A new modding project

Thug4life · Post by **Thug4life** » 11 May 2004, 19:51

I've been reading the latest PCF and was inspired by the bush baby article and now I want to try a new mod. I was thinking a sort of tool box type case that one sits on containing a micro atx board and some other cool stuff. How does this sound? Any other ideas from the marauding masses? I am tempted to try a completly new container and not mod another case.

SUGGESTIONS IF YOU PLEASE!!!

Drevil · Post by **Drevil** » 11 May 2004, 20:02

Are you planning on watercooling it? 8O

Jsut kidding - not looking to start a war!

naughty · Post by **naughty** » 11 May 2004, 20:41

very funny drevil

- lets just start world war3 and get it over with

then again if you plan on using a prescott cpu you may need another container of water like substance handy - a fire extinguisher LOL

Thug4life · Post by **Thug4life** » 11 May 2004, 21:50

OK OK. SORRY I Screwed up my water cooling but I have learned my lesson and it won't happen again. It was the firt mistake I made while modding so plz gents. Lets get over it. It was fun while it lasted but now it is getting old and the memories of my grafix card are too fresh in my memory 4 me 2 find it funny. Try me again in like a month and I will laugh.

Drevil · Post by **Drevil** » 11 May 2004, 22:02

Thug - is your graphics card history? Or can you use it again?

Thug4life · Post by **Thug4life** » 12 May 2004, 00:24

Unfortunantly at the mo it seems 2 be history. Naughty thinks it might work again but at the mo it is as dead as a doornail.

Law · Post by **Law** » 12 May 2004, 07:09

Dont know if it would be big enough but maybe try an old monitor as a case???

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 12 May 2004, 07:13

Law wrote:Dont know if it would be big enough but maybe try an old monitor as a case???

I use my old monitors in the garden as pots.

NinjaTic · Post by **NinjaTic** » 12 May 2004, 07:43

I'm not sure if you can get a tool box big enough to fit a mobo? I know you can get those pretty big black and yellow boxes, but are they wide enough to fit a mobo? Not a bad idea though! the handle will make it perfect for LANs!!

Post by **Scarlet_Spider** » 12 May 2004, 09:22

there wasa thread the other day on these forums and there were some pics of different containers - one guy did it in a beer keg - it was nice.

One thing i noticed with all of the pics was that the systems themselves were all like P1's or PII's and the occasional AMD K6 - little heat - smaller mobo's etc...

Post by **Y0da** » 12 May 2004, 09:45

One thing I don't get is why mobo manufacturers still insist on 4+ PCI slots. I'm sure there are folks that need it, but the majority of us need like 1 maybe 2 slots.

SS_Titanic · Post by **SS_Titanic** » 12 May 2004, 10:42

One thing I don't get is......

I would also like to know.

GreyWolf · Post by **GreyWolf** » 12 May 2004, 11:07

Y0da wrote:One thing I don't get is why mobo manufacturers still insist on 4+ PCI slots. I'm sure there are folks that need it, but the majority of us need like 1 maybe 2 slots.

obviously this is because of Nvidias insistence on using up one of your PCI slots for nothing at all...

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 12 May 2004, 11:13

I can answer that.... for PCI-X

Slot (1) -> GFX Card nv40 or such for gr8 display
Slot (2) -> decent sound card for good sound
Slot (3) -> iSCSI RAID5 controller for fast disk access
Slot (4) -> Custom made Liquid nitros cooling system that interfaces with your system so that you can, by means of an app that you wrote, pull stats on the head dicepation and such in your system

And then I don't even have space for a fiber optic network card. Sheesh the crap they give us to work on lately.

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 12 May 2004, 11:16

but then agin you would have to realize that not all of those PI slots run at the same bus speeds some are 33mhz and some are 66mhz. try and put a device designed for 33 into the 66 slot and see where you end up. So they have two 66 and two 33 cuz you might have a network card that runs 66 and a sound card that runs 66. So rather than not being able to install yiour 66mhz network card they supply you with two 66 slots. clever aren't they.

Post by **Y0da** » 12 May 2004, 11:21

RuadRauFlessa wrote:I can answer that.... for PCI-X

Slot (1) -> GFX Card nv40 or such for gr8 display
Slot (2) -> decent sound card for good sound
Slot (3) -> iSCSI RAID5 controller for fast disk access
Slot (4) -> Custom made Liquid nitros cooling system that interfaces with your system so that you can, by means of an app that you wrote, pull stats on the head dicepation and such in your system

And then I don't even have space for a fiber optic network card. Sheesh the crap they give us to work on lately.

Slot(1) -> It's called AGP
Slot(2) -> Onboard 5.1 Channel That delivers good enough.
Slot(3) -> Onboard
Slot(4) -> That's 1 so far.

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 12 May 2004, 11:29

1) AGP falls away.
2) I will never be satisfied with onboard sound cuz the stuff you get is total and utter crap to say the least
3) You won't get a SCSI RAID5 controller on any mobo not even server boards that costs you like 400k wothout cpu's
4) That's three so far and I am not even counting Network Cards and the diffirent bus speeds (33MHz and 66MHz) at which PCI run. So effectively you need 2x of these for each device since you can get all of these devices in both 33MHz and 66MHz.

Post by **Y0da** » 12 May 2004, 11:39

1) Really? Can you verify this?
2) Unless you are a sound engineer, you won't notice the difference.
3) The average user won't need RAID5 and my mobo did come with onboard SCSI and Firewire.
4)I have onboard nec.

Like I said, there are people who might need more but the average user don't. Why not bring out smaller mobo's with just 2 slots for modding?

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 12 May 2004, 11:42

then you open your ears and notice that I have said something about 33 and 66 which pertains to MHz and something with bus speeds which makes certain slots incompatable with certain cards.

Post by **Synkronos** » 12 May 2004, 11:44

AGP is being replaced by PCI-X
I do agree with you re: onboard sound, it's perfect for everything I need to do
RAID is completely unneccessary for anyone except ppl who will have a server board anyway... and then you will have the slots you need to run it. RAID5 is just a waste of HDDs for your average user.
Onboard LAN is again fine. You even get Gigabit LAN

Personally, I only have my modem in my PCI slots. But it's there for compatibility. There's nothing quite as frustrating as having a card to plug in, and not enough slots. Trust me, I've been there, and there is jack-all you can do about it. So rather safe than sorry, plus it doesn't cost an arm and a leg for 3 extra PCI slots. I mean, c'mon.

naughty · Post by **naughty** » 12 May 2004, 18:48

AGP is being replaced by PCI-X

synkronos - while i get what you are trying to say you are using some wrong wording there - PCI-X is a server orientated 66mhz slot while what you were looking to say is PCI-E or PCI-EX which stands for PCI-EXPRESS - sorry for splitting hairs but both those are totally different forms of technology

1) Really? Can you verify this?

both nvidia and ATI are going to release highend cards in june which are PCI-EXPRESS - thereafter a majority of motherboards will only be released with PCI-E slots instead of AGP - it will take at least 6 months more before you will find it very rare for a motherboard to have a chipset that supports AGP - the upcoming BTX standard supports purely PCI-E only

nvidia are curently going to use a bridge chip which allows cards to be released in both form factors but ati is making thier PCI-E a pure form with no backward compatibility (ie they will release two differing versions of each card as an example x800xt = AGP and x880xt = PCI-E)

next year this time to buy a new card you will not be using the term AGP anywhere unless you have an old outdated mobo - none of the above is guesswork since you will be able to google all of this info - or join an overseas forum which is up-to-date on hardware

Unless you are a sound engineer, you won't notice the difference.

you ever tried to use a logitech z 680 with the analog outs on an ac97 set as opposed to digital on a soundstorm certified mobo or even a 5.1 compatible soundblaster audigy2 Zs

- i didnt think so

my mobo did come with onboard SCSI

really what mobo do you have - onboard IDE/SATA raid ive heard of - desktop consumer boards will never support SCSI so im sure you must have a server board then - that would be nice - if only SCSI drives didnt cost so much (last time i checked around R4 grand retail for a 10 gig) - in fact its also a shame that soon SATA will also be faster than SCSI too - maybe even faster than ultra wide SCSI and those SATA drives are identically priced to the IDE drives that they replace

Thug4life · Post by **Thug4life** » 12 May 2004, 21:58

By the way naughty the prices of scsi drives has also dropped alot recently - on the latest rectron server price guide scsi hotswap 80 pin drives cost:

ST336607LC R 1,300 SeagateÂ® Cheetahâ„¢ 36.7GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST373307LC R 2,740 SeagateÂ® Cheetahâ„¢ 73.4GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST3146807C R 6,690 SeagateÂ® Cheetahâ„¢ 146.8GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST336753LC R 2,610 SeagateÂ® Cheetahâ„¢ 36.7GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec
ST373453LC R 5,760 SeagateÂ® Cheetahâ„¢ 73.4GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec

The non-hotswap 68 pin ones cost identical prices for some unknown reason.

Almost affordable to the average fellow.

naughty · Post by **naughty** » 12 May 2004, 22:17

cool - thanks for the headsup thug4life - i never knew that they were becoming so cheap

im glad that even server stuff is dropping in price but with SATA being available in huge capacities at ide drive prices and considering that hot swappability is only required in larger mission critical raid arrays im sure that not many people will want to switch over to scsi

maybe a few select people who are into highend equipment probably might though - great info to know anyway - thanks

PS that 1500rpm 73gb one would have been nice at the price of the 37gb one - but R5700 is a bit more than id spend on a drive for now LOL - but still they are far cheaper than when i last looked

RuadRauFlessa · Post by **RuadRauFlessa** » 13 May 2004, 06:56

Thug4life wrote:By the way naughty the prices of scsi drives has also dropped alot recently - on the latest rectron server price guide scsi hotswap 80 pin drives cost:

ST336607LC R 1,300 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 36.7GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST373307LC R 2,740 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 73.4GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST3146807C R 6,690 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 146.8GB, 10K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 4.7msec
ST336753LC R 2,610 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 36.7GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec
ST373453LC R 5,760 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 73.4GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec

The non-hotswap 68 pin ones cost identical prices for some unknown reason.

Almost affordable to the average fellow.

They will be the same price but there is a catch. You still have to by the hot swap bays in order to make use of the hot swap drives.

I am getting 8 of these for my box:

ST373453LC R 5,760 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 73.4GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec

Post by **Y0da** » 13 May 2004, 07:47

I am getting 8 of these for my box:

ST373453LC R 5,760 SeagateÂ® Cheetah? 73.4GB, 15K, 80-Pin, Ultra320, 1", SCSI Drive, 3.6msec

8O Whatever for? Are you running a server?

onboard IDE/SATA raid ive heard of

I stand corrected. I was indeed confusing technologies.

Synkronos, I hear what you are saying. My argument is not about the convenience of 4 PCI slots. We all know that you might always add something later. What I was trying to get at, is that the mobo manufacturers could build smaller mobo's for modding purposes. The guy that wants to build a toolbox mod will be hard pressed to find a small enoug P4 mobo to fit in one.