Post your most interesting parts

[pio]

Huge shout out to UltraMega for the idea!

 

Let's see your guys' "most interesting" PC parts.  I don't care if its old, new, working or dead.  Let's see your "prettiest" parts.  Artwork, neat lighting, fancy copper things, maybe some CCFL's?  Case mods.....whatever it may be.  I want to see things like the old Hot Wheels and Barbie Magic Hairstyler PC's from the 1990's, cold cathodes, fancy GPU artwork, "pretty" RAM sticks, massive amounts of copper, just absolutely ANYTHING that you feel is "pretty", old or new.

 

Here's the kicker though, I want to see parts that YOU still have.  Please, nothing that everybody else has too......stuff that's unique and interesting to look at only.   

---------------

If this kicks off, we can always put in a google docs thing or something here to link everybody's cool things too.  I'm not good at that sort of thing, but figured I'd throw it out there.

Edited April 11, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[pio]

I'll go ahead and start.  Here's a couple of things out of my own storage that I still have kicking around that I think are or were "neat" looking pieces.  In order oldest to newest.

I'd share some of my newer parts, but honestly none really qualify as "neat" or "unique" in my opinion.  Everybody has a Ryzen 3600 with a Dark Rock Pro4 cooler and RGB lighting.  Everybody's seen a reference 5700XT.  I do think my rig is "pretty", but meh......there's nothing really that sets it apart from anybody else's.  But these...........

 

ATI branded Radeon 9800XT with Thermaltake cooler:
This was roughly around the first time that cooling really became a "serious" business

 

Apevia X-Navigator Case (green):

You'd see these cases EVERYWHERE in the early 2000's, usually absolutely full of cathode lighting and UV reactive cables

 

eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 512MB KO:

It was my first ever "high end" GPU I bought BNIB.  It's here because well, look at those graphics and artwork!

 

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD2900XT 1GB:

Those silver flames and transparent plastic........you don't see artwork like that anymore

 

XFX AMD Radeon HD4670:

This is included mostly because of all of the extra goodies that used to be included.

Edited April 11, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[Bones]

Here's something I picked up last year.
It's an IceGiant cooler and it's currently in use, with this very system I'm using to post with in fact.

Did some testing right after I got it and the results were good, CPU was set for 4.0GHz and CPU voltage was at 1.35v's, manually set in the BIOS and I let it run for a full hour to get the results shown.

[pio]

51 minutes ago, Bones said:

Here's something I picked up last year.
It's an IceGiant cooler and it's currently in use, with this very system I'm using to post with in fact.

Did some testing right after I got it and the results were good, CPU was set for 4.0GHz and CPU voltage was at 1.35v's, manually set in the BIOS and I let it run for a full hour to get the results shown.

I was going to say I recognize that, but alas......that's not quite the piece I thought it was.  The one I was picturing before googling it, was just a dual 120mm air cooler, nothing really all that fancy about it.  Probably circa 2007 or so, and I WANT to say was a Coolermaster product, but its been so many years lol.

That particular one is an evap cooler right?

 

Very interesting bit of tech there indeed!    You don't see CPU coolers like that very often!

 

[Bones]

No, and that's why I got it.

Here's a link to the site where you can find these: IceGiant - CPU Cooling Technology & Innovation

Note that they fit AM4/TR and a few of the new(er) Intel sockets that I'm aware of, definitely  nothing older than AM4 for AMD.

[ArchStanton]

I was pretty sure I had seen that cooler before, and I was actually correct this time .

 

 

[Bones]

Just picked up a 3950X chip and of course this will be used with it.
I've seen the info in the video before in that it does better, not worse with higher heat loads such as ran with a TR instead of an AM4.
In any case it won't overheat and that being the concern for me, this cooler will work fine for my useage without complaint.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Bones

[Minotaurtoo]

this has to be my most interesting part... doesn't do anything but light up.  I made the main part on my tube laser at work, some sanding and paint, then a little led magic, wire it into the PC's 12v add a diffuser to help the light look smoother and voila.... oh and the little mino guy on there was something I found on ebay.

[pio]

4 hours ago, Minotaurtoo said:

this has to be my most interesting part... doesn't do anything but light up.  I made the main part on my tube laser at work, some sanding and paint, then a little led magic, wire it into the PC's 12v add a diffuser to help the light look smoother and voila.... oh and the little mino guy on there was something I found on ebay.

That is some fantastic craftsmanship there!   

 

Where's the "shuttup and take my money" emoji at?

[ENTERPRISE]

[UltraMega]

On 10/04/2022 at 21:38, Bones said:

 

Is that a fan mounted onto a sound card? 

 

Epic. 

[Avacado]

Tesla GRID K340. Quad data center card.

 

 

 

Ncore V2. Only a handful out in the wild.

 

 

 

Tesla GRID M40. Quad GPU

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Avacado

[Minotaurtoo]

6 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

That is some fantastic craftsmanship there!   

