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iamgigglz

iamgigglz

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Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

Quick background

My old socket 1366 i7 960 rig served me very well over the years, needing only some additional ram and two GPU upgrades over a 5 year period. It was also the first PC I've had where I started playing with windowed side panels and lights...

900x900px-LL-78149d43_6a09a17d9c7a8464ddf06c4a352558d3.jpeg


Yup, that CPU cooler doesn't have a fan on it.

i7 960 3.2GHz, 12GB ram, 1GB HD5850, Gigabyte 500W psu. Not a bad machine. Another GPU upgrade and I would have been laughing.

The case was HUGE though, and I decided to switch to something much, much smaller. The rise of mITX was a sign and I went for it. All I wanted was a case/motherboard/cpu/ram change. [MENTION=508]SilvRav[/MENTION] pointed me in the direction of "a great forum called Carbonite. You should be able to sell your stuff there and find some replacement parts."

Little did I realise...

Fast forward through three months of mad cudness and this is where I stand. Not a monster, but more than enough. Spot the odd one out:

Parts:
  • White Bitfenix Prodigy
  • Asrock Z77e-ITX
  • i5 3470 (non k)
  • 2 x 4GB 1333Mhz cheapie ram
  • Powercolor 7990
  • Corsair HX650 V1
Cooling:
  • EKWB EK-FC7990 Acetal+Nickel GPU block
  • XSPC RayStorm CPU Block
  • Koolance PMP-300 pump
  • Danger Den RAD Reservoir
  • EK-CoolStream RAD XT 240
  • Phoyba Xtreme 200mm Radiator V.1
  • Titan Ice White 1/2"ID 3/4"OD Tubing
  • Whatever fittings I could find

And then I started figuring out how to fit all that in a Prodigy...
 
Last edited:
Hahah! @CUDweiser_Lite, "unicorn" indeed.

Right, so, first step: out with the old. I have to say I've been fairly disappointed with this cooler. A 230mm intake fan up front and a 140 exhaust at the back still had this little guy hitting 75~80deg while playing BF4.

(Sorry about these pics; I promise my photography skills will improve.)
Click for full res.





...and in with the new...well...sorta. Not having received my tubing or res yet had me guessing where to begin. I figured mounting the CPU cooler would be a good start.

Buying stuff second hand means you have to accept the fact that it isn't going to be perfect:



Although dismantling the block and giving it a good rub down certainly improved matters:



...even the lighting improved :D

Next step will be to go at it with a dremel. First question: any tips on polishing this guy up?

I then turned my attention to figuring out how everything would fit in the case...
 
Problems:

Ok that's cool...


Oh wait...


That's with the rad pushed back in the pic...to the right of the case to get out of the way of the 307mm card. It ain't gonna fit! Looks like I'll have to cut the front of the case to move the fan/rad assembly forward. I'm thinking of losing the stock front panel and then building it (front to back): Perspex panel on stand-offs -> Fan -> Front of case -> Rad, but that'll sort of design itself as I go :p

Second issue:

This card weighs 1.7Kg. Even with the IO plate screwed onto the case I get this bend:



It doesn't look too bad in the pic, but the only reason it's not bending any further is that the solder tips on the underside of the board are hitting the chassis. Not good.
I'm thinking of having the board rest on a perspex panel slotted between it and the chassis to support the weight. Will the board be happy with this? I don't know if it wants some air under it for some sort of passive cooling. Thoughts?
 
Yes....blame me why dont you....haha!

Looking good...sub!

Duck bomb gave a good link for support. Otherwise your perspex idea would also work. What would be nice is you polish the perspex and wire in an LED to light up the block below the card.
 
hahaha, another Prodigy attempt :p

and this one isn't even trying to do custom stuff to it :D

yeah, with smaller cases, you really need to do some in depth research as to what to do and what will fit where

for the CPU block, I am sure you can 'lap' it. maybe start on something like 800, 1000, 1200 and if you have 2000 grit wet sanding paper

as for the mobo: yeah, just cut a short piece of perspex as support... doesn't need to go the full length

then also try and get something, either going from the bottom of the case or from the top of the case, to support the back of the GPU

GL and keep updating
 
Duck_bomb said:
Eish I hate it when stuff doesn't fit :/ Going to run into quite a few of those problems with that case though I'm afraid! :p With regards to the graphics card bending is there no way to create a support for it? I had one in my Cooler Master HAF-X case that worked really well: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviewimages/coolermaster-haf-x/coolermaster-haf-x_bracket.jpg
Click to expand...

It's the motherboard that's bending; the motherboard is horizontal with the GPU standing vertical.
 
Duck_bomb said:
Oh damn. but if you support the card then the motherboard shouldn't bend?
Click to expand...

The only support the card has is the IO plate, which isn't enough. It actually manages to pull away from the back of the case allowing the card to drop its full weight on the PCIe slot.

I'm not too stressed about it as I reckon my perspex plate idea should work; I just want to know whether replacing the air under the board with perspex will cause any issues.
 
Woohoo! Delivery from TitanIce :D



I wonder how this stuff compares to the Primochill offerings?

Sorry chaps. The responses came in too fast and I skipped a bunch; how rude of me...

Off-The-Chart said:
hahaha, another Prodigy attempt :p
and this one isn't even trying to do custom stuff to it :D
Click to expand...
Says who? Early days...

Off-The-Chart said:
for the CPU block, I am sure you can 'lap' it. maybe start on something like 800, 1000, 1200 and if you have 2000 grit wet sanding paper
Click to expand...
Makes sense. Urgh; elbow grease :p

Off-The-Chart said:
as for the mobo: yeah, just cut a short piece of perspex as support... doesn't need to go the full length
Click to expand...
I'm thinking a piece exactly the same size as the mobo, just with cutouts for the CPU backplate and mSata thingamajig

Off-The-Chart said:
GL and keep updating
Click to expand...
Thanks. Will do.

SilvRav said:
What would be nice is you polish the perspex and wire in an LED to light up the block below the card.
Click to expand...
...which would look awesome with the full size perspex piece under the mobo. I was going to go with flat white, but clear with ^ and a white LED would be pr0n.
 
also just take note of those "solder pins" you mentioned earlier, which is preventing mobo from bending more

that was one of the ideas I wanted to do with my Prodigy, but would have to 'trim' so much off the perspex for those solder pins, that just going with a trim seemed useful enough

well however you plan on doing it, will be interesting to see

and I meant, your main build was just about basically WC'ing the build, nothing serious in terms of modding. now you basically have to mod, in order for the main build to actually fit
 
Off-The-Chart said:
and I meant, your main build was just about basically WC'ing the build, nothing serious in terms of modding. now you basically have to mod, in order for the main build to actually fit
Click to expand...

Lol yeah. It was between this case, a HAF 915 and I actually had a CM Elite 130 in mind for a while, but it seriously didn't have any rad space apart from 1x120mm. The HAF was surprisingly limited in terms of rad space; I would have got 2x240s in there at a squeeze, maybe 1x240 and 1x360 at most with some modding.
2 HAF 915s would have been pretty cool (see what I did there?) but too expensive. Maybe later :rolleyes:
 
So last night I got around to thinking about how the tubing will be routed...and where the friggen'ell I'm going to put the res! The problem is this res is designed to mount on 120mm fan/rad holes, so it doesn't have any way of mounting to the floor of the case.

I decided to mount the reservoir horizontally across the underside of the top radiator. The res has two ports at what is now the front, and one central port at the back. I figured I could use the lower of the two front ports as an outlet, the higher one as a fill port, and the central one at the back as an inlet.
With some UV fluid it could look pretty cool suspended there.

Also, when I mount the 200mm rad high enough to be properly in front of the fan, it's ports are blocked by the 240. I'm going to have a 140mm exhaust fan at the back so the 240 can't move back any further either.
Thankfully the 200 rad has two sets of ports and I have some 90deg barb fittings; problem solved.

(I realise it looks seriously janky at the moment; The M3 screws I have are waaay too long so everything's sort of hanging loose for now :)

Left Side:


Right Side:


That 45deg compression fitting you see coming out of the pump is the outlet. 90deg barb is inlet. They'll probably change.

I'm figuring out the best loop order but my selection of fittings is a bit limited; too many straight fittings and not enough angles. I've ordered the two SP120 fans I need to mount the 240 rad properly and I'll be getting the right screws soon too, so once that's all bolted in place properly I can see how much of a bend I need/can get out of that 1/2"-3/4" tubing :p

Parting note: Here's a 200mm red Bitfenix Spectre Pro LED fan on top of a 230mm Bitfenix Spectre fan. Hmmm....

 
Re: Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

Having your tube res hanging over your motherboard? Mans got BALLS haha

Sent from a quad-core mango
 
Re: Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

Duck_bomb said:
Having your tube res hanging over your motherboard? Mans got BALLS haha

Sent from a quad-core mango
Click to expand...

Hahaha! Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
TBH the mobo is the cheapest electronic component in there aside from the ram. As long as the board doesn't fry everything else as it goes then I'm not too stressed.
There will be plenty much of lots leak testing...
 
Re: Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

iamgigglz said:
Hahaha! Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
TBH the mobo is the cheapest electronic component in there aside from the ram. As long as the board doesn't fry everything else as it goes then I'm not too stressed.
There will be plenty much of lots leak testing...
Click to expand...

yeah dude please leak test, I was a cocky b*#ch over the weekend and forgot to tighten my tube res and nearly lost my whole system hahaha, heavy stress must say. Nearly gave up water-cooling on the spot!

Don't be careless! haha :p
 
Last edited:
Looking awesome man! Told you that card was heavy :p. I'm going to be making a acrylic backplate for mobo to one of these days. Would look sick in that case with a white led in. You can always get fluorescent acrylic like they use for signage. Would look bad ass with an led lighting up the edges.
 
AztekSA said:
Looking awesome man! Told you that card was heavy :p. I'm going to be making a acrylic backplate for mobo to one of these days. Would look sick in that case with a white led in. You can always get fluorescent acrylic like they use for signage. Would look bad ass with an led lighting up the edges.
Click to expand...

Yeah the edge lighting would look awesome. Can you recommend an acrylic provider? I've googled a bit but it's a bit of a jungle out there.
 
Maizeys is usually my first choice, but then it is mainly also because I haven't bothered to try others

(it's how it works... you provide me good service once, I return)
 
Last edited:
Maizeys is the only place to go for anything plastic.

Only place
 
Off-The-Chart said:
Maizeys is usually my first choice, but then it is mainly also because I haven't bothered to try others
(it's how it works... you provide me good service once, I return)
Click to expand...

KurryBoomba said:
Maizeys is the only place to go for anything plastic.
Only place
Click to expand...

Freakin'ell best advice, like, EVAH! Maizeys is the business! I visited their Robertsham branch in Joburg and a very helpful Aloretta made recommendations on different types of perspex and stuff. R192 later and I'm sorted with two side panels and two new panels for the front intake mod I have planned.

I'm still in two minds about the motherboard tray story. It turns out that the back plate for the CPU block acts as a support, stopping the card from bending the motherboard. I'm starting to miss me games so want to get this project moving.

Pics soon...
 
yep, which I why I would have suggested:

have a look around the edges of your mobo and see how much space there is to work with.

you really need only support the edges of the mobo.

if you look at this pic:
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6516/ASRock Z77E-ITX Rear.jpg

the top being the PCIe section... that edge looks like a good few mm to just get some support in there

yes, that full perspex would have looked awesome, but with all the things going on underneath the board, only so much you can do to prevent that bend
 
iamgigglz said:
Freakin'ell best advice, like, EVAH! Maizeys is the business! I visited their Robertsham branch in Joburg and a very helpful Aloretta made recommendations on different types of perspex and stuff. R192 later and I'm sorted with two side panels and two new panels for the front intake mod I have planned.

I'm still in two minds about the motherboard tray story. It turns out that the back plate for the CPU block acts as a support, stopping the card from bending the motherboard. I'm starting to miss me games so want to get this project moving.

Pics soon...
Click to expand...

BeeTeeDubs,

They'll cut the shit to any size and (almost) any design you want. Not sure if you knew that. but I just measure the shit up before hand, take them the deets and they cut and invoice.

Winner winner chicken dinner!
 
Re: Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

Yup, rocked up with millimetre accurate measurements and they cut them perfectly. :D

I'm going to put the solid white panel between the front fan and the rad (with a hole obviously) and then have the clear panel on stand-offs in front of the fan.
Simple stick-on magnetic strips will hold the side panels to the case...I hope.

7cefd227ee833b572efce296a51bb02b.jpg


500c23328bb366c4dbde29fc003165d3.jpg


I'll have a 230mm circle off-cut from the fan hole which I could probably trim down to make a slim motherboard support strip.

Thanks for the input chaps; much appreciated :D

Sent from my GT-I9295 using Tapatalk
 
Re: Project: Little-Big Prodigy, 20 October

Oi! Where is that mSATA drive!? Also depending on your cooler you might need to get a spacer or 3 to make it fit. 😼

Sent from my Zest_T1 using Tapatalk
 
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