Black and Green Water Cooled Shinobi XL!!!

davido_labido · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:47

Ello folks! as you might have seen, i did a white and orange shinobi xl (build log in my siggy.) I took this along to a LAN (i48) and it got a lot of attention! One guy that saw it (Sean), asked if id build him a computer, i of course obliged, i mean, why wouldn't i? im spending someone ealses money on doing something i love haha

He wanted it similar to my computer, but not white and orange, so he chose black.... i chose green as id seen some awesome sleeving i wanted to use, he was more than happy with the choice!

This build log is as much to show sean what im spending his money on, as it is to show you what im doing at the moment!

Heres what i have bought for him.

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK Tech Lab H2O Custom GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5 £416.98
1 x XSPC Razor GTX680 GPU Waterblock (Raystorm Style) £92.99
1 x Gigabyte X79 G1 Assassin 2 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £319.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £249.95
1 x OcUK Tech Lab - V12 Watercooling Kit 360 £210.79
1 x XSPC RayStorm CPU WaterBlock (Intel) £51.98
1 x Mayhems X1 UV Green Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L £7.99
1 x XFX 1000W Black Edition Pro '80+ Platinum' Certified Modular Power Supply £179.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD128BW) £119.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Windowed Case - Black £114.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £71.99
1 x BitFenix Recon Internet-Connected Fan Controller (Black) £29.99
1 x Samsung SE-S208DB/TSBS External Slimline 8x DVD-RW (TV Connect) - Black £21.98
1 x BitFenix Spectre PRO 230mm Green LED - Black £16.99
1 x BitFenix Mesh Stripes for Shinobi XL Tower Case - Green £8.99
1 x BitFenix Logo for Shinobi Tower Case - Green £1.98
Total : £1,917.55 (includes shipping : FREE).

davido_labido · 5 Apr 2013 at 11:00

whats arrived so far....

im waiting on all the stuff for water cooling, loads of stuff out of stock at the moment =(

the mobo, i think it looks rather nice, will fit the build nicely, only thing im not sure about is the "gun" but thats one of those personal preferences.

A Samsung SSD 840 pro series! Looks beauuuutiful!

the sleeve... i wanted some of the green for aaages, but never had any reason to buy it... now i do and im not disappointed !!!!

this is what il be sleeving, these cables are horrible... cant wait to make them look better!!!

Dannyboy84 · 5 Apr 2013 at 11:47

Should be a good build if anything like your Orange and white one

i think the gun looks awesome on the mobo but as u say its personal preference

look forward to seeing this finished

Drangueos · 5 Apr 2013 at 11:48

this will be nice

davido_labido · 5 Apr 2013 at 12:00

thanks folks! the gun is something i might get to like, il have to see, its certainly different!

davido_labido · 6 Apr 2013 at 11:33

started to sleeve today, the XFX PSU is the worst one ive ever sleeved, its so hard to get the pins out of the connectors, ive got blisters and cuts all over my hands!!!!

see!!! they are painful, like paper cuts but worse! these are the most painful two =( (apologies about how dirty my hands are! seems im getting filthy from some of the tools

)

managed to get the pattern i like though, with the green being so bright, i didnt want to over do it, so did it like this:

ran into 2 little problems with the PSU ive not had before. the psu has the usual 24 pin connector on one end, the other end has a 10 pin and a 18 pin connector!!! it means i have 4 double wires, that split, and go into the modular psu separately. I didnt want to deal with this at the 24 pin end, or the psu end as i thought it would look untidy, so about half way down the wire, i did this:

it should be hidden behind the motherboard tray, so wont be seen, but everything visible should look right!

Also when i sorted out the patern i wanted, it landed that the empty slot on the 24 pin was a green wire... if it was a black, it wouldnt have mattered, but i really needed the green one, so i made a fake wire, and sleeved it. the problem is i dont have a spare slot on the other end, so i just made it a good length to hide behind the mobo tray and all should look good!

il tidy them up properly, and re do some of the heat shrink but at least it coming along.... slowly!

Sean. · 6 Apr 2013 at 13:16

Despite his battle wounds this build is coming along nicely, can't wait to take this to LAN with me

davido_labido · 10 Apr 2013 at 15:34

got some more bits again this week, and started to put it all together!

Im still waiting on the GPU block to come into stock so i can start on that!

the case im using is going to be as mentioned, the shinobi xl windowed

i took all the outer panels off first!
its all naked!

i ripped out all the guff, like the stock fans and the HDD cage etc, and added the radiator and new fans!

then fit the CPU block, so shiney!

added the ram, and popped it into the case!

did a little bit of soldering, the blue leds that come with the raystorm blocks just wouldnt work....

Much better!

Started to get the cables into place a bit see what they look like!

tomparker95 · 10 Apr 2013 at 15:58

Love the black and green! how long did the sleeving take haha?

Sean. · 10 Apr 2013 at 16:43

The sleeving took him a good few hours split up into a few days because the original sleeving was a pain to get off, it seems like they like to make sure it's firmly on there or as Davido_Labido said "glued on"

which means this took longer than expected. However, things are still going to plan

as you can see it's looking very nice so far!

Hyburnate · 10 Apr 2013 at 16:59

Sean. said:
The sleeving took him a good few hours split up into a few days because the original sleeving was a pain to get off, it seems like they like to make sure it's firmly on there or as Davido_Labido said "glued on" which means this took longer than expected. However, things are still going to plan as you can see it's looking very nice so far!

Is he fitting a drain? Because surely it'd be easier for you to do it like that than have to take everything out. I've never quite got the concept of people buying watercooled PC's with lack of knowledge (not saying you haven't got knowledge, just talking in general) on how to maintain them.

Sean. · 10 Apr 2013 at 17:20

I understand what you're saying, he's fitting a reservoir with a pump, I'll need to flush it all out and put in new liquid coolant every few months. I'm more than happy to do this, we fairly frequently attend LANs where if I need more hands than I am equipped with then this can be done there with 2 pairs of hands. I have seen this being done before with an identical water cooling system to what I'm using (same reservoir, same pump, same piping, same fittings, same water blocks) so I'm fully aware of how to do this and how often

plus I'll have people who have done this before with the identical water cooling system right next to me if I need assistance. It was a messy task to change over the liquid coolant when I watched them do it with another PC but I'm sure we'll manage

original.wood · 10 Apr 2013 at 19:47

love the black and green colour scheme. I really want the Bitfenix Prodigy case, watercooled black and green, similar to the NVidea limited edition one.

Hyburnate · 10 Apr 2013 at 20:18

Sean. said:
I understand what you're saying, he's fitting a reservoir with a pump, I'll need to flush it all out and put in new liquid coolant every few months. I'm more than happy to do this, we fairly frequently attend LANs where if I need more hands than I am equipped with then this can be done there with 2 pairs of hands. I have seen this being done before with an identical water cooling system to what I'm using (same reservoir, same pump, same piping, same fittings, same water blocks) so I'm fully aware of how to do this and how often plus I'll have people who have done this before with the identical water cooling system right next to me if I need assistance. It was a messy task to change over the liquid coolant when I watched them do it with another PC but I'm sure we'll manage

My main concern if I were in your shoes would be air bubbles and knowing the best way to get rid of them and having the time to get rid of them

Taking this off-topic slightly, sorry - subbed

davido_labido · 10 Apr 2013 at 23:38

I did think about putting a draining port in for him but Il be showing him how to maintain it, how to get rid of any bubbles etc etc, as he says we frequent lans quite often, so if needs be I could help him with it there, it's not really a concern imo, if he has problems with temps/bubbles etc, I'm only a text away, or he could look at the hundreds of posts here about how to do it =)

The sleeving for the 24 pin took around 7 hours tbh, most of that time was spent trying to get the wires from the plugs, there was some residue inside stopping the pin extraction tool from pushing down the 2 'wings' that hold the pins in. Not sure if it was a coating they put on, or something else, but it wasn't fun gettin them out ! Luckily I have spare pins and a crimping tool, so the ones that were really stuck I could getout by bbreaking the 'wings' and re doing the pin

Uncle Petey · 11 Apr 2013 at 00:05

I do enjoy your work, David

May I ask what brand of sleeving you use and what you make of it's flexibility?
Got an urge to give it a go as extensions are taking a lot of space at the back and my psu is fully modular, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to get it done (he says).

davido_labido · 11 Apr 2013 at 01:04

Uncle Petey said:
I do enjoy your work, David

May I ask what brand of sleeving you use and what you make of it's flexibility?
Got an urge to give it a go as extensions are taking a lot of space at the back and my psu is fully modular, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to get it done (he says).

thanks again petey!

its mdpc-x sleeving, the flexibility is good, not as good as non sleeved cables obviously as it adds some dentistry to the cable, the best thing about it is the quality, if you do it correctly you wont have ANY of the cable colour showing through!

i personally wouldnt use any other sleeve =)

Hyburnate · 11 Apr 2013 at 13:58

Ahh right, well, I'm subbed, will be nice to see how this turns out and what a mega pc ends up coming out of it.

davido_labido · 13 Apr 2013 at 02:20

Aye, looking forward to getting a graphics card in it so I can sort the loop out!!

setter · 13 Apr 2013 at 02:29

Looking like another very nice shinobi xl build.