First watercooling venture in Fractal R6.

sparkymark75 · 14 May 2020 at 10:37

Too Tall said:
Last box was scheduled for delivery this morning and has now arrived, so I gutted the PC in preparation last night.

Going to attempt to get up and running today.

Looking forward to seeing it. Annoyingly, good old Royal Mail has had one of my parcels for over a week and the other for a few days for customs charges. But they only told me yesterday!

Too Tall · 14 May 2020 at 22:03

Taken a bit longer that I'd hoped, removing everything and fitting the blocks, working out routes.

All set to fit the tubes tomorrow though.

sparkymark75 · 14 May 2020 at 23:58

Looking good so far. Seeing your pic prompted me to get more fittings as I intend to connect the temp sensor on one of the radiator ports via a 3 way piece but it pressed up against the fan when i tried it out on a test mount.

How was fitting the GPU block? Anything I should look out for as I have the same card as you (just a different block)?

Too Tall · 15 May 2020 at 10:47

You should have room for it on the right hand port of the front radiator, if you mount the top rad in the furthers position from the motherboard.

Its all straightforward really, just time consuming.

I'd run a benchmark on your GPU to warm it up before fitting the block, it will help separating the standard heating.

The top left port of the front rad requires a few fittings to clear the top rad and fans, if you do follow the same route as me, let me know and I'll take some pics of the fittings used.

Where are you mounting your rad?

Have you got somewhere for a drain?

sparkymark75 · 15 May 2020 at 11:06

Too Tall said:
You should have room for it on the right hand port of the front radiator, if you mount the top rad in the furthers position from the motherboard.

Its all straightforward really, just time consuming.

I'd run a benchmark on your GPU to warm it up before fitting the block, it will help separating the standard heating.

The top left port of the front rad requires a few fittings to clear the top rad and fans, if you do follow the same route as me, let me know and I'll take some pics of the fittings used.

Where are you mounting your rad?

Have you got somewhere for a drain?

I'm putting the 360 rad in the top of the case and the 240 at the front. They are both slim radiators (28mm) so I may well have more room than you. I was going to run the drain from the pump outlet via a 3 way fitting. Are you going soft or hard tubing?

Too Tall · 15 May 2020 at 11:17

You'll have plenty of room then mate!

I'm using hard tubing. Just starting the bends now, hopefully will go well, still need to decide how I'm doing the cpu runs from the gpu and to the top rad.

The Gpu doesn't quite line up with the CPU ports unfortunately.

sparkymark75 · 15 May 2020 at 11:33

Too Tall said:
You'll have plenty of room then mate!

I'm using hard tubing. Just starting the bends now, hopefully will go well, still need to decide how I'm doing the cpu runs from the gpu and to the top rad.

The Gpu doesn't quite line up with the CPU ports unfortunately.

I’ve chickened out and went for soft tubing for my first attempt!

The hardest part so far is working out in advance what fittings you’ll need. I’m sure once you’ve done it a few times and have a collection of fittings, it gets easier.

Too Tall · 16 May 2020 at 12:15

Well I can say that hard tubing is not as easy as I'd hoped. Simple bends are easy enough it's just more inteicate runs .

I need to watch some videos on how to improve.

I'm sure ill get better with time and more practice though.

Got the system up and running yesterday with no leaks.

Hopefully all will be OK when I refill.

@sparkymark75 one thing to be aware of, there is some coil whine on the GPU now, i'm guessing its due to the removal of the stock cooler which was absorbing/dampening the noise.

sparkymark75 · 16 May 2020 at 12:22

Too Tall said:
Well I can say that hard tubing is not as easy as I'd hoped. Simple bends are easy enough it's just more inteicate runs .

I need to watch some videos on how to improve.

I'm sure ill get better with time and more practice though.

Got the system up and running yesterday with no leaks, only to discover I could only run with one stick of ram, any more and the pc wouldn't post, just get stuck in a loop with lots of codes pointing to memory.

In the end I've had to drain the loop and remove the CPU to check for bend pins (there were none).

Hopefully all will be OK when I refill.

