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Geek Culture / The building and the perfection of "THE PWN-DRONE"

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 08:34
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Once in a while a rich person in my town throws away a good broken computer. At times i visit the local dump, and if i am lucky, i will find a good modern computer, with maybe a broken component or a damaged operating system, leaving plenty of good working parts for me to salvage. So i set myself a goal, to build the most powerful computer I can, out of junky parts I find.

Today i am at the last stages f stabalizing the uber mashie that i call "THE PWN-DRONE" (yes a silly name) this thing has a P4, 3GHZ with a semi-broken heat sink (one of the plastic mounts is broken) The motherboard is an ABIT with AGP that has a chunk of an Geforce 4600 TI(other than the absence of the pixel shaders this thing is better tat the 5 series) it has a dvd drive and an old dvd burner. By the way, the case is apparently a gaming case its black with a green panel n front and a chrome rim for the front panel. However, its mussing the top panel. Its not a big problem as you need to take the top off in order to open the side. ALSO! completely forgot. 2 GB of RAM DDR 333. I also have some usb and a card reader deices just hanging out of the case since i can't find a place for them in the case. And finally with a help of an PCI ATA 133 controller, I managed to stuff the thing with 6 hard drives totaling to 500 GB! In fact, these hard drives did not like each other especially on the ATA controller. All the extra hard drives were extremely unstable and caused blue screens, freezeng and crashing all the time. Today after 3 days i managed to get them all to work at once without crashing. All this is powered by a 500w PSU (pretty rare for a junkyard find) I do not know what this thing is capable of, Personally i think this is a pretty decent outdated gaming gig. built entirely out of stuff in the junkyard.

Unfortunately, i have a concern about this thing and i made too much progress on it and got attached to this project and stuff and i do not want to loose this thing to something like overheating and possibly fire.

all the harddrives mounted in the case are pretty close to each-other and the heat gets trapped in between the harddrives. All that heat builds up and the entire mounting bracketall the way down the side of the computer gets very hot. (hot enough to burn your hand if you hold hold it there for 5 seconds)

I am concerned about this, harddrives shouldn't be this hot. Cooling a computer is not a specialty of mine. If anyone can make any suggestions on a way to cool this thing off, the PWN DRONE would really appreciate it

i am also thinking of maybe buying some better parts for it, make it the best it can be. Stick a better cpu heatsink/fan for overclocking and an agp radeon 1950XT 512mb

What do you think so far?

(ill post some pics later)

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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dark donkey
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 12:53
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Quote: "
all the harddrives mounted in the case are pretty close to each-other and the heat gets trapped in between the harddrives. All that heat builds up and the entire mounting bracketall the way down the side of the computer gets very hot. (hot enough to burn your hand if you hold hold it there for 5 seconds)

I am concerned about this, harddrives shouldn't be this hot. Cooling a computer is not a specialty of mine. If anyone can make any suggestions on a way to cool this thing off, the PWN DRONE would really appreciate it "


Well you can get fans that you just pop into a pci slot i think ive seen them some were. And even usb stick fans. Also CattleRustler also made a thread about some grease that cooled it down.
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Mr Makealotofsmoke
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 13:03
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lol do wat i do, find fans laying around (or take them out of old PSU's like i did) and put them ontop of things. I got a fan ontop of my GFX card blowing on my CPU to cooling. Also try making cardboard ducting systems. It actually works quite well. I got 1 in my server pc thats on 24/7 and its cooler than it was before. And no fires!

But yer...

YAY, We Got Our MUSIC BOARD!!!!
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 13:12 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2007 16:00
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worst case scenario, run it with the side panel open, unless there are places to put proper intake and output fans. careful not to go to pressure extremes in the case, either too low or too hi will cause problems. as far as the cpu and broken heatsink, get that sorted asap. If its an intel p4 3ghz, them suckers run hot. you can get a cheap stock fan/hs replacement or an aftermarket hs/fan assembly for not much more, but be sure that if the cpu-to-heatsink/fan assembly requires thermal grease that you use a good quality grease like Arctic Silver 5. i had a properly mounted hs/fan on my p4 3.2 using the stock gunk between the cpu and hs, and my pc idled in windows at 56c. Not too bad, but by switching to Arctic Silver 5, my cpu idles at 42c - amazing. I'm considering removing the fan/hs assembly on my brand new nv 8800gts 320, and doing an AS5 job on that as well

anyway good luck with your "junkyard dog", which actually doesnt sound all that bad

My DBP plugins page is now hosted [href]here[/href]
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 18:34
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i do not have any serious problems with the cpu yet, but i trust that it can handle high temperatures, i had this for a very long time inside another pc and it rat at about 70 c for as long as i can remember and never gave me problems.

Even with a broken mount (i have some kind of silver paste there) it runs at 70)

i will eventually do something about it. but i was just thinking, attach some heatsinks and fans to the sides of the harddrive mounts and maybe make a ducting system out of ducttape might be better than cardboard i think.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 18:37 Edited at: 22nd Nov 2007 18:38
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Lol, wow, this thread looks like it's written in a different language . I know all about video games and making them, but have almost no clue about the actual computer and how it works. I just know it does and how to use it, and of course the important things like RAM .


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 23:49
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I am more of a hardware guy than a programming guy. I just find dark basic fun.

