How often do you get to tell your friends and family that
you’re going to work to work on a Lego computer? More than likely never;
however over the past week I have had the chance to do so building the first
Centre Com Lego computer.
I hope you guys can read the whole thing as I’ve tried to
add in as much detail as I can! I think you may enjoy it! There’s nothing else
to really call what I’ve built other than a Centre Com Lego Gaming Computer
however sometimes I do feel like it should be name after the creator, in this
case ‘The Sahin’ as I put a whole lot of love, sweat, pain and effort into it.
I was asked by the Marketing Manager to build a Lego case for a computer.
Undoubtedly I was surprised and a bit sceptical whether or not she was bluffing
or was serious. Turns out it was the latter.
Before I even started looking at getting the Lego pieces, I
needed a good plan and layout to ensure I’m not just building as I go. I had to
think about how I was going to put full electronic hardware inside a Lego box
and make it safe enough to operate hours on end. I set myself a few rules when
designing the layout:
1.
No Glue. I had to use only Lego pieces to hold
together a mammoth of a unit.
2.
Don’t just build a box. I wanted to use the Lego
to build storage compartments, holders and even passages for cable management.
3.
Somewhat un-upgradable. The downside to building
such a complex Lego case is the loss of upgradeability to the parts inside.
Apart from the Hard Drive bay I wanted it to a closed design.
4.
Awesome system. I’ve seen a fair few other Lego
systems around and albeit a few, most are old simply PC’s that really have just been made to look at. I want this system
to be a true gaming contender.
So, now that I had my rules I downloaded the Lego designer
(which lets your 3d model with Lego pieces) and got cracking. Starting from the
base and making my way up I roughly modelled out the shape and overall layout
of the unit through the software. The plan was simple, PSU on the bottom,
motherboard sitting flat on top, hard drives by the side and optical hanging
over motherboard. I also had to think about cooling. Let’s face it, there isn’t
much out there on how Lego takes on heat and how it will react to covering a
gaming system capable of pushing out 80 degree heat, so I had to ensure airflow
was a big part of the system. The plan was to include 3 fans, 1 for the hard
drive(s) and 2 blowing air through the motherboard and graphics. Now, I
consider myself to be a somewhat Lego pro but I was pretty optimistic on the
success of the case. I knew it would bring plenty of challenges and be
difficult to make at times.
So, the plan was sketched up and I was almost ready to go.
The next part was to start picking some parts that could be used in the system,
eventually with a bit of tinkering around I went with the following:
All in all about $1200 worth of parts, so it is quite a
beefy system when you look at it. However, some of these parts were picked for
their certain capabilities and features.
Intel i5 unlocked CPU. For a gaming system an i5 is most
times more than enough. An unlocked will allow me to push it a bit and get a
bit of overclocking happening.
The H60 water cooler was chosen for three reasons, one it
allows me to keep the weight of a massive heat sink off the actual motherboard,
two it allowed me to combine a heat sink with a rear exhaust fan, eliminating
the need for an extra fan and lastly it helps reduce the actual amount of air
within the box.
The external DVD write was chosen purely because of its
weight. Having a full sized optical bay hanging over the motherboard would’ve
required a lot of Lego pieces to hold up that weight. It also allows me to
bypass using the power supplies cabling which in essence helps with the cable
management.
The Enermax fans were chosen because they offer pretty good
airflow for 120mm fans and have the option of many different lighting effects,
something I really wanted to add in to my system!
Day 1
So I get to work with the first 1000 pieces of Lego. I had
my parts and I had my Lego’s and it was time to get building. Starting from the
power supply the Lego’s fit perfectly around the PSU giving it a completely
snug and safe Lego mould.
Within the first hour the PSU was covered in a Lego frame
and raised to allow for airflow to come in from under it. By the second hour I
had managed to start the side wall for the hard drive slots and a rough outline
of the motherboards outer lining.
It was time to put on the motherboard to see how I was going
with size. It was a key factor because if it didn’t perfectly fit, it would
mean there would not only be a gap but it would be an odd number of Lego
lengths (which is a complete nightmare when working with only Even length
Lego’s).
Surprisingly, and with a massive relief it fitted perfectly! At this
point though I realised moving this is going to be a complete nightmare. I
needed at least a large flat Lego board, so my lunch break was spent rushing to
the local shops and finding the biggest board and luckily, there was one in
stock! Mounting the already built Lego onto the board was a bit of an effort,
but I managed to get it in and heard the almighty ‘click’.
Using the motherboards outer lining I kept adding up pieces
to build up some kind of a wall around it. I threw in the 7870 and even the
back plate of the motherboard to see how it would sit in and just like the
motherboard itself both parts seemed to sit in like 2 Lego blocks! (Pun
intended).
The front however was missing and would be a key factor on
how it will hold up. The front is the area I’d planned to put in 3 fans. Now
this may not have crossed your mind, but when you have 3 120mm fans covering a
large part of the front, that’s a whole lot of empty area which needs to be
supported somehow. Don’t forget, there’s still the optical bay to sit on top of
all these fans.
Today was also going to be about setting up the hard drive
bays and getting that motherboard safely in its Lego tray. I had to keep
reminding myself however that I needed to cable up the parts as I went. I
wasn’t going to have the luxury of opening the side panel and popping in parts,
they had to be made while I built around them.
After the PSU the next hardware to go in permanently was the
SSD. I’d made a nice little holder for it to slide into from an opening I
planned to leave on the side. I plugged in its power and data cable ready to
go.
Next up it was time to take a small break from the Lego’s
and start prepping the motherboard. After throwing in the CPU and memory
modules it came time for the cooler. It’s at this point I was questioning the
water cooling option as I realised until I secured the fan and radiator, it was
going to be hanging around loosely.
The last little thing I needed to do was add in a rough lock
position for the fan that will help cool the hard drive bay and provide airflow
for the base of the system. With the first fan roughly locked Day 1 was coming
to an end. Looking at how it finished up, I knew I need a lot more pieces and
ridiculous amount of patience and on-the-fly planning.3
Day 2
Equipped with an extra 3000 pieces it was time to get back
into it. The first order of business was setting up the outer wall for the base
fan and SSD. Building the wall up and up I decided to leave a bit of a hole to
the SSD’s top part which has the connectors to allow for any possibility of
failure and still give me the chance to change it if anything happens (which
turned out to be one of the wisest choices I have ever made which I’ll explain
later).
I decided to add a few pillars behind the PSU which would
essentially become parts of the structure that holds up the entire front end.
Using these pillars I was able to add in the final pieces to the border of the
motherboard. Having done that, the motherboards now sits in a perfect square Lego
moulding.
With the motherboard in, I had the problem of the dangling
radiator and fan from the water cooling unit. I need to get this into a good
enough position as soon as possible. So began the process of building the back
white wall and side yellow inner wall to help support the radiator. After an
hour or so I was able to leave the radiator stand for its own. At the same time
I was building up the red wall to help support the 7870 and bride the white and
red wall together to help add some extra support to radiator. The problem was
(and I saw this coming when building it) the radiator sits on a bridge that is
literally suspended over the back plate. It doesn’t really have any extra
vertical support and it showed when I could see certain pieces break off from
one another.
So I came up with an idea
to run a Lego bridge through the motherboard from the back of it under the radiator
to the front edging. It worked to a certain extent but still didn’t stop the
Lego’s breaking off from one another.
With the back part somewhat done (was enough to hold its own
weight) it was time to pay some more attention to the front. First I start
lined up the path of the front blue wall and side outer wall. The first fan at
this time was locked in to place at an interesting angle. Plugged that up to
the motherboard Fan headers and threaded the small button which changes the
lighting effects on the fan through a small crack I added in on the side. I was
going to do this with all the fans.
I
felt it would add a nice little touch to it while keeping the customization
available to play with. With that in mind though I had to add in the other two
fans so I could keep building up the wall. Problem was the fans had no place to
sit yet, but had to be pre-plugged in. so I was left with those two fans
dangling around. I kept soldiering on and eventually I had the first base fan
all covered up with a solid support wall hanging over it. With the wall done, I
had to setup the base for the two fans which proved to be one of the hardest
things on this case. I didn’t seem to have enough support from the bottom to
help keep up the pieces I was trying to bridge from one part to the other. It
also didn’t help when our web guy Matty decided to throw in a finger and break
a section of the bridge. At this point I was infused with Lego rage, something
I worked so hard on was crumbled within seconds all because of one silly
finger. It did however make me realise it was not strong enough. I had to get
used to people touching my Lego case even though I’ve been numerously telling
people around the office to NOT TOUCH IT!
Anyway, enough of the slight rant at the other office
workers, getting back on Lego track; I eventually built the platform that would
hold up the two fans. It wasn’t finished and wasn’t completely supported but it
was enough to hold up the fans and lock them in their places. And like that,
Day 2 came to an end.
Day 3
Day 3 started off where I left off, well almost, I first
decided to build up the side red wall facing the 7870. I decided to add in a
few gaps and holes so people could see inside the case (and save some pieces)
but it turned out to look quite prettier than I expected and I was happy with
that. That part really didn’t take long to build up so before I knew it I was
back at the fans. Slowly but steadily I started building up the sides. Building
up also meant I had to build across, so the massive outer wall started to take
shape as well. This outer wall gave me a gap between the walls that hold up the
power supply and motherboard to thread cable through. This section was going to
be closed up so I could jam in as many cables as I needed and it wouldn’t be
seen.
So I kept adding pieces to the wall and the front to keep up
those fans and build up the support. Then it hit me, I hadn’t turned on the
machine to make sure parts work, by now the motherboard, PSU and fans were
locked in and any fault would literally cause a meltdown on my behalf. I needed
a power switch. Working at Centre Com I was privileged to be at the access of
many old cases that no longer had a home and someone to push its buttons. I
took apart one of these cases and to my surprise (and luck) the one I had
picked had the power button in a nice silver plate which came off with ease and
featured a reset button and LED lighting! Score! So before I built up the walls
any higher I plugged in the switch and fired it up and it works! But wait, why
are the fans only working in red? These fans are supposed to be tri colour ye t
only red seem to work. After a quick search on the web and a few inner tantrums
it turns out the fans need more power than supplied through the motherboard.
Problem, there is a massive wall between I and the PSU. Problem, the back of
the PSU is almost inaccessible. Problem, I need to plug in the Molex power
cable. Thought, I forgot to do it in the first place. So I sat here for a few
minutes feeling depressed for myself, I had no choice but to break down a large
chunk of the outer wall and somehow, using my chunky manly finger’s thread in
an additional power plug. Eventually, using a long screw driver I managed to
plug that little sucker in without breaking any other part. I never though the
sound of a ‘click’ would bring so much relief.
Eventually with that all plugged in, I reattached the fans
directly to the power and fired it up once again, and what do you know, it now
works with all colours! I also managed to rebuild the wall before days end.
With that done it was Friday and home time.
Day 4
Today started off building around the top two fans, trying
to build up a strong enough bridge to not only hold up more parts but hold up
the roof. The side red wall and rear radiator also received some treatment
today. Adding a few more pieces to the radiator to help secure it more and
started to build up the red roof. Adding more pieces around and above the
radiator it became even more evident that I need to add in extra support from
somewhere and add it fast! I decided to break off a piece that sits just above
the back plate and built outwards. By doing this I was able to build up a
straight block from the base to the middle of the radiator which helped in
distributing the weight evenly and down to the base itself (engineering at its
finest here). Crazy thing is it worked like a beauty! Both the radiator and
wall were up running and solid.
My attention went back to the front. It was time to add in
the power button board and the DVD drive. At first they were quite wobbly and
not so sturdy. But I kept pushing on and the higher I went the stronger the
bridge got. This was the problem I foresaw when adding the fans. I knew the
fans would take up a lot of the room and would mean I have limited place to add
in support to hold up the weight. Lego pieces aren’t as strong as you think
when trying to cover a vertical area without support. They can struggle to hold
up their own weight let alone the weight of hardware. Eventually though by
continuing to add to it, it got stronger and stronger. The extra layers do help
out and it got to a point where I could push down on to it without breaking
something.
With that done day 4 came to an end. It sounded short but
took me a while to get all this support up and running. By this point after
4000 pieces I was left with about 50, so my efficiency with Lego was an
all-time high.
