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What did *you* upgrade today?
Well, finally got the electrician in. Seeing as my main breaker panel in the house was a 100AMP 20 position model that only had bus for 16 positions, I've been stuck running my home equipment on whatever shared circuits I could scrounge up. I didn't upgrade the service to the house, but did replace that panel with a 32 position breaker panel and immediately consumed 6 new positions. So the crunchers now have 2 dedicated 20 AMP 230Volt circuits feeding them, plus a new shared 20 AMP 115Volt for oddball things like the cable modem and speaker power bricks.
Once I finish re-installing the rest of the basement outlets, I'll get around to spinning up a few more home boxes. :)
Oh, so I guess my answer to the question I posed is "I upgraded my house!" :))
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
I also have a 100A 20 position fuse box and was looking to upgrade to 200A or 225A 32 positions. How much work was it and how expensive was it?
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Wow. That's a serious upgrade. You just went up to commercial grade power. Do they have 3 phase to your neighborhood? ;) :D
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Well, I upgraded our Netflix machine in the living room from what might be the crappiest "smart" DVD player ever manufactured to a Win7x64 i7-950.
Translation: I moved a computer to the living room.
That's the best I can say I upgraded this week...
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John P. Myers
I also have a 100A 20 position fuse box and was looking to upgrade to 200A or 225A 32 positions. How much work was it and how expensive was it?
I still haven't received the bill for the electricians part. He did it as a side job and I provided all the materials. As soon as he tells me how much he wants for his 8 hours of labor, I'll post back here with a breakdown. Keep in mind mine did not include an upgrade to 200 AMP, so there will be a lot more involved with you going that route. Especially if your utility has to get involved in an upgrade of the facilities to the building.
Personally, I'd suggest you check first to make sure you truly need 200 AMP. With todays appliances and all being so much more energy efficient, you may be using a lot less than you think. For me, when the electrician used his clamp meter on the two hots, he only came up with about 13 AMPs consumed even with all the computer stuff I had running at that moment. (Although, I don't have central air, the furnace is gas and the stove, dryer and refrigerators were all probably not running at that moment either.) I can confirmed I've tripped multiple 20 AMP breakers here in my day, but never more than one at a time. :))
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DrPop
Wow. That's a serious upgrade. You just went up to commercial grade power. Do they have 3 phase to your neighborhood? ;) :D
Well, it's not really 3-Phase, but residential service always includes two independent hots. So it works out to the same 230 Volt that is used for an electric dryer or stove, rather than the 240 volt you get by using two phases out of a 3-Phase 480Volt commercial source.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Upgraded one more of my CyberPower UPS with an APC. This is the 3rd of 4. I will never own CyberPower junk again. They all failed within 6 months after the warranty ended. When I called them about repairs I was bluntly told they don't repair their own equipment. Unbelievable. My 5 year old APCs are still working like champs.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
And with APC's, you can walk into a BatteriesPlus and buy replacement batteries off the shelf for small change. Very easy to replace.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
I ran APCs for years and swear by them and as Mumps said you can get the batteries at Batteries Plus and they are relatively inexpensive. In fact, I bought 3 of my APCs at their store for a super price. They had come out with newer models and Batteries Plus had them on a 1/2 price sale.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
I definitely need more than 100A. I don't need 200A, but for convenience i might as well get it. I do have central air, electric oven, electric fireplace, etc. If i use the fireplace, i can't use the Nvidia GPUs in the 3770K box. If my wife irons her work clothes in the bedroom, i have to turn off the electric heater there or a fuse blows. The main reason i want 200A is because all my standard circuits are 15A and need to be 20A. The extra fuse slots in the higher amp mains would allow for more dedicated outlets. Every time i look at an outlet in my house this feeling of restriction always comes over me :p
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
OK, so here's the breakdown on my project. Going from 100 AMP 16 pole to 100 AMP 32 pole. I also had the 2 230volt circuits run, but I omitted all the hardware for that and subtracted that time from the electricians hours listed here as well.
