[Build Log] NZXT H440 "Chaos"

[krnmastersgt]

Damn that looks nice, I do like the look of 2 cards in SLI/CF as opposed to the single card all by it's lonesome self when I look at wc setups. That being said I don't think I want to drop another ~$500 to get another card and block in for SLI when everything I play is maxed out on air already lol.

Great looking system though :thumbsup: though I think the back panel of the case would make it stand a bit more than your walls

A question though, I see the res has an LED in it (or really close) in 1 picture but the rest don't seem to have it. Is it just not noticeable in most of the pictures, was the LED off most of the time, or did the camera sort of just add it in to the shot?

 

[Tweakin]

Damn that looks nice, I do like the look of 2 cards in SLI/CF as opposed to the single card all by it's lonesome self when I look at wc setups. That being said I don't think I want to drop another ~$500 to get another card and block in for SLI when everything I play is maxed out on air already lol.

Great looking system though :thumbsup: though I think the back panel of the case would make it stand a bit more than your walls

A question though, I see the res has an LED in it (or really close) in 1 picture but the rest don't seem to have it. Is it just not noticeable in most of the pictures, was the LED off most of the time, or did the camera sort of just add it in to the shot?

There is no led in the res...just due to the size of the thing it picks up the glow from the edge lighting behind the mb.

 

[Tweakin]

I've been trying to put some time into this build, but life keeps getting in the way, Spring Cleaning, Mother's Day, work...sheesh!

Anyway, I was able to get most of the last wiring sleeved minus the cable management. First thing was to clean up the desk to work:

Re-install the gpu's and tubing for final fitting and make some visual checks:

Tomorrow I should be able to finish the final two gpu cables and prime with Distilled again and do a final leak check while I'm connecting the remaining cables and temp sensor...so close!

 

[Tweakin]

Doing final purge/clean with Vinegar and Distilled to make sure the system is totally clean.

All the lighting is glowing as I wanted, wish I could tone down the temp monitor but that's the only issue. One more SLI cable, install the front cage cover and I can start the OS load...if it still works!!!

 

[SimsReaper]

This is looking really nice and clean. Well done, can't wait to see her all finished up!

 

[Tweakin]

So, I started to load the OS today and bios crapped out during load...upon reboot I now have a constant A6 debug error. I'm not going to go into all the steps I took to debug and validate, but I worked on it the whole day. Contacted Gigabyte and during the RMA process it shows my SN is out of date...so now I have the joy of contacting Customer Service as the board was purchased in Jan of this year. Chaos was a good name for this project!

As a side note, the build was actually complete minus the cable management, and after all the hassle I had working on a mid-tower during this process, I may not put the system back in that case. Life was much easier in my full-tower. Something to think about during the RMA process.

I should have taken some final pics before I tore the system back down, but in the moment I was focused on fixing the problem. So, I will not have any further updates or pics for this thread. It was a pleasure up till today.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Smaller cases are more fun to plan around imo, but I agree that the ease of playing around inside a full tower is just something I'm not gonna give up. My ITX project box is going to be a fun thing to work in methinks, did you take any pictures of the system fully assembled before taking out the board?

 

[Tweakin]

Smaller cases are more fun to plan around imo, but I agree that the ease of playing around inside a full tower is just something I'm not gonna give up. My ITX project box is going to be a fun thing to work in methinks, did you take any pictures of the system fully assembled before taking out the board?

Nope, in the heat of the moment I was concentrated on trying to resolve the debug error.

 

[SimsReaper]

Sh*tty deal man. I'm sorry to hear about your board. I do hear you on the extra work that it takes working on smaller cases, I definitely noticed that as well, but I also really do like the smaller footprint it takes as well.

I hope that by the time the RMA comes back you will have changed your mind and will finish this one up. You've put so much time and effort in here, and it looks great, I just think it would be a shame not to finish her up.

 

[Tweakin]

Sh*tty deal man. I'm sorry to hear about your board. I do hear you on the extra work that it takes working on smaller cases, I definitely noticed that as well, but I also really do like the smaller footprint it takes as well.

I hope that by the time the RMA comes back you will have changed your mind and will finish this one up. You've put so much time and effort in here, and it looks great, I just think it would be a shame not to finish her up.

Well, I did finish her...I just don't have any pics. She looked great, once I put the remaining cage piece back in...all you could see was the top of the res and it was glowing green, and the led's behind the MB were glowing...it was very satisfying.

Now, back to reality...I have large hands and maintenance and tweaking in that case will be a real pain. I'm sitting here right now looking at it and she is a sweet rig...but the reality of it all is that it's a computer, and I work and play on it...outside of myself and a few forum members, it will never be seen by anyone else. This was just something I always wanted to do, and I've done it.

The question is which do I prefer for a daily driver...

 

[SimsReaper]

Well, I look at mine every time I fire her up, and I'm not gonna lie... I give myself a little "Hell's Ya!" every time she lights up. :sneaky: :biggrin:

 

[Ajay]

Can't wait to see the final pics. Great job Tweakin!! Some excellent tips for custom work. Thanks for posting this build log :thumbsup:

 

[Tweakin]

Can't wait to see the final pics. Great job Tweakin!! Some excellent tips for custom work. Thanks for posting this build log :thumbsup:

No final pics, I've already received a couple of PM's for the purchase...

 

[krnmastersgt]

Could use it as an example of work you can do and offer your services to other people in your area, what I'm planning on doing with my "I just wanted it" build this time around lol.