Day 5
The home run, I could smell, I could see it. By now my
fingers are sore and I had broken a nail. I had been through it all but wasn’t
ready to throw in the towel. Equipped with an additional 2000 pieces it was
time to build up the roof and close this sucker up.
By now most of the red side was done, I had a few missing
pieces so with the new batch I would be able to finish it off. I wanted to
create the roof so that people could see in to the motherboard but not around
the DVD drive, so I need to create a bridge through the middle of the case to
help support this idea. I won’t lie; it was one of the hardest things in the
case. The only thing really holding up a large chunk of the roof is nothing but
itself pushing and pulling on one another.
Eventually though with a bit of hard work and sweat, I
managed to break up the roof into its sections and even out the height. With
the latest purchase of parts I also picked up a few little characters which I
added in and around the case for a bit of extra eye candy. Slowly but steadily
it got higher and higher and started closing up.
After a few hours, the last piece was added. It was done! I
had done it! After almost 5300 pieces and 5 days of Lego building, my Lego powered
computer was done! All that was left now was to add a few special bits here and
there and any other things that come up. Although I did drop a few pieces down
the sides and gaps, they’ve now become part of the case.
TL;DR:
Day 1: Most of the case was built and setup. PSU, Motherboard, SSD , H60 and 1
fan are all in!
Day 2: Radiator is secured in; walls are coming up even higher. Matty broke a
section but I fixed it.
Day 3: Most parts are now functioning. Fans didn’t have enough power so had to
break and rebuild a section. Got depressed then got over it.
Day 4: All fans are secured and working. Power switch is in. Optical drive is
in. Roof is starting to come together.
Day 5: Roof is closed up. Little characters are added in and the machine is
finished!
The First Run
Remember I mentioned I really wanted to be able to change
over the SSD if anything happened? Well thank god for that because during the
Windows installation, the SSD failed. It just died. So using that gap I left for ‘just in case’
circumstances there I was trying to unplug an SSD through quite a small hole.
It did come at a cost. My fatty fingers did break off quite a chunk of the SSD
holder; I was raged not as much as you think. The SSD still managed to stand
still and steady so it was OK. Before you know it I was up and running into
Windows. After all the driver installation and games it was time to push this a
bit and see what kind of thermals it was producing.
First thing, I overclocked the 7870 from its default 1000MHz
to 1150MHz and pushed up the CPU from 3.4GHz to 4.0GHz.
Overclocked the 7870 temp was idling at 22 degrees and the
CPU was idling at 25 degrees. Both of which are ridiculously good temps for
overclocked hardware of regular cooling options. The two fans at the front are
doing an amazing job and pushing air through the whole case.
On load it even gets somewhat better, the 7870 would not
budge over 65. I ran stress tests and 100% load for a good 3-4 hours solid and
didn’t affect it at all. 65 degrees seems to the max it will go to. Using
Prime95 for about two hours the CPU clocked at 4GHz maxed at around the 61
degree mark. Now surly winter has something to do with this as it is basically
pushing cold air through the system, it still however is promising results
considering it is located inside pieces of plastic blocks that weren’t meant to
house such delicate electronics.
Benchmarking wise the system put out record breaking
results. Unigine 3 gave me a result of 2140 with an average of 81.3. If you
look at any of our past results, this beats even a GTX680 Overclocked card
running on an i7 system!
So that’s that, I’ve built a Lego Computer system. So you
ask why? Well, we did it for you guys, and hence shortly this computer will be
on display for you guys to come and check out! It’ll be loaded up with a few
games so you can have a play and be on display so you can see! Keep an eye out
on our Facebook page and gaming blog as we’ll keep you guys updated on its
public display!
By Sahin Selvi
sahin.s@centrecom.com.au
The benchmark results
may differ from user to user depending on what background software you are
running and versions of benchmark software. These results aren’t portrayed to
be seen as exact performance figures but merely as a rough estimate on the
performance of the machine. These results are in no way bias to any company or
person and are here to provide the end user in depth details and to provide
extra assistance of potential purchases. All information on this page is
subject to copyright. Please do not copy any parts of this article.
