Build log: Boredom Struck

It's fitted now, very straight forward and the software seems pretty good too. You can set each fan up separately and link the fan speed to the temp of any components in the system. The custom fan curve eludes my understanding at the present moment but I'll investigate it further after the rugby.

Here is where I've stashed it. We all have an ugly side, and good lord this build ain't pretty on the dark side. The cablemod kit is great, but you have a lot of excess cabling to try and squeeze in. You can also see my stealth drain tube here, I struggled for a drain port on this build so I've got it coming out of one of the outlets on the pump. I'll have to tilt the case on its front to drain most of the fluid out but it should work well enough.


The case has a handy panel that screws on to hide a multitude of sins and helps push the cables down out of the way of the side panel. You get a lot more room to play with on this case than any other I've built in before.

 
Had a bit more of a play with overclocks. The cpu seems to be hitting very good overclocks and remarkably low voltage. Only testing it's stability using prime95 which is really pushing the temps. It's hitting 80 degrees after about 45 minutes on prime95 at 4.6ghz and 1.2v.

Tried it on Firestrike to get a benchmark score, never used it before though so don't have anything to compare it to. It sounds low to me, I can push the gpu and cpu more but I see little point for the negligable improvement in games.



Taken the cpu back down to 4.4ghz at 1.12v which it sits stable at on prime95 for hours and doesn't go above 74 degrees. I think I'm happier running it like that. This wasn't built to be an overclocking beast with the small rads and very low speed fans. Silence is golden afterall.
 
Got myself a lighting kit to run off the corsair commander and I have to say it's a good bit of kit. Only put in one strip and it's really bright, and the colour combinations are almost endless.



Still undecided about coolant colour, I drained the system last night and took it all apart to get to cleaning out all the red dye. Easier said than done.

Chucked in some pastel white which I'm thinking of adding some blue dye to, and after a test on a small amount in a bit of tubing it comes out remarkably close to the shade of blue on the psu.

Quite liking the white at the moment though so I'll mull it over for a day or so and see what happens. The red cables really don't work but at £80 for a cable kit it's a tough one to swallow and I don't have the time at the moment to make my own.

 
Hate is a strong word.



If I can muster the patience, I'll either go back to clear coolant or the red dye. I really like the colour of the blue, but it just doesn't work with anything else, and I can't find a sleeve that matches the shade of blue. Though it looks a lot better in person than it does in pictures, it's still not doing it for me.
 
I also thought black for the sleeving and then it would just fade into everything else. I haven't even investigated the standard cables that came with the psu but I highly doubt they'll be braided. Another cablemod kit will probably be the next thing I get.

As for the colour, it's mayhems pastel white with a good few drops of mayhems blue dye in. I had a play around first to get the colour I wanted. I'll see if I can get a better picture because it looks more interesting IRL.

I still find myself looking back to the red coolant and thinking it looked better but the blue is quite a statement...
 
I'm using 13/10mm tubing and a 3/8th piece of silicone which works pretty well. Its worth checking the size of the tube you've got, I've read of some fairly large discrepancies in some manufacturers tubing sizes. The fittings are primochill revolver, and they've been great. Used them on my last build with primochill acrylic and on this build with monsoon petg. Haven't had a single leak or any awkward fittings.

As for the lighting Luggs, it is an rgb kit so I've had a good play around and have gone for a dim white light. Changing the colours does have quite a drastic change on the colour of the coolant. You could spend quite some time playing around with it I'm sure.
 
So to revisit this build after some time living with it. Everything has been working great, except the corsair link. I couldn't recommend this to anybody. I've given it a fair chance and after 2 months of failed attempts to fix issues with the lighting and fan control, it's going in the bin.

The problem with the lighting has been no matter what I've tried, the lights flash to full 100% brightness for a split second every 10-15 seconds. If you have the case sat on your desk as I do, this is irritating beyond measure. I've tried various driver versions but all have the same issue and tried firmware updates but they always fail to install.

Fans randomly speed up and slow down regardless of the fan speed profile, and now all fans have vanished completely from the group software so I can't control the speed of any fans, they just go at random speeds.

I'm not sure if this is an issue just with the motherboard I have, but I've tried everything I can to work with this hardware and now I give up. I've got a 20oz claw hammer that's itching to meet with this awful corsair link commander.
 
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one, wish I'd known better before wasting my money and time on such a pos.

I shall investigate the NZXT CAM now, thanks for the heads up.
 
Boredom struck again as work's a bit slow in January, so I made a headphone stand out of some off cuts.

 
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Whoops



I thought a year on from the build it was due a coolant flush out, and decided to see what all the fuss was about with 1440p and 144hz as well. I figured my old 290x probably wasn't up to the task but after testing out the monitor to make sure it's not faulty, it seems the 290x is still managing to hold it's own even at 1440p ultra. It can't hit 144fps at ultra on anything but I'm not convinced the 1070 will either tbh. The monitor does however have g-sync which is another thing I've been curious to try out. The step from 60hz to 144hz on games like csgo has been very noticeable. It feels so much smoother.

I've also finally got a new fan controller so I can ditch that god awful Corsair Link. I'm still annoyed at what a waste of time and money that was. Gone for some slightly faster fans for the bottom radiator as well because things were getting quite warm over the summer and I couldn't ramp up the fans any more!

Finally, I thought it would be a good idea to get another 8gb of ram while I still can because it's getting hard to find now that DD4 is out.

I'm going to test the 1070 in my gf's computer to make sure it's all working as it should, and then I'll start the strip down of my build and block up the 1070 ready for a fresh bash at a new tubing layout. The plan is to get it all done over this weekend so hopefully I'll be back with some updates tomorrow. If not then it's all gone horribly wrong.
 
In the gf's comp and working. It's such a nice cooler it's a shame to rip it off and block it up! It's certainly made me consider just sacking off the water cooling because I'd be done and gaming by now if it wasn't for having to drain my loop and start all over again.

 
Tubing's all in, not the best picture but I've just got it leak testing now before I put it all back together and try it out.



Because I could mount the pump on the bracket with the shorter graphics card I thought I'd just redo the loop. Not sure I prefer it, but I've got a couple of other idea's if I don't like this one. Luckily I quite enjoy doing all the bends, the only downside is draining the thing because I yet again forgot to order some more bits and pieces to put a drain in before the bottom radiator.
 
I'm very pleased with the 1070 so far. I've been having a play around and doing a bit of overclocking using the evga software, using Heaven to test it for stability.

So far I've got it stable at 2126mhz on the core and 4406mhz memory. It's not going above 37 degrees yet after running heