New system build using Lian Li PC-7BW Plus

[Zap]

This is a relatively budget system build for my wife. She's a gamer, playing mostly adventure/RPG/RTS and plans to play WoW. My purpose in this system build is to make a capable gamer on a somewhat low-mid budget, with some attention to looking nice and being quiet. The parts I choose were the best choices at the time and may or may not be the same choice at any other time.

Overall the system performs very well and has met all expectations except one - it is still too noisy, though I think most people would consider it fairly quiet. I've experimented with stopping the fans and found out that two fans make the majority of the noise - PSU fan and the Arctic Cooling 3TC blowhole fan. It also has a strange glitch in that Windows takes an extraordinary amount of time to boot up. There is a delay right after the POST screen and before the Windows splash screen where the display stays dark for about two minutes - excessively long. Besides this, system performs nice and fast.

I've played with overclocking the system but the chip doesn't want to go very far - heck, my A64 2800+ will reach a higher stable clock than this 3400+. Luck of the draw. With an overclock this minimal there isn't any noticeable performance gain, so system is run at stock speeds. There is a noticeable 3D performance gain from enabling extra pipes on the video card. Four more pipes seem okay though the overclock test fails the card at any speed if they are enabled. The last four pipes cause lockup, so are indeed faulty.
Highest stable clock 208HTT 2496MHz CPU 1.50v
RAM 416MHz 2.6v 2.5/4/4/8/1T
3DMark2005 stock 2662 12 pipes 3940

In retrospect if I were to build this again, I'd probably use a Sempron 64 3400+ CPU, faster video card, quieter PSU (perhaps overpriced Sea Sonic S12 series) and a quieter blowhole fan with the grill cut out of the case.

Parts:
CASE - Lian Li PC-7BW Plus - wanted a classy but sharp look with good ventilation using 120mm fans
PSU - Fortron FSP-400GLN - wanted a modern power supply with good efficiency (rated 85%+) and 120mm fan
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3400+ socket 754 OEM - got this from a buddy of mine for pretty cheap
MOTHERBOARD - Chaintech VNF3-250 - the ubiquitous budget socket 754 overclocker, works as advertised and doens't have Northbridge fan
HSF - Scythe Katana - "tower heatpipe" design is the rage these days and the Katana seems to be a budget no nonsense solution
RAM - Geil 2x512MB CAS 2.5 PC3200 - this is a leftover from the previous P4 2.6C dual channel system
VIDEO - Chaintech Geforce 6800LE - these are a steal at $125 new, this one can unlock to 12 pipes though some people have gotten all 16 or only 8 so YMMV
AUDIO - Chaintech AV-710 - this is a nice budget card that does good quality
HDD - Seagate 7200.7 200GB SATA - this is a leftover from the previous system
CDROM - unknown 48X - got this cheap as a system pull, I think it says IBM on it
DVDRW - Benq DW1640 - got raving reviews and is reasonably priced
MONITOR - Dell 2005FPW - yup, coupon deal for a beautiful monitor
SPEAKERS - BIC Venturi V52 - award winning and budget shielded (not needed for LCD) bookshelf speakers, some of the best I've personally listened to
MISC - Technics SA-GX170 stereo receiver - old one, decent for driving a pair of bookshelf speakers
MISC - two PC Toys rounded EIDE cables
MISC - two Cooler Master 120mm "LED Silent" fans
MISC - Antec Tri Cool 92mm fan
MISC - Arctic Cooling 3TC 80mm temperature controlled fan
MISC - 8 in 1 USB 2.0 card reader for 3½" drive bay
MISC - dual blue cold cathode light kit
MISC - Sunbeam rubber fan screws
MISC - Logisys LCD temperature and fan controller for 3½" drive bay
MISC - Cooler Master Cool VIVA heatpipe cooler for video card

PICTURES - warning for modem users, 900k of pics

 

[JEDIYoda]

I see ya went with the Coolermaster fans you won`t regret it--they are nice and quiet and I believe they have the nicest looking LED Blue of amy fan on the market!!

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Thank you Zap. This man does keep promises. I'm bushed and will give what you freely offer my full,undevided attention in the AM.

Galvanized

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

As usual you do very nice work indeed. Very presentable.

Thanks for the comment on the hard rubber fan screws. I looked at those awhile back.
I have a Zalman 700 and will be installing it on a vanilla 6800.
Your link loaded in <10seconds with my DSL connection. Good pics for some ideas, they were looked at in detail. Really like your cable management. Clean!

Galvanized

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
Thanks for the comment on the hard rubber fan screws. I looked at those awhile back.

I figured my info would be of use to someone. I know softer ones exist (but from where???), but these Sunbeam ones were pretty useless.

 

[JBDan]

Repeating what I have stated before about your work Z....clean, simple, and classy. Very nice work...not only on the case, but your presentation of your link. Are you still looking to quiet it down some? Because I have 2 ideas for the 2 fans that "noise" you. Or maybe your budget is already capped on her pc? Anyways I had that same "pause" issue on an old Dell after I swapped out some components and reformatted. It turned out to be a cd in my optical drive. As long as there was not one in there it would boot up normal. Guess WinXP had some trouble reading from it when booting and thats why. Go figure.

 

[Falloutboy]

got the same case and love it. really need to take some pics of it, got all read fans and I auto tinted the window looks sharp as hell

 

[Nirach]

Big question: Was she happy with it? *coughcoughwinwink*

Looks like a nice machine, by the way. Lovein' the blue

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: JBDan
Repeating what I have stated before about your work Z....clean, simple, and classy. Very nice work...not only on the case, but your presentation of your link. Are you still looking to quiet it down some? Because I have 2 ideas for the 2 fans that "noise" you. Or maybe your budget is already capped on her pc? Anyways I had that same "pause" issue on an old Dell after I swapped out some components and reformatted. It turned out to be a cd in my optical drive. As long as there was not one in there it would boot up normal. Guess WinXP had some trouble reading from it when booting and thats why. Go figure.

Thank you for your comments. I just checked, and no CD in either drive.

Budget? I'm unemployed at this time, but do have a few bucks squirreled away, plus my wife - she do be a gainfully employed doctor. However, she just got out of school, we just bought a condo and she just bought a car... lots of bills that will be eating our income for years (not counting all the new furniture and housewares she bought). Oh yeah, and my car - a FORD - keeps going back in the shop for repairs :| . Currently it stalls often and the fuel guage - she no worky. We definately are not hurting for money but we also don't have a tree growing it, hence I didn't build her a Celeron system in a $30 case with a Geforce 4 MX. On the flip side I also didn't build her a system with an X2 CPU, dual SLI 7800GTX, Raptor drives in RAID, 24" widescreen LCD... We can afford a bit above bargain basement parts but we also need to be prudent.

My thought for making her system more quiet... splurge for a Sea Sonic S12 PSU and a different fan with Zalman Fan Mate for blowhole.

Originally posted by: Nirach
Big question: Was she happy with it? *coughcoughwinwink*

Yup. I obsess more over noise output than she does. She's been playing WoW and it looks/works great on the system and the 20" widescreen LCD.

 

[JBDan]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: JBDan
Repeating what I have stated before about your work Z....clean, simple, and classy. Very nice work...not only on the case, but your presentation of your link. Are you still looking to quiet it down some? Because I have 2 ideas for the 2 fans that "noise" you. Or maybe your budget is already capped on her pc? Anyways I had that same "pause" issue on an old Dell after I swapped out some components and reformatted. It turned out to be a cd in my optical drive. As long as there was not one in there it would boot up normal. Guess WinXP had some trouble reading from it when booting and thats why. Go figure.

Thank you for your comments. I just checked, and no CD in either drive.

Budget? I'm unemployed at this time, but do have a few bucks squirreled away, plus my wife - she do be a gainfully employed doctor. However, she just got out of school, we just bought a condo and she just bought a car... lots of bills that will be eating our income for years (not counting all the new furniture and housewares she bought). Oh yeah, and my car - a FORD - keeps going back in the shop for repairs :| . Currently it stalls often and the fuel guage - she no worky. We definately are not hurting for money but we also don't have a tree growing it, hence I didn't build her a Celeron system in a $30 case with a Geforce 4 MX. On the flip side I also didn't build her a system with an X2 CPU, dual SLI 7800GTX, Raptor drives in RAID, 24" widescreen LCD... We can afford a bit above bargain basement parts but we also need to be prudent.

My thought for making her system more quiet... splurge for a Sea Sonic S12 PSU and a different fan with Zalman Fan Mate for blowhole.

Originally posted by: Nirach
Big question: Was she happy with it? *coughcoughwinwink*

Yup. I obsess more over noise output than she does. She's been playing WoW and it looks/works great on the system and the 20" widescreen LCD.

Cheaper route--> fan swap on your present psu? Also, Evercool makes a uber quiet Al frame fan in a 92mm flavor w/ a blue LED (think its at SVC). And for the blowhole....CM 80mm blue LED Ultra silent sleeve...quieter than the AC and cheap. All that on a fanmate (I'd rather use SpeedFan...just me) and you oughta pull acceptable dBA's for even your ears.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Just wondering something about the long boot time. Have you went into the BIOS and checked for "legacy USB support"? If you disable that, it will shave anywhere from 5-20 seconds. Just letting you know something I found out recently, to see if it helps.

EDIT: Nice machine, and excellent job taking pics and documenting.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
Have you went into the BIOS and checked for "legacy USB support"? If you disable that, it will shave anywhere from 5-20 seconds.

Just checked, and there is no such setting in the Chaintech BIOS (though I've seen it before on other boards).

Originally posted by: JBDan
Cheaper route--> fan swap on your present psu?

Thought about that but I'll probaby just swap the PSU for two reasons. 1) the heatsinks in the PSU are tiny though they may not need to be larger with 85% efficiency 2) either the PSU or the motherboard near the PSU sometimes makes a high pitched noise when the machine is running. If I swap PSU, either problem would go away or I'd know it was the motherboard.

 

[charlietee]

Lookin good !!!! I too love the Lian-Li PC7B Plus...Easily my favorite case right now...Great bang for the buck in that price range...And hey...It's a Lian-Li !!!!

Once again...Nice work !!!!!