HSPC Top Deck Tech Station Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,399 words · ~6 min read
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so I have been asked time and time again lonus where'd you get that like test
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bench thing meaning this thing okay so I
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have a couple high-speed PC tech stations yes that is what it is called
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it is called a high-speed PC tech station this is a standard size so it is
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an ATX size top deck tech station I actually have one that's not a top deck
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tech station at home and on that one the motherboard goes on the bottom and the
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drives and power supply go on the top it's a lot less convenient I prefer the
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top deck style so high speed PC noticing
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that I use their product in my videos all the time actually contacted me and
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offered to send me their new tech station so I am going to be upgrading my
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tech station to the top deck tech
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station which is the same but this is the XL model so that is going to allow
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me and I need another prop here to install
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motherboards such as the G1 killer
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Assassin from Gigabyte and test things like four-way SLI on my tech station
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which I was not able to do in the past so high-speed PC tech stations cost
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anywhere from around 100 bucks to up to about $200 for some of the higher end
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models but they are incredibly convenient and I have easily gotten my
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$100 worth out of my old one and I'm sure I will get my 0 worth thank you
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very much highspeed PC out of the new
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one I'm really really excited to try this one out so as you can see there is
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some assembly required I remember the first time I put one together my my
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first one it actually took me quite a long time to figure it out that was a
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long time ago that was back when uh when my core 2 extreme 6800 was a really
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high-end processor so uh yeah it's
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definitely been a while
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okay remember that was a dual core extreme Edition it's like crazy okay so
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wow okay the first thing I see is three included fans so these are logicist fans
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they are black and red and they do not
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come with LEDs of any sort which is good because then I probably wouldn't install
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them uh what I've gone to for most of my tech station needs is actually the
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Noctua P series fans because they provide good static air flow through
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radiators or whatever other coolers I use they're not loud cuz I often have
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the tech station running behind me at work and I don't want anything loud and
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obnoxious because I'm trying to concentrate on things other than my test
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PC worrying away in the background so let's have a look at the included Parts
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here all right A lot of people have actually asked me if I made my tech
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station myself and the answer is um no
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although you probably could it is so much more convenient to buy one of these
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kits from highspeed PC that comes with all the little bits and and pieces that
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you need and instructions on how to assemble them
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even things like fanu guards okay so let's show you guys everything that we
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got here okay first thing how to get in
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touch with them missing parts questions or other problems contact us right away
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we'll do our best to have a solution for you within 24 hours awesome great next
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we have the instructions so this just comes on your typical A4 paper it's like
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a a laser printed copy so nothing too
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sophisticated but they're a fairly small company and there's lots of nice color
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pictures here that will help you to put together your tech station without too
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much trouble all right I want to show you guys everything that's included so
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this is actually here if I show you guys a completed one that might actually make
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it a little easier to point out what everything is so this piece right here
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you can see it's actually got 10 expansion slot holes on it so
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this is the replacement for this so it's just going to be slightly long longer
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than my old one all right these two right here these are the upright posts
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right here that support the PCI slot
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cover this hard drive mounting so on the
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bottom of the tech station down here you can see there are rails to mount a hard
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drive or two hard drives under the tech station itself all right these are the
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four posts that keep the two the top and
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the bottom piece uh apart and supported
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okay we've got motherboard standoffs I love the motherboard standoffs that they
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use because they're awesome I'm going to show you guys how you install a
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motherboard on a tech station here
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so first you take the motherboard off so basically you've just got these little
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rubber pieces right here that go right over where the holes are and then in
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order to get it lined up there's a couple that come with little plastic
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threaded spikes and the reason those threaded spikes are so great is because
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when you get them position push them on it's it takes a little bit
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of fussing to actually lift the motherboard back up which is perfect so
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holds it in place a little bit but it also doesn't allow it to slide around
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like this and it keeps everything from shorting out because you're using rubber
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to isolate the motherboard from everything else so that is what we have
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in there next we have all of the
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mounting hardware required to assemble my new top deck tech station so we've
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got things like L brackets for here we've got these caps right here which go
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on the tops of your posts we've got various different screws for fastening
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everything together uh and finally last but not least we have some fan girls we
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have the ATX control kit which for motherboards that do not have built-in
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power and reset switches is very convenient because you just throw that on the front panel headers and then boom
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you have a built-in power switch or reset switch power LED hard drive LED
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and speaker so you can actually buy this separately as well if you don't want a
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tech station or if you already have a tech station and you just lost yours or something got a nice little neoprene pad
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here so the neoprene pad is uh on my own
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personal tech station right here is mounted on the bottom where it belongs
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and then I've also supplemented it with some of these uh non-slip things that I
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really like as well to just to make sure that my uh optical drive doesn't move
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around I don't have one under my power supply cuz my power supply has enough
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weight that it's able to not slip on the neoprene pad so the neocam pad is there
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this appears to be the bottom piece all right and then this with all of the
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motherboard mounting holes in it as well as lots of labels for where to put stuff
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is the top piece and I just want to show
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you guys one last thing before I finish up my unboxing and showcase here and
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that is the overall build quality of the tech station so in spite of having all
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this stuff on the bottom of it and this is actually a relatively light load for
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this particular one um there is no
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chance of it falling apart at any time even though the way these are supported
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is with screws so I'm been very very happy with my tech station over the last
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couple years and uh big thanks again to highspeed PC for sending me an XL atx1
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so I can bring you guys more benchmarking goodness don't forget to
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subscribe to lius techtips for more unboxings reviews and other computer
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