RESTORATION

I'm a terrible photographer but I wanted to show the flip side before I put the panel back on. My soldering on the hacked Ram fans was a bit janky so I used some red electrical tape just to give it some extra insulation. Fortunately all of this will be behind a panel. I realize keeping the cables flat is a thing but it is also good to have a little give in the cables for when the PC is being transported from one place to another. This results in less stress to the cables. The panel gives me about an extra cm of play beyond the edge of the case so the panel slides on easy. Considering how many drives are in this beast it's not a half bad job.



Next is the windowed door. The door is hinged and uses a couple of small PCBs to make and break contacts for the fan. The 5 slats in the louver allow me to direct the airflow to the most critical components. This helps with keeping that extra enclosure with the 5 spinners cool and also assists in keeping the PCIe cards cooler. The air is then vented through the top and back of the case so the unit has plenty of airflow.




The plastic is old and yellowed on the fan but it still works and the mild blue glow at night makes it look alright. I still have the shroud for it but the way I have it sitting on my desk makes it negligible. I prefer to leave it off because that way I can read my Q-codes directly through the fan and the louver (without opening the door) provided I have it positioned all the way up, which is preferable anyway. I did notice that these fans can still be purchased separately so I might get a backup at some point considering that all fans eventually die.

It will still be a while before I can move it back to its home base but the rebuild is just about finished. I have a lot of IO to check first before I move this 80 lbs of glory back to its nest.

The blue light is soft so it doesn't bother my eyes at night. Where I run the unit on my desk the window side faces toward my back with the bezel to my right. That way everything is accessible when I simply swivel my chair. The door opens up perfectly over my "slim-jim" scanner without any scraping. Moving it will be real fun. I can't haul 80lbs like I used to. I have an AA on the Q-CODE (despite the CPU being OC'd to 4.1 GHZ) and all the IO seems to work just fine.

For some reason I just can't capture the running lights in the handle (a mod by yours truly) to look as they do in real time. Reminds me of tail lights of cars in the night, which sort of adds to the BMW GT theme. That big ole fan on the side really does help to keep the temps down. The RAM fans are a little intense but not too noisy. After hacking them I don't think I have speed control but I wouldn't mind dimming those LEDs a bit. Not a big deal since all this blue will be shining on my back. ("L"shaped desk here) Again, I apologize for the blurry pictures. A photographer I am not. The meds the doc has me on right now make me a little shaky. Next time I'll use the tripod.

Like a sweet breath of fresh air and a blast from the past, the lovely features of Aero, the free and easy control resulting from fast and responsive programs and apps opening without nagware, bloatware, adware, the absence of AI nipping at my ankles . . . I could go on. Had to update the MS virus definitions, of course. I hope I'm not penalized for that. This screen shot was edited in the original Windows Paint (which I find so much easier to use) . My 7/11 is back up and running. Admittedly, part of the snappiness could be that I'm running Win 7 U in RAID 0 because that's how I set it up 7 years ago, on standard Kingston Hyper X SSDs. Yes, that's right, I'm typing this on Windows 7 Ultimate and I'll be posting it from this OS. Newer certainly isn't always better. For those who wish to remain free of key loggers, AI, and all that modern nastiness that came with tablet operating systems, Windows 10 and Windows 11, this is still a viable choice.

Looking at the tabs in the browser in the last picture made me smile. I had some fun on that dear old OS. Can't believe that was back from ten years ago. I wouldn't advise shopping on Amazon via Windows 7 these days, but it's still nice to see all those old tabs were kept intact. I decided to get a couple more of these PWM fans even though they went up in price. They're quiet, fast, and effective. They're also thin. One more fan can be tucked in to act as an exhaust on the other side of my 5 drive bare metal enclosure and there's an empty pwm header patiently waiting to be used so why not? Thinking of using the other one in my X299 SAGE build but because of the demand of the placement the Thunderbolt card I may just put the original shroud back on the GFX card. Ah, decisions, decisions. . . I just remembered that GFX card takes up three PCIe slots. Nope. That's unforgivable. Shroud stays off. These PWM fans will do the trick.

i have never used Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 so i have no idea how they run.
only started using Windows 11 because it came with the computer after moving over from Ubuntu.

but it looks like that build refurbishment is going well.
best of luck Steve ..

