Yep, the unthinkable is happening.

First noticed that the VFD display of the extra fan controllers were getting dimmer.

Then Windows started giving me errors the moment I put load on more than one GPU.

Time to consider a new PSU.

So, as per the community discussion, I went with USB3 right-angle adapters. And wow, it took a bit.

The USB3 adapter finally arrived today (or rather, one of the two I ordered. This one is from Shopee, The one I bought on Lazada is apparently still stuck in the customs).


This thing is smaller than I thought.

I wasted no time in getting it installed.


This was the state of the case when I left it last week. I have moved the Type-C connector to where the fourth GPU was so I can access it easier, but keen eyes will noticed that the USB front panel header is now unplugged. .

I immediately removed the fourth GPU and installed the adapter.


A bit of tension because the USB 3 cable was going in at an angle, but I'll take it.


This is the final layout. The card and USB-C connector has swapped places. The upshot is that the card will be better behaved with tighter timing, will run cooler, and the USB-C connector is now easily accessible (the two USB2 connectors are for the KVM and USB DVD burner drive, both are USB2 devices and the connection be rarely touched, so I'll leave it there). And as an upshot, the layout looks way tidier and less cluttered. The only downside is the loss of the Debug 7-segment displays, which I will miss dearly but can go on without.


Looks much better than before. Even the X-Fi is fully visible now.

And the final Device Manager output?

So this morning the machine started acting strangely. One of the GPUs was reported as being on a PCIe 1x connection. After a full day of messing around (along with almost getting a heart attack when said card plus another card suddenly dropped off the device manager), I determined that the problem was a dying riser cable. No scratch that, the cable died the moment I pulled it out, never to work again.

I plugged the fourth GPU in direct now, but because it obstructs the only USB3 connector my front panel USB 3 now doesn’t work. I’m waiting on a right angle adaptor from China, however the case suddenly looks a little cleaner. But I am also considering a new riser cable because the card also obstructs the two 7-segment displays used to show BIOS codes. Should I continue sacrificing stability and go for a riser cable? Or should I just use a right angle adaptor and have the board plugged in directly? Plugging it in directly makes the build look a whole lot cleaner on the inside and gives the card better latency since riser cables introduce a trivial amount of latency to the communication, plus the card now runs way cooler thanks to being in the path of the air intake fans, but on the flip side I lose view of the debug seven segment displays and the front panel USB3 ports are now temporarily out of commission until the right angle adapter from China arrives.

So while the machine has been complete for a good while now, stability wasn’t a thing until recently. I was using the Radeon Pro Stable biannual drivers. And the machine exhibited all sort of weird problems ranging from inability to shut down to the entire Radeon locking up.

When the machine suddenly became unbootable during a GPU driver update, I had to reformat it again. And this time I actually tried the Radeon rolling weekly drivers.

These not only also identified the cards correctly and still installed the Radeon Pro control panel and features, but they were surprisingly more stable than the biannual drivers. The bi-annual drivers were probably not compatible with Windows 1903 which I’ve deployed on all my boxes.

So yeah, never judge a driver package based on what you’re offered...

To be continued...

So I have the hard drive RMAed. Takes about a month for some stupid reason. I cannot wait that long, so I bought another one.

And then I came home to the beast booting into an error saying that the CMOS was reset. Granted, I flashed the BIOS last night and noticed the error before, but since it was normal for the CMOS to reset after a BIOS upgrade, I let it slide.

Not satisfied, I had to get the CMOS battery out to test.

You know how hard it is to get to the CMOS battery on this motherboard?

First you need to remove both lower GPUs.

Then you need to remove the SSD heatsink.

Then you need to remove a SSD.

Only then you get to the battery.

Half an hour of tearing down the thing later, the battery is out, and measures a negative 0.5 volts. Luckily I still have a spare from when I replaced the battery on the Red Dead Revenger (it was a two-pack).

And that one still reads 3.3 volts upon being tested.

Another half an hour spent putting the thing back together, and testing to make sure the battery is okay.

Now everything is working as it should.

And now I’m really tired.

Also, bought a second PenDrive SSD Rapid V 128GB. Why does this mobo have to have 8 SATA ports?

So the last two cards have arrived. And with that i started assembling the machine.

Took only two hours, but so much for cable management. Corasir’s PSU may be legendary, but their cables kinda suck. Too tough to bend especially with those huge heat shrinks at the end of the ATX and EPS cables. Also, their EPS cables are kinda short.

