• Home
    • Article Previews
    • Articles by List
  • About Us
  • Contact Me
  • Subscribe to TechTalk.pro
Menu

TechTalk.pro

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number

Your Custom Text Here

TechTalk.pro

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Article Previews
    • Articles by List
  • About Us
  • Contact Me
  • Subscribe to TechTalk.pro

Home

My First Oculus Rift VR Machine Build and how I Extended Cable Length by 30ft

August 1, 2017 Sandra Cooper
Oculus Rift. I purchased it as a kit with the touch controllers for $399.00 total during the Oculus 6 week sale. 

Oculus Rift. I purchased it as a kit with the touch controllers for $399.00 total during the Oculus 6 week sale. 

After months of research and debating on whether or not I wanted to spend the money on not just an Oculus Rift but a machine that would be capable of handling VR, I came across an ad that essentially made that choice for me so much easier. Recently, Oculus announced a summer sale in which you can purchase the Oculus Rift headset along with the touch controllers all for $399.00. So, what comes with this bundle? Here's what you get:

  • Oculus Headset
  • A set of touch controllers
  • 2 Sensors
  • Wireless X-Box Controller (batteries and Bluetooth dongle included)
    • Note that not all of the deals out there may include the X-Box controller. Mine did, however. 
  • Oculus Remote
  • Many retailers will throw in a game or two.
    • Mine came with Eve Valkyrie, which I had zero interest in and just sold on eBay for $20.

Overall, this was a great deal.......until it came time for the PC build. I wanted something really interesting but since I am not a major gamer, I didn't need anything really outrageous. I don't play WoW, I don't do Call of Duty, Battlefield, or whatever the hottest and latest thing is. So, I could get away with a 1070 graphics card without any issues. So, off to Newegg and Amazon I went and began my build, which goes a little something like this:

  • Thermaltake Core V21 Black Extreme MicroATX Cube Chassis 
  • MSI B250M Bazooka OPT Boost LGA 1151 Intel B250 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard with 16 GB Intel Optane Memory included and RGB LED's
  • MSI GeForce GTX 1070 DirectX  12 Gaming X 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCIe SLI ready Graphics card
  • Intel Core i5-7600K Kaby Lake Quad Core 3.8 GHz Processor
  • Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 650W Smart Zero Fan SLI/CrossFire Ready Continuous Power ATX 12V Plus Gold Certified Full Modular Power Supply
  • Samsung 850 EVO M.2 2280 1TB Sata III 3-D Vertical SSD
  • G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400 RAM
    • Putting in an order for another set of these today
  • Gigabyte Model GC-WB867D-I Bluetooth 4.0/Wi-Fi Expansion Card
  • EVGA CLC 120 Liquid/Water CPU Cooler with 120mm Radiator, RGB LED, and EVGA Flow Control Software
    • This will be upgraded soon to something much more visually appealing. I am so not finished with this project. Further in the article I will discuss my future plans. 
  • Windows 10 Pro
Thermaltake v21 Chassis (Micro ATX Cube)
Thermaltake v21 Chassis (Micro ATX Cube)
Mesh siding to protect from dust floating cat hair courtesy of my Cassie cat
Mesh siding to protect from dust floating cat hair courtesy of my Cassie cat
Tempered glass siding for viewing internals
Tempered glass siding for viewing internals
Already comes built, so no need to follow whacky IKEA style instructions
Already comes built, so no need to follow whacky IKEA style instructions
MSI Bazooka Motherboard. Notice the 2 M.2 slots, which is very convenient!
MSI Bazooka Motherboard. Notice the 2 M.2 slots, which is very convenient!
Just a back shot of the inputs
Just a back shot of the inputs
13-144-050-V13.jpg
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 GamingX Graphics Card
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 GamingX Graphics Card
Backplate
Backplate
14-127-947-10.jpg
Thermaltake PSU
Thermaltake PSU
Back view of all controls for fan and LED's
Back view of all controls for fan and LED's
Fan
Fan
Included components
Included components
Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD
Samsung 1TB M.2 SSD
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB RAM
EVGA Closed Loop CPU Liquid Cooling System
EVGA Closed Loop CPU Liquid Cooling System
LED Colors
LED Colors
EVGA Closed Loop CPU Liquid Cooling
EVGA Closed Loop CPU Liquid Cooling

Overall, I am pleased with the build and everything works extremely well. The PC is quite fast and with the M.2 SSD, it's no wonder it's lightning fast. I have ZERO lag playing any games on the Oculus, Steam, and Origin. I've even linked it to play games on the X-Box One that sits in my daughter's room and still experience zero lag while playing Tekken 7. 