XxXxX said:

i have never used Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 so i have no idea how they run.
only started using Windows 11 because it came with the computer after moving over from Ubuntu.

but it looks like that build refurbishment is going well.
best of luck Steve ..

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So far, so good Steve. I'm half tempted to put Linux Mint back on it but I'm so tired of Windows killing Linux no matter what I do to keep it. Putting the boot strap to Linux on a Windows drive to me, feels like a recipe for disaster. That isn't to say that I haven't done it. Even when I have all of Linux on its own drive Windows seems to know how to seek out and destroy it. Clearly, MS doesn't want people to have Linux on their own PCs running alongside Windows or this would not be an issue. Sure. You can do it but how long will it last? Perhaps if I keep my Linux drive gapped until I'm ready to use it I'll be able to hang onto it longer. The only problem with that is if I forget to turn off the drive just once before a reboot I could lose Linux again. It would seem that the only safe way to keep Linux is to keep Windows off my PC. I've been fighting with this problem for over a decade.

when you install Linux make sure the Linux boot loader is installed on the drive you have Linux installed on
do not install the Linux boot loader to the EFI of the Windows drive. you can do this at setup
by partitioning the Linux drive manually and then directing the Linux boot loader to the boot partition on the Linux Install drive.

you will then need a boot loader like grub to take over boot management of the entire system
both for Windows and Linux. this way windows and/or Linux can not interfere with each other on the same system.
then in the BIOS you set the boot manager as first option for boot.

best of luck Steve ..

Thank you Steve. I have tried this approach already. It is a little more reliable than the Windows Management method and the Easy BCD approach, but in my case I find myself still having to use GRUB Rescue to claw back my Linux. Perhaps it has something to do with the way I use Windows or my security settings. I really don't know but it happens on multiple devices and quite honestly I'm tired of fighting with Windows every time I want to use Linux. I will try again at some point because I'm stubborn and banging my head against a brick wall for a decade is nothing new for me. I mean to make Linux my default on the X299 build. One can only put up with so much AI in their OS.

My grandson runs Linux/Windows dual boot and has for several years. He has never had any issue with Windows eating Linux or the other way around. I used to have a Windows/Linux dual boot machine for several years with Windows 10, they never stepped on each other in that time period.

gunrunnerjohn said:

My grandson runs Linux/Windows dual boot and has for several years. He has never had any issue with Windows eating Linux or the other way around. I used to have a Windows/Linux dual boot machine for several years with Windows 10, they never stepped on each other in that time period.

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Yes, I've heard stories like this before and I'm almost envious. I don't know if it is due to some software I like to use, my security settings, how I like to boot, or my preference for platforms. I'm just tired of it. Tired of all the various methods that continue to fail me. I feel like Charlie Brown with Lucy holding out the football for that "college try" one more time. And just like Charlie I know I'm bound to take a running kick at it again at some point. I think my record so far has been to keep it for about a year. All in good time, my friend. . . All in good time.

Scannerman said:

Yes, I've heard stories like this before and I'm almost envious. I don't know if it is due to some software I like to use, my security settings, how I like to boot, or my preference for platforms. I'm just tired of it. Tired of all the various methods that continue to fail me. I feel like Charlie Brown with Lucy holding out the football for that "college try" one more time. And just like Charlie I know I'm bound to take a running kick at it again at some point. I think my record so far has been to keep it for about a year. All in good time, my friend. . . All in good time.

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I will say that my previous experience was without Secure Boot as I was running MBR partitions, that may be part of it.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I will say that my previous experience was without Secure Boot as I was running MBR partitions, that may be part of it.

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Yes. I think perhaps so also. Alas, with some platforms "Other OS" is required to run dual boot. Windows is now making this very difficult to do it seems.

Scannerman said:

Yes. I think perhaps so also. Alas, with some platforms "Other OS" is required to run dual boot. Windows is now making this very difficult to do it seems.

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I haven't done a dual boot in several years, and that was with Win10. I can get into enough trouble with Windows, no need to add complication! My Linux running nowadays is just on my NAS and assorted little boxes scattered around that are Linux based.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I haven't done a dual boot in several years, and that was with Win10. I can get into enough trouble with Windows, no need to add complication! My Linux running nowadays is just on my NAS and assorted little boxes scattered around that are Linux based.

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I have considered that option before but with the size of our family network and this beast a NAS per se hardly seems necessary. I'm pushing up to 80TB on this thing (externals included) and it has done a pretty good job as a family repository. TBH I regret not learning Linux at a young age. I definitely plan on expanding my horizons, health permitting, but I don't seem to learn as well as I once did. The time for anyone to learn Linux is now. This holds especially true for those who have little to no use for AI running their operating systems and hardware, but even for those who are keen on AI being Linux savvy holds its advantages. Aaah well, one day at a time I suppose.

at the moment i am playing with Zorin OS core, its pretty good.
core is the free version based on ubuntu LTS but with a heavy modified gnome desktop

i will keep playing for a few months and see how far i can push it before it goes bang
that's the fun of Linux 'its my operating system'

best of luck Steve ..

So just when I think the job is done my T drive goes on me. It's only an old external hard drive in an enclosure, one of the last WD conventional spinners — likely not CMR. Anyway, I have it back on my desk and I'm typing via Windows 11 on it right now. I'm slowly weeding out the garbage drives so I'm not overly concerned. I'm a bit surprised to see that I'm still running some MBR drives but they're old so I'll leave them be for the time being.

So I got Local Disk (T) back from the enclosure but I'm already experiencing the USB bandwidth back lash so I may simply leave off using that enclosure and reserve drive letters W, X, and Y open for USB use. (Z is for the blue ray). I have other builds that could use the extra hard drives anyway and in truth I already have around thirty physical drives on this build (many of them in RAID configurations).



My idea for putting an additional PWM fan on the other side of the metal drive cage for a push/pull proved to be prudent. The air this fan was pulling @2200 RPM was hot. That means the hot air generated by the drives in the cage is being drawn off while the larger fan on the other side of the metal cage is pulling cooler air through the front of the case via an additional push/pull configuration to replace the hotter air. These little Chinese "Fanners" are remarkably quiet given the RPMS they can run at so I'm not surprised that they went up in price. One might wonder why would I want hot air to be blowing directly over and against my PSU and I have an answer for that too.


This picture was taken from the inside of the door to the PC. Notice how the louvre is set to direct the air upwards toward the top of the case where an equally large 200mm fan exhausts it through the top. Any escaping air is exhausted through the back of the case by a newly replaced high speed fan. This could explain why the air coming out of the top of the case is remarkably cool.

When I open the door and place my hand on the metal drive cage it is surprisingly cool to the touch despite having so many mechanical drives in such close proximity to one another. I can comfortably hold my fingers against each hard drive finding them slightly warm but not hot.



The SAMA software is a little plain but it serves for a quick temp check. The temps are very good, verging on excellent for air cooling. Of course the PC was in idle when I snapped this but the real test will certainly be forthcoming when the PC is under load. I'm not certain why the one Seagate hybrid is running at such a high temp (41°) as compared to the D drive which is an identical Seagate hybrid. I'm not sure if hybrid spinners are still a thing but I don't recommend them. I'm planning on replacing these drives in time.

i had two hybrid 2.5" HDD 500GB
i now use them as my wife's backup drives

they are several years old but hardly used
as i changed the hybrid drives for SSD's soon after i had purchased them.

best of luck Steve ..

After running in the closed case for a time the hybrid cooled down. They're both running @ 30° now. I ran Crystal Disk Info and I have a few in the red zone. These are all external hard drives so there's not a whole lot I can do for them in the way of cooling. One exception is a stick of NVMe.

This NVMe is not heat sinked so I suppose I would do well to get on top of that. I was thinking of cloning my OS to this drive.


Meanwhile, temps on the drive with the OS are good despite the drive taking a point in quality.

I realize this PC can only run 23H2 but once again, as I stated numerous times, I'm not impressed with Windows 11. It would be nice if MS released a bare bones non-CoPilot, non-TPM requirement, non-One Drive, local account OS but I'm not holding my breath. Not everyone needs these things or even wants them. Hopefully I'll find a way to use Linux on this machine without MS shenanigans making my life miserable. I can relate to what this man is saying only too well.