Happy Knife

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Well its update time, and all i can say its been a interesting few weeks. Now i know my updates are very slow, but between issues and busy personal life its difficult to find time to just dedicate a hour or two every week to getting this done, but here we go!

The following photos are just taken with my iPhone, didn't have time to get the studio setup for decent photos in between building so please forgive me.

First thing to do was to get the motherboard and the graphics card into the case and see how everything lines up

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Those of you with a keen eye will already notice the first issue i came across right here. The GPU support bracket was too tall and in result the GPU was seated diagonally, so a quick phone call to Joe, and he had another support bar with me in a couple of days.

So now its time to get some hardware in, i'm just going to let the photos do the talking.

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And this is how its currently sitting while it undergoes some tinkering and tweaking and general tidying up.

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So now you're thinking hang on a minute, the CPU block is different, and yes you would be right, see this is where it gets very interesting, upon first boot up, the machine done its cycles of powering on and off and setting up whatever it needed to in order to POST....


It never posted, I was getting various QCode errors but none of them made any sense, but the only common thing between them all is before the system shut its self off, it displayed '00' which according to the guys at Asus means either dead CPU, Mobo or PSU. So out came all the hardware onto the desk removed the loop mounted the intel stock cooler and it powered up fine got into the bios everything looked perfect, so i thought maybe it was me being careless and didn't plug something in, so back it all went in the loop and it had the same problem, so i was stumped. Spent various number of days hunting around checking things speaking to everyone i knew, and none of us could figure out what was wrong.

So i tried it one last time and this time it booted and POST'd fine, made it into the bios everything checked out, went to go into Windows setup all the drivers doing the usual tests and checking everything was ok, then the rig powered its self off, but this time disaster struck, it had killed the motherboard this time.

So quick phonecall to guys up at OCUK, they had a Impact VII in the post, once id received this, tested everything on the bench and yep worked perfect, with high hopes back it went into the case fitting the loop, powered on and nope no POST. Absolutely amazed at this, i decided to get my CPU replaced in case it was playing up, so couple of days later the CPU turned up, back into the loop it went and power on.....nothing, not even a fan spin up, so everything came back out and mounted everything on the desk, and that was motherboard number 2 that had died.

So this went on for a little while, 1 dead Z87 Impact, 3 dead Z97 Impact and 4790K replaced. Now you're thinking, this guy is crazy hasn't found out what is wrong and keeps blowing stuff up as if its cool thing to do, now i cannot stress enough the amount of help and advice i was receiving from people, the guys on the forum were in their spare time hunting around for problems, giving me suggestions to try.

So one evening i was on the phone to Joe, we were actually discussing another build which will soon follow and we were discussing what water blocks to use, when i randomly suggested if a waterblock could short and kill the motherboard, because that's the only thing in common with all the deaths taking place here, so after this conversation the following morning another call to OCUK and had a CPU only block sent to me, and i got the rig stripped down and all the bits cleaned and the new block installed and went to power on and nothing, so with a massive blow i was back to square one, and after some motivational talk from the forum members, a forum said he had a spare 1150 rig i could borrow to literally stress test my components to see if something else was causing issues.

After picking up the testing rig i had been given a G3258 so into the Impact it went under the loop, hit the power switch and we had power! So while filming the QCodes on the rear and watching what the BIOS was doing on the monitor, i saw the following messages

Updating iROG1
Updating iROG2
Updating iROG3

Then the rig shut off, i thought to myself oh dear thats another board dead, then just as i had given up all hope the rig fired back into life on its on accord and everything was working, the pump was pumping, GPU had power and display, the BIOS was showing the correct data and the QCode display was showing perfect POST, so i shut off the rig and attempted to install the 4790K for the final time. After assembly hit the power switch and it was alive, everything was working fine, CPU variables were correct, POST'd spot on, into Windows it went.

After spending 5 hours carefully monitoring every single mm of the rig i came to the conclusion it was alive and stable, so what did i do to celebrate.....as any gamer would do...

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This concludes the update, the rig isn't finished not even close, i have it in a state where it working and stable, Im still not 100% confident in the rig with so many hardware issues until i can find out what caused the motherboards to die it will remain on the side.....

Stay tuned folks.....
 
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I'm glad it's all working for you now but that is really unlucky to killed 3 motherboards. Still, at least it's working now however I'm stumped as to what is causing you the problems.

Anway you've persevered through it, hope the next update goes better :D
 
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Thank you

I'm glad it's all working for you now but that is really unlucky to killed 3 motherboards. Still, at least it's working now however I'm stumped as to what is causing you the problems.

Anway you've persevered through it, hope the next update goes better :D

Well i have a theory, because the way the motherboard were dying i think there was a defect on the full cover waterblock causing it to short out on the VRM's, but i cant really prove that thery unless i risk killing another board which for no is not on my list of stuff to get done, but maybe......:D

Very clean build.

Cheers, it'll be a lot cleaner once i've changed all the bits that need changing

Looks like a very nice compact build, unlucky on the motherboards though.

Can i ask, how does the airflow on the bottom rads? Where are the intakes/exhausts?

Rich.

The bottom case panel, is ventilated, with a similar cut like you see on the front, the rear case panel is also ventilated and cut out similar. As the fresh air comes from outside the case its pushed to the rear with the front rad fans, i have noticed a few dead spots, and this will be addressed in the very very near future, i mean the temperatures aren't out of control, its not a massive issue but its only fair that while the rig is in its building stages all problems should atleast be given the opportunity to be corrected.
 
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Looking very nice mate.

I think I'd have packed it all in and moved into a wooden shack to live out a peaceful life without technology after all the problems you had! GJ for solving them :)
 
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It looks clean now for a.small case nice work

Thanks

Looking very nice mate.

I think I'd have packed it all in and moved into a wooden shack to live out a peaceful life without technology after all the problems you had! GJ for solving them :)

Thank you, ahh mate you have no idea, still so many issues i've had which i haven't documented.
 
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From the video you posted it is pretty obvious why it was not booting... Over current protection on the MB kicking in.

If you put it together like that with other motherboards as well then it would explain it all... And it was not the water block at fault.

But it looks very good! I like it.
 
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From the video you posted it is pretty obvious why it was not booting... Over current protection on the MB kicking in.

If you put it together like that with other motherboards as well then it would explain it all... And it was not the water block at fault.

But it looks very good! I like it.

Interesting, could you be as so kind to explain how you know this? Only because no one else seemed to have picked up on it.
 
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Interesting, could you be as so kind to explain how you know this? Only because no one else seemed to have picked up on it.

Yeah, I'm surprised as well, just look at the top left hand corner of your case, you haven't connected any power cables to the GPU!

500w GPU running off 75w pcie slot...

Probably somewhere between building and rebuilding you added them so it is working now.

I'm 99% sure this was the problem. I have the same GPU but I wouldn't dare to try it without power cables to prove... 2gpus+plx chip need a lot of power.
 
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