So here's the deal. I've been waiting a few weeks for my fabricator to get me a quote and I just heard from him and they are extremely behind with large orders and don't have much time in the near future to look at my small project. Therefore, I've been trying to find a new source for fabrication and have sent out about 8 RFQs to various shops located in my region. Along the way, I have received suggestions for changes that would make the design easier to produce and thus cheaper. I'm making those changes when I can and hope to have some updates in the next two weeks. This is how small manufacturing goes though as I can't demand much with these shops that fill 6-digit orders.
On top of that, my 1950X build has been giving me problems. I suspect that there is a problem with the Taichi X399 and the PCIe riser cable brand that I am using because of the 6 cables I have, only 1 works sporadically. I can't seem to figure it out as I've changed the CPU, motherboard (new Taichi), RAM, SSDs, and tried 4 different GPUs. The interesting thing is that if I use a GPU that is not externally powered, it works consistently. What I've decided to try though is a new PCIe 4.0 cable that will arrive tomorrow. The Thermaltake cable I have seemed to work but because of its orientation I can't mount it into the chassis. I suspect there is a problem with signal interference because the cable runs underneath the mainboard and even though I've tried insulating it with various materials, it still misbehaves.
The good news is that the 1950X has been put on the shelf and I'm now using a 2970WX CPU for this build. Once I get it stable I'm going to post more pictures and get that listing completed. Then I can start on the Epyc S700 build and hopefully have that done before the 1st S402 prototype is complete.
Lastly, thanks for the kind words and support for myself and my family as we were all going through various illnesses. It seems most of that is behind us but as of yesterday we agreed to purchase a new home which is great, but since the delivery date is December I'm not sure how much time I'll have for case design and production while we get our current home ready to sell. There is so much work to do and not enough time to do it. Regardless, I'll keep updating here as the smaller projects are complete so I can hopefully set my target on the S402 again full-time. Seems like I'll be waiting on the fabricator anyway.
