kryzaach

A lot has changed in this build since I last updated this thread, so here goes:

The fans were still annoying me, so I rechecked everything and ordered some Noctua Redux 80 fans, 1200rpm versions.

These are dead silent, however, the chassis was getting noticeably warmer so I upgraded them the the 1600rpm versions.

I also added some gaming storage to the chassis using sonnet's PCIE -> SATA adapter

It's a pretty tight fit, but it all works well

Putting it all back together gives almost no clearance, but 0.2mm free is 0.2mm free!!!

The system has been running like that with no glitches for pretty much the entire time since my last post.

Recently I decided to try and get past the annoying missing hardware "feature" that occurs when you UEFI boot Windows on a modern Apple machine.

It's still early days and I have yoinked a lot of the hard work ah- over on the macrumours forum.

The binary is still not perfect as I'm missing the built in keyboard and trackpad, but as you can see from the following video, I've finally got Optimus working with the standard boot process.

So, still plenty of work to go, but at least this machine is now usable as a lanning rig with no external monitor!!!!

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Haha, oh wow.

Just checked the stickies and realised that this has already been done!

Ah well, was a good learning experience.

Kryzaach you mentioned that this enclosure is stable but how extensive was your testing and gaming under OSX? You didn't encounter any freezing or kernel panics of the system? Some other folks here encountered those issues with their non III-D sonnet chassis. Can you share your experience?

The instability I was getting was occasional graphic glitches and wierd buzzing noises, which sounded like an out of whack rectifier.

This was only when I ran the Titan in the SE chassis. The 650GTX was fine.

I suspect this is due to the chassis not supplying enough power through the PCIE slot, but I suppose it could also be due to a potential floating ground, given that I was using 2 different power supplies.

I never measured it though, so I can't be certain.

Since moving to the III-D, none of this is occurring anymore. I'll watch it over the next few weeks closely, to be sure though.

I've done a few mammoth gaming sessions of Diablo 3 since I built it and it has been rock solid.

Granted, that's not the most demanding game, but I will stress it out over the last few weeks with a few other titles over extended periods and see how it goes!

If this are 80 x 80 x 15 fans, I would highly recommend Noiseblocker BlackSilentPRO Fan PC-P8, they still pushes decent amount of air, yet they are silent. I have used one of this to replace the loud fan in Silverstone 450W SFX PSU and I cant hear the fan spinning.

Awesome, thanks for this, they are 80 x 80 x 10, but a 15 should clear the GPU fine.

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Awesome that you are around here now! You confused me about the fans… are they 72 or 80mm? They have to be slim? 25mm thick fans will not fit?

Sorry about that, yes, they are 80mm x 80mm fans. a 25 mm thick fan would hit the GPU, as there is not a whole lot of room in there.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the kind words! Yes, the enclosure is expensive.

I actually considered taking the internals from the Echo Express SE and making my own case for it, but it really does struggle to push power through the PCIE slot.

I suspect that was leading to the instability I was seeing on Titan initially.

It would have been a way cheaper option!!!

Oh well.

Righto, time for first impressions.

It's stable!

I haven't had any issues whatsoever in terms of performance or stability, unlike what I was seeing with the SE version.

So far I am very impressed, but there is one big con.

The fans are bloody noisy!

I only have shitty mics, so I can't really demonstrate on video. They're not as bad as the banshee that lived in the SE before I chopped it out, but they are loud enough to be annoying.

As this is meant to be the final enclosure i settle on, it's up to me to fix it. I don't want to completely remove cooling from this enclosure, because I'm also going to be sticking an SSD in it soon and the Titan can really heat up small spaces.

Ultimately, I'd like to replace them, but they seem to be 76mm fans, unless I measured them wrong.

So in the meantime I'm going to quiet them up somehow

Here's a comparison with a Scythe KAMA

They even look cheap!

I have some old speed reducing cables for PC fans that were kicking around in my box of parts. They should work fine for this.

I'm just going to place the resistor from the cables in line with these horrible little things

Then I just need to neaten things up again and make sure there is no slack to get in the way of things

And the final results?

Magic, nice and quiet, still getting decent-ish air flow too.

I'd still like to replace them, but at least they're not driving me nuts for now.

I remeasured them too and they're 80mm, so I need to find some quiet and thin 80s to put in their places.

Any suggestions?

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Wonder if kryzaach purchased his Sonnet III-D before the AKiTiO Thunder2 was identified/hacked for powerful eGPU use? Or whether he just wanted a fully enclosed solution with PSU included that could be easily modded to host his TITAN?

If yes to either then that might explain why the Sonnet III-D was chosen over the much more affordable AKiTiO Thunder2.

kryzaach has electronics skills galore. Would have been easy for him to hack a AKiTiO Thunder2 too host his TITAN if he'd gone that way instead.

To be honest, this thread was the first I'd heard of the AkiTio Thunder2. It looks awesome, I'm sure that would have been a far cheaper way to go.

I really did want an enclosure that included everything. I'm also going to fit my Windows SSD in the Sonnet, so 3 slots was essential.

I briefly looked at the Magma ExpressBox 3T, but it is very expensive and didn't look as flexible as the Sonnet.

Overall there are few options for us out there.

When will Asus get around to releasing the XG Station 2?!!