Hey guys,

Well, the machine I built for E3 has died. It appears that it is the EVGA Classified MOBO. After troubleshooting the issue with EVGA and relying upon my own 15 years of computer building experience, I've concluded that the board has something broken on it.

It does not boot and all anymore and attempts to re-flash the bios has failed. There is still a possibility that it is the CPU or the RAM, but I have decided to try and replace the mobo first and see if I can get it up and running again. This is my ROF Beta test machine and having it down has prevented me from playing with the latest ROF 1.09 features etc. I just have not taken the time to convert my other system to run the Beta, so I've been effectively grounded for the past week, which sucks big time. So it's time to fix this sucker and get flying again. Except this time I want to make it more ROFesque. I figured some of you case monkeys might want to see how this goes.

It was top of the line a few months ago and cost me a pretty damn penny! Not happy at all that it died. Whatever ended up breaking will certainly be sent in for warranty replacement.

Here are the original specs.

- Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

- Xigmatek Dark Knight PWM CPU Cooler and Fan

- EVGA E759 CLASSIFIED LIMITED EDITION 3-Way SLI (x16) + PhysX w/ECP & NF200 1366 Intel X58 EATX Intel Motherboard

- CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory with Airflow Fan

- EVGA 017-P3-1294-AR GeForce GTX 295 1792MB 896 Bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

- Creative X-Fi Sound Card

- Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

- CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible Power Supply

- HP DVD 1170i DVD-RW Drive

- CoolerMaster Cosmos S Case

Some pics as it stands right now.





The plan is to replace the board E759MOBO with a new E760MOBO and also replace the craptacular Dark Knight CPU cooler with a Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler. Then paint the case something custom for ROF.

If it turns out to not be the MOBO that is bad I will have to dig deep and replace either the CPU or RAM that has died. God let it not be the CPU!

More soon...

Jason

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 is what I'm using. It been rock solid, I've been using Asus MoBos for years and never a problem.

Been playing ROF on max settings since day one of the beta too.

That's a damn shame but it's cooked badly Jase that's the truth of it. It's no use to anyone now I'm afraid. Look, I'll give you 50 bucks for it and that'll only just cover costs. I'll even pay the freight ! You'll be glad to rid yourself of this piece of junk trust me. It'll be doing me no favours I can assure you.

No need to thank me. I'm just naturally generous to those in need.

Hey Trouble,

Ya I here you. Asus is the only other brand of Mobo I will consider anymore, but I go with EVGA because their customer support is phenominal, their website is fantastic and they are located in SoCal so dealing with them is super easy. The fact that it appears their board failed is dissppointing, but until I get this re-build done I won't know for sure who I can blame. LOL.

I did not overclock this machine one bit and it was well kept for nearly 6 mos. so this failure is a bit baffling.

Jason

think it has to do with the rug it's standing on ;-)

So I installed the new Mobo and Fan. Guess what? Still won't boot. Actually, I did get it to boot after a couple tries and I thought it was fixed, but then suddenly after I turned it off and came back a few hours later it would not boot again. Now it won't post and keep going through attempt to post, but never does.

What do you think guys? RAM issue or CPU?

Remeber its a new MOBO almost identical to the last one and I did get it to boot about 6 times, then it's back to no Post. I'm baffled.

It's either another $400 bucks or $1000 bucks. What would you do? I don't have an endless supply of money.

I'm pretty sure I've eliminated all possibilities other than RAM or CPU.

Jason

Is there any beeps? I'm not really sure how you could check. Is the power supply good?

Scince I'm not an expert I'm afraid to give advice but did you look at the CPU when you swaped it over? was it discolored? perhaps you could try to boot up with out the memory in it or just put 1 stick in at a time.

It may need 2 to boot, 1 in each populated pair, but I don't know the specs on that MoBo.

I am sure, as a veteran system builder of as many years as I, you have done the basics and stripped
every external peripheral but the basics, yeah?

