NFC S4 #67 - Project: Artemis

[Jimmythebarrel]

Been a while since I have built a system. Thought I would do a log and share this build!

I meet Josh(NFC Systems) last year, when he came out to Seattle to do an event with us at our laser tag arena. He brought us the Titan. One hell of a machine. We had an epic time. Machines went down. Mad hilarity ensued finding a ps2 keyboard, cause USB did some weirdness in the BIOs. I wound up finding one, screwed through the keyboard to the wall of my set. Well, delete and f12(or f8, whatever) worked, we got USB going and off we went. Right after we totally wiffed a high five. In front of the Seahawks, no less. Total geekery! LOL.

So, when we brought VR booths in, I wanted a new machine. So, I hit Josh up for an S4! We have the Titan he built, and a Paladin S3. Seemed only right we should rock the s4 in the house.

With that, I am starting Project: Artemis. The reason for the name will become more obvious later. I have something very special planned for this machine!

The build will consist of the following components and accessories.

NFC Systems S4 Mini in Blaze Orange w/flex cable and bulgin switch from NFC
MSI Z270I GAMING PRO CARBON AC
Intel i7-7700
MSI GTX 1060 Aero ITX 6G OC
CORSAIR Vengeance LED 16GB DDR4 2666 Memory
SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 250GB SSD
Noctua NH-L9i 95mm SSO2 CPU Cooler
Dell 330w power brick
HD-Plex Internal Power
Razer Deathadder Chroma
Corsair k70 Rapidefire RGB keyboard
GAEMS m240 Monitor
GAEMS Picatinny Rail Mount
GAEMS Vanguard Case
Misc cable, flex wrap, etc.

I will probably look at another fan to mount on or over the Noctua. The color throws off my scheme.

I am only waiting on the mobo to start. I messed up and ordered a z270, not a z270i. I got screwed by the letter "i". Painful! Oh well, Newegg was kewl about it, even with the 15% restock. My bad!

Pics of unboxing and such coming soon!

Big shout out to Josh for my questions, the case and parts, and building us some epic awesome machines! I have 15 machines in this building built by Josh. 13 VR machines, the Titan and the Paladin. Let's make it 16!

 

[Josh | NFC]

JIMMY DA BARREL!

Yeah...pretty hard to top that story. 16 + camera broadcast switcher went down during a live shoot with the Seahawks. No worries, just needed to make one little change to override the BIOS warning...which was impossible...because the USB was disabled at that boot stage and there wasn't a PS2 Keyboard for miles.

We had interns driving over the city desperate to find a keyboard to get the main system up because the backup systems didn't have the content loaded...anyway... JIMMY DA BARREL walks up:

"What's the problem?"

Me, with my stomach ulcers starting to show on the outside of my body at this point explains to him the situation.

Jimmy:

"I think I have an idea."

So Jimmy heads down to the laser tag arena which is awesome by the way, it is setup like a Counter Strike map. One of the rooms is a "destroyed" office, and the parts are all drilled down for safety. He literally takes out drag bolts from this keyboard and dumps it on my desk missing keys, frayed wire, shell apart, and is caked with paint and dust.

"Will this work?"

I pounced on that before he could finish and VIOLA! It works...override the system and ready to rock with only slight issues due to me ripping out $10,000 of capture cards and the broadcast software being confused by their new order but whatever.

Glorious night...

Anyway...GOOD LUCK JIMMY!

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Oh, I forgot one piece.

Plantronics RIG500 Headphones. Gotta have sound!

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

JIMMY DA BARREL!

Yeah...pretty hard to top that story. 16 + camera broadcast switcher went down during a live shoot with the Seahawks. No worries, just needed to make one little change to override the BIOS warning...which was impossible...because the USB was disabled at that boot stage and there wasn't a PS2 Keyboard for miles.

We had interns driving over the city desperate to find a keyboard to get the main system up because the backup systems didn't have the content loaded...anyway... JIMMY DA BARREL walks up:

"What's the problem?"

Me, with my stomach ulcers starting to show on the outside of my body at this point explains to him the situation.

Jimmy:

"I think I have an idea."

So Jimmy heads down to the laser tag arena which is awesome by the way, it is setup like a Counter Strike map. One of the rooms is a "destroyed" office, and the parts are all drilled down for safety. He literally takes out drag bolts from this keyboard and dumps it on my desk missing keys, frayed wire, shell apart, and is caked with paint and dust.

"Will this work?"

I pounced on that before he could finish and VIOLA! It works...override the system and ready to rock with only slight issues due to me ripping out $10,000 of capture cards and the broadcast software being confused by their new order but whatever.

Glorious night...

Anyway...GOOD LUCK JIMMY!

LOL. Its my best, and favorite, geekery story. Action, adventure, horror, drama, comedy. We had it all! I went dumpster diving to try and find a damn keyboard at the local recycler that night! Who the hell has a ps2? Well, now I do! I bought 2, to keep here, JUST IN CASE. LMAO!

Titan is in my office right now, getting a full cleaning. Lots of Qtips and cotton wipes.

I am itching to get her going! Artemis has some work to do around here!

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

EDITING: Figuring out photo issue.

 

[Soul_Est]

Your pictures aren't showing up, unfortunately.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Doh! Ok. Lemme figure that out. Methinks I need a new photo host.

 

[Soul_Est]

Doh! Ok. Lemme figure that out. Methinks I need a new photo host.

You can use Imgur. Xenforo has built-in support for it.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

You read my mind! Exactly what I did.

Let's see how this works now.

The package!

That's the stuff! S4 in Blaze Orange, the flex cable and some other bits.

Case choices! SK8 or the GAEMS!

Not my best foam cut, but, Artemis has a house! The cut on right is for the power brick. I recycled the case and foam. Eh. She is safe.

 

[Soul_Est]

Looking good @Jimmythebarrel ! What's the full weight?

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Don't know yet. I just started opening boxes. Made a mistake and ordered the wrong mobo. Have to wait until Monday to start the build and weigh components.

Until then, I am working on something special for this build. Stay tuned! It should be good!

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Got the new mobo in. Quite a bit done now. Time to update!

Looking good. Love that carbon fiber. That is going in the theme deck. There will be some extra stuff happening there.

Next up, Samsung 960 EVO 250gb.

Ohh. purty!

It's so dang cute! Mounts on the backside of the MSI.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Memory and CPU next.

Corsair Vengeance RGB

And installed.

The i7-7700

Here it is with the Noctua cooler.

 

[CubanLegend]

Nice upgrade and build. I really like your cutout on that carrying case.

How in the hell did you manage to score a 960 Evo 250GB? they were out of stock since like December, for MONTHSSSS, so in my S4 Mini build I just went with an Intel 600p 265GB instead.

By the way you might want to setup your Noctua NHL9i with the fins parallel to the RAM, so the hot air doesnt get stuck on the ram sticks and can more freely flow away from your CPU heatsink.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Nice upgrade and build. I really like your cutout on that carrying case.

How in the hell did you manage to score a 960 Evo 250GB? they were out of stock since like December, for MONTHSSSS, so in my S4 Mini build I just went with an Intel 600p 265GB instead.

By the way you might want to setup your Noctua NHL9i with the fins parallel to the RAM, so the hot air doesnt get stuck on the ram sticks and can more freely flow away from your CPU heatsink.

Thanx! The power supply slot was already cut in the case foam. Just happens to fit the Dell 330w just right. Only had to trim the foam from around the s4. It was a free case, so the price was just right!

To be honest, I never knew the 960 EVO was out of stock. Ordered one from Newegg a couple months ago. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147593

And thank you for the advice. Makes sense! I am tearing her down after I finish the testing. I will correct that. I also need to install another fan. Not liking the color on this build.

Speaking of builds, MORE PICS!

Next up, a MSI GTX 1060 Aero ITX 6gb OC.

Ohh, carbon fiber accents! Love it. Cannot wait to show y'all what I have in store for that. At least, I hope it works well!

Temp install for testing.

More carbon fiber love.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Let's get some power to this sucker!

HDPLEX HiFi 300W DC-ATX (nanoATX Series). By far the hardest part to get. Took me about 6 weeks of waiting on this sucker. Direct from HDPlex.

Yep, looks right.

We don't need no stinkin case.....well, yeah we do actually. Wired to test.

Dell 330w Power Supply.

Yep, its a brick.

Little ol' Bulgin Switch from NFC Systems.

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Let's get this gal fired up! We got some gaming to do!

Got her ready to test.

SHE LIVES!!

Get me some Windows on there.

Ohhh, the colors. Love it! She is going to be a showpiece where I work. Gotta look good!

Ok, couple of tests with Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Also ordered an Acer Predator 27" 1440, IPS, all that jazz.

Now, on to the BEST part! Getting her all dressed up!

 

[Jimmythebarrel]

Now for the good stuff. THIS, is my something special. We are going to produce a vinyl wrap for this little lady.

Josh sent me some design files to get me started. I have access to a full vinyl print shop. We grabbed some vinyl and did the first test cut!

Laid the first piece on.

As you can see, not QUITE right.

Second piece. Looks good here.

Not bad, not bad.

OOPS, fell a little short. Plus, those screw holes are on the back of the bezel. Them gotta go.

Last part. We need to widen those screw holes a bit. Leave that, the vinyl will twist when you put the screw in.

Hmm, nope, we don't need no kensington lock. Thats going.

And, fell a little short again.

Got the first cuts out of the way. We will make some adjustments, cut some more vinyl. The vinyl isn't flat, because we are just checking sizes. The first 3-5 cuts will be about the same as we dial it in.

 

[CXH4]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who vinyl wrapped the S4, and nice build!

 

[Kmpkt]

I'm no expert on vinyl, but it seems like it might be easier to place the side panel on a de-backed sheet and just stencil out the pieces you don't want with an exacto knife. Seems like trying to line up the decals could be an exercise in frustration. That being said the red vinyl finish looks pretty sleek. Keep up with the updates please : )