(In Win 901) Asteria II: Rearmoured

[LePhuronn]

Welcome one and all to my very first build log. Hopefully this will be a great experience to share with you all as this is a project of many firsts: first extensive case mod, first foray into custom water cooling, first hardline loop too, and first time putting everything out there for public display! Exciting and terrifying in equal measure

Asteria II: Rearmoured is based around the stunning In Win 901 Mini ITX case, and was inspired by Laine's "Clarity". It was great to see a custom loop put into this case, but I felt more could've been done with his radiator placement. A year of planning and exploring later I've bitten the bullet and giving it a shot of my own.

The name
Asteria was a Greek goddess associated with falling stars and prophetic dreams. She was also a Titan and, frankly, that's why the original Asteria was named as such - all of my computers are female and she had a GTX Titan inside The Titan and a few other parts of being reused in this new project, and hence Asteria II: Rearmoured was born.

Hardware

• i7 6700K
• Maximus VIII Impact
• 16GB Dominator Platinum
• GTX Titan
• [S]Silverstone ST45SF-G V2[/S] Corsair SF600 Platinum PSU

Water cooling

• EK Supremacy EVO Acetal
• Watercool Heatkiller GPU-X3 Titan LT with EK FC Titan backplate
• Alphacool UT60 360 primary radiator
• [S]Alphacool ST30 120[/S] XSPC TX120 secondary radiator
• Alphacool DDC310 pump with [S]Aquacomputer[/S] custom-designed DDC top
• Aquacomputer Aqualis ECO100 res
• EK 12mm hardline compression fittings

Fans

• 3x Corsair ML120 White LED
• 1x Noctua NF A12x15 Black

Since this has been in the planning stages for over a year, there's no starting pics of the case I'm afraid since it's all in bits for measuring!

Where I can though I do intend to give some stock shots of components before they're modded. Right now though I only have my phone camera available, some cheap lights and a black bed sheet that refuses to have the creases ironed out of it, so don't expect miracles in the photography department

Thanks for looking, progress will be updated as it comes.

[LePhuronn]

Maximus VIII Impact motherboard

To get the ball rolling here's a quick tour around the motherboard.





It's a great looking board, but I think the Z97 Impact VII actually looks a little better. What bothers me is the different textures involved on this board.

For instance, the chipset heatsink has a matte grey sticker with subtle ROG embossing, however the shroud for the SupremeFX sound card is a very reflective shiny silver, and fingerprint magnet to boot.




And the same grey matte is applied to the Impact Power daughterboard heatsink:



Yes, the ROG logo is embossed with that crosshatch style. Very nice, but I'm not sure I can retain it.


And, frankly, a £200 motherboard should have a more elegant way of connecting a BIOS battery!




Also, since Asus decided to put a U.2 port on the board (why?) rather than M.2, the I/O cluster for me looks a bit haphazard now with varying heights of ports and big gaps and whatnot.



A silly thing to fixate on? Of course


All of this is going to be corrected. The red is going and all the textures are being unified. Bring on the vinyl!

(now that I have this first post out of the way I can actually get on with some work )

Catch you soon.

[Administrator Johnny Gomez]

SUB! I love 901 builds/mods!

[anthonytsai]

can't wait to see more !!

[LePhuronn]

SUB! I love 901 builds/mods!

can't wait to see more !!

Thanks for the interest!

Life has gotten in the way recently so I'm a bit behind. Currently working on some motherboard mods while I arrange the aluminium and acrylic laser cutting.

[LePhuronn]

Hello to all, back with a minor update.

I had intended to post content in more complete, thematic blocks, but life has gotten in the way recently so I've not made much progress. Still, here's what little I've been up to.


Motherboard work, part 1
As said in my opening posts, first thing I really wanted to do was balance the colours and textures on the motherboard.


All laid out ready for some love. You can really see the difference between the heatsinks and the sound card shroud, and already in its naked form the board is looking a bit more unified.

So let's break out the black matte vinyl wrap...


The wrap is a reasonably chunky 0.2mm thick with a nice texture not too dissimilar to the stock heatsinks so it's covered well without too much effort. Need to tidy up a few edges here and there.


SupremeFX III soundcard. It turns out the lettering and red design lines are slightly embossed, so I may well give it another blast with the heatgun to bring the details out a little more.

And yes, I'm too much of a coward to invalidate warranties on my very first proper project, so I just wrapped over the serial number label it'll be face down towards the GPU though so you won't see it.


Impact Power heatsink. The embossed ROG Eye logo came out really well, but unfortunately the Republic Of Gamers text just wouldn't take - looked lovely and crisp when the vinyl was warm and being rubbed down, but it just relaxed a bit too much as it cooled, losing definition.

Not overly fussed right now because, again, this will be facing down and obscured by the CPU block. Plus this took me 4 attempts and is still a little scruffy, so I'm walking away for a bit


Chipset heatsink. The ROG branding came out really nicely, lovely and crisp embossing. Excuse the dodgy edge, I was a bit excited by how well the ROG turned out and had to take a pic!


All together then...

Maximus VIII Impact Black Edition anybody?

Much, much tidier now I think. I did think about covering the capacitors on the power daughterboard similar to B Negative's Celestial, but I think in my case the little flashes of silver here and there serves as nice accenting.

[LePhuronn]

Motherboard work, part 2
The red and the textures have been tidied up now, but the I/O cluster bothers me as well. It's not the colour this time, it's the haphazard spacing and heights - I just don't want to see it at all.


Bit of measuring, bit of Illustrator, wee drop of ink on some paper and...


Test fit an I/O shroud. It also covers up the serial label on the sound card cover too


I think I can extend that wall a few more mm just to get a bit more coverage.

I'll be honest, the EVGA Z97 Stinger is my inspiration for the I/O shroud (and probably my entire board rework too).

I love that it's not just a hard-edge plastic box you slap on top of the I/O cluster, but much more organic with a nice bend radius at the ends and all folded from a single cut piece. That also ties in nicely with the smooth, sweeping corners of the 901's aluminium external skin, so I'm rather happy at how my own bend radius has mocked up.

Of course, it needs to be done in something that isn't paper yet. It also doesn't need to be done in 2mm thick acrylic


Now this was always more playing with the material rather than making something final, but 2mm is (for me anyway) a bit too thick to get some intricate cuts and rounded corners, and also to fold evenly. Bit of a pig's ear really.

So I'm changing to 1.5mm thick PETG sheet, but will have to wait until I've made up my DIY metal brake to get more accurate, even folds.


Thanks for looking, hopefully be back soon!

[LePhuronn]

Just a quick note to say I had a tumble off my bike last night and banged my wrist up. Nothing broken, just very sore and a bit useless right now. Apologies for the lack of updates on this.

[Administrator Johnny Gomez]

Just a quick note to say I had a tumble off my bike last night and banged my wrist up. Nothing broken, just very sore and a bit useless right now. Apologies for the lack of updates on this.

Glad to read you're ok.

[LePhuronn]

I'm doing something, honest!




Wrist is healed, but now lacking strength. Strapped up I can just about cut some MDF. OK, it's not a computer, but it is an integral part to the project.

"One-off job" he said. "No need to buy a circular saw" he said. Yet when your pre-cut MDF isn't squared up properly like you thought it was, a dodgy wrist isn't helpful when you're trying to get some right angles!

[LePhuronn]

TEASER SHOTS!!

Look what I just collected from the awesome guys at Congleton Engineering...








Lots of cleaning to do, I need to true up the sheet bender because it's a bit off and do some test runs with some scrap alu, but the core stuff has finally arrived.

Quite excited now to get going properly

[ChasBurkhart]

Looking good man! Can't wait to see it all come together!

[LePhuronn]

Thanks Chas.

We're a long way off yet, but I'm able to properly work on it now. Speaking of which...

[ChasBurkhart]

Very welcome! I work in IT about 50-60 hours a week and still have about 200-300 hours left to finish my build the ROG PARAGON so same here ... long way off! I'm going to push to finish mine before Christmas but keep adding new mod ideas

[LePhuronn]

Yeah, I get like that too! Just jumped on your ROG Paragon thread, oh my God you're mental I love the PCB concept!

[ChasBurkhart]

Thanks LePhuronn! Looking forward to seeing the finished product from both our builds! Great acrylic work BTW

[LePhuronn]

Hi all, I have a little update for you.

It took a while to get the sheet bender repeatedly accurate and get the bend radius of my aluminium work down to where it should be, but now it's good to go!

So I've folded some plastic instead


I/O shroud shape, cut by hand in 1.5mm PETG sheet


Took a while to get that I will admit. Looks like my wrist is still a bit wonky to get accurate cuts with a coping saw, so I went for neverending score, cut and snap with a sharp knife. Got there in the end though.


After a bit of cleanup, I did a quick frosting job on a portion of what will be the top face for an experiment I'll mention shortly


It's not perfect, but will only have tiny amount of it showing so should be fine. Circular motions with 100 grit paper for a few minutes on both sides of the piece, then another couple of minutes with 400 grit to smooth it up. Didn't bother to wet sand this as it's only small.


Then got the heat gun out and folded it all up. The front face was put into my sheet bender for a nice, tight edge, and the curved ends were done over the handle of an exacto knife for a 5mm radius, or thereabouts.

Took a few attempts to get it all correct and relatively straight, but I got so excited at finishing it I didn't take a picture of the untreated item and went straight into a quick test wrap.



Brushed black aluminium effect. I wanted to replicate the hairline brushing on EVGA's shrouds, but wasn't sure if it'd be too much against the matte black I've used on the motherboard...




Now THAT is a Black Edition motherboard. Excuse the wonky placement and the dodgy Alphacool M3 copper screws!


It's not perfect but the wrap covers a multitude of sins, plus it'll be painted to cover any exposed PETG when the wrap is done properly.

Hopefully my little enhancement will pan out: backlit logo


Thanks for looking!

[ChasBurkhart]

Nice I/O shroud! great work!

[Administrator Johnny Gomez]

This is modding glory right here!