Spec me an ideal case/loop combo
- Thread starter Jediben
- Start date
I am as incompetant with HTML as I am with liquid cooling. Stay tuned for more chaos.
Final steps! How many connecting bits am I going to need?
By my reckoning:
CPU block = 2
Res 1 = 2
Res 2 = 2
Pump (I want to have some sort of drainage pipe) = 3
GFX block will link the two cars together so just 1 in, 1 out = 2
A spare = 1
12 of these? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-acf-fitting-10-16mm-elox-black-wc-781-ek.html
Then some UV reactive tubing in 16/10 - I reckon 5 meters will guarantee I don't ruin my chances of completing the loop.
Add a silver kill coil and a orange LCD temp sensor (when in stock - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xspc-lcd-temperature-sensor-orange-v2-g1-4-plug-sensor-wc-202-xs.html)
and I think I am set.
Just need to distilled water from Halfords or something
Final steps! How many connecting bits am I going to need?
By my reckoning:
CPU block = 2
Res 1 = 2
Res 2 = 2
Pump (I want to have some sort of drainage pipe) = 3
GFX block will link the two cars together so just 1 in, 1 out = 2
A spare = 1
12 of these? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-acf-fitting-10-16mm-elox-black-wc-781-ek.html
Then some UV reactive tubing in 16/10 - I reckon 5 meters will guarantee I don't ruin my chances of completing the loop.
Add a silver kill coil and a orange LCD temp sensor (when in stock - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xspc-lcd-temperature-sensor-orange-v2-g1-4-plug-sensor-wc-202-xs.html)
and I think I am set.
Just need to distilled water from Halfords or something
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Apr 2010
- Posts
- 3,034
Budgets are meant to be broken 
Have received EK-FC Terminal DUAL Parallel 3 slot today. Before I ordered it I saw some people had recommended getting the TRIPLE instead of the DUAL but I couldn't figure out why. The moment I opened the manual up I realised why - with the Triple, you would mount cards in the appropraite slots and then use flow blocking thingys to block the unused tubing holes. This would allow you to move 2 cards together or apart by a 'slot' if you needed to as a result of motherboard arrangements.
With my DUAL, the cards can only be in one configuration! Doh!
Nevermind, should work for now anyway
With my DUAL, the cards can only be in one configuration! Doh!
Nevermind, should work for now anyway
Could really use a hint on connecting to the pump - I want to use a Y-piece and a T valve together to block off the master loop and feed only a drain pipe when it comes to cleaning the system. Can I go straight from my pump into a Y piece, or do I need to have a compression fitting to some pipe, then another compression from pipe to Y, and then another compression and pipe followed by the T valve, and finally another compression into the radiator head?
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Jesus that's a lot of red! I know build colours/looks are sudjective but for me that's not pretty!Looks like someone has built the same gear in the exact same arrangement I am aiming for (except the twist between cpu and top rad!?) - good news!
Re your deionised water, if it's sealed/unopened it'll almost certainly be fine. Expiration dates on things like water are usually for stock rotation purposes (and because some daft bureaucrat says it needs an expiration date) The only risk to unopened water is leeching or degradation of the plastic.
Ok thanks theKwango.
I agree that is a very red inside: i'm going to use uv white tubes and the phanteks white and black fans, along with black acetal blocks so hopefully it will be a bit more flattering...
Do you have any ideas for ny question about the T-valve and Y-tube?
I agree that is a very red inside: i'm going to use uv white tubes and the phanteks white and black fans, along with black acetal blocks so hopefully it will be a bit more flattering...
Do you have any ideas for ny question about the T-valve and Y-tube?
Realised that the pump has 3 ports at the bottom so I should be able to fit my valve off of that and drain pipe from there.
I made the first step today - took the stock fan off my Gigabyte 1080GTX OC cards and fitted the EK GPU blocks, backplates and then the parallel flow block. The cards use the same pcb as the G1 card, so i had been watching some strip down videos for that model and became aware rhat i would need to get a nut driver to remove some 40mm standoffs.
Actually in the event it transpires that the OC model uses only 8 screws to keep the whole fan unit on - i just had to pull it apart!
Saved me a whole lot of worry.
I did have one panic when I was removing the EK gfx card Joint block to replace with the parallel one - i dropped it and thought the O rings had fallen off. Luckily they were still in place on the card rather than the block!
http://m.imgur.com/wFBbdUq?r
https://imgur.com/gallery/U5uC3
The other thing that is worrying is the WEIGHT of these cards with the blocks on. Must be 800g between them! Any idea if there are supprt brackets available?
