Ghetto Mods

[Rubbish]

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The ugliest test bench since 2004 (probably). Shoutouts to MSI for making terrible VRMs on AM3 so I can use their busted board as a test bench with some standoffs. This airflow is jank but optimal, memory gets massive airflow from the GPU fan overhang, CPU fan feeds right into northbridge heatsink. Featuring an Antec Earthwatts EA-500, Seasonic platform from like 2006, somehow still running without any re-capping. I screwed in the front panel section of an old NZXT case to the MSI board for some USB/audio on the other side, and one part of that same case serves as power/reset switches for boards that don't have them.

My only problem is getting USB mice and keyboard to work on this, I have to use a PS/2 keyboard to get into BIOS or do anything and I have no idea why. USB keyboard / mouse are enabled in BIOS, I'm probably missing something obvious.

Is that an EVGA 680i?

 

[MachineLearning]

Is that an EVGA 680i?

Close, it's a 750i

Check for a USB voltage jumper near the ports, many had an option to change between 5V and 5VSB for USB - you may find the current setting and current PSU dont power them up fast enough

Doesn't appear to exist unfortunately ignore the thermal pad overhang, he'll grow into it.

 

[Mussels]

Close, it's a 750i


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Doesn't appear to exist unfortunately ignore the thermal pad overhang, he'll grow into it.

reading manual for you, for options that may be related

You'll have to google the relevancy or test yourself, my memory on these says they're related but it's been too long to remember specifics
something about the USB support needing to be on for X situation and OS, and off for others

 

[MachineLearning]

reading manual for you, for options that may be related

You'll have to google the relevancy or test yourself, my memory on these says they're related but it's been too long to remember specifics
something about the USB support needing to be on for X situation and OS, and off for others

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I really appreciate you taking the time to look through that, thank you.

On the EVGA 750i board, I did try toggling that quick POST settling and USB KB/mouse support both on and off, to no avail. However there might be other USB settings there that I missed. Not even sure if this would affect things but I wonder if the wall outlet I'm using isn't grounded properly (has been the same, with different PSUs) or something funky is going on there. I'll put it in another location tomorrow, maybe even in a case and then look through the BIOS one more time

 

[Mussels]

Having looked up the Nvidia chipsets as well, there was known issues with modern PSU's outright failing to turn them on - one of the ATX standards removed negative rails at some point


Basically, it may behave better with an older PSU. It's obviously working, but if a slower POST lets you use modern USB hardware - that's a win

 

[INSTG8R]

I recently got myself a proper wheel rig again but of course I can not mod it. I’m expecting the seat slider to arrive today, I’ve ordered a custom spring to stiffen the shifter and I’ll do my easy ghetto “no click” mod that has basically been erased from the net I only found and old video demonstrating the mod with a link to a site I was a member of and posted said mod that is now dead. But basically you just cut a few cm of CAT sheath and put the ball bearing in it basically l muting it. I won’t do that until I get the spring because it will take a full tear down and the spring is what the bear I’d pressing on.
Now on to today’s intended ghetto mod. I haven’t had a wheel in a few years and this has all the buttons on the wheel vs my previous G25s 2. So I thought I’d ease into driving with American Truck Sim seeing as I bought it just before I sold my old rig. But I realized I was gonna need some more buttons. So here we go. I want to use my Nostromo.

Okay that’s not gonna work. But Playseat went a little crazy with the new shifter mount(I can’t wait to try to:get it all together with the slider,,,,)

Well I got lots of space to work with….so:here is the plan

MY landlord found a beautiful piece of scrap and cut it for me amd even cut the corners off
I’m nit really looks forward to putting this all back together because if they holder runs the entire length of the base so I expect some creative balancing while I try to bot, it back together and really hoping Playseat includes some washers/spacers for the other side to compensate for it…

Edit: oh yeah I also did another little popular mod that’ basically stops the “banging” on the “box? when you shift. I’ve seen people supe4 glueing a rubber band into the box which while probably pretty effective but I have a huge “felt kit” tha5 I instantly put us3 lining the bottom of the rig so Ican easily slide it around my PC rooms wood floors
So I thought I would try using the same felt cut to size and line the box with it. MST will use a piece of tubing on the lever itself for extra damping but I just went with a few rounds of electrical tape but it just dawned on me I have.roll of “Hockry Tape” basically cloth tape so if I can find it I will probably redo it with that. I just took a still of the demo vid I took I hope the actual mod is obnoxious.