 

Where's the "shuttup and take my money" emoji at?

Thanks, but to me it's far less impressive than the magic I see people here pulling off with their custom loops, case mods and such.  I suppose I could make them for people, but I don't feel the lighting is up to standards people would expect, it's just LED's on a piece of cardboard stuck in the tube... wiggle it wrong and they would fall over lol

[Supercrumpet]

5 hours ago, Avacado said:

Tesla GRID K340. Quad data center card.

 

 

 

Ncore V2. Only a handful out in the wild.

 

 

 

Tesla GRID M40. Quad GPU

 

 

Lol I just found this thread and thought about my dual GPU cards and you just had to swoop in with the Teslas! Extremely cool, I haven't seen pictures of a quad GPU PCB before.

[pio]

8 hours ago, Minotaurtoo said:

Thanks, but to me it's far less impressive than the magic I see people here pulling off with their custom loops, case mods and such.  I suppose I could make them for people, but I don't feel the lighting is up to standards people would expect, it's just LED's on a piece of cardboard stuck in the tube... wiggle it wrong and they would fall over lol

You know.....easy fix for that problem.  Just use a hot glue gun, and glue your cardboard tube in place.  Could put a dab of glue to hold the LED's in place too.  There we go, falling over problem solved.  

 

8 hours ago, Avacado said:

Tesla GRID K340. Quad data center card.

 

 

 

Ncore V2. Only a handful out in the wild.

 

 

 

Tesla GRID M40. Quad GPU

 

You don't see those very often, that's for sure! 

[Bones]

On 14/04/2022 at 01:04, UltraMega said:

Is that a fan mounted onto a sound card? 

 

Epic. 

Yes it is.
The card right after I got it developed an issue with the audio output clipping and after looking it over I determined it was getting too hot while in use.
What I found was the way it's made the card had essentially no ventilation, making it run hot all the time and I recalled from way back in the day big stereo setups in cars had amps that would get hot and act in a similar way.
Since the card itself is just a mini-amp for a PC, it naturally follows that was probrably the cause of the issue.
I took the little window out, mounted a CPU cooler fan and tried it - No audio clipping no matter how hard I push it eversince.

[pio]

2 hours ago, Bones said:

Yes it is.
The card right after I got it developed an issue with the audio output clipping and after looking it over I determined it was getting too hot while in use.
What I found was the way it's made the card had essentially no ventilation, making it run hot all the time and I recalled from way back in the day big stereo setups in cars had amps that would get hot and act in a similar way.
Since the card itself is just a mini-amp for a PC, it naturally follows that was probrably the cause of the issue.
I took the little window out, mounted a CPU cooler fan and tried it - No audio clipping no matter how hard I push it eversince.

Epic!  Back in the day?  Were you watching my last build or are you talking literally back in the day? LOL  My last car audio build, I used Ultra Kaze 120mm's to keep my amp rack cool, ran off a relay off the turn on lead off the head unit.

[Bones]

22 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

Epic!  Back in the day?  Were you watching my last build or are you talking literally back in the day? LOL  My last car audio build, I used Ultra Kaze 120mm's to keep my amp rack cool, ran off a relay off the turn on lead off the head unit.

Literally back in the day (Mid-Late 80's) when "Boom" was the thing.
You had all the mini-trucks dropped and shaking from the boom that made everything around shake too. I still remember when Alpine released one of the very first CD players for a vehicle that turned out to have problems with skipping because of it.
I remember all the Rockford-Fosgate amps/woofers and all the rest you could get. I still have a smaller amp (300W) and a set of 12' woofers from the late 80's/early 90's and could get all that going again if I wanted to.

[Avacado]

9 hours ago, Bones said:

Literally back in the day (Mid-Late 80's) when "Boom" was the thing.
You had all the mini-trucks dropped and shaking from the boom that made everything around shake too. I still remember when Alpine released one of the very first CD players for a vehicle that turned out to have problems with skipping because of it.
I remember all the Rockford-Fosgate amps/woofers and all the rest you could get. I still have a smaller amp (300W) and a set of 12' woofers from the late 80's/early 90's and could get all that going again if I wanted to.

I still have a 1000w Fosgate amp in the crawlspace from the Mustang I totaled in the early 2000's too. I remember that Pioneer head unit with the Dolphins, Aztec temple and race cars very well. I remember going to bass competitions in strip mall parking lots for cheezy plastic trophies.

 

P.S. Boom is still a thing. 

[Bones]

14 hours ago, Avacado said:

I still have a 1000w Fosgate amp in the crawlspace from the Mustang I totaled in the early 2000's too. I remember that Pioneer head unit with the Dolphins, Aztec temple and race cars very well. I remember going to bass competitions in strip mall parking lots for cheezy plastic trophies.

 

P.S. Boom is still a thing. 

Did my share of things with it and even judged a show once or twice, I'm still familiar with all that.... Esp the cheezy trophies.