I made the first step today - took the stock fan off my Gigabyte 1080GTX OC cards and fitted the EK GPU blocks, backplates and then the parallel flow block. The cards use the same pcb as the G1 card, so i had been watching some strip down videos for that model and became aware rhat i would need to get a nut driver to remove some 40mm standoffs.
Actually in the event it transpires that the OC model uses only 8 screws to keep the whole fan unit on - i just had to pull it apart!
Saved me a whole lot of worry.
I did have one panic when I was removing the EK gfx card Joint block to replace with the parallel one - i dropped it and thought the O rings had fallen off. Luckily they were still in place on the card rather than the block!
http://m.imgur.com/wFBbdUq?r
https://imgur.com/gallery/U5uC3
The other thing that is worrying is the WEIGHT of these cards with the blocks on. Must be 800g between them! Any idea if there are supprt brackets available?
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So even more of my order has arrived - and the build has begun in earnest!
First thing i did was fit the motherboard and the cpu block. Excellent instructions as usual from EK, no hassle doing this. Fitted to the motherboard through that MASSIVE case cut out without issue. Lovely stuff.
Next up I flushed out my new radiators. 2.5l of boiled deionised water did the trick, but i saw almost no debris anyway - another big tick for EK!
First I tried to fit the upper 420 radiator. Very quickly realised that there was no room to get the radiator in with the motherboard installed...
Out that came and then in went the rad. The 3 140mm fans were tricky to thread the screws into the radiator through - also the rad only came with 6 long screws instead of 12.
The bottom radiator was even more of a problem - the radiator is just slightly wider than the rolled edge of the radiator space/bracket.
As a result the grommet behind is under a lot of pressure and i had to squeeze it in really hard. It does fit though!
Finally, i have fitted my GPUs, and even managed to sandwich my soundcard between them which was impossible with the retail fans.
The day's work has ended on a gamble. The XSPC 270 photon is apparently 77mm wide at the glass. The distance I measured fron the back of my gpu to the top of the hard drive case frame was 77mm.
I took the gamble and opened the 270 anyway. It fits! By about 5 microns! Victory!
Tomorrow I have to actually install the Photon, and then get thr tubing all measured and cut. Fix all that in place and then start leak tests.
Im going to grab a new modular psu and braided orange/black cables for that final touch. I will update with pics when I get a pc working.
First thing i did was fit the motherboard and the cpu block. Excellent instructions as usual from EK, no hassle doing this. Fitted to the motherboard through that MASSIVE case cut out without issue. Lovely stuff.
Next up I flushed out my new radiators. 2.5l of boiled deionised water did the trick, but i saw almost no debris anyway - another big tick for EK!
First I tried to fit the upper 420 radiator. Very quickly realised that there was no room to get the radiator in with the motherboard installed...
Out that came and then in went the rad. The 3 140mm fans were tricky to thread the screws into the radiator through - also the rad only came with 6 long screws instead of 12.
The bottom radiator was even more of a problem - the radiator is just slightly wider than the rolled edge of the radiator space/bracket.
As a result the grommet behind is under a lot of pressure and i had to squeeze it in really hard. It does fit though!
Finally, i have fitted my GPUs, and even managed to sandwich my soundcard between them which was impossible with the retail fans.
The day's work has ended on a gamble. The XSPC 270 photon is apparently 77mm wide at the glass. The distance I measured fron the back of my gpu to the top of the hard drive case frame was 77mm.
I took the gamble and opened the 270 anyway. It fits! By about 5 microns! Victory!
Tomorrow I have to actually install the Photon, and then get thr tubing all measured and cut. Fix all that in place and then start leak tests.
Im going to grab a new modular psu and braided orange/black cables for that final touch. I will update with pics when I get a pc working.
EVGA P2 1000w psu with orange bitfenox cable set, a further 2 140mm fans to to populate the bottom rad, and a m20 to g 1/4 adapter with a 90 degree turn fitting (so that i can attach a tube and run it outside the case to allow for easier filling) are now on the way. I recognise that with the m20 adapter i could turn the top port into an intake but doing so would wreck any option to release trapped air, so have decided to stick with it as a fill port only (albeit more loop friendly)
So as promised, some pics!
