Build Log: Lian Li PC-O6SX

BornEvil · 21 Jul 2016 at 21:11

ChrisLandin said:
Absolutely tremendous job on this mate. Its fantastic.

I'm currently ploughing my way through a dremel inspired hack a thon on an old lian li v351b to add a custom loop into it and ive seen this and thought

"Jeez I got to get one of those cases"

TOP JOB

If i'm honest, anyone that is moderately competent with a drill/dremel is capable of replicating my mod. Its just simply few holes here and there. Heck I even used soft tube.

I just let the originally designed case do the work

I used a lot of 'unnecessary' elbow fittings. Back in the early days of water cooling, it would be frowned upon cos it hinders flow, but with hard tube being mainstream now, the community is more forgiving now.

CrazyArsedMonky · 22 Jul 2016 at 00:34

This looks great buddy

I really like the clean look you get by using the pass throughs!

treacle · 22 Jul 2016 at 00:56

looks good I almost bought this case.

BornEvil · 22 Jul 2016 at 01:38

Thanks guys.

PSU is back in temporarily:

It's now up and running, fully bleed on plain DI water:

Initial Temperature results
Max cooling = Full speed pump and fans = 4800rpm pump/1500rpm fans x3
Silent cooling = 40% cycle pump (constant) and silent profile fan = 1500rpm/400-700rpm <=insanely quiet :cool:

i7 6700K @4.7Ghz 1.4v
(not a particularly great chip)
Maxcooling = 60 peak package, 79 on highest core temp
Silent cooling = 64 peak package, 83 on highest core temp

Those are peak temps in CPU Aida64/RealBench/OCCT etc, usually hover around 45 in games.

GTX1070 @2126Mhz core, 4300Mhz RAM, no voltage increase
(+250, +300, core power throttles down to 2100 occasionally, but generally locks to 2126)
Maxcooling = 43 :cool:

Silent cooling = 55

Heaven 1080P, 103.5 FPS, 2607 Score

sgavan · 22 Jul 2016 at 12:21

Brilliant looking build would love to do something like that

treacle · 22 Jul 2016 at 15:19

temps are decent

BornEvil · 22 Jul 2016 at 18:48

Playing with mayhems dye and Drain Procedure

My coolant and dyes have arrived.

I never intended to use clear red coolant, but since I will be draining it for Pastel anyway, may as well get a photo opportunity:

20 drops of red on de-ionised water

Clear red is not doing it for me at all, the GPU fluid appears much more opaque relative to the reservoir. Looks a complete mess.

So after 30 mins, I drained the loop 5 times ready for pastel dyeing.

Drain Procedure:

This is a small note to myself, reminding me how to drain the system.

[1] fit 90 degree fitting to valve and release fluid

(The ball valve is set to open position in normal use, and I rely on an end cap to seal the loop. This is because the side panel will not fit with the ball valve in closed position.)

[2] Fit a straight fitting/tube to the gpu inlet, and blow into it.

It works, but I now have red teeth.

White Pastel, no dye

This is much better:

White is much better looking than I thought it would look. Gives good contrast to the back fittings.

I'll let it bleed out air, and will start dying it grey later. Used about half the bottle of pastel white, so think I have enough to drain and refill if I don't dig grey.

Cenedd · 22 Jul 2016 at 19:13

BornEvil said:
(The ball valve is set to open position in normal use, and I rely on an end cap to seal the loop. This is because the side panel will not fit with the ball valve in closed position.)

Can you loosen the screw that holds the lever onto the valve, turn the lever 90 degrees and the do the screw back up? It would mean you could put the lid on with the valve closed but it would look open.

BornEvil said:
It works, but I now have red teeth.

You can get a squeezy ball thing to blow without red teeth. I think Alphacool do one - but it could be Phyobia.

BornEvil · 22 Jul 2016 at 19:23

Cenedd said:
Can you loosen the screw that holds the lever onto the valve, turn the lever 90 degrees and the do the screw back up? It would mean you could put the lid on with the valve closed but it would look open

That I did not know, thanks! Was just about ready to dremmel one side of the lever!

Awesome, Would have to retrain my brain to think which is open and which is close

BornEvil · 23 Jul 2016 at 20:45

Light grey fluid
~20 drops of emerald green and 2 drops of red

now dyed fluid to light grey:

Decent match the the silver in braided cables. But having second thoughts on grey.

Dark grey fluid
120+ (!) drops of emerald green and ~10 drops of red

It's much darker in person compared to pictures. Pretty much the darkest I can get it, adding more green (and red) does not do much and I've nearly finished the 15ml bottle of dye.

Still un-decided on coolant colour, I think clear looks classier but pastel looks better on soft tube.

Cenedd · 24 Jul 2016 at 10:10

I'd probably go with the dark - and not just because it doesn't require flushing it all and buying more of everything!

I'm not sure the grey would work as a clear fluid - although I could well be wrong.

sgavan · 24 Jul 2016 at 10:23

I think the dark colour looks great in the reservoir and tubes but the light looks better in the GPU

BornEvil · 24 Jul 2016 at 18:02

Cenedd said:
I'd probably go with the dark - and not just because it doesn't require flushing it all and buying more of everything!

I'm not sure the grey would work as a clear fluid - although I could well be wrong.

I can just drain little out then dilute it with white pastel to get it back to light grey.

sgavan said:
I think the dark colour looks great in the reservoir and tubes but the light looks better in the GPU

I now think dark grey is a keeper, just put the tampered glass side panel back on, and all greys on the case gets blended in! looks lovely in person if I don't say so my self

The fluid looks very close to the dark grey of the chipset heatsink and SATA ports.

In case any one is wondering why I'm dyeing fluid grey, (other than matching the motherboard), I wanted to match my Signature Plastics keycaps (G20 dark grey) and I plan to buy IKEA Alex drawers in grey to build my desk, and I already have a grey/mesh chair.

Overall a decent Black, Grey and Nickel theme, with little bits of red as accent colours.

Cenedd · 24 Jul 2016 at 22:58

From the pics it goes nicely with the darker grey on the VRM cooler and the South Bridge cooler as well as the darker grey of the cables. Assumed that was the intention. It's an unusual choice but unusual is good and it looks good too.

BornEvil · 25 Jul 2016 at 07:03

Well, my intention was to get some sort of grey, as that was the general theme colour of the motherboard.

The VRM heat sinks are metallic and very hard to match with pastel, maybe with aurora but not going to use that.

In the end, I just went the darkest I can get it, and it won't go any further. It just so happens when the tinted glass panel went back on, it becomes exactly what i wanted, a very very dark grey.

Also darkened everything else, giving a spectrum of grey. Even the nickel blocks become same shade as the chrome bits (i/o ports, battery).

I'm not much of a photographer, and not really sure how to take pictures that highlight this under tampered glass, I just tried to explain it in words and is kind of boring I know

Will give it a try once I get the case lighting in.

BornEvil · 27 Jul 2016 at 16:59

I've taken some low light pictures:

(Again, sorry for bad pictures. I used my iPhone's flash as a down light)

The Hue+ has arrived, will get another update soon.

In other news, I got given these by the lovely people that did my cables:

At some point will replace the red accents with yellow, probably trim some vinyl stickers to cover up the red lettering on the motherboard bits too.

Legend · 27 Jul 2016 at 17:40

BornEvil said:
Back in the early days of water cooling, it would be frowned upon cos it hinders flow, but with hard tube being mainstream now, the community is more forgiving now.

I'm not so sure, I get the sense bending is more and more becoming seen as the way to go aesthetically, and if you ain't bending you're just pretending!!

BornEvil · 27 Jul 2016 at 22:34

Legend said:
I'm not so sure, I get the sense bending is more and more becoming seen as the way to go aesthetically, and if you ain't bending you're just pretending!!

That's what I meant

There used to be elitists that care about nothing except maximum cooling, I.e. shortest tube runs possible and no tight bends etc. Now you get people that would extend the tube just to fill a gap in a case. I'm more the latter, just saying.

Heh, I'm guilty of pretending for this build

, I don't see the point of going back to hard tube on this build, as it will look nearly exactly the same.

When the soft tubing inevitably clouds up, I'll consider switching to glass and clear coolant. Also still have my chrome/brass pipes to play with.

BornEvil · 28 Jul 2016 at 03:26

Check out this abomination:

All my hard work undone LOL

The NZXT Hue+, is quite a cool little gadget. I use it to customise exactly which part of the case to light up and each LED's dimness, like spotlights.

For comparisons:

White, all on, full brightness VS 'Custom Spotlight mode'

In spotlight mode, all LEDs are dimmed except the one above the 45 degree fittings which I wanted to highlight.

I need to do something about the top LED strip, maybe slice up the aluminium stand to make a shroud to hide it. The rest of the LED strips are well hidden and can't be seen when off.

Cable management and drain valve:

This is the best I can do TBH, there is a lot of space but Lian Li did not give any help in the cable management department. They sort of let the user be creative about it. Panel closes fine and no cables can be seen from the other side, so I am happy to leave as is.

More frontal pictures:
(Added a few more doses of dye, no longer has green hue under low light on camera)

Dark room pictures (glass on):

Cenedd · 28 Jul 2016 at 09:16

Is it wrong that I kind of like the rainbow lighting?!