If it has onboard graphics and/or sound, yank the triple SLI, which I'd suspect, and the Creative card,
which I've been down on for years.

The DVD is extraneous to the effort as well.

I mean you've got plenty of Wattage, but maybe something is drawing from it big?

I am a firm believer in the basics...

Ok time to update this thread.

So, I ordered some new parts -

- EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED 3-Way SLI + PhysX 1366 Intel X58 EATX Intel Motherboard

- ZALMAN CNPS9900LED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

- COOLER MASTER RA-1100-KWN1-GP Transparent Acrylic Side Window Panel

Here's the case with most of the guts removed. I love these Cosmos cases. The best on the market in my opinion.



Here'a a pic with the new board and fan installed. I mean really, can an Xbox or PS3 ever be as sexy as a nice PC set up?



I installed the new mobo and the new CPU cooler, replacing the E759 mobo and the Dark Knight CPU cooler. I kept the original RAM. I bought a new side panel to replace the stock one that comes on the Cosmos S case. The stock side panel has a huge fan built in. It's cool, but it interferes with the aftermarket CPU coolers. So, I bought the new side panel that has a window. A much cleaner look.

Unfortunately, once installed that did not solve the boot up problem as it appears that my RAM is bad. So I contacted Corsair and filed for an RMA, which was granted.



So, I couldn't wait, so I bought more RAM from NewEgg. Basically the same RAM, but a bit faster.

- CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model CMG6GX3M3A2000C8 - Retail54361118

I installed the new RAM and I got it to boot! Hooray I can fly ROF again! Just in time for 1.09 release!

Here's a pic of it running. The Zalman fan looks and sounds great.



Now, let's paint it to make it a little more interesting. These Cosmos cases lend themselves pretty easily to custom painjobs.

Jason

Looks great, i love Zalman`s copper coolers.

Well Corsair produces some top of the notch RAM, but AFAIK they aren't the most reliable.
I own a little computer shop and ask from time to time my suppliers which are the brands that usually have more or less RMA. Unfortunately Corsair don't belong to the group of the less.
But to be complete honest the ones I sold never had any complain from my customers.
Great rig you've Jason.

Glad you like guys.

I ran into some perfomance issues with ROF and I thought it was hardware related. I have a thread in the ROF section about it and it was really worrying, but glad to say it was not another hardware failure or bad ROF code, it was some Chipset drivers that did not install correctly first time around. ROF and all other games are performing very well now on this rebuilt rig on Win 7 64.

I need to update this thread with pics of the paint-job I'm working on.

Ya I've never had a problem with Corsair RAM until now. It happens I guess. At least their Customer Service is responsive.

Jason

Ok guys,

So now that I know my hardware is working correctly and I can fly and play without worries, let's paint this sucker. So, I have decided to do a ROF inspired paint-job based on the Red Baron. Why the Red Baron? Well, I'm short on time these days and it seems like a pretty straight forward process and I think a red machine with an Iron Cross on it will look pretty darn cool.

I'm going to try and make this as easy as possible. I'm going to only paint the plastic bits and the side panels and the little swing doors on the front. All the grills will remain black. I'm going to leave the aluminum tub alone. I have painted the inside of cases before, but it is a #%&*$# to do and if you look at the Dr.1 in ROF the gas tank is right in front of the pilot and it has a metal finish, so I think my decision not to pain the inside of the case makes artistic sense.

Painting the top exhaust grill brackets.



Looks good once re-assembled.



Painting the side panels with some grey primer.



Side panel now painted red. I will add a gloss coat to even out the surface since I used a spray can and not a spray gun.



So it's coming along. More pics soon.

Jason

I'm anxious to see how it turns out. It might inspire me to paint one of my old cases.

Red Baron case?

VP,

Yes a Red Baron case. It's amazing what you can do with a can of Krylon...err I mean Rustoleum. LOL.

Jason

You could sell a special package for WWI loonnies like myself. ROF and Red Baron PC Case.
You could also have a Guynemer, Rickenbacker or a McCudden case.
I'd buy ROF again.

Ok so I'm still at it, but the Holidays have slowed me down. I managed to paint an Iron Cross on each panel. Was not an easy thing to do. At least not for me. I completely porked one of the panels and had to sand off all the paint and start over, but I finally got it done. There are some small blemished and bleed-thrus, but I hope to touch them up. From more than 2 feet away it looks real nice. I need to put a gloss coat on each panel, especially the one on the left as the cross is flat black. Working with lame spray cans from Home Depot is not how the pros do it, but I didn't want to invest too much money. The computer alone cost enough.

Now I just have to paint the rest of the plastic trim and the handles.

Jason

Hey guys,

Ok now I'm making some good progress. The side panels are done. They are about as good as they are gonna get. The finish is not perfect, but it looks good enough. I'm diggin' the red.

Jason

That does look pretty cool.


Wheels

needs a pair of spandau guns on top

Where's the wings?

Here ya go http://www.williamsbrothersmodelproducts.com/guns.jpg

Cool.

Jason

Very Nice, I just may get inspired to do something with my gloss black case!

Hi guys,

Ok, I found some time over the Christmas/NYE break to get some more painting in. Here is how she currently looks. I'm really digging it. It's turning out to be a beautiful case. If you see it in person and look close you can see mistakes and an uneven glossy finish, but from 2 feet away it looks real nice. Not bad for some spray paint you can buy at Home Depot.









Jason

Ok guys,

I have the hand rails done. It is almost done. I just have to paint the little vertical doors that go on the front corners. :-)









Jason

Looks cool! I never thought of doing anything like that with a PC case. now you've got me thinking I wonder how mine would look in a nice Lozenge pattern

I'm working on a Lozenge case as well. Well, I have it figured out, but not bought one yet to paint. Soon though.

Jason

I'd just get the fabric, glue over the parts I want it on and clear it. Could even add some ribs under it.

http://www.vintageaerofabrics.com/pages/lozenge.html

Ta-da! It's done. Well...almost.

I painted the little doors that swing out so you can remove the drive bays.

I was thinking about painting the little buttons and brackets that hold the drives in place. Either red with black buttons or black with red buttons. Which do you think will look better? I can't decide.







Jason

I'd go w/ black on red (red bracket, black buttons).

Hi Brennus,

I went with Black bracket and Red buttons. Looks ok. Pics tomorrow.

Jason

You can get some transparent stickers for Bulletholes... and I also dig the idea with the Model Size MGs.

Right now it's cool, but it's not really taking up the idea fully, more like a bright red case with some deco.

Ya well, there's a difference between being inspired by something and being too cheesy or guady. I never said this was the mod to end all mods, I just wanted to do something fun.

I'll post a final round of pics this weekend. Been busy with work.

Jason

Nice work with that case Jason. I see you've gone with air cooling so if I might offer up one suggestion it would be cable management. I haven't worked with that case but it looks to have some cable holes in it. Any way to reroute some of them cables into the back plate? It would help with your air flow.

Anyway, like I said before, nice job!

Hey Jason. Nice job! I love seeing folks tinker around with their stuff like that and seeing what they can come up with. Definitely one-of-a-kind. I think a United States Air Force themed case painting would be cool too especially based upon the old roundel design.

Wow, absolutely amazing paint job... so beautiful and neat! Excellent job, Jason von Williams! So, did you have this rig of yours on display at E3 running Rof:ICE?? I caught a SimHQ video of you there... looking great, but didn't fancy that "music" that was playing from somewhere in the background, heh. If I was there I would've had Jerry Goldsmith's wonderful Blue Max score playing from YOUR speakers to drown that racket out!

Best Wishes, Sir! Now you have me practically drooling like crazy to finally get my hands on Rof:ICE (when it's released in the UK haha)!

Ziggy,

If you buy ROF right now from our website and then buy the extra planes from our store while they are on sale for $2.99 you will essentially have ICE today. You may want to consider that route. The UK release is a little ways away.

Jason