First off, here are the two cards post-fan: The Gigabyte 1080 OC edition (which is based on the G1 PCB but has a 'blower' style rather than the multiple downward fan configuration) was super easy to 'disrobe' - it had only 8 fans and some adhesive tape holding the whole heatpipe/fan fitting on it. I got really lucky on that, as I understand the G1 itself has a bunch of standoffs that need nut drivers to remove.
Warning - large pics!
I then realise that the dual waterblock needs the single shrouds removing (obvious really but still meant I had to fish out the Allen keys!
One thing that is mentioned by EK is that the standard Nvidia HB SLi bridge will NOT fit once you fit the G1 waterblock. To get around this, you can take the plastic 'decoration' off the HB Bridge, and then rotate it 180 degrees. It will then fit! You have to detatch the LED cable but I think it actually looks better - I don't want green and silber ruining my black/orange/white scheme!
Skipping ahead (and because I was on a roll!) I blocked up the CPU. I didn't get any pictures of that process because it was 1) very easy and 2) very fast. Suffice to say, with the enormous opening behind the socket in the Primo, there were no access issues.
The only hiccup I had was understanding if I should have horizontal or vertical ports - in the end I went with the logic of making the straightest line possible and went with vertical.
Here you can see the block installed, along with the cards. Do NOT under estimate the weight of these things - they must be at least a kilo between them, and are secured with 4 thrumbscrews at the back of the case. They are needed!
What you CAN'T see is that behind the card waterblock (and between the cards) I have managed to install my Soundblaster card On the previous build, with the original fans, this card had to be crammed into an open x16 slot (even though it is only a x4 device). Now it lives in its native slot!
The top radiator (EK 420 CE) completely threw me - I had got this far and suddenly realised that there was no way to get the radiator into the case past the motherboard... so out it came, and the case was empty again. A few wiggles and the EK 420 went into place, and a quick octopous impression soon had fans screwed down above the rad in a pull configuration - I will double up push/pull at a later date once I know the loop works. You can see the rad at the top. I should note that I flushed both radiators out with boiled, de-ionised water before install, with a good shaking. As far as I could tell, these were already spotless - no filth came out of them at all.
Next step was to look at that bottom radiator (EK 280 CE)
Smaller, with a bracket designed to hold it - how hard can this be?
You have got to be kidding me...
Never fear, it looks bad, but it DOES fit - it just takes a bit of a bend in the top outer lip. I screwed it into the bracket, and slotted the bracket in place, with the radiator ports at the centre of the case, expecting that I could do a straight, vertical drop tube from pump to rad.
Oh how little I knew back then, so naive...
So that gets me to here:
What's next? The Res and Pump of course! For my first ever build I wanted it to be as simple as possible, but as cool as possible, so I naturally looked at the biggest and best looking reservoir/pump combo I could find. This turned out to be the XSPC 270 Photon D5. I read the dimensions, I read forums. I found a system someone had built with the same case and pump/res, so I thought it would be a shoe-in, a sure thing; what could I actually do wrong anyway? The case is MASSIVE!
Oh crap...
Not a problem, this case is built for watercooling, I am sure I can just look at the reservoir bracket and screw it in. No worries.
FACEPALM.
Thankfully I have a dremel in the house (we use it to file down our pugs' nails) and I have a drill bit for it. You can see my 'expertly' marked drill points (in black marker pen). I drill the three holes I need, as I am sure I can reuse one of the original holes and save myself work. Two drill bits later and I have got the holes.
I have even managed to get them the right width and so the screws can thread through into the back 'frame' for the reservoir.
I am feeling good! I fitted it! I haven't ever used a drill since CDT class at school (hence me not remembering that drilling steel into steel makes HEAT and burns the drill bit more than a little... oops). Unfortunately I have slightly misjudged the distance of th eholes at th etop, so even though the two new holes I drilled at the botom are perfectly spaced, the top one (next to the factory made hole) is not quite right and I can there fore use only 3 of 4 screws. Still, it feels solid enough! Now to put this bad boy in the case!
Into this space... Oh CRAP
Yes it looks tight. It's a 78mm gap between graphics card and that frame above the hard disks. I fish out the dimensions for the reservoir and it's 77.5mm at the glass. Then factor in the shape of the reservoir bracket...This might not work
First off, here are the two cards post-fan: The Gigabyte 1080 OC edition (which is based on the G1 PCB but has a 'blower' style rather than the multiple downward fan configuration) was super easy to 'disrobe' - it had only 8 fans and some adhesive tape holding the whole heatpipe/fan fitting on it. I got really lucky on that, as I understand the G1 itself has a bunch of standoffs that need nut drivers to remove.
