Feeling Powerless

So I was about to do a little bit of video editing when I noticed that my Wintendo wasn't responding to the power button. You know, the one that's usually supposed to turn it on. This wasn't a particular surprise to me as the power button had been somewhat flaky in the past, often requiring multiple pokes, but this time it was quite solidly dead.

I had a poke around inside, and as per usual, the first thing we must do is to check if there's even any power making it to the motherboard. So the multimeter comes out to measure what's on the +5Vsb pin.

Well that would explain it. I guess it was the power supply going soft, and now the 5Vsb rail has completely collapsed.

Except hang on, something else isn't right.

Right, false alarm, it's just the UPS needing new batteries.

Yup, that fixed it.

Anyway, let's install this new power supply that I bought before figuring this out.

And while we're at it, a new CPU cooler probably wouldn't be the worst idea, since I've just been using the basic boxed Intel heatsink for the past 13 years.

That poor assassin, it must be lonely not having any peers.

And, you know, since I'm in this deep...

Hmm, this might have gotten slightly out of hand. Click below to read on.

So apparently they're making computer cases with bits of dead tree stuck in them these days. Oddly enough, they're not even all that expensive compared to the old tinfoil case-on-a-roll that you used to get back in the day.

And they even include a little snack inside for you to munch on while you do the build.

It's a bit on the dry side, but it's got a nice crunch.

Anyway, the power supply goes in first. This is a modular one, which means that you only have to connect the wires you actually need to use, and can leave the rest out to save space. Despite this, it's still a bit of spaghetti.

The rest of the components are coming out of the old box, so let's get with getting those out.

And right about now is when I wish I could remember how I even got this in there in the first place.

Well, moving the drives over should be easy, at least. Or it would be, if not for the fact that all I had on hand were right-angle SATA cables. They worked great in the old case, where the back of the drive was up against the side of the case. In this new case, though, the bottom of the drive would normally be sitting right down against the bottom panel, which means that the right angle cable goes straight down to intersect with it.

Luckily they include an alternate set of holes in the drive brackets such that you can mount the drives upside-down. Is it a good idea to run mechanical hard drives upside-down? Well, I guess we're gonna find out.

SSDs don't care about orientation, though, and there's a bracket behind the motherboard where up to two of them can go.

Ok, so that's all the drives. The next thing in is the motherboard, which means we'll need to get it prepped by swapping in the new heatsink.

Yes, this system is almost old enough to count as retrocomputing, but let's not dwell on that.

The old heatsink was a bit of a struggle to get off due to the way the plastic rivets secure to the board, but I managed it eventually.

The new heatsink... is a bit of an erector set.

I guess it's time to summon my Ikea mojo.

But in the end it wasn't all that bad. I decided to put the fans on the suck side instead of the blow side, so that they wouldn't get in the way of the RAM slots.

And then into the case it goes.

And a few bits get plugged in, like the graphics card and the SATA and power supply connections.

Surprisingly enough, the back side isn't a complete disaster of spaghetti.

And all in all, the build looks pretty good. Very subtle and understated.

Though I wish I could say the same about the pile of trash it generated.

But the important thing is that everything is done and dusted... Or is it?

Curiously, the new case seemed to be much louder than the old one, with a distinct whooshing sound coming from the front intake fans. That's an easy problem to solve, though, with some Noctua magic.

The front cover pops off pretty easy to give ample access to the front fans.

Though accessing the rear would have been much easier before I poured in all the computer gubbins.

But never mind that, the important thing is that I got them out. Now I need to figure out which colour of vibration isolator I want to use with the new fans.

It's nice to have a choice, but I think black will do just fine.

And with the Noctuas in, the problem is solved, right?

Right?

Hmm, not quite. As it turns out, the issue wasn't with the fans specifically, but with the dust screen on the inside of the front panel, which sits a bit too close to the fan blades and causes some audible turbulence.

So its just a simple matter of switching the fans to the back of the mounting brackets, giving the mesh in front plenty of space.

Except then the mounting bracket causes even worse turbulence against the fan blades.

Ok, try number three, let's use these as exhaust fans at the top of the case. In this configuration, there's a natural gap behind the fan blades, so there's no worries about the mounting bracket turbulence.

And yeah, this finally does the trick. It's not perfectly inaudible, but it'll do.

Except there's still one teensy, tiny little problem.

This new case has a USB C connector, and my motherboard predates USB C by a fair bit, which means it doesn't have anywhere to plug this in.

But it does have PCI Express slots.

And with that installed, the USB C port now works.

And the slightly unnecessary rebuild is finally complete.