PINK APEVIA REBUILD

DDR3 RAM still works well and is snappy enough for daily tasks for your average end user. This is my wife's PC that I built for her around ten years ago. It features an ASUS TUF series Sabertooth system board, a Haswell 4770K Intel CPU, 32 GB of G-Skill factory matched rip jaws memory, two CD/DVD ROMS (which came in very handy during the rebuild process) RAID 0 and RAID 1, with 3TB of storage. She uses it for gaming and pretty much everything else. It used to run Windows 8.1 but I've substituted that with Windows 10. I also gave her Win 11 X-Lite for when she's ready to make the move to Win 11.

This is my crude cable management on the flip side. Due to the unique features of this particular case I needed plenty of molex connectors. The 1000 WATT pink platinum rated PSU provides more than ample connectivity. She'll be ready for a GFX card upgrade if needed but based on the level of gaming she does it would probably be overkill. Vetroo makes the power supply and the pink cooler that perfectly matches the case. These are new additions. Because changing out a power supply involves the disconnection of so many cables I completely disassembled the entire unit and rebuilt everything.

She'll be using the build on a high res monitor, but for my purposes I use this little Dell monitor for building and repair work. I have to say that just fiddling around with this Windows X-LITE I was so impressed with the features and general layout . That's right, for once I can honestly say that I was impressed. This is more like what Windows 11 should have been IMO : Utilitarian but without sacrificing convenience and aesthetics. The unit is multi-boot. She still has her Win 10 to fall back on and I can still boot to Linux from the BIOS if need be.

But, but... it's pink.

You need to remove the components and spray the inside of the case pink as well

PurSpyk!! said:

You need to remove the components and spray the inside of the case pink as well

Click to expand...

Now you tell me! That's a great idea. If I didn't have so many other things to do already I would seriously consider that. The missus likes pink and who am I to argue? I kinda like it too — at a distance. Her desk is pink and the 4ft shelving unit that sits on it is pink. Her reading light and fan are pink. The keyboard and mouse are pink (man, I love that keyboard — not because it's pink but because the keys put Cherry MX switches to shame and you can type on it forever). Maybe I'll rip it apart in another 5 years and spray bomb the inside. There are more pictures to come. I did do some modding.

Ghot said:

But, but... it's pink.

Click to expand...

That's the point.

I decided to completely remove the "Thermal Armour" and just leave it to the open air. Over time the channels get clogged up with dust and there is no way of getting inside unless you unhook everything attached and remove the armour. This is a painstaking process and probably more trouble than it is worth. This might also be why ASUS doesn't seem to feature this armour anymore. I'm quite sure the ambient air will provide adequate cooling with the way I have the fans configured. The VRMs are well heat-sinked and I'm running a shot-gun configuration to the rear exhaust.

Ye olde dusty Apevia fans have been replaced with faster, quieter, and more efficient Thermal Rite (on the left) pwm fans. I did keep a couple of the original fans as they still ran quiet and served for auxiliary exhaust fans at the top of the case. The air blowing out of the back of the case is considerably cool and the pressure is remarkable considering how quiet they are.

So... The side panel. This was always my pet peeve about this case design. It came with this huge, 240 mm fan that sucked in dust like a vacuum cleaner. I removed the fan because the slats for the intake were ample enough to draw in dust — too ample, in fact. The holes and the slats limited visibility inside the case to the extent that they defeated the purpose for having a transparent side panel in the first place. The original design makes no sense at all.


I carefully removed each plastic rivet with a pair of pliers. I would have preferred to get some real window glass but the idea of driving one way into the city and back for hours wasn't appealing to me so I ordered some plexiglass from Amazon instead.


The plexiglass was thin and it served the purpose but when I inserted the fourth plastic rivet it cracked into the viewable area so I had to re-cut a new sheet. Fortunately I had ordered six sheets. The opaque look is the result of the protective covering on the glass. It peels off easily. I decided to skip the rivets and use glue instead.

Considering the amount of wiring this build requires this isn't a half bad job. The case is an older design. No basement, no flashing, no skirting to hide the cables and wires behind. Fortunately none of this side will be visible once the panel is on. Not my best job, but not my worst either.




There's a little sag on the GFX card and I'm hoping to remedy this soon. I have enough lights and bling inside the case as it is, so I'm thinking of making my own support for the card. There's only one PCIe slot left open now that I put in a 1TB stick of Intel NVMe. Unfortunately, Sabertooth Z87 doesn't come with native NVMe but it can be managed with a card. She'll still enjoy faster file transfers this way. Debating on giving her more USB 3.0 connectivity at the back of unit although it isn't very likely that she'll use it. She likes her pink hub.

All the operating systems are in the front bay Icy Dock RAID enclosure. On the left (top and bottom) are the SSDs for Win 10 in RAID 0 (because she likes the way I tweaked Win 10 for her). Top right of the enclosure is Windows 11 X-Lite and under that is Linux LMDE7. GRUB tends to generate challenges with Windows so the only way to boot to Linux on this rig is directly from UEFI BIOS. I keep Linux on all my personal builds for maintenance purposes. The Case Box is a spring-loaded drawer where she likes to keep her USB sticks and SD cards.

The "Steam" like analog gauges actually function and I also have them working again. She prefers them to GUI representations. These all require Molex connections and physical sensors. She also uses a Creative Soundblaster Titanium sound card which allows her to manually adjust the signal to the VU meter. Due to hearing issues this is especially handy for her as Creative has features on this card that allows her to pick up the frequencies that she can't hear easily.

I do have pink LEDs that I could put in the gauges as they appear more red than pink. Alas, this process would involve cutting open the sealed units with an exact o knife or something of that nature and I just don't think it's worth the effort or the risk.

The 1TB Seagate hard drives are for back up and archiving. They run especially cool now with the shot gun fan configuration, an intake fan on one side of the sleds and an exhaust fan on the other. Two of the drives are in RAID 1 so all her archives are mirrored. I also put in an NVMe card for her later and my old 1 TB Optane NVMe stick (which has never caused me any issues) because she likes to move huge amounts of data files around for her offline games. Her PC seems to like it so I'm pretty sure she will too.

The USB 3.0 cable that ran to the front bezel proved to be defective. This was tested via PCIe where it was discovered that no matter where it was connected the system would always ask to reformat the USB drive. Not sure what caused this as I was extremely gentle with the removal of the bezel but I do recall her having some issue with it beforehand. I remedied this with an independent cable that runs to four USB3 ports at the front from PCIe and disconnecting the defective cable. She likely won't be using these ports much despite their functionality as she prefers the hub that runs from the back of the case, giving her full USB3.1 speeds and USB type "C".



Yup. It's pink. It has a door. It's still TUF INSIDE but that "thermal armour" had to go. The single port USB3 at the very top front end is disabled but not needed. She now has four functional 3.0 ports inside the door instead and a matching pink hub that gives her 4 connections to native USB 3.1 in addition to another 3 ports at the back and 4 USB 2.0 ports.



I purchased these to test the sound card. I'm in the habit of giving my old speakers to needy kids when I refurbish PCs. lol I need to STOP doing this.


I apologize for the glare. (I should have turned off the intense lighting first.) Anyway, I've moved it back to her desk now and she's happy with it. When the Mrs. is happy I'm happy. Now it's time to move on to my next project.

My wife would love that case. Her favorite colors are purple followed by pink.

Yes, my partner in crime also has a thing for purple but she's very fussy about the shade. She's a hard core yarn fan so she's always crocheting and knitting stuff using those colours. I get away with keeping all my computer junk because I let her inundate the house with yarn.