Warning - large pics!
I then realise that the dual waterblock needs the single shrouds removing (obvious really but still meant I had to fish out the Allen keys!
One thing that is mentioned by EK is that the standard Nvidia HB SLi bridge will NOT fit once you fit the G1 waterblock. To get around this, you can take the plastic 'decoration' off the HB Bridge, and then rotate it 180 degrees. It will then fit! You have to detatch the LED cable but I think it actually looks better - I don't want green and silber ruining my black/orange/white scheme!
Skipping ahead (and because I was on a roll!) I blocked up the CPU. I didn't get any pictures of that process because it was 1) very easy and 2) very fast. Suffice to say, with the enormous opening behind the socket in the Primo, there were no access issues.
The only hiccup I had was understanding if I should have horizontal or vertical ports - in the end I went with the logic of making the straightest line possible and went with vertical.
Here you can see the block installed, along with the cards. Do NOT under estimate the weight of these things - they must be at least a kilo between them, and are secured with 4 thrumbscrews at the back of the case. They are needed!
What you CAN'T see is that behind the card waterblock (and between the cards) I have managed to install my Soundblaster card
On the previous build, with the original fans, this card had to be crammed into an open x16 slot (even though it is only a x4 device). Now it lives in its native slot!The top radiator (EK 420 CE) completely threw me - I had got this far and suddenly realised that there was no way to get the radiator into the case past the motherboard... so out it came, and the case was empty again. A few wiggles and the EK 420 went into place, and a quick octopous impression soon had fans screwed down above the rad in a pull configuration - I will double up push/pull at a later date once I know the loop works. You can see the rad at the top. I should note that I flushed both radiators out with boiled, de-ionised water before install, with a good shaking. As far as I could tell, these were already spotless - no filth came out of them at all.
Next step was to look at that bottom radiator (EK 280 CE)
Smaller, with a bracket designed to hold it - how hard can this be?
Never fear, it looks bad, but it DOES fit - it just takes a bit of a bend in the top outer lip. I screwed it into the bracket, and slotted the bracket in place, with the radiator ports at the centre of the case, expecting that I could do a straight, vertical drop tube from pump to rad.
So that gets me to here:
What's next? The Res and Pump of course! For my first ever build I wanted it to be as simple as possible, but as cool as possible, so I naturally looked at the biggest and best looking reservoir/pump combo I could find. This turned out to be the XSPC 270 Photon D5. I read the dimensions, I read forums. I found a system someone had built with the same case and pump/res, so I thought it would be a shoe-in, a sure thing; what could I actually do wrong anyway? The case is MASSIVE!
Not a problem, this case is built for watercooling, I am sure I can just look at the reservoir bracket and screw it in. No worries.
Thankfully I have a dremel in the house (we use it to file down our pugs' nails) and I have a drill bit for it. You can see my 'expertly' marked drill points (in black marker pen). I drill the three holes I need, as I am sure I can reuse one of the original holes and save myself work. Two drill bits later and I have got the holes.
I am feeling good! I fitted it! I haven't ever used a drill since CDT class at school (hence me not remembering that drilling steel into steel makes HEAT and burns the drill bit more than a little... oops). Unfortunately I have slightly misjudged the distance of th eholes at th etop, so even though the two new holes I drilled at the botom are perfectly spaced, the top one (next to the factory made hole) is not quite right and I can there fore use only 3 of 4 screws. Still, it feels solid enough! Now to put this bad boy in the case!
Into this space... Oh CRAP
Yes it looks tight. It's a 78mm gap between graphics card and that frame above the hard disks. I fish out the dimensions for the reservoir and it's 77.5mm at the glass. Then factor in the shape of the reservoir bracket...This might not work
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Indeed it does, but things are about to get SERIOUS!
Anyway...
I wiggle the reservoir bracket, and turn the glass tube and just about squeeze it into place. Now I have to secure the bracket using the 4 thumbscrews (2 top horizontal and 2 at the bottom, vertical. I can get the horizontals in fine, but it seems that by re-using the factory cut screwhole for the res, I have actually left the tube overhanging ever so slightly too far to the right which means I can't quite align the mount hole up with the bracket. As a result I am forced to forgoe one of the lower thumbscrews entirely, and to drive the other into another screw hole at the bottom which isn't quite big enough to thread nicely. However I am satisfied that the top thumbscrews are secure and the bracket is not going anywhere - it just looks a little wonky when viewed in profile. Thankfully being a cyclinder it isn't obvious.
Winner winner, chicken dinner. I'm sure I have no problems any more and everyth... wait what am I going to do about the res.... If you look again you can see that the two ports for the res are directly below the pump, and one of them is actually behind it. That is NOT going to be easy to route...
So yet again a reservoir comes out, is rotated and now I have access to the barbs! Hurrah.
Now, where is the fan controller knob anyway?...
Oh.
It's on the bottom. I have about 2 inches of clearance on the bottom. I am not going to be able to change the fan speed down from 5... SIGH.
I now plan to completely remove the screws I am using to attach the reservoir and use industrial VELCRO to attach the reservoir to the bracket. In this way I should be able to remove/tilt the pump/res for draining purposes at will. But that's a job for tomorrow.
In the meantime, it's about to get gnarly, radical and totally tubular.
I have bought some Mayhems UV White Tubing and start measuring up the components that aren't going to be moving any time soon. A few wrestles with a cheap tube cutter I bought make me realise that scissors are better. 5m quickly gets chopped up and leaves me with this:
Once the velcro arrives and I have a good look at the set up, I think I will be elevating the reservoir until the output port and the GFX card input are horizontal. This will mean a trim on the siz of the gfx card tube, and a new (longer) piece for the rad to pump line. Luckily I still have about 2m of tube left, so not a problem. The replaced part can become a drain pipe.
I have now swapped that rad to rad tube around so that the near side bars are joined, but other than that I think it is looking good. Tomorrow I have a Y-piece arriving, which I will place directly before the bottom rad connector, and then add a Ball joint tap from it to provide run the tube for drainage. I am also going to add a M20-G1/4 fill port to the top of the reservoir so I can add a tube for filling (via a plastic funnel) rather than worry about spillage. I will get a squeezy bottle just in case that doesn't work out.
More to follow tomorrow
Anyway...
I wiggle the reservoir bracket, and turn the glass tube and just about squeeze it into place. Now I have to secure the bracket using the 4 thumbscrews (2 top horizontal and 2 at the bottom, vertical. I can get the horizontals in fine, but it seems that by re-using the factory cut screwhole for the res, I have actually left the tube overhanging ever so slightly too far to the right which means I can't quite align the mount hole up with the bracket. As a result I am forced to forgoe one of the lower thumbscrews entirely, and to drive the other into another screw hole at the bottom which isn't quite big enough to thread nicely. However I am satisfied that the top thumbscrews are secure and the bracket is not going anywhere - it just looks a little wonky when viewed in profile. Thankfully being a cyclinder it isn't obvious.
So yet again a reservoir comes out, is rotated and now I have access to the barbs! Hurrah.
Now, where is the fan controller knob anyway?...
Oh.
It's on the bottom. I have about 2 inches of clearance on the bottom. I am not going to be able to change the fan speed down from 5... SIGH.
I now plan to completely remove the screws I am using to attach the reservoir and use industrial VELCRO to attach the reservoir to the bracket. In this way I should be able to remove/tilt the pump/res for draining purposes at will. But that's a job for tomorrow.
In the meantime, it's about to get gnarly, radical and totally tubular.
I have bought some Mayhems UV White Tubing and start measuring up the components that aren't going to be moving any time soon. A few wrestles with a cheap tube cutter I bought make me realise that scissors are better. 5m quickly gets chopped up and leaves me with this:
Once the velcro arrives and I have a good look at the set up, I think I will be elevating the reservoir until the output port and the GFX card input are horizontal. This will mean a trim on the siz of the gfx card tube, and a new (longer) piece for the rad to pump line. Luckily I still have about 2m of tube left, so not a problem. The replaced part can become a drain pipe.
I have now swapped that rad to rad tube around so that the near side bars are joined, but other than that I think it is looking good. Tomorrow I have a Y-piece arriving, which I will place directly before the bottom rad connector, and then add a Ball joint tap from it to provide run the tube for drainage. I am also going to add a M20-G1/4 fill port to the top of the reservoir so I can add a tube for filling (via a plastic funnel) rather than worry about spillage. I will get a squeezy bottle just in case that doesn't work out.
More to follow tomorrow