First

Welcome to my blog, how very web 2.0 of us ~

I've started this to showcase various experiences with top end hardware.

My hardware generally now has a 6-12 month life before it's replaced and my blog is themed around this, buy the best, push it to breaking point, then throw it in the bin.

First we set the stage, where I have come from to arrive here and then where I am going.

I got into the Hardware scene in a big way by around the time I was 14-15. I've done only 3 major case mods, the second getting published in Atomic magazine and the later 2 (1, 2) can be found online at the OCAU database (Oh yeah, I am Australian). I also wrote a beginners guide to overclocking when I was 15 and it still stands at OCAU. It's a little embarrassing how poorly my article is written and structured, but I had a good feel for what I was doing, and hey that was like 5 years ago.

I did one thing I was particularly proud of and that was building my own watercooling system. I machined/milled my own CPU waterblock which I designed and fabricated by myself entirely.

It cost $25 to make. I spent more on the lovely Eheim laboratory silicon tubing. Nothing beats the hours I spent battling to modify the Heto 2800 pump (Less than $30!) to stop it from leaking. I of course prevailed and everything worked. One of the greatest senses of accomplishments I have ever felt.

I had my fair share of problems, the coolant became ridden with algae as I had made the mistake of forgetting to put something to stop it - radiator coolant does not do this just prevents the corrosion you get from mixing gear that has Copper and Aluminum. Algae loves warm water. I remember watching the motherboard PCB bend as I tightened the stainless steel bolts clamping waterblock onto the CPU, the bend was huge. Nobody was using spring based mounting bolts then, it took a few mounts until it was nice and flat. Nothing beats the time when I had gotten up from my desk and all of a sudden the PC started to tip over and fall off in my haste to save it I accidentally grabbed some of the piping. Hearing a cracking sound and then the powering down sound of my monstrous 120mm Sunnon fans was disturbing, even more disturbing was the puddle of water at the bottom of the case that had appeared. What truly shocked me was that I didn't kill it, 20kg of dead weight supported briefly through a motherboards CPU socked, power loss and loose water and it still boots up first go. The Epox 8RDA+ was eventually retired after the caps started leaking.

If we go further back to before I had the watercooling setup I was one of the early 8RDA+ adopters to stick some lovely chopped up blue Thermaltake heatsinks onto the Mosfets. It was exciting back then, since additional cooling on the motherboard for anything other than the Northbridge and maybe Southbridge was unusual. Pictured here you can also see my (still favorite) SLK-800 heatsink, if only they were still this big.

Around this time I retired my AMD Duron 900 the first CPU I purchased with my own money. I ravaged the shit out of that CPU. Constant overclocking and tweaking. Constant adjustments to the heatsink. Constantly moving the computer around. All this activity took its tool on my 900. Notice how all the edges around the CPU core are completely chipped away? It still worked. I have never seen any CPU with that much damage still work, I've seen hairline cracks and tiny notches on the core and they won't boot, this thing was still running overclocked fine!

So that's what I was doing in my youth, I am returning to a very interesting time in my life, this time I am going to experiment much more, and I have a lot more money to spend. In maybe 6 months to 12 months time I want to be overclocking with Liquid Nitrogen, DICE and have a go at Vapor Phase Change cooling. I also want to further develop my metal working, soldering skills and Autocad design. Early on you can expect a more social and relaxed discussion as I move to get back into the front lines of performance computing.


Lots of benchmarks, theory and real world chaos to come!