Also, the video this time will be kinda sucky since my camera was low on batteries (hasn’t charged since returning from Cameron Highlands) and well, throughout the second half I was filming with a power bank attached. Also, attaching cables with the camera in the way is hard. So I took some liberties.

Also, it turned out that I needed to reuse the Thermaltake PCIe extender after all- the USB3 connector was too wide and obstructing the last card. Hope this isn’t an invitation for overheating.

Then I plugged the machine in. It won’t boot. I started to panic, but then I eventually remembered that this motherboard needs a BIOS upgrade to be able to support the new TR2 CPUs. The mobo allows flashing the mobo even if the CPU is faulted.

I downloaded the latest BIOS for the machine, formatted a sacrificial flash drive prepared in a format the recovery ASIC can understand, dropped the updated BIOS in, and popped it in, and crossed my fingers.

After what seemed like an eternity, the machine finally sprung to life. The Aorus logo appeared and I could finally get into BIOS.

It was also then that I discovered one of the P300s I bought was a dud and it was clicking away nonstop -.-

*sigh* I’ll need to get that out of the way next. Need that replaced before I can actually install Windows. On the other hand, I’ll be holding off installation until Windows 1905 comes out.

Aside from that, everything was fine. When I booted to Linux, the four WX7100s and the X-Fi was recognized by lshw.

Ok, time to start streaming No No Kuni II. But first I’ll need a cup of coffee...

Finally decided on another Corsair HX1200 2017 grey label for the PSU. The reason being because I already have the Corsair badge stuck to the case and I can’t be arsed to remove it. Also, it’s the cheapest 1200w PSU I can find, strangely enough, even cheaper than FSP (and you don’t know half the crap FSP dumps into the Malaysian market. For example, the version of the Aurum PT sold here is hinted to be the “China” version instead of the “International” version and thus does not support 110v power. Which is fine if you don’t have secret plans to migrate to Canada or something).

I may have went a bit cuckoo while buying SATA cables...

So original intention is to just drop three more drives in to complement the existing drives.

Except one problem: apparently Toshiba no longer makes DT01ACA100 drives- either that or they have stopped supplying the drives to Malaysia. Instead they are supplying the HDWD110, more commonly known as the P300.

The HDWD110 has double the RAM cache, from 32MB to 64MB. On paper this will not make any difference if you mix and match these with the DT01ACA100, which only has 32MB of RAM cache. In practice, this will cause stability and timing issues as one set of drives would be able to load data faster than the other.

I did buy three more DT01ACA100 from a local shopping store, but was instead sent one DT01ACA100 and two HDWD110s. The shop claim that they're the same, contrary to Toshiba's website listing. They also claim that DT01ACA100 are no longer being made.

So the difficult decision has been made to completely scrap the existing hard drives and replace them with HDWD110s. And bought four more to make the number six.

Bad enough that the GPUS are already being a pain.

Ah well, I could probably save the DT01ACA100s for a future NAS project.

So I took a look at the card and well, as expected from used cards, the fans are a bit messy. I took my brush and some cotton swabs to it.

At least I can say I tried -.- just hope I didn't ruin the card.

TFW where you can only get modern used parts off eBay because they cost a bomb new :'(

Had to get the WX7100s off eBay. No way I can afford the cards new, they cost 4300 Malaysian dollars apiece new here. And I need 4. Even at this price point we (my investor and I) can barely afford them.

And the stupid thing is, they're really just binned RX480s. The only thing that made them desirable is the fact that they're single slot. But no, no one is producing single slot RX480s. Also, it hurts the mind how the card has been in the market for three years now and the price didn't drop one bit.

I watched my footage and decided that I didn’t apply enough thermal paste the last time. So I took the heat sink off, studied the chip to see which part of it could use more paste, and re-applied some paste. I can rest easier now.

Nailed. Phase one is built and filmed. Now to find time to edit the footage. I also need to prepare the “cold steel mix” for the soundtrack, and that will be kinda difficult- i do have knowledge and taste in music, but I’m no DJ.


In the meantime tho here are some stills for pondering upon.

And so is the new tripod. We’re now really ready.

Also found a PWM fan extension cable. Strange, I could’ve sworn that I’ve already used it in the secret build. No matter, at least I don’t have to delay the first part to wait around for a replacement cable to show up from eBay so I can extend the ID-Cooling slim fan’s cable.

Now to find time to film part one.

Also, I need a new tripod.

Had a break down after learning that Amazon Prime Video has pulled Daniel Tiger from every market except the US. Bad enough that they never did make the show available in Malaysia, but now it feels that my hope of seeing Daniel Tiger again has been pulled further away from me. Disney Malaysia used to carry it over here, but they dumped it- claimed that they were going to only focus on Disney owned properties. Then Netflix had it for a while, but then Amazon signed that exclusivity deal and took the show away. But they never made the show available to Malaysia. Now I guess they have a stronger excuse not to. No local TV stations carry the show since Disney Malaysia dropped it.

Anyways, this post is becoming a rant about how I miss Daniel Tiger and my life sucks. So...

I worked on my build in the end. The only thing that would calm me when I feel burnt up.

Undid the SickleFlow X and put back the Silent Fan 140. The only thing I can work on given that I have zero access the rest of the parts that I need to proceed right now.

First part to be recycled from one of my retired builds.

A SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion.

Just hope the brush I bought to clean off the dirt is anti-static as advertised. The packaging looks kinda dodgy, but I was unable to find anything else.

So I decided I didn’t like the fan layout and screwed around with the case some more. This may mess with airflow but eh, not by much.

Firstly, I didn’t like how the MasterFan Pro 140 Air Pressure was mounted. So that was reverted. The two MasterFan Pro 140 Air Flow Are now back on top of each other.

I wanted to look for a 14cm super slim fan, but apparently there are only 12cm ones. So that will do. As for the FG142, I had the foresight to also buy some FG122s if the 142 didn’t work out. So in it goes. I’ve done checks and it does not obstruct the fan once the front panel snaps into place (one reason for the awkward mounting on the 140 Air Pressure was because the front panel would push the FG142 into the fan and cause the blades to scrape against it).

Because I want the bottom fan to be the same size as the front, out comes the Silent Fan 140 and in goes a green SickleFlow 120.

I think it should satisfy me for now.

Well, things are changing. The plans, to be precise.

Firstly, I've decided to go back to using Kingston HyperX modules. The G.Skill modules are hard to find here in Malaysia, and those available are catered around Intel machines (AMD CPUs are VERY picky over RAM configuration either by design or by accident- from what I read, 3000MHz-3166MHz modules give the CPU a hard time, and so does modules with odd- numbered timings (ie 15-17-17-35, 17-17-17-35). Having an odd number with timing seems to cause timing issues and stability issues. As such, I've decided to go with HyperX memory that is on the QVL list, which are guaranteed to run 2933-16-16-16-38, bonus points being that Threadripper 2's MMU speed defaults at 2933.

Also, im looking at replacing the FG-142 and MasterFan Pro 140 Air Pressure with a MF140R ARGB. However whether that happens depends on whether I can get a 4-pin ARGB to Gigabyte 3-pin Digital-RGB connector (the ARGB connector is electrically compatible with Gigabyte's Digital RGB connector, but obviously has a different pin layout. Pin 2 of the ARGB connector is a No Connect pin and is blocked off on the accessory end as well as has no pin on the motherboard end). The FG-142 supports both connectors while the MF140R ARGB only has the four pin ARGB connector. I'll stick to my current setup if I cannot get an adapter. Oddly enough, I contacted Gigabyte about this and was told to contact my dealer. My dealer called Gigabyte... Only to be told to go look for a third party solution, they will not send the dealer an adapter just because the serial number corresponds to an older batch number. So yeah Gigabyte, you lost points there...

Thirdly, I've been messing around with the case again. Out goes the usb2 + usb3 + HD audio front panel bay. The motherboard has only one front panel USB3 connector. There is also a USB-C connector tho. Which I plan to replace with a back bracket, along with a USB2 back bracket, of which I happen to have one lying around. I have plans for the vacant panel however.

So my cooler of choice arrived today. It’s still far from complete, but hey, at least we have a cooler.

Now, some people are going to be screaming at me for using air cooling. Especially since 1. This is a tropical climate country (just 4 degrees north of the equator!) and 2. We are using a workstation class CPU. The answer is, well, I’ve had a lot of luck with Noctua’s NH-U12S TR4-SP3 that I am willing to trust the build with another Noctua. Secondly, I am not going stock- note the second fan, we are going for the twin fan push-pull configuration. Lastly, I’m a big bitchbaby who would throw a tantrum if 8000 dollars worth of CPU gets ruined by a wayward leak.

Further viewing:
Linus Tech Tips: The Best Cooling Solution-
Kyle Drake: AIO Liquid Coolers Are Lying To You: