3XS Black Widow Extreme (watercooled)

[Perfectionist]

Would be great if could see build progression pics for this like Shub's etc? (my forum account is linked my Scan account if you need to check who I am, or: it's the one with the noise dampened fans )

Don't think you have any sets up for the "extreme" version of black widow so could be nice for others too

[Disturbedguy]

Yeah picatures! We want pics!

[Infinite]

3XS Team have been really failing at putting pictures up. Haven't seen any new builds on here in like 3 months.

[Perfectionist]

24/04/2010 - UPDATED WITH PRICES SINCE PEOPLE KEEP ASKING sorry was just trying to be modest lol

(all prices excluding VAT, I ordered it in December when it was 15% instead of 17.5% so it'd only confuse things)

Base Specifications (Scan price £800, not sure of exact combined total I lost the bit of paper I went through and added it all up on (after doing most of it on the PC) and I don't have the prices for some parts to redo it - for those I don't have though I've went through and checked the current prices on Scan's site so should be about right for those prices that haven't changed drastically since December)
1 Corsair Obsidian Series 800D (£182.60)
1 3XS Black Widow Extreme (?)
1 Asus Rampage II Extreme, Intel X58 (£214.17)
1 XSPC Laing DDC-Pump 12V Ultra(18w) (£61.71)
1 Laing DDC 4 Point Anti-Vibration Damping Kit [PUMP DAMPENER] (£8.39)
1 TFC Xchanger Triple Radiator 360 [TOP RAD] (£61.99)
1 XSPC RX120 Radiator [REAR RAD] (£29.89)
1 XSPC Black 5.25" Bay Reservoir (£16.79)
1 EK-NB ASUS HP (Suitable to fit on Rampage II Extreme factory heatpipe) (sorry forgot to update PC notes with price and lost the bit of paper I scribbled them on when buying, would now be £21.61)
1 Aqua Aquaero 4.00 USB Black VFD Water Temperature Monitor [SCAN DON'T SEEM TO SELL THIS SEPARATELY, ONLY THE SILVER VERSIONS? Could always ask them] (£83.25)
1 Aqua-Computer 53066 Temperature Sensor Inline G1/4 (£7.45)
8 TFC FI-0038 3/8" ID - 1/2" OD Compression Fitting - 1/4" BSPP High Flow (£2.89)
2 3845 - TFC 3/8" ID - 1/2" OD 45 Degree Rotary Compression Fitting - 1/4" BSPP High Flow (£3.99 total)
3 Scan 1/4" BSPP Rotary - 3/8" 90 Degree Hose Tail (£3.47)
BP-90R3CPF-CC2 - Bitspower G1/4 Silver Shining Triple Rotary 90-Degree Compression Fitting CC2 - For ID 3/8" OD1/2" (£9.74 total)
1 Scan 64016 1/4" Male Compression Fitting (£1.69)
1 Aqua-Computer 21545 Backplate for Socket 1366 (£4.90)
2 TFC Feser Variable SLI VGA (£? total - I think these are meant to be for connecting two cards together, I only picked one card but was not refunded for this, if you order you should probably bring this up if they haven't fixed it yet)
1 Power Splitter Cable Molex (don't have this in my notes, would now be £0.79)
3 Akasa Fan Splitter Cable (don't have this in my notes, would now be £4.92 total)
2 Zalman ZM-EC1 Fan Extention [sic] Cable (don't have this in my notes, would now be £3.98 total)
3 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (don't have this in my notes, would now be £16.80 total)
1 Thermalright Chill Factor 2 (don't have this in my notes, would now be £4.66)
2 50cm Akasa SATA3-50-BK SATA III, 6Gb/s Black round data cable with secure latch (£6.98 total)
1 Sharkoon 12" UV CCFL 2in1 Kit (later had these removed when had the system RMA'd for the fan problem, was never refunded even though there was no way to know before receiving it that you couldn't turn them on and off separately since there are 2 switch sockets on the case)
1 Acronis True Image Home 2010 - System Back Up Software (wish I hadn't paid for this! They didn't tell me before I ordered that no backup would actually be made [because I used my own Windows licence key rather than buying a new copy]. Didn't note down the price but it would now be £22.98)
1 Build, Configure, Test - Water-cooled Machine (I remember working this out and discussing it on the phone after finding it was much higher than they said on their webpage at http://3xs.scan.co.uk/whybuybuilt.asp (£75-150 before VAT) they've now added a disclaimer about watercooled systems forgot to note it down, but it worked out to about £250 I think, best to add up the price of all the parts on any system tho before buying like I did if you want to be sure there's no other idiot taxes like the "watercooled graphics cards" [see below])
1 Scan 3XS System - 1year Onsite Warranty (Mainland UK)
1 Scan System Configuration

Qty Selected Specifications
1 *No Custom Colour Required*
1 Intel i7 920, 2.66Ghz, 4.8GT/s QPI, @ 4Ghz with 20% OC (£181.17)
1 XSPC Delta V3 CPU Waterblock Universal + i7 Only Plate (£22.99)
1 *No System Overclocking*
1 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), CAS 8 (didn't note this down sorry I wrote the wrong one down, it was around £70, the price of the same but PC3-16000 (2000) which I wrote down instead by mistake was £129.12. First would now be £239.84, latter £339.76 - not sure why the prices are now more than 200%???)
1 *No NVIDIA VGA Card Required* (ATI Required)
1 *No NVIDIA PhysX Card Required*
1 1GB XFX HD 5870, 850Mhz GPU, 1600 SPs, 4800Mhz GDDR5 (£290.58)
1 Water Cooled Graphics Cards (£100, they normally charge £300 which I was told by sales is for 3 graphics cards which is what the black widow extreme used to have, and that it will be fixed on the website so that if you select less graphics cards on the system that price will update, but I just looked and it is still is the same so I guess that is the idiot tax for people that don't bother to ask what's up or read the forums? so might want to ask Scan about that rather than paying £300 for one card or or £300 for 2 when it should be £200 [it seems a bit odd to charge again for watercooling a graphics card though when you already paid a few hundred quid more than the usual build price for "building and testing a watercooled system"... I suppose that's why they are careful not to list the prices of the building price you already paid for in the "base price" or the component prices to make it hard to find out how much extra you were already charged without searching out the components on the site yourself like I did)
1 850W Corsair HX Series Modular (Dual Graphics Cards) (£109.79)
1 160GB INTEL 2.5i MLC Gen.2 SSD (£293.56)
1 *Storage Hard Drive Not Required*
1 *Solid State Drive Not Required*
1 LG BH08LS20 - 8x Blu-Ray Writer, Reader & DVDRW - Retail Box (£113.57)
1 Sony AD-7240S-0B - 24x DVDRW (£15.39)
1 Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional - PCI-E (x1) (£89.90)
1 *Use On Board Network Port*
1 *Wireless Adaptor Not Required*
2 2m TFC Clear UV Reactive Tube 3/8" ID - 1/2" OD (£10.98 total)
2 1l Feser One Fluid - UV Red (£14.98 total)
4 120mm Scythe Gentle Typhoon with No LED (don't have price noted down sorry, would now be £41.92)
2 Sharkoon 12" White CCFL (don't have this in my notes, would now be £9.00 total)
1 *Operating System Not required* (Tested under Win7 Pro)
1 *No Office Trial to be Installed*
1 *No Cyberlink*
1 *No Software Required*
1 Kaspersky 2009 1 year - Upgraded to 2010 (don't have this in my notes, would now be £6.98)
1 *Monitor Not Required*
1 *NVIDIA 3D Vision Not Required*
1 *Gaming Keyboard Not Required*
1 *Gaming Mouse Not Required*
1 *Gaming Mouse Mat Not Required*
1 *Gaming Headphones Not Required*
1 Sharkoon Silencer Kit (this was later refunded as it was not able to be used on the system with the fans due to the radiator connectors apparently? see Scan Chris' later reply in the thread - I wish there was a better silencer on the pump that's for sure, it gets quite loud vibrating on the floor sometimes that you can hear it in the next room, tilting sometimes fixes it, sometimes makes it worse)
1 *Speakers Not Required*
1 Standard 3XS System Warranty - 2 Years (1st Year Onsite / 2nd Year Return to Base) (UK Sale of Goods Act actually means retailers are obliged to cover for six years minimum [under the first orange header on that page])

VAT of £368.50 (I got the system in January, but I actually ordered it in December so it was at 15%, it got delayed because of the rush over xmas and I asked for it to be checked thoroughly
System total (not including delivery): £2,825.15

Been told pictures will be up, apparently they wanted to wait until it was all done first (I don't mind really, the boxes all end up in the recycling anyway)

Hoping it's going to look kind of Alien-y with the red fluid pumping along the tubes in black case

[Philipp]

Sorry for the delay

[Perfectionist]

Absolutely awesome. Thank you so much!

Going to wait to see it for myself today and maybe buy some more CCFLs from you, think I might've made a silly decision with the white, looks like it might make it look pink when it's on in the last pic ha Oh damn I know what I should've done, seen if I could have two colours with a switch between heh.