@sparkymark75 one thing to be aware of, there is some coil whine on the GPU now, i'm guessing its due to the removal of the stock cooler which was absorbing/dampening the noise.

Bit bizarre that your RAM would be affected.

Did you apply the thermal pads to all the same items that were cooled by the stock heatsink? I’ve read they make less noise if all the VRM components are cooled.

Too Tall · 19 May 2020 at 16:04

sparkymark75 said:
Bit bizarre that your RAM would be affected.

Did you apply the thermal pads to all the same items that were cooled by the stock heatsink? I’ve read they make less noise if all the VRM components are cooled.

All sorted now, it was the back plate i think, I trimmed the rubber gasket to improve fit around some motherboard pins and slackend off the cpu block and all seems fine now.

I applied the pads to all positions indicated by the EK manual, no more.

Too Tall · 19 May 2020 at 16:08

Onto my next issue with the Mayhems Pastel seperating.

All sorted now, it was the back plate i think, I trimmed the rubber gasket to improve fit around some motherboard pins and slackend off the cpu block and all seems fine now.

I bought some Mayhems Pastel White concentrate and Mayhems H2O (premixed was out of stock).

After a few days i’ve noticed that the white pigment almost seems to be separating from the water leaving pigment in my pipes and bottom of my pump.

Before using the system both radiators XSPC TX360 and EK PE360 I flushed them with running hot water and then again with white wine vinegar to try and clear them of manufacturing debris/flux.

I was surprised at how much debris came out of them!

Following this they were flushed again first with hot water then distilled and finally your Mayhems H20.

I mixed the concentrate as per the instructions and added it to the loop.

This leaves me a few days later with the fluid unfortunately separating.

RGB isnt working properly on the pump either, I cant change the colour and not all LED's work

waiting on a response from EK.

@Mayhems

sparkymark75 · 19 May 2020 at 18:19

That’s a bummer about the coolant. It’s looking good though.

I’ve got the same pastel and I’ve also got some XSPC clear coolant. Still undecided on which one to use. I think the white would look really good but not sure if I want it clogging up my blocks or rads.

Planning to do mine at the weekend, so need to decide what to use by then. Also planning to mount my GPU vertically.

Too Tall · 19 May 2020 at 18:44

I'd recommend running the mayhems blitz through your radiators mate.

sparkymark75 · 19 May 2020 at 18:50

Too Tall said:
I'd recommend running the mayhems blitz through your radiators mate.

Thing is you read of people having issues with that too.

Too Tall · 19 May 2020 at 19:50

sparkymark75 said:
Thing is you read of people having issues with that too.

I guess at least you can say you've done all you can to prep.

I used white wine vinegar, so either there's a fault with the liquid or it needed something stronger.

Have you got all your bits now?

sparkymark75 · 19 May 2020 at 20:34

Too Tall said:
Have you got all your bits now?

Pretty much. Paranoid about running out of fittings mid build so ordered way too many but I guess they'll come in handy for the future. Wasn't too happy with the Byksky tubing I bought (had a yellow tinge to it) so ordered some Mayhems Ultra Clear which gets good reviews. So once that comes, I'm all done. Plan to start it at the weekend. Do you have any bad coil whine from the GPU?

Too Tall · 19 May 2020 at 21:04

What size is the tubing you've ordered?

I do get coil whine intermittently, I fitted thermal pads in all the locations on the waterblock manual, which matched the original position.

The only areas that was different was the EK back plate which didn't require and pads on the rear of the gou die.

sparkymark75 · 19 May 2020 at 21:22

Too Tall said:
What size is the tubing you've ordered?

I do get coil whine intermittently, I fitted thermal pads in all the locations on the waterblock manual, which matched the original position.

The only areas that was different was the EK back plate which didn't require and pads on the rear of the gou die.

I got 16/10mm tubing.

sparkymark75 · 23 May 2020 at 10:15

Mine is now built and ready for leak testing. Only issue I have is no way to fill the res! I can’t put another fitment on the top as the 90 degree fitting is blocking the outer ones being used.

And god my fingers are shredded from tightening those fittings!

Too Tall · 23 May 2020 at 10:47

could you put an extender under the 90 to be able to use the fill ports?