Nothing ever goes smoothly for me! Think I'll change my nick to 'Master of Disaster', 'Dr Apocalypse' or 'Captain Calamity'
Mate brought the case up last night as he'd rung in a night off work (he works 12 hour shifts, 4 days on 4 days off, bleh!!). So today I decided to transplant my stuff from the old case to the new, another trail of disaster followed!
Firstly the PSU wouldn't fit in the PSU cradle as the hole in the back of the cradle for the cables to exit was too small so the loom could only go so far through before the thickness of the loom stopped it being pushed through and it also fouled on the fan mounting in the top of the case! But, seeing as this PSU has no fan underneath I flipped the PSU 180° and it slid in no problem, cables went through the hole no problem and didn't fould the top fan.
Then, missed a standoff on the mobo tray so when I'd put everything together the I/O connectors were 2mm lower than the I/O panel so none of the eSATA/Network/USB ports could be used. Stripped it all down and sorted the missed standoff, f***!!!
Next, saw a bent pin on a fan connector so bent it back with a flat blade screwdriver, screwdriver slipped and knocked a surface mounted resistor off the mobo
, f**k knows what that has done?
Bent a pin on one of the HDD's so it wasn't being recognised, luckily I figured out what it was and bent the pin back without it breaking, just call me 'Terry F*ckwit'!!!
The two case fans on the side window fouled on the CPU heatsink and the Graphics card heatsink so I couldn't put the side panel on! The fans were bolted on with allen screws and nuts, got a tin of 40 allen keys and NOT ONE BLEEDER FITTED! Had to get a pair of pliers on the nuts and use a pair of wire cutters on the cap head to grip inside the allen hole and the outside of the cap head so I could twist the screw from the nut, the cap heads were smooth not rough!
Accidently pressed the CMOS clear button and wiped the BIOS settings, set it back up as it was before (I think) and managed to boot into XP, ran 3DMark06 and lost 500 marks?
Noticed the sound was in mono, only one speaker working! Pulled out the jack plug from the sound card and noticed the tip had broke off and was wedged inside the plug on the soundcard, you gotta be effing kidding me!! Spent 20mins trying to get the damn thing out, ended up bending the metal on the back of the connector so the tip popped out, then spent another 5 mins trying to bend the metal back into the plug! Found a spare lead with a stereo plug on it so snipped it off and the broken one then soldered up a new lead! Fortunately the sound is now in Stereo and both speakers are working!
Knocked my 4" strip light off the desk and broke it, this one takes 4 x AA Batteries but now doesn't work
Saw some broken wires so soldered them back but still won't work! I use this to read at night so can't do any reading until I get it fixed/replaced. I am an effing walking disaster just lately!
Managed to boot the system and it's now working (hence I can post this drivel), PC Probe says the CPU temp is hovering between 36°C/37°C. Case temp with sensor 32°C, with PC Probe 35°C.
Ran Orthos for 10 minutes, PC Probe said:
CPU: 53°C
CPU Fan: 2400rpm
Mobo: 36°C
Sensor 1 - CPU: 44°C
Sensor 2 - case temp: 38°C (think this higher because it's near the rear of the CPU heatsink so more hot air hitting it).
Might have to re-jig the HDD's as there are 2 x 80mm fans in the slots where the HDD's slide in, so they are blowing down the gaps between the 3 HDD's I've screwed in. Might have to lower/raise the HDD's to get a bigger gap for the fans to blow through, but with the luck I've had today don't fancy touching it just yet!
Not sure if the system will stay stable now I've broke that resistor off, however a run of 3DMark06 and Orthos hasn't caused a BSOD/crash/freeze so I guess that's a good sign, fingers crossed!
And the case sticks out 5 inches more than old one so I now keep banging my knee on it when I swivel my chair around as I forget it sticks out more!
Lady Luck was not on my side today
If I'd fallen in a barrel of tits I would have come out sucking my thumb!