Video Card Side
Video Card Side
Liquid Cooler Side
Liquid Cooler Side
Rear Inputs
Rear Inputs

As you can see, there is plenty of space on the bottom for more mods, which I intend to do. I would like a custom liquid cooling kit. Since none of the drive bays are being used, I could essentially go with a kit that utilizes the drive bays as the resorvoir/pump. I'm leaning towards something like this:

CoolerMaster Aquagate Max
CoolerMaster Aquagate Max
002.jpg
EK-Kit G280
EK-Kit G280
Gkits-280-shop.jpg

Being in the IT/Network Engineering field, cable management is essential, even at home. I like things to look neat and aesthetically pleasing. With that, baseboards were removed, wires were tucked in, Keystone wall plates and connectors were ordered, and extension cables were ordered. Here is where we ran into a bit of a problem with the Oculus Rift. The Oculus headset uses both a UBS and HDMI connection. However, if you try to extend past 6 feet with any basic cable, you will never get the headset to work. After a little research, we found that the Oculus does NOT like passive cables. In order to extend your headset past the 12 ft that is standard with your headset, you need to have ACTIVE HDMI cables. Active cables have built in chips that allow for longer runs and help push the signals the signals to run farther than your standard passive cables. I completed my setup like this:

  • Active HDMI cable from HDMI on video card to a Keystone on the wall
  • Active HDMI from that Keystone through the wall to another Keystone below my 60" TV
  • Oculus Headset plugs into the HDMI jack on the wall under the TV.
  • From the 60" TV, we ran a regular HDMI cable
  • For USB, we ran SuperSpeed USB 3.0 cables from the PC to the Keystone then another Superspeed USB 3.0  through the wall to the Keystone under the TV for the 2 sensors and headset USB.

I did the same for the USB cables in order to make everything look neat and not have wires and equipment constantly in the way.

Monoprice Active Select Series High-Speed HDMI Cable 15 Feet with RedMere Technology Supports Ethernet, 3D, 4K and Audio Return
Monoprice Active Select Series High-Speed HDMI Cable 15 Feet with RedMere Technology Supports Ethernet, 3D, 4K and Audio Return
Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Type A Cable in Black 10 Feet
Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Type A Cable in Black 10 Feet
USB 3.0 Keystone Jack Inserts, MACTIS 5pcs USB to USB Adapters Female to Female Connector
USB 3.0 Keystone Jack Inserts, MACTIS 5pcs USB to USB Adapters Female to Female Connector
HDMI Keystone Jack, MACTIS 5 Pack HDMI Keystone Insert Female to Female Coupler Adapter
HDMI Keystone Jack, MACTIS 5 Pack HDMI Keystone Insert Female to Female Coupler Adapter
RiteAV - Keystone Wall Plate Double Gang 8
RiteAV - Keystone Wall Plate Double Gang 8
Mediabridge Keystone Wall Plate
Mediabridge Keystone Wall Plate
Output side of the VR extensions.jpg
Wall Jack Behind Rack.jpg

So, for those looking to take advantage of the 6 week summer Oculus deal and need some ideas, I hope this article is able to help. I know many users have had a hard time with extending the length of their headset past the 12 feet and have tried many different ways unsuccessfully. I can assure you that this is this setup works 100% and that the HDMI cables make all of the difference. 

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or just want to chat, please feel free to comment or send me an email. 

In Oculus Rift, VR Gaming PC Tags oculus rift, hdmi, extention, hdmi extension, hdmi connection, VR, Virtual reality
← Maximum PC has Published one of our Letters!! That's a start, right??Vacation Resort UniFi Installation - Large scale wi-fi network, Mesh network, and captive portal →

Copyright © 2017 Net Cybersolutions, LLC