[Philipp]

Hello Perfectionist,

I am really glad you are happy with your system, there are two switches on the rear of the case that control the lighting turning the white CCFL might help.

Also it looks much nicer in the flesh

Cheers

[Perfectionist]

Still haven't received it unfortunately... city link have been a bloody nightmare today...

For some reason Scan gave City Link my mobile number without asking me (which was switched off) instead of my home number? I'll get to why this became important at the end...
I logged into my Scan account and my home number is actually listed before my mobile number, so not sure what's with that...


Took day off work: Phoned City Link customer services this morning to check what time they would be delivering, unable to give me a time other than the one on the website tracking page "between 07:30 and 17:30".
I said ok no probs.

16:00 (give or take a few minutes either way), coming up to the end of the delivery time slot so decided to phone the local City Link depot and check if it was still on track to be delivered before 5:30: Was told yeah everything's fine, put me on hold to phone driver and that "he's on his way and will be there in about 30 minutes". Told it's really heavy and that I "will need to help the delivery driver carry it" (I wonder what would have happened if the delivery was for a woman, just refuse to deliver?). Said ok fine but don't you know that above a certain weight it's illegal for a company have only one worker carry something under health and safety laws because they might hurt themselves? They said they know but they have a policy of only one driver per delivery and that senders know not to send items with City Link if they are too heavy, and that the driver had loaded it into the van so would be ok. I said I'm fine with helping, but you shouldn't really be doing that [I wonder if any of their employees have been injured cos of their policies?].

17:00 (give or take a few minutes either way), nothing. Called the depot again several times, rings and rings, no one answers. Tried about 3 times.

Phoned City Link Head Office 01276 606 200, got an automated message saying it's closed and telling you to call their BT "revenue-sharing" 08444 number which is 08444 930 930. They get paid a certain % for every minute you spend by BT.
Did that: On hold for over 20 minutes in a queue of 11, City Link getting money from BT for every minute of every customer they keep on hold.
When I finally got through they put me on hold while they phoned depot and driver: told yeah he's really close "he'll be there in 10 minutes".
Asked if it would definitely be delivered today then: "yes".

17:40, nothing. Again City Link main office closed so had to call their moneyspinner again: On hold for over quarter of an hour again.
When I finally got through same thing again they phoned up the depot/driver and they told me that I was next in the queue and they got delayed because they have had other heavy parcels. Not to worry will be there very soon.

Meanwhile I've been refreshing the tracking page now and then (at this point a bit wary after having been told twice that it was about to be delivered and then it not happening). Noticed at around 6:10 that it suddenly said "There was no one to receive the goods at the delivery point so a card was left.", and that this had been done at 18:00 exactly - What the hell?
Checked post, sure enough someone had slipped in a card (with the number and address of a different depot from the one that was actually delivering)... No one had rang my doorbell. I am 100% sure of this as I have a buzzer right next to my PC... And of course I have been careful to not have any other noise and been expecting it to ring at any moment. I got another delivery this morning (left 4 dead 2), so I know it's not broken or anything either...

I phoned the moneyspinning customer service number again, again put on hold saying 11 people in queue the same as last time, while they get revenue shared from every minute they keep you on hold. Resigning myself to be on hold for another what, 15, 20, 30 minutes I put my mobile on figuring I could try keep ringing the depot and see if it gets through (as mentioned before it was ringing and ringing and no one picking up so I gave up). "1 missed call", number of the same depot from the one it was stored in this time (different from the card)...
Phoned that number on my mobile (while still on hold with the other phone), rings and rings no answer.
Tried phoning the other depot that the card said to, the same. Tried phoning the one that phoned me again, and a woman picked up (I put the land phone down at this point, I wasn't really expecting to get through to anyone on my mobile after how many times I had rung the depot with no answer on the landline before), I explained what had happened about how the guy had put the card through my door without actually trying to deliver the parcel, and was told "oh yeah my manager was on the phone to him while he was pressing it" I said he must have got the wrong number then because I have been right by the buzzer there is no way I could not have heard it, and I got another delivery this morning from someone else so I know it's not broken or anything either. Told well he definitely pressed the right number, I said well he clearly didn't and must have told you different. Told the driver is still out delivering, but they won't turn him back because they want him to deliver other deliveries and then go back to the depot. So, he could have come back, but the other parcels were basically allocated higher priority after ignoring mine (maybe because it was heavy and he couldn't be bothered? I don't know)...
Said I want to make a complaint and she tried to give me the number for head office which I knew full well was closed at this time having phoned it earlier... So I asked to talk to the manager, was told the manager had gone home and there was a deputy manager but he was busy loading a van and would call me back.
18:37 I was called back, talked to the deputy manager and he said basically the same thing, and that whether the driver pressed the doorbell or not the fact was that the manager had tried to phone me (on my switched off mobile number which I did not give to them) and had not been able to, so that was it.
Told delivery tomorrow, 7:30-17:30. Where'd I hear that before? At least they have my number now though...
So a third day (I actually did the day before on Tuesday too because I was told it was actually going to be delivered then, wouldn't have bothered mentioning that if not for the serious messing me around that has been going on today) of waiting in for delivery... If they can be bothered to press the doorbell this time?

