIGHT?) Plus throw in a huge AGP card and a couple of pci cards and your really getting a headache...

Exactly! In a tiny system with a couple drives that you hardly ever change/modify, it's easy to do, and have it stay that way. His case is virtually empty.

None of my boxes have less than 4 HDs (still a bunch of PATA ones left) and a couple optical drives. Lots of PCI cards (extra NICs, sound cards, DVB cards, RAID cards, SCSI cards, you name it). And a bunch of extras (like the cables for a SB Live 5.1 Live Drive, SCSI cards for scanner, memory card readers or LS120 or such things...) It quickly becomes a huge mess in a very crammed case - there's hardly any place for your hands. And even if I did spend lots of time making it all neat, I'd be cutting all the tie-wraps like tomorrow (next time I have to dig in there).

Now if you have a bunch of such systems, and all kinds of stuff going with it: keyboard, mouse/trackball, 2 or more monitors, KVM switch, ethernet switch, 5.1 speaker set(s) with separate amp, earphones, UPS, laserjet, MCE remote, Intuos, mp3 player docks, external memory card readers, flatbed scanner, film scanner, a power bar or three, cable modem, embedded dev boards and such equipment (various mcu & eprom programmers, etc) plus other stuff you're using with it (stepper motors, breadboards, sensors, you name it), various lab equipment... Add to that the few odd PC parts, cables, 2 cameras (and related stuff), a couple spidles of burnable media laying around, remotes, a couple telephones, and more of that kind of stuff, and you've got a GIGANTIC mess - and not just the absolute spaghetti-like mess of cables behind the desk(s)! There's stuff all over the place too.

Only once you manage to maintain all this in a tidy manner for any lenght of time can you tell others "cable management!" (or how someone else's desk should be all nice and tidy)

Don't you mean 'Her'?
And I modify my case constantly. I have had it just as neat when I had 3x HDDs, 1x zip, 1x fdd, and 2x optical drives in Demia. it is not much more work to keep it so tidy.
God, I know what you mean! every time I mod I have to cut all the zip ties and start over. It gets to be a pain, but I can't stand a messy case.

My desk isn't quite that bad, because I tend to seperate the stuff as much as possible to keep the mess down. My server 'rack' (wire shelving and normal cases) runs as many of the cable-heavy devices as I can just to get them away from my desk.

Uhm, I do. and I never said anything about anyone else's cable management either... It's just not my way to judge or get on or complain about someone else's way of doing things.

cable management is important no matter how many cables/drives you got.

Ive seen many small systems with horrible cables, makes life hard wen trying to repair and you gotta rip all the **** cables out!

For me I get through WAY to many cables ties lol!

Cold cathode in rig:


thats what i did to it...the cables aren't the neatest, and i havent had the time to cut that plexiglas down to be the new side of the case, but all in due time, its been a bad month for me.

as for the cables that everyone will say are a mess, well, its got a celeron in it, im honestly not worried about it enough to care about the cables. once i get the server going, that will be when i worry about cables.

I am in the process of building a new computer, I have started out by buying a intel duel core processor, 3.4ghz NOT OVERCLOCKED and a brand spankin' new genuine intel motherboard that has built in sound and graphics cards, the graphics card can utilize unused memory in order to make itself have, lets say a one gig, while your game can run on the other 2 gigs, but that was my money ran out. so I'm workin' to get memory, a couple cd/dvd drives, a couple SATA hard drives, and a nicer case (I have a 100 gig ATA Maxtor hard drive, a cd drive, and an old beat up server case). if anyone has any good ideas as to where things are cheapest that would be great , I already use newegg and frys, but wtvr.....

Cool! How bout pics or model & brand? You have piqued my curiosity.

If you want a heck of a hdd at a heck of a price, check this one out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148140
I have one, here is a test on it.
All I can say is I am very impressed with this drive! If I had cash I would get four more and set them up in my server in raid5.

As for CD/DVD drives, I use Lite-ON. They have DL DVDRW drives for under $30 at the egg.

As for cases, I actually use the 'ultra wizard' and I got mine from tigerdirect. They have an outlet store near me. I got one without the PSU and ordered a PC Power & Cooling PSU direct from their site (the silencer 360).

Here's my basic workstation - Lusankya.



Antec SLK2650-B case with 350W SmartPower PSU (120mm fan replaced with TriCool on low)
ASUS CUV4X motherboard
Intel Pentium III 700MHz
896MB PC133 SDRAM
40GB 5400RPM Seagate HD
Nvidia RIVA NT Video card
Some random CD-RW

And yes... it's running without a CPU fan. The coppermine PIIIs generate next to no heat, so it's crunching away at SETI@Home data and running at a cool 30C.

The loudest part of this whole rig is the hard drive, which you can see is suspended. **** ball bearing hard drives! *shakes fist* Anyone wanna donate a FDB drive?

@Zxian(aka DroopieDrawers)- Have you posted pictures of you tower with the HDs suspended by underwear elastic yet?

DL

So THAT'S how those Zalman heatsinks go on... I had this all wrong.
Nice one Zxian. Is that an ISA slot on the bottom?
I can't wait to post pictures of the two *really old* computers my mother-in-law gave me.
Zxian is it just me or does that video card look like it's being slightly bent? The part on the left looks lower than the right.