What i did so far is put 2 fans on each side of the mounting brackets and the results are astounding! Better than i though.
The panels are just barely warm,

I just came up with an idea that might be crazy enough to work. Get a whole bunch of case fans and make a side panel out of them (glue them together maybe?)

now check out the junkyard dog, Its not much to look at with its case off but i have a pic of the side panel, use your imagination!

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 23:51
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another one (the front)

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 22nd Nov 2007 23:53
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here is a bad pic of the side panel

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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Venge
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 05:37
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I never understood the need for a window in the side of the case. I mean, except for all those exciting blinky lights, what's to see?
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 05:43
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its so all the people who know about computers can look inside and stare in awe at how amazing your computer is.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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bitJericho
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 05:43
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70 is wayyy to hot for that cpu, you need to fix it asap or you'll burn it out.

As for the hdds, most cases have a fan slot just in front of the drives, put a fan or two there blowing outward, with a rear fan blowing in, that way the hot drives wont heat up the inside as much.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 06:43
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hasn't burned out for 3 years so far

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bitJericho
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 06:53
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Well, depending on the exact model of processor you're running, the thermal spec ranges from 70-85ish. Meaning after that it starts to be too hot and could potentially burn out or shorten it's life considerably. In fact, it could already be unstable at that temp bieng the reason for the unstableness you seem to be having.

I guess I don't really care what happens to your processor, but I'd personally be looking to bring that temp way down, especially if that's the idle temp.

But congrats on your find, I wouldn't have minded finding that!


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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 15:01
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Quote: "70 is wayyy to hot for that cpu, you need to fix it asap or you'll burn it out"

agreed. my cpu is an iP4 3.2ghz socket LGA 775. its spec sheet says the max operating temp is 67c at 83W. Might want to look up that chips specs on intel.

Its this reason why they (cpu makers) have been lowering clock speeds, and adding cores. Its the high clocks (3.0+ ghz) that generate the heat, couple that with finer engineering of the pathways (< 60nm etc) and thats where electrons start jumping the rails. With multiple cores that each are at a safe setting of nm vs clock speeds, you get processors that out perform current once without all this borderline meltdown stuff. AMD is working on an 8 core chip, and intel has some sick sick stuff on the way.

My DBP plugins page is now hosted [href]here[/href]
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Venge
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 15:17
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Yea, I read about the new 8-core. Pretty soon we will have real-time raytracing and everything will be awesome. Maybe

I also read they're developing a new way to make hard drives store more data...I forgot how. Anyway, they say there could be 5tb drives by 2011 or something, and up to 37.5tb a few years later.
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 15:54 Edited at: 23rd Nov 2007 15:57
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you must be reading pcworld magazine on the bog? well, anyway I was, haha - thats where I read about the cpu's and yes I saw that hdd article too. Something about using the hdd's internal heat to make the data layer "malliable" and using a laser to write the 1 or 0 to a particle, and by using each and every particle they can get 5TB on drives the same size as current hdds. Nice Will be a b*tch to defrag tho - nah I think they said something about ordering the data differently during read/write operations where defragging will never be necessary.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 17:34
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@Pagan
This sounds awesome
"It LIVES! Mwahahahahaha"
Next build an army of flying robot monkeys

5TB hard drives!??
I have 60GB and that's a complete mess
We shouldn't have hard drives that large until there is a system that organises it for you
You could probably store the internet on 5TB

"You must be someone's friend to make comments about them." - MySpace lied.
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Keo C
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 17:53
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Quote: "You could probably store the internet on 5TB"

Not a chance.


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David R
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 17:57 Edited at: 23rd Nov 2007 17:57
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Quote: "You could probably store the internet on 5TB"


Wasn't there a statistic released recently saying that data online increased by like, 4 exabytes every year or something?


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Opposing force
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 18:12
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Wow! What's that big red button on your keyboard? Is it a power button that has been made big and red to avoid accidentally hitting it when taking a print screen?

http://www.freewebs.com/teammegabasic/
For low price FPSC and Dark BASIC media packs.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 21:23
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Quote: "Wow! What's that big red button on your keyboard? Is it a power button that has been made big and red to avoid accidentally hitting it when taking a print screen?
"


no thats the "panic button"

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Venge
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Posted: 23rd Nov 2007 22:17
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Yea, PCworld. something like that. Is it just me, or does that magazine have waaay too many advertisement pages? It could be like half as thick as it is and would cause a lot less papercuts when flipping through junk to get to the next article...
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 24th Nov 2007 02:22 Edited at: 24th Nov 2007 13:36
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yeah, most of it is corporate hand-holding and useless junk, swayed adverting etc etc. My neighbor gives me his copies free when hes done with them so I cant complain. I can usually grab a new one and go thru it cover to cover in a half hour or so - that includes reading the articles that are actually worthwhile, informative, and interesting, as opposed to the rest of the mag.

I only subscribe to one magazine, Visual Studio Magazine.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 24th Nov 2007 02:24
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I'm a fan of CPU (Computer Power User), usually some very good and thought out articles, and keeps you on top of the new things coming out


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Keo C
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Posted: 24th Nov 2007 02:33 Edited at: 24th Nov 2007 02:33
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I don't like PCWorld as much as CPU.


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