[Philipp]

Hello Perfectionist,

Just popped on here to see how you were doing

There isn't much that I can do at the moment, but I will get onto this first thing in the morning.

I am very sorry for the problems with delivery, expect a call from me in the morning after I have spoken with city links head office.

Best Regards

[Perfectionist]

Thanks I'm surprised to get any response in the evening that's def above and beyond the call of duty, no problem at all I don't feel bad about Scan just City Link really - I don't know for sure only have City link's word for it that they weren't given both phone numbers either, it's possible they didn't enter them in or lost them (maybe your system sent both and theirs was only set up to have only allow one contact number per recipient and the second number overwrote it?) I don't know.

Not angry or anything, just disappointed. The lack of concern they show for their delivery drivers health (at one point I was told it's more than 30kg? this page suggests that 16-20 is the maximum for a single person to avoid injury, though I'm not sure what the legal UK limits are) sounds like it corroborates with this post over in the main scan forum, makes me feel sorry for them working for whoever the owners are, I can see why they might not want to deliver it on a dark cold evening (though, it arrived with other stuff from the other depot in a lorry at 6am and it's been loaded in a van since 8am today according to their tracking page so it sounds like their policy might be to leave the heavy delivieries til last at the end of the day [after all they mentioned they had got caught up with mine by other heavy deliveries] rather than perhaps more sensibly doing it the other way around).

It's really weird how they said the woman answering the phone said the manager had heard the bell being pushed while the driver did it (for a start it's not that loud unless the driver put the phone up to a doorbell?), I really don't get that part all I can think of is possibly the wrong number? It is lit up though.

[TAKTAK]

(at one point I was told it's more than 30kg?

I highly doubt that, unless SCAN are lining the case with lead...

As far as maximum weights, the MAX for pretty much all couriers is 25KG per item, be it box/bag/bundle.

After that it has to be palletised. Although quite often it is not as it is a waste of a pallet.

[Terbinator]

I highly doubt that, unless SCAN are lining the case with lead...

As far as maximum weights, the MAX for pretty much all couriers is 25KG per item, be it box/bag/bundle.

After that it has to be palletised. Although quite often it is not as it is a waste of a pallet.

The CustomPC review says its weighs circa 50kg.

Edit: 50kg is for the jellyfish one, this can't be far behind though ?

[Perfectionist]

Ah would make sense, it's the same case as the jellyfish uses and both have a *lot* of components inside em

[TAKTAK]

The CustomPC review says its weighs circa 50kg.

Edit: 50kg is for the jellyfish one, this can't be far behind though ?

I call BS on CustomPC...

[TAKTAK]

Oooh hang on, the Obsidian 800D is full steel isn't it, not aluminium?

i'd still say that would be around 15kg for the case though...

So 30KG yes, 50KG i'd still say no...

[Perfectionist]

I highly doubt that, unless SCAN are lining the case with lead...

As far as maximum weights, the MAX for pretty much all couriers is 25KG per item, be it box/bag/bundle.

After that it has to be palletised. Although quite often it is not as it is a waste of a pallet.

It was city link who were saying it was more than 30kg not Scan though - they didn't say how much exactly, I don't know if they weighed it or were just guessing, they seemed to be fine with one driver doing it though they asked me to help (I said fine, but I really do wonder what they would do if they were delivering to a woman: it seems somewhat sexist to plan deliveries on the basis that whoever the customer is they will be ok with helping to carry - they don't just deliver computers, and I know quite a few female gamers).. if it was weights maybe it would be more reasonable as they are designed to be able to hold large amounts of weight safely with the strain not going on spine, but lugging a big awkward to hold (cardboard? I don't know, I would assume anyone that would have that land on their feet would be losing it) box full of steel sounds more like something off the World's Strongest Man competition lol.