5150 III - Time for a new computer

[Punisher Bass]

Finally, I finally have all my parts together. I'll gather them all into a big christmas morning pile for a photo shoot and then roll in them like a pig in shit tomorrow. I still won't be able to put it all together for a few more days. I have several adult things that require my attention first, but after that's all out of the way, then I have fun.

 

[Punisher Bass]

As promised, please excuse my dusty coffee table.

There's a few bits in there I didn't originally include as part of the build, namely the new fan controller, a 4tb Barracuda drive, and an external HDD enclosure.

 

[Punisher Bass]

The bezels came out looking great for the most part, at least they did after the color coat went on, but after I put on the clear things went a little wonky. For some reason it caused the color to wrinkle a bit in a few areas and I've no idea why. It's not bad enough to make me strip it off and start over, but I can't think of a single reason why it happened other than bad luck.

My prep work was solid, I know because if there was anything on the bezels it would have shown up after the color went on and not the clear. And it's not like I mixed paint types or even brands, they were both Krylon Fusion. Anyway, I test fitted them tonight and the two tone looks really really good in my opinion, so much so that I'm considering painting the side panel as well. The wrinkling makes me hesitate a bit, so we'll see what happens.

I really wish I could paint the GPU shroud and back plate because I hate the champagne color in general, but also because it's really going to clash with the silver/aluminum look on the outside. However I'm sure doing so would void my warranty and I'm not even sure if I could remove the shroud without taking the heatsink off along with it.

Maybe if I could find some colored wrap that I could just peel off if I had to RMA it in the future? I'm sure it wouldn't do the thermals any favors or react well to the heat, really I'm just spitballing here.

 

[Punisher Bass]

Yes I know it's dusty as hell, shut up.

 

[Punisher Bass]

So last night literally all I was able to do before I crashed was take off the front mounted 140mm fan and put one of the 200's in its place. When I went to mount the top 200 I discovered the holes weren't large enough to accept the mounting screws, so I had to let my drill charge overnight.

Today I used a mix of regular and a universal bits to enlarge them, using tape to catch and pick up the metal shavings, then I found out Phanteks' general hole alignment sucks donkey balls. One of the bottom holes for the 140 is off by a quarter inch and the 120 mounts on the hard drive cages aren't even close. So after more wearing and drilling I have all 5 fans mounted. And yes, I vacuumed the case out three times to make sure I got any metal bits out of there.

Next in went the fan controller after a bit of hassle, mobo, CPU, RAM, and SSD. These Ryzen chips have some serious weight to them, I don't know if it's "becuz a all dem cores!" or if it's all from the IHS, but damn, if you chucked this at someones head you could do a fair bit of damage.

My hands are not designed to deal with this kind of tiny delicate work at all.

I'm taking a break right now because my back won't let me sit hunched over anymore.

 

[Punisher Bass]

The last two times I built a computer, the thinking was when it comes to thermal paste was "grain of rice sized blob, then spread it out thin". Apparently now it's "size of a pea then smash the headsink on and let it spread out". So I went with the latter. I have to say, for all I've heard about how gargantuan these Noctua's are, I was expecting it to be bigger, especially considering the size of the box it came in.

 

[Punisher Bass]

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

I just got done wiring everything up and decided, what the hell and hit the power button. It started up and posted and that's all I have the energy for tonight. Nothing blew up so I'm calling it a win.

 

[Punisher Bass]

Well fuck.

I got Windows 10 installed without issue, so I swapped my USB wifi adapter from GSX to 5150 III and installed the driver from the disk that came with it. I go to log onto my network aaaaaaand it only sees 2.4ghz and no 5ghz. I went into Device Manager to see if 5ghz was disabled but there just flat out isn't an option for it listed. This is the adapter I've had and it's worked flawlessly for the last couple years, so why in the hell is it fine on W7 but not W10?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BHG5CTT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[argatoga]

Well fuck.

I got Windows 10 installed without issue, so I swapped my USB wifi adapter from GSX to 5150 III and installed the driver from the disk that came with it. I go to log onto my network aaaaaaand it only sees 2.4ghz and no 5ghz. I went into Device Manager to see if 5ghz was disabled but there just flat out isn't an option for it listed. This is the adapter I've had and it's worked flawlessly for the last couple years, so why in the hell is it fine on W7 but not W10?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BHG5CTT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Check the website of the wifi adapter for an updated driver.

EDIT:
It looks like you will need to grab the driver from Realtek.

https://www.realtek.com/en/

Get the USB device ID from Device Manager to track down which Realtek driver to use.

 

[Punisher Bass]

I tried that awhile ago and there was no change at all. I KNOW this adapter can use 5ghz, I'm on it right now as I type this. I did some googling and followed the steps here https://thegeekpage.com/5ghz-wifi-not-showing-up-in-windows-10-solved/

That's with the same adapter plugged into both computers.

 

[Punisher Bass]

I found out what the problem was and fixed it...

 

[Punisher Bass]

Remember how I talked about preserving the original brushed texture the bezels had? Well here's a good look at how it looks after paint and clear coat. Also, apologies for not posting thumbnails before today, that option totally slipped past me. i r dum dumb sumtims



Not the prettiest cable management but hardly worst.




I haven't put it through its paces yet or done any tweaking other than enabling DOCP in the BIOS, but I've already seen the CPU boost up to 4.2 on its own, so hopefully it will be able to reach 4.4 as well. I've also seen it clock down to 2.4 if I enable power saver in windows. I'm going to keep pistol whipping W10 until I bend it to my will.

 

[Quiky]

There is a serious lack of RGBpuke lights inside that case. We must remedy this situation.

 

[93Flareside]

There is a serious lack of RGBpuke lights inside that case. We must remedy this situation.

Unicorn barf or GTFO.

 

[Quiky]

Unicorn barf or GTFO.

 

[Punisher Bass]

The mobo actually has shifting RGB built right into the motherboard, it sits atop the VRM heatsinks near the IO port. AND I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHUT THE FUCKING THING OFF! I shut it off in the BIOS but nevertheless it persists. I think I read it could be set to change colors based on CPU temp but even then I still don't want it.

This case also has an RGB selection button on the front, or rather it HAD one. I literally ripped the wires out and threw them in a baggie.

 

[argatoga]

I have the same issue with my motherboard and my RGB ram. Thankfully my case doesn't have a window, but at night I can see some of the light leak out from the unicorn orgy happening inside.

 

[Punisher Bass]

One of the reasons I refuse to use RGB is because while they're not a massive power draw individually, that shit can add up in a big god damn hurry.

Something I didn't talk about was a bit of panic I had after I ordered my power supply. As I said I was looking at 650 and 750w units, several weeks ago at about 2AM I noticed Amazon got an allotment of the Corsair 650's and for less than anywhere else but they were going FAST. Literally in a 3 minute span their stock went from 20 down to 7, so I pounced on it. PCPartPicker said my total estimated power draw would be just a hair under 400w not counting a few other things like the fans, so I figured having 250w of headroom over that would be more than enough.

Then I noticed the recommended wattage for the 5700 XT was 750w. That lead me on a quest for build guides and SI configurations and they all were using 500-550w max. Which made me feel a whole hell of a lot better. Apparently they overspec these things because a lot of people run shitty ass cheap PSU's that can't deliver enough juice to keep things running.

 

[Quiky]

50% load is usually the sweet spot for efficiency on power supplies, so you will be closer to the efficiency rating during non-peak usage.

 

[Punisher Bass]

Still haven't had the time or the balls to dig into actually tweaking anything in Ryzen Master or Afterburner, but at idle it will run at about 36c which isn't too bad considering just how hot my room can get in the summer. Ambient is probably in the mid to high 80's today. My OCD kicked in when I noticed the Noctua logo was upsidedown but it's not bad enough for me to yank the GPU and cooler off just to have it facing the right side up.

The only games I've tested so far are Fallout 4 and a little bit of Far Cry 4, both maxed out. F4 is butter smooth and a solid 60fps, I'm sure it would go higher if I didn't have vsync on. Previously I had to use a bunch of performance mods that lowered the texture load on the vram along with running at low settings, but those days are over now.

The fan controller needs to be rewired because 1, 2, 3, 4 do not control the fans I wired them to. Like 3 is controlling fan 1 and 2 is controlling fan 4, that kind of thing. Not a huge deal though.

I know I said my cable management wasn't horrible but I think I'll pull the side panel off (maybe for painting as well) to try and clean it up a bit more. I think I have a SATA to Molex adapter from a previous build I can use that would allow me to yank out the whole cable just powering the fan controller.