Electrician 6 Hours labor
New breaker panel
ground bus bar
5 new 15Amp breakers
8 new 20Amp breakers
2 new ground-spikes
100 ft of #4 wire for grounding
staples for groundwire
2 new 4 inch boxes
4 inch box covers
3/8 nm connectors
Communication grounding device
$541.50
When I was researching it, ballpark figure for upgrading to a 200Amp service seemed to be around $2,000 across the country. Because you need to replace the "socket" as well as having the Electric company involved and permits and all that. My gut feeling is my electrician really gave me a sweet deal and it wouldn't have cost that much more had I gone that route. But I don't expect you would find such a conveniently obliging electrician as mine. :)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John P. Myers
I definitely need more than 100A. I don't need 200A, but for convenience i might as well get it. I do have central air, electric oven, electric fireplace, etc. If i use the fireplace, i can't use the Nvidia GPUs in the 3770K box. If my wife irons her work clothes in the bedroom, i have to turn off the electric heater there or a fuse blows. The main reason i want 200A is because all my standard circuits are 15A and need to be 20A. The extra fuse slots in the higher amp mains would allow for more dedicated outlets. Every time i look at an outlet in my house this feeling of restriction always comes over me :p
"fuses?" Wow, that is an old school house then. :)
That just says you have too much on shared circuits. :) Computers can get you to 15 Amps at 110volt really easy. :) And 15 Amp is old school for outlets. Around here, you are allowed to do 15 Amp for light circuits, but not outlets. Biggest concern I see is that bit about upgrading from 15 Amp breakers to 20 Amp. According to code, that should also require 12 gauge wire running through the walls rather than the 14 gauge that's appropriate for the current 15 Amp circuits. Unless your house was wired with 12 gauge, that'll probably be a huge additional expense. 250 feet of 12-2 GA ran me $61, but pulling it through the entire house would be a huge project. Also, the outlets themselves are probably rated for only 15 Amp, so they would need to be replaced as well. Doing like me and installing dedicated circuits for computers would probably eliminate your breaker problem and give you the 20 Amp circuits to dedicate for hardware without upping to the 200 Amp.
And don't confuse the total of breaker Amps with what the main panel is rated for. (Like I did. :) ) In my case, I now have 290 Amps worth of breakers in my 100Amp box. When I started, there was 205 consumed by the 16 pole box that seemed to be drawing about 13. Most of those Amps never get used. Things like the 50 Amps for the electric stove are almost never drawn. And many of your 15 Amp circuits sit there idling to support a lightbulb or three. :)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
By "fuses" i meant "breakers" :p And i know i have to upgrade the wire guage. However i may not rewire what's already there, but instead add some additional dedicated circuits that are 20A. I know the rating of the box can be far less than the total of all breakers. Not everything is in use at once. I actually have the majority of my lights on a single 15A circuit which is fine since most of my bulbs are LED anyway. Waiting for the rest of the flourescents to burn out :p I'm also aware the outlets themselves need to be rated for 20A. They're like $3 at Home Depot :) But i've about hit the limit on what i can draw, and since i'm a cruncher, of course everything is always running when the oven is on, the dryer is on and the central air kicks on all the same time :/
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mumps
And with APC's, you can walk into a BatteriesPlus and buy replacement batteries off the shelf for small change. Very easy to replace.
Unfortunately the problem with the CyberPowers is not the batteries. It's one of the control boards.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John P. Myers
By "fuses" i meant "breakers" :p And i know i have to upgrade the wire guage. However i may not rewire what's already there, but instead add some additional dedicated circuits that are 20A. I know the rating of the box can be far less than the total of all breakers. Not everything is in use at once. I actually have the majority of my lights on a single 15A circuit which is fine since most of my bulbs are LED anyway. Waiting for the rest of the flourescents to burn out :p I'm also aware the outlets themselves need to be rated for 20A. They're like $3 at Home Depot :) But i've about hit the limit on what i can draw, and since i'm a cruncher, of course everything is always running when the oven is on, the dryer is on and the central air kicks on all the same time :/
In 2010 I upgraded my electrical service & panel from an actual "fusebox" to a 200A 40 circuit panel. I also had the electrician install a 50A sub-panel in the attic so I could easily run new circuits from there. All together it was about $1400, but a good investment which has made renovation/upgrade projects since then much easier.
JPM, the guy I used is in Bartlett so I don't know if it would make sense for you to use him... but you could call him and get a ballbark price for what you want. Billy Wallace 901-373-3107
Oh, and I think Mumps is right - for 200A service we had to replace conductors from the weatherhead all the way to the service panel, including a new socket.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Today i upgraded my (wife's) socket 775 computer from a Q9550 to a QX9770.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John P. Myers
Nice! That's actually a pretty nice crunching chip, even all these years later. :)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
The jump from the old Pentium architecture to the Core was seriously impressive.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mumps
Oh, so I guess my answer to the question I posed is "I upgraded my house!" :))
I'm finally happy to report that I, too, upgraded my house.
I took more of a "replacement" route, though. Wife and I got kicked out of our old place (owner wanted to sell it), so we, in a panic, found a place to buy. Closed and moved two weeks ago. But the reason I'm posting this tonight is that we finally got internet tonight. Hooray!
Now, I'll actually be able to turn my machines back on. It'll be a slow process, but it'll get there.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Way to go! Gotta love the "this is mine (ours)!" feeling. Plus the mortgage tax credits are nice too.
Now, learn how to yell at kids to git off your lawn for some reason. Also, every time something breaks, ask yourself why you ever bought a house.
Seriously, congratulations!
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zombie67
Way to go! Gotta love the "this is mine (ours)!" feeling. Plus the mortgage tax credits are nice too.
Now, learn how to yell at kids to git off your lawn for some reason. Also, every time something breaks, ask yourself why you ever bought a house.
Seriously, congratulations!
Thanks! Wife and I are super excited. It'll be a fun new experience to start putting those "handy" skills I learned in my youth to actual use. And I don't think I've threatened to burn the place down yet! =))
And we live in a school zone, ~0.25 miles from an elementary school. So learning how to yell at those damned kids will be high on the priority list...:ar!
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maxwell
Thanks! Wife and I are super excited. It'll be a fun new experience to start putting those "handy" skills I learned in my youth to actual use. And I don't think I've threatened to burn the place down yet! =))
And we live in a school zone, ~0.25 miles from an elementary school. So learning how to yell at those damned kids will be high on the priority list...:ar!
Get a Rottweiler. No yelling needed. :D
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maxwell
And we live in a school zone, ~0.25 miles from an elementary school. So learning how to yell at those damned kids will be high on the priority list...:ar!
I thought people like you weren't allowed to live near a school!
Sorry I couldn't resist =))
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bryan
I thought people like you weren't allowed to live near a school!
Sorry I couldn't resist =))
Hah! My goal in life is to be just creepy enough that the neighborhood kids stay away from my yard, but not so creepy that I'm legally prohibited from living near a school. ;)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
@JPM: Nice upgrade!
@Mumps: Yowza dude!
@Maxwell: Big Congrats. Live the dream and all that \m/
My recent project? Finally upgraded the GPU in my desktop (Thx Ste\/e for the deal). Now it's sporting a MSI HD 7970. Of course I "had to" water cool it.......
https://db.tt/94j9jKEY
https://db.tt/o8vxUTeF
https://db.tt/syDrmDlp
https://db.tt/JQrd3E6v
Installed it yesterday but haven't had time to tweak the clocks. Now it's time to call it a night. (This took forever to post from my phone).
F$
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
My turn for the electrician :D He'll be here thursday and friday which will suck because it'll hurt my pentathlon bunkering a little. But after he's done, i'll finally be able to run all of my GPUs at the same time! I'm not as lucky as Mumps though...gonna cost me $2900, but that's mainly because i'm also having the guy bring the entire house up to code.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Looks Good F$, I still have 4 maybe 5 7970's not really sure since their just laying around the garage if anybody's interested, PM me with what your willing to pay for 1 & maybe we can work something out ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fire$torm
My recent project? Finally upgraded the GPU in my desktop (Thx Ste\/e for the deal). Now it's sporting a MSI HD 7970. Of course I "had to" water cool it.......
F$
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Looks totally awesome F$. Much better than the mandatory upgrade/tradeoff I had to do. Being down to one good gpu after blowing my wad on some of the parts for my next build left me in a bad spot. That's over twice the card I picked up. Maybe I'll return it after the Pentathlon once I'm done with it and needing something more. lol
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
nanoprobe
Get a Rottweiler. No yelling needed. :D
Rottweilers are probably not allowed in a school zone, and maybe not even in town. :)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
I cant go to shiva town.:(
Hello Ric.:)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Does trying to upgrade/repair qualify? I went ahead and bought a replacement cooler for one of the 5850s today. No tape in package. no problem. Cement for ram heat sinks is cured in tube.That's a problem. Anyone have a suggestion on a good replacement for the cement or any suggestions in general?It's an arctic accelero l2 plus cooler. I'm so tempted to just Frankenstein with the original heat sink.Really want to keep it as it should be installed.
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1 Attachment(s)
Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Since I'm dragging my feet about going to Micro Center for good adhesive for the gpu ram heat sinks due to wanting todo all my shopping in just one more trip, I did the unthinkable. I modded the cover of ONE of my cards to get another computer
bunkering for the pentathlon. I would be hoping it's better than nothing.....but that's what it had when I powered the system on last time......;-) I will say, I hope it holds until after the pentathlon. I will have the stuff to do the second card here in a couple of days. I will also test to see which way cools better. :cool: The stock heat sink with the nice big copper plate.seems so much better than the replacement We will see how this goes.Onto installing it and powering up to finish those Windows updates! Oh yeah......and start that bunker!
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Shandia
Does trying to upgrade/repair qualify? I went ahead and bought a replacement cooler for one of the 5850s today. No tape in package. no problem. Cement for ram heat sinks is cured in tube.That's a problem. Anyone have a suggestion on a good replacement for the cement or any suggestions in general?It's an arctic accelero l2 plus cooler. I'm so tempted to just Frankenstein with the original heat sink.Really want to keep it as it should be installed.
The original version of the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo II was a great cooler for ATI/AMD cards. Version 2 now comes with some gawd awful backplate/heatsink that you may be able to ditch but I'm not sure on that. Also v2 cost about 50% more then the original.
Edit: I just checked and v1 is available again. Best price is on Amazon --> http://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Acceler.../dp/B005FYCFG8
Now to answer your question...
Tape
1st Choice: 3M 8815 thermal transfer tape. One source for it (Here)
2nd Choice: Sekisui 5760 Thermal Adhesive Tape. Check eBay for suppliers.
Adhesive
For thermal transfer adhesives, use Arctic Silver's stuff. They make to kinds, one contains silver p/n: ASTA-7G (Link) and the other contains alumina p/n: AATA-5G (Link)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Ok, this is what I plan to do. I'm taking the second kit back. If the adhesive was cured in the first package,i suspect the second is the same. Have no idea if the tape is missing from the second package or not. I'll be getting thestuff F$ suggested and buying a $3.99 fan for this card. It just seems silly to pay $20 for just a fan to hot glue to the face of a card. I'll clean up this fan and re-assemble the second card that is totally pulled apart and cleaned. I was looking at different coolers for the hd5850 in an attempt to find a couple of water blocks. Last year I did find one or two.This year, they seem to have gone the way of the dodo. Anyway, With the mild savings I'll be getting from taking the second one back, I'll be picking up a uber cheap socket 1150 mobo. Going grocery shopping last night almost did me in. Eat and be happy with what I have going currently or crunch and be cranky for a few weeks. The cpu is sitting in the apartment complex's office until Tuesday. Nothing I can do about that. So my shopping trip has been put off until Wed at the earliest. Plenty of time to change my mind on things before then. (and plenty of time to spend my money on shoes instead of saving and waiting)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Electrician finished up my house yesterday. 200A main breaker, 4 dedicated computer circuits, a 200A main principal and enough juice to eventually add a couple more computers :D
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John P. Myers
Electrician finished up my house yesterday. 200A main breaker, 4 dedicated computer circuits, a 200A main principal and enough juice to eventually add a couple more computers :D
Woo Hoo! CONGRATS!!! The badly needed work is done. Hopefully no more tripped breakers. My house in Mesquite was a mess. Many times electricians don't think when they wire a house. Then again,most homes before the 80's a microwave was not a common thing to have......neither was a computer network. The newer houses aren't much better with the wall sockets with breakers in them. Really!?!? You want me to plug in a 1000w curling iron and 1500w hairdrier into that!?!?! I can just imagine the Einstein who thought a breaker in the electrical socket was a good idea. "It's for the safety being near water and pipes!"(AND now more often than not it's city code.) Funny that most of our more powerful appliances are usually near water and pipes. Things that sound good on paper are often tried but rarely ever challenged in the real world. I hope your dedicated computer circuits will be enough and the overall planning of the rest of the re-wire job was thought out..
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
This is sorta old news about my WC gaming rig. After the 7970 install I posted on 04.19.2015, I realized that the Swiftech Apogee Drive II pump was making too much noise. I believe that running the pump at full speed constantly was causing the water to cavitate around the impeller. So in July I upgraded to a Swiftech Apogee XL waterblock and D5 pump.
Anyhoot this is probably the last WC upgrade I will make on this rig until Intel's next die shrink.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvzihkomfl...4x768.jpg?dl=1
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhs63gkvli...4x768.png?dl=1
Crunch On!
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Nice! I love the purple tubing.
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Nice plumbing job... bet that keeps things cool... :)
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Re: What did *you* upgrade today?
Here is an epic failure! I managed to squeeze everything I wanted into my HP case. The biggest problem? With the side on, there is no air flow what so ever even with all the fans. The gpu is probably what is suffering the most since my 5850s are now 3 slots wide and that puts the fan against the bottom of the case. The mobo, large cpu cooler, over sized psu with front to back airflow and the gpu have all been traded out. No pics of the finished product yet since I have to do surgery to the gigabyte board.Attachment 2257