Sad to hear no pictures, how's the Gigabyte customer support going so far? I haven't had to warranty too many parts personally since i usually just toss them out or somehow get them swapped through a retailer for me. I dislike Corsair's customer support but I seem to always land the same "technician" and he never seems to read my full reports so I never get anything resolved with them. Haven't RMA'd a board in ages.

 

[Tweakin]

After several days of soul searching and staring at the H440 next to my test case it has become apparent that I need to complete the build. It's going to take some time with Gigabyte to resolve my serial # issue, so I decided I would use some of my emergency monies to pony-up and pick up a new board.

I'm going to have to change the theme slightly (ALOT) as the new board is not green in any way. Some new sleeving is involved, and potentially a fresh pain on the rads to accent the theme.

Anyway, I'm back in the game!

 

[Tweakin]

So,

I've pulled the trigger and am going with an ASRock z97 Extreme4 MB. This will allow me to go to Devils Canyon if it's worth it and the board doesn't have too many bells and whistles, I'm a simple geek and hate all the extra stuff I will never use.

With this will come a color scheme change internally. I'm thinking Blue and Gray (multiple shades maybe) or potentially repainting the heat sinks to yellow...I've also always wanted to do a yellow build. First things first, have to get the system up and get me off mothers laptop!

 

[krnmastersgt]

Could go out the lazy way and just paint the heatsinks green

Personally not that impressed by the Z97 features yet, SATA Express is nice on paper but I don't do anything that can push that kind of speed anyways. Also about to run RAID 0 SSD's so speed won't be too much of an issue for me for synthetic value anyways.

Sad to hear the original board is going to be MIA for a while.

 

[Tweakin]

Could go out the lazy way and just paint the heatsinks green

Personally not that impressed by the Z97 features yet, SATA Express is nice on paper but I don't do anything that can push that kind of speed anyways. Also about to run RAID 0 SSD's so speed won't be too much of an issue for me for synthetic value anyways.

Sad to hear the original board is going to be MIA for a while.

I pondered the idea of painting the sinks green...but I think I'm going to pull the entire system apart and go acrylic at the same time...still tossing that idea around as I'm not in any hurry. I'm going to put the system in my Lian Li for the time being so I can work.

The z97 was an easy choice with Devils Canyon on the horizon...I'm not loosing anything, just prepping for the future.

 

[dirt]

Hey tweakin I stumbled across this page about a week ago after having a h440 virtually given to me. I knew I had to do something with it, slapped my old h100 in it for now but want to go all out now.

The workmanship and time spend making it all fit in a case (which many review sites dismissed as a serious water cooling case) is impressive.

I in vision doing something similar, don't worry not too similar, I can't handle copies either. I want to go with koolance as much as possible and stick to white lighting.

Could you fit a 54mm koolance rad in the front? obviously it would overlap with the top 360mm rad, which doesn't bother me too much.

Just a thought anyway trying to get a bit of a parts list together or at least some ideas

 

[Tweakin]

Hey tweakin I stumbled across this page about a week ago after having a h440 virtually given to me. I knew I had to do something with it, slapped my old h100 in it for now but want to go all out now.

The workmanship and time spend making it all fit in a case (which many review sites dismissed as a serious water cooling case) is impressive.

I in vision doing something similar, don't worry not too similar, I can't handle copies either. I want to go with koolance as much as possible and stick to white lighting.

Could you fit a 54mm koolance rad in the front? obviously it would overlap with the top 360mm rad, which doesn't bother me too much.

Just a thought anyway trying to get a bit of a parts list together or at least some ideas

First off, welcome to the forums and thanks for the kind words.

If you are talking about a 360 that is 54mm thick, then yes. The only problem you would run into is if you mount your res in the same fashion as I did...it could (would) overlap your psu cover. With no res mounted you could go push/pull if you wanted.

 

[Ajay]

Could go out the lazy way and just paint the heatsinks green

Personally not that impressed by the Z97 features yet, SATA Express is nice on paper but I don't do anything that can push that kind of speed anyways. Also about to run RAID 0 SSD's so speed won't be too much of an issue for me for synthetic value anyways.

Sad to hear the original board is going to be MIA for a while.

M2 is going to be the way to go, well, once Winders supports it correctly.

 

[Ajay]

After several days of soul searching and staring at the H440 next to my test case it has become apparent that I need to complete the build. It's going to take some time with Gigabyte to resolve my serial # issue, so I decided I would use some of my emergency monies to pony-up and pick up a new board.

I'm going to have to change the theme slightly (ALOT) as the new board is not green in any way. Some new sleeving is involved, and potentially a fresh pain on the rads to accent the theme.

Anyway, I'm back in the game!

Good luck! Looking forward to the more posts from you :thumbsup:

 

[Tweakin]

M2 is going to be the way to go, well, once Winders supports it correctly.

I'm actually pondering with the idea of selling one of my SSD's and picking up a M2 spec to see what it can do...

 

[MasterOshawott]

Hi there,

I want to do a build similar to yours bit with a yellow and black colour scheme. I would like to know if you can remove the vents along the panels to paint them yellow.
And could you fir one of the drive bays if you have a 240mm rad in the front.

Thank you!

 

[Tweakin]

Hi there,

I want to do a build similar to yours bit with a yellow and black colour scheme. I would like to know if you can remove the vents along the panels to paint them yellow.
And could you fir one of the drive bays if you have a 240mm rad in the front.

Thank you!

First off, welcome to the forums!

Yes, remove a couple of screws and bend some tabs. It has been done by many users on the forum.