Build log: Boredom Struck

grim.

grim.

grim.

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Build log: Boredom Struck. Hex Gear R40 and Water.

Hello everyone. I spend a lot of my time in here reading other peoples build logs and eventually got restless enough to do a new build. It should be quite a quick build over a week or so, I'm going to re-use a few components from my last build but I've bought a lot of new components as well to try out intel for the first time in years.

I recently saw a build thread with a new case I hadn't heard of before from Hex Gear and their new R40 case. I really liked the idea of a better quality case and the fact it was an mAtx that could also squeeze in a 360mm radiator. Before I knew it I'd ordered one and there was no going back.

Component list.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII Gene
CPU: Intel 4790k
GPU: MSI 290x Lightning - Reusing from my last build and it's still a great card.
PSU: Corsair HX750i
RAM: Kingston HyperX Beast 2133mhz
Case: Hex Gear R40
SSD's: 240gb Samsung 840 Evo m.2, 128gb Crucial M550, 128gb Plextor M5s

Watercooling Parts
Pump: XSPC D5 vario with Ek pump top
Res: EK Res X3
Tubing: 13mm Monsoon PETG
Fittings: PrimoChill Revolver Compression Fittings
Radiators: Alphacool St30 360mm on the bottom, and a 240mm in the top
Fans: Noiseblocker Eloops.

So as you can see it's not a terribly exciting list of parts, but I was keen to try an intel build for a change. I'm going to be reusing 2 of my old ssd's, my old fittings, pump and reservoir, fans and a radiator, and the gfx card. Finally going to watercool the gpu and actually overclock it this time though.

This was my last build, and first time using hard line acrylic tubing. I did post it up in the watercooling gallery when I first built it last year so some people may have seen it before. Amd 8350, sabertooth board in a Phanteks Enthoo Pro with just a cpu loop so it was nice and cool with all the radiator space it had.




But on to my new build. I have an ancient digital camera and so my pictures won't be up to the standard of most on here.

Some parts started arriving this week


I built up the Hex Gear case a couple of days ago in preparation for the remaining parts to arrive before the weekend. I've gone for the black accent packs at the moment, but I'm toying with the idea of trying to use up some interesting wood veneers I have left over from my last job at work. Tempted to have a go at veneering up the front acrylic panel that sits behind the hex design with some birds eye maple.



I'll stick this in spoiler tags because it's not computer related, the veneer I have knocking about at the moment is left over from the panels in the drawer fronts of these cabinets. I'm a furniture maker by trade and been wanting to build a wooden case for years but never have the time. I think putting some wooden veneers into this build would be a nice compromise, but also worried it might look awful.

I fitted the m.2 SSD,



My next task was to investigate fitting the water blocks to the motherboard. I've gone for ek blocks this time round because I've been impressed with the quality of the pump top and reservoir I used on my last build. I'm fitting a mosfet cooler and cpu block. First, off with the standard heat sink.



Popped a bit of thermal compound on as it was suggested in the instructions with the block, but trying to just get a tiny blob out proved very difficult.



With the water block fitted, I was rather annoyed to see the colour scheme of the motherboard didn't cater for the water block at all well.


I'm hoping that when it's all fitted I can look past that awful patch of red that isn't covered by the block.

Cpu went in next, an old chip but still a lot pricier than the AMD's that I've been messing around with for the last few years so I was quite apprehensive about fitting it.



Cpu block fitted, went with the Supremacy Evo as the reviews suggested it was pretty good and I liked the simple plain design.



Then I had just enough time to trial fit the motherboard back in the case with the water pump and psu in.



And the tubing arrived this morning as well, I had to get it from elsewhere though as getting any clear tubing at the moment is quite difficult.



I was struggling to get any decent pictures with the lightning in this room but I'll do some research and try and document the rest of the build with more success.


Any comments and input welcomed. Hoping to get the reservoir mounted tomorrow and start looking at the tubing route. I've ordered a shorter tube for my reservoir as space is tight, planning to mount it above the pump, hoping a ek 110 res will squeeze in there with enough room to run tubing to the pump.

Holding off fitting the gpu waterblock as I'm still using the card in this computer.



Thanks for reading, it's the first time I've bothered to document a build, I'll try and keep it brief.
 
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So my first major oversight has become evident. The pump can't go where I have it because the 290x lightning is a little on the large side and won't clear it. It's a shame because I really like the look of the pump mounted the way it is. I could flip the panel around and mount it above but I wouldn't be able to have the reservoir above the pump which I've always believed to be the ideal layout because i can't see how I'll prime the pump with the reservoir mounted below it.

I'll have to put my thinking cap on.
 
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So after having a little play around this afternoon, I've come to only one conclusion. This is the only way I think I can layout the loop with the components that I have.



This just isn't going to work. I think the only solution is to get a pump top reservoir and mount the pump facing upwards. This means having the pump on show and thus the ugly wires coming out of it too. It's also not an option until next month as I've completely run out of money!
 
I'm still playing around with idea's as I was hoping to get the bulk of it built this weekend and I'm sure I can come up with an elegant solution using what I have.

I've been measuring up and visualising changing the radiators around, but it's not gaining me much space. The fans are only 2mm smaller than the radiators in height and the width isn't an issue. I hadn't considered putting the gpu in the bottom slot though, it will fit, but that bottom slot is only x8.

I think I may have to just go with the layout I posted above, and have the reservoir below the pump but get creative about filling it and priming the pump.
 
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I've come up with a solution that will work, but it's not quite as clean looking as I wanted. I dug out some old mounts I have and spent some time measuring up, it's going to be very tight indeed, but I have about 2mm to spare between the end of the graphics card and the pump.

I've taken some quick and equally terrible pictures of the pump and res in, with the first bending I've done with the PETG tubing. I'm not sold on it yet, I think I prefer acrylic to work with. It was a fairly difficult bend to do because of how tight the bends were to each other, but I think it's worked out ok. I still have the radiator mounted outside and fans mounted inside from when I was playing around with different ideas, but I'll be putting the radiator back inside and trimming the tube down to suit.




I'll try for some better pictures when I have some more tubing done. I'm really struggling with this old 350d to get any pictures at all.
 
Do you know, I've come round to quite liking them too now I've just been sat staring at this damn thing for nearly an hour trying to come up with an interesting looking but not too impractical loop layout. I initially shelved that layout without question because the fans didn't match any colours for the rest of the build. But I think I'm just going to go with it now, I do have a bit more space to play with between the bend from the gpu to the radiator this way.

I'm finding the PETG seems to lose it's shape a lot more than the acrylic. My first go at the bend from the pump to radiator went in the bin because I was trying to keep the bend as close to the fitting as possible, but then the tube was misshapen and wouldn't have gotten a decent seal. The second attempt went a lot better but I'd already decided I quite liked the silly 180 degree bend the way it was. I might try and put a few more into the loop now.

It's going to go from the bottom radiator up to the gpu block, but after that I'm undecided as yet what route to go, and whether it would be better to flip the top radiator around have the fittings beside the reservoir.
 
That's one option that's floating about. I'm not sure that the cpu to res would right though, they're not quite the same height and it'll be a boring looking tube. It might be evident from my previous build that I do tend to go for aesthetics over efficiency.

I'm thinking GPU > Rad > CPU > Mobo > Res

I think tomorrow morning I'll just bite the bullet and pull the graphics card from this comp and just go without a computer for a couple of days while I build the new one up.
 
I've finally decided on a rough route and design idea. I'm quite liking the 180 degree bends, it sort of looks like a mad experiment. I'm getting on better with the petg tubing now. It's a lot more forgiving if you do want to reheat and adjust a bend. But I am finding it a little less smooth on the bends, you've got to really make sure you've got a decent even heat through it I guess.

Anyway, the tube back to the res is done. Going to crack on with the other tubes and do the graphics card later on today I hope. Once I embark on the graphics card I'll be without a computer until the new ones up and running.

 
Well I've finished off the tubing that doesn't require the graphics card to be fitted. But I don't think I'll get a chance to do much more on it for a few days now. I'm going to redo the tube going from the cpu to the motherboard block because I'm just not happy with it. It's almost right but I think I can do it a bit better.

I find it quite difficult to photograph it to show the shapes nicely, but here's a couple of quick shots of how it stands now. There's still a bit of condensation in the tubing because I've been rinsing it out before fitting.





I'm hoping the tube from the bottom rad up to the gpu works the way I'd like it to, got an idea of what I want to do but it might not work in practice.

So that's all I have for a few days. Any comments or suggestions are welcomed. I've ordered vastly too much tubing it seems as I haven't even opened the second pack and I'm nearly done. So any changes that might work well can definitely be investigated.
 