Honestly I’ve barely actually used it for driving at all yet jus5 gave Forza 5 a try and despite it a full set of adjustments you’d find in any sim I was literally being punished using a wheel versus a gamepad it was completely unforgiving basically just oversteer lift off oversteer aR just plain old rank slappers with just the slightest it of aggression making in nearly impossible to late braje corner where it’s the easiest place to make uo ground. Just/getting through a corner became a delicate balancing act just to get around so I was just gonna be slow and never win any race…anyways My mod spring is coming from Australia so could be a month or more before I see it but I,’ll add my no click mod and spring change when I get it. P

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Pic might be useless but I thought I'd post a real ghetto one (it's been a while)

pic isn't great so thankfully there's a great guide on YouTube of what I've done.

 

[cvaldes]

Ghetto mods aren't part of my normal approach but here we go....

(post truncated for brevity and legibility)

A quick followup to my recently modded NZXT H1.

The custom cooling loop worked out all of its bubbles and the coolant is silent, even at startup. The Eisstation combo pump/reservoir is very, very quiet even though the pump is running at full speed.

The NZXT H1 case interior runs cooler since the GPU is no longer pumping hot air inside the case. This means the CPU's 140mm AIO fan runs slower and quieter than when I had a GPU with a stock cooler with fans.

I'm quite satisfied with this ghetto mod because A.) I'm getting better graphics performance from the 2070 SUPER FE, B.) it's quieter than before, C.) it looks okay since the PC is under the desk and I can't see the cooling loop mod on the case back.

 

[Watermelon5]

So I had an old laptop laying around with terrible performance and thermals, so I made an open air case.

This was months ago, it's basically fallen apart now but still works

 

[freeagent]

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Had this old mATX Dell XPS 8100 case laying around, and decided to do something nefarious with it...

That old NZXT front panel segment from my "test bench" is of course strapped right to the front. This is for a couple of reasons: it looks cool (in a terrible way ), and also the power switch and LED for these Dell systems is on a dedicated cable which looks identical to a USB internal cable. Not compatible with a DIY board, at least not this one. For Dell OEM boards of the era (usually Foxconn) these connectors are all nicely color coded on the motherboard too so installation is foolproof. But it does add a small hurdle for weirdos like me who eventually strip it down.

I'm leaving the front plastic airflow restrictor off, because generally I like my airflow unrestricted. There are some vent holes in the side panel too which is nice.

Specs:
- ASUS M3A78-EM, unfortunately as of yet I can't find core unlock in BIOS soooo maybe this doesn't have it. This is annoying but until I cool the VRM I guess it doesn't matter much. Maybe I can crossflash, it does have a socketed BIOS chip in case I mess up (love that). Repasted with MX-2, small heatsinks for the VRM on the way soon.
- PHII 960T BE (for now)
- SK hynix Gold S31 500GB, the board is very upset about this drive for some reason and during POST reports that there's a generic malfunction. Well, it works just fine in another computer, so I'm chalking this up to SSD compatibility issues with either this southbridge (?) or this motherboard in particular.
- Seasonic Core GM-500, I'd like this 5x more if I had realized it had a sleeve bearing before I received it (my fault), I'll probably replace the fan in a couple of years just to be on the safe side. It should be reliable / fine for a while after that. At least it's quiet, and I was able to get it half price
- Arctic F9 PWM PST 92mm FDB exhaust fan, hooked up to the CPU fan header because for some reason, the motherboard thinks the CPU fan has failed otherwise, even though it spins just fine here and my AM3+ boards have no issues...
- 4x2GB G.Skill DDR2 1066, CL5-5-5-15, 2.1-2.2v (no clue what it'll actually end up at)
- Old FX-8350 stock cooler, ca. 2014

Cable management is hell in a case like this, I'm kind of used to it from dealing with prebuilts more often years ago but it needs a lot more work here. I basically stuffed it all in the front, although still better than stock airflow I suppose...

I'm thinking of taking a huge hole out of the side panel and installing either a fan directly on it, or adding a bit of mesh to give even more openings. We'll see how thermals end up once I figure out the small quirks and get windows installed!

I have those same G.Skill PC8500 on my Rampage Formula.. decent ram.. mine does 600MHz with its stock timings

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Is that Phenom II AM3 with AM2 backwards-compatibility? I see that it's clearly DDR2.

 

[MachineLearning]

Is that Phenom II AM3 with AM2 backwards-compatibility? I see that it's clearly DDR2.

Right on the money

 

[ThaiTaffy]

So I had an old laptop laying around with terrible performance and thermals, so I made an open air case.

This was months ago, it's basically fallen apart now but still works

Mines dead

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Right on the money

I thought I got words about that, where you possibly can pop a Phenom II into an AM2 motherboard. Even when the model name of that Asus, would seem to indicate DDR3, LOL.

 

[MachineLearning]

I thought I got words about that, where you possibly can pop a Phenom II into an AM2 motherboard. Even when the model name of that Asus, would seem to indicate DDR3, LOL.

You just need an appropriate BIOS update of course, thankfully ASUS still hosts them.

There was a M4A78-EM which came after, it's actually worse in a few small areas (believe audio codec was downgraded and there is no DP out on the mobo). I'm sure people did indeed think M3=DDR3

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

You just need an appropriate BIOS update of course, thankfully ASUS still hosts them.

There was a M4A78-EM which came after, it's actually worse in a few small areas (believe audio codec was downgraded and there is no DP out on the mobo). I'm sure people did indeed think M3=DDR3

Talking about the audio, looks like the Asus Sabertooth 990FX R 2.0, has amazingly good components for the audio! In one of my 2016 YouTube videos, IIRC, I noticed all the caps around the audio section!

I don't even have that system anymore, because I thought it would be all better to trade in 2016 for a 1080p monitor. Which has a nice glass finish and likely IPS. Was my first 1080p monitor.
The last footage I recorded of that build, was in March, 2016.

 

[Kanan]

Is that Phenom II AM3 with AM2 backwards-compatibility? I see that it's clearly DDR2.

I skipped a whole upgrade path from PII 940 to Phenom II X6 because BF4 was hard limited by DDR2 800.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Talking about the audio, looks like the Asus Sabertooth 990FX R 2.0, has amazingly good components for the audio! In one of my 2016 YouTube videos, IIRC, I noticed all the caps around the audio section!

I don't even have that system anymore, because I thought it would be all better to trade in 2016 for a 1080p monitor. Which has a nice glass finish and likely IPS. The last footage I recorded of that build, was in March, 2016.

I have one of those at home I think though I think the top PCI lane died and I never got round to looking at it.
Either a palit gtx580 killed it or it killed the card

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I have one of those at home I think though I think the top PCI lane died and I never got round to looking at it.
Either a palit gtx580 killed it or it killed the card

March, 2016, I was soo happy to be given by my IRL buddy, a GeForce GTX 660 Ti. TPU is exactly what saved that video card's bacon! It had the wrong VBIOS on it, causing it to act wacko!
Including a random red-screen crash with the command prompt open! (entire screen is red with nothing else, accompanied by a hard freeze crash)

 

[MachineLearning]

Talking about the audio, looks like the Asus Sabertooth 990FX R 2.0, has amazingly good components for the audio! In one of my 2016 YouTube videos, IIRC, I noticed all the caps around the audio section!

I don't even have that system anymore, because I thought it would be all better to trade in 2016 for a 1080p monitor. Which has a nice glass finish and likely IPS. Was my first 1080p monitor.
The last footage I recorded of that build, was in March, 2016.

Yeah, this M3A78-EM has the Realtek ALC1220 or 1200 codec I believe. I'd assume back in the day it was top-notch. Although, from what I've heard, VIA had some damn good audio too. VT2020 on my P7P55D Deluxe was close to high end Realtek from what I gather, it's a shame there's not really Realtek competition nowadays. I was looking at an ASUS P6T Deluxe X58 board the other day, and that actually had an Analog Devices (!) codec, think it was one of the last motherboards to do so...

I lusted after that Sabertooth 990FX board when I was young, it was in all of my dream builds when I was 12 and 13. I still want one...

 

[Mussels]

So I had an old laptop laying around with terrible performance and thermals, so I made an open air case.

This was months ago, it's basically fallen apart now but still works

A TPU member showing their face?
How rare

I usually juist tape the smashed up laptop back in its case, slap it behind a TV and call it a HTPC

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I lusted after that Sabertooth 990FX board when I was young, it was in all of my dream builds when I was 12 and 13. I still want one...

I got mine brand new in 2015, when I was 34. (Albeit I got the FX 8350 when I was 33, in 2014, but the motherboard I had, looked like it was bad) Time seems to fly, as I'm 41 now!

The Sabertooth 990FX R 2.0 was the replacement that I was looking for in 2015, after finding out that the Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P was poop! Also, mine looked like it got slammed in a corner, when I received the previous motherboard sometime in probably 2014.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So I had an old laptop laying around with terrible performance and thermals, so I made an open air case.

This was months ago, it's basically fallen apart now but still works

I think you did good for a first go at laptop ghetto modding! The TV resolution looked wonky though..

A TPU member showing their face?

He's likely not worried about people giving him issues.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

knew I had photos somewhere.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

View attachment 235724View attachment 235725 knew I had photos somewhere.

In 2015, I got an R 2.0 that was made in 2014. Remembered the smell of that fresh motherboard, too! (after I opened that box!)

Here is my FX 8350 setup:

It has the GeForce GTX 660 Ti that was restored by a VBIOS flash. This was when I lived in downtown Springfield, Vermont: