1st Time WC Build: Fractal R3

blitz_911

blitz_911

blitz_911

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Joined
5 Nov 2012
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45
I have finally taken the plunge and decided to watercool my new build, which is going to replace my old media centre mish mashed together out of old spare parts.
The brief I had been given to work within was:
1. It must be quiet - as silent as possible
2. It musn't dominate our living room
3. It must, under no circumstances be ugly or look like a computer box.

This led me to the Fractal Define Series cases which are very quiet and hides all the messy bits behind a nice shiny door. A bit of reading around revealed that its a poor watercooling case and struggles to hold a 240 radiator without modding, but its the only case to be given approval so I had to find a work around.

Final Parts list is:
Fractal define r3 in black
R3 windowed side panel black
Asus z68 v pro 1155 motherboard
2500k sandybridge processor
Corsair vengeance low profile ram 8gb
Be quiet straight power 580w modular psu
Xspc ray storm rx240 kit
Ek uv blue pre mixed coolant
Icybox external 5.25" bay
Liquid Extasy HD5770 Water Block.

I was meant to build this over Christmas but the waterblock was delayed as it was shipped over from Germany so it only arrived yesterday.

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Somthing Else said:
sounds pretty good. maybe add a 120mm rad up front and remove one of the hard drive bays to allow you to run fans slower and there for less noise
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The hard drive cage is a single unit in the r3 which is a pain, especially as there are only 2 optical drive bays. I like the bay reservoir pumps but I also need an optical drive since its going to be a media pc.

I looked at removing one of the front fans and widening the opening slightly I get it in the 3.5" bays but found the hdd cage one piece. I considered chopping off the top part to do this but I havnt got the fruits in case I wreck the front panel.

The cages are bolted in and I'm still considering drilling the rivets out and putting the rad in the front and re mounting the cages behind, but this would make it a pig to access and also I'm not sure about the airflow with some hard drives sitting behind it.

The r3 doesn't actually have space for the rad in the top, the mob is set too high so if you use the top fan screw holes it won't clear the mb heats inks ram or back plate, this is why the mob is installed already. I got that first and make a mock radiator 35mm deep and 60mm deep to see if I could clear all that by off setting the radiator sideways. If you don't mind offsetting it a bit sideways and off the back then you can get the rx series rads in the top and still clear the back of the reservoir and pump. I have been quite thorough in my planning see.

The only things I'm concerned about is whether having the rad partially covered (about 2inches) will affect cooling performance, which I doubt, and also about getting an air block in the top of the rad when filling the loop. Can anyone tell me if that will be a problem? Or will tipping and shaking the case get rid of that. I'm considering filling the loop with the case on its back to get round this.
 
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hitmantony26 said:
Looking good mate. Will be nice to see finished what did you think of the quality of the fractal case i am over the moon with me node 304 :-)
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I was really impressed, it's a solid case, weighs a ton and the finish is sweet. The only thing I was disappointed in was how limited it was in terms of accepting water cooling without some kind of modding. You would think all high end cases would h e provision to mount atleast a 240 internally
 
Looking forward to seeing this finished, i have the r3 and its a great case but it annoys me there is a 240/280 mount on top and not enough clearance for a rad and fans to sit properly. I too looked at mounting it on the front but with the door closed it seemed pointless. I finally managed to get my hands on one of those windows side panels yesterday too, only took 4 months lol.
 
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nick.lidgett said:
Looking forward to seeing this finished, i have the r3 and its a great case but it annoys me there is a 240/280 mount on top and not enough clearance for a rad and fans to sit properly. I too looked at mounting it on the front but with the door closed it seemed pointless. I finally managed to get my hands on one of those windows side panels yesterday too, only took 4 months lol.
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Yeah, it's especially annoying because it's wider than the arc which can fit a top rad in, the problem is the motherboard fixings are positioned too high up so the clearance is reduced.

The side panel is great, I was considering modding the stock one but thought it would looke too messy. They could have put the sound damping stuff on the non windowed part like
 
The R3 ain't gonna be easy to LC without some further modding (besides removing cages). However, I saw someone who managed to put a 240 in the front somehow, without much effort.
 
Ive seen that project, think its on here somewhere but i cant see the point as the front door would have to be kept open for any sort of decent air flow, which in my opinion would make this case pointless. The only way i can see around this is if you were to drill some holes in the door to make it look like a vent.
 
Rage.
Started yesterday putting this all together, thought I'd put the water block on the GPU first as I stripped the old computer down. Checked fit - grand, test mount to see how the tim spread - fine, but then, whilst putting the thermal pads on the other components - *crick* - Iv'e only gone and broken a R23 VRM. I was absolutely gutted.

Its not come off the borad or I would have resoldered it, its just loose and my soldering iron isnt hot enough to take it off and do it again. Tried putting it back on th stock cooler and putting it in the computer, it powers up but no visual, fan speed up and down a bit.

A bit of googling and I tired the "oven bake" but to no avail. I work next door to an electronics shop who do repairs so I'll see if they can fix it, but considering either trying to pick a Second hand 5770 up to carry on in the mean time or just changing the card and block all round. Does anyone know if this is repairable?

Was fuming all of lst night but realised today that the computer had been BSOD'ing a bit recently - I just thought the other hardware was too old and not properly compatible w/ the card, but its possible that it was already coming loose and having power issues, and pushing the pad on just took the biscuit.

Just another delay in my build, Have been waiting since christmas to do this! If they can repair it it should be back by mid week, otherwise I'll be looking at a new card. Its a shame that the MM is so far off :(
 
The electronics shop next door said they were unable to repair it. However managed to source a 4870x2 with a ek water block locally for £60. Bargain for a decent upgrade and i picked it up just before. Build is back on for tommorrow :D
 
Yeah, but then I hit another snag.

Originally I measured up where the rad would go assuming that it would need to clear the ram. Then I drilled extra holes in the top of my case is I could mount the rad offset to clear this.

However I installed the raystorm block and 2500k chip last night (il put pics up 2mo) then tried to mount the rad in the top using my carefully measured holes. Epic fail. The mounting screws for the raystorm block protrude further than the ram quite considerably meaning il have to offset the rad pretty much to the edge of the case.

This is a pain cos I now have horrible extra holes in the top of my case and maybe 1/3 of the rad will be covered by the top of the case reducing airflow. I'm not sure why I didn't consider that the CPU block would be interfering!!

Boiled my p**s it did last night, and i Considered changing the rad position. Think I'm gonna stick with the top internal mount tho. Hopefully temps won't be affected too much by the rad being partially covered.

I have this weekend free, so further mishaps notwithstanding the project should be fin by then.
 
Ive mounted the MB w/ Raystorm block attached and marked up where the new holes for radiator need to be drilled. Ive now drilled the new holes, fixed the old holes up with epoxy putty and it sand it down and paint it over and hopefully you wont see a thing at 2 paces.

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Heres some pics of the raystorm mounted, are the bolts looking tight enough do you think, the nuts and the spring nuts are both hand tight and the a squeeze.

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Gonna try and finish this this weekend!
 
Spent most of last night installing the water cooling kit which went without a hitch, leak tested over night and everything was looking good. Plugged my hard drives and stuff in powered up and went into the bios. I have my old had with w7 on and a new one I had sitting in the drawer. Put them both in but when I went to the boot options only the new one was showing up as a primary boot, I could boot into the one with windows but couldn't make it the default. I tried changing the sata ports and stuff but no joy. Then I disabled "Marvell" and the computer has died.

The motherboard is showing the VGA light and there is no post and no visual output, not even through the onboard graphics. Tried unplugging my VGA card from power and pci slot, unplugged the sata drives, tried flashing the bios via USB - nothing. I can't move the dimms cos the tubes are in the way, the CPU power atx looks like its in, I can't think of anything else but the motherboard is dead. I really don't fancy taking it all apart again.

Major downer. :(
 
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