I've spent two hours on it tonight, and it looks much the same as last night you'd think. I tweaked the top radiator to cpu tube because I realised it wasn't quite plumb, and then spent over an hour trying to make a better tube from the cpu to mosfet block. Four attempts later and I'm finally happy. It looks like the second pack of tubing was a good idea after all.

I've bought some red dye to put in the coolant, I know it's been done to death but I've never had this colour scheme in a build myself and it's sort of unavoidable with the colour scheme Asus have used on the board. I've never used clear tubing and a dye before so I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks first hand. I've always used coloured pvc tubing or coloured acrylic.
 
Haha!

I'm unbelievably anal, I got all those bends done first time but redid the cpu to mosfets a few times since those pics. I think being a furniture maker helps somewhat because I'm well used to having to measure carefully and rod out everything I do to minimise expensive disasters.

I've been delaying finishing the build because I've had a rekindled love affair with bf4 these last two weeks and don't want to liberate the graphics card from my working computer.

I've also been struggling with coolant colour choice. I've bought a mayhems red dye but now with the white noiseblockers on full display in the bottom of the case I'm wondering if I shouldn't go with a white coolant like the ice dragon nano...

I'm off on holiday for a week on Friday anyway so reckon I'll hold off doing anything until I get back. I'm apprehensive about the gpu block but also excited about doing the tubing for it. More 180's on the way!
 
So I took this massive beast and stripped the cooler off.


Enough thermal grease on there MSI?


Used this combo and it worked wonders, really breaks down the thermal grease


Got the chip nice and clean but there were some odd marks on that I couldn't buff out


I couldn't decide what tubing layout to go for on the gpu, what I was planning to do wouldn't work because there wasn't enough clearance from the blocks inlets and outlets to the side window. I trialed this one out with an offcut and decided it looked ok, but still not sure I'm sold on it.


But unable to contain my excitement I went ahead with it and got it filled.


And this is the stage I've got to. It's up and running, quickly wired up which will need tidying when I get the fan controller.


It's all bled now, fans are just running off the mobo headers for now but I've got a Corsair Link mini commander on the way. That will control the fans and possibly lighting too. I haven't decided on coolant colour or lighting yet. Any suggestions welcome for both.

I have some old bitfenix led strips from my last build but they're too long and I really hate how short they make the wires to a stinking great molex plug.

Coolant colour wise, I do have red dye on hand which I'm tempted to chuck in there, but I'm not sure about it. I was thinking maybe doing an opaque pastel blue to match the psu and alphacool logo. Those two just don't blend in as it is.

I'm relatively pleased with how it's turning out, but I do want to redo one tube when I get the remaining bits and pieces together. Let me know your thoughts, I'll try and get some better photo's later today now that it's finally up and running.

One more thing I did discover, the M.2 SSD I bought doesn't actually work with my motherboard :rolleyes: More research was required on that, I didn't realise the mobo I have only supports a certain type of M.2 which isn't the one that I have. So if anyone wants this one, I've left it too long to return it :mad:
 
Thanks for the kind words, I'm really pleased with how it's coming along. I'm going to pop the red dye in now though. I can't control myself any longer.

Just been having a quick fiddle with some overclocking and already pleased with it. Putting the 290x lightning underwater is proving to be a hell of an improvement. It used to generate so much heat with that whacking great air cooler firing up.

Got a modest stable overclock on the cpu, at remarkably low voltage as well. Plenty more to be done though.
 
Thanks chaps. I'm definitely going to change the colour though, I like the translucent look of the fluid I have now, but the reds totally off to the cables. Might have to go for a pastel instead, I'll have an experiment when the Corsair Link turns up.
 
I had white on my last build so fancied a change, but I do really like it. I think I've still got a litre of Ice Dragon Nano knocking about somewhere...
 
Cheers mate. I'd say it's not very difficult to do but it does require a bit of patience and careful measuring. I'd recommend getting a monsoon bending kit, using their kit it's a lot easier. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to get stuck in, it's good fun and rewarding.

The fan controller is due to arrive today. Hoping to get that fitted and set up this weekend.
 


Not much in the way of instructions inside...



I'm eager to see how well it works. I've always used a traditional style fan controller in previous builds, the old Lamptron FC5 served me well for a couple of years. But times are a changing, no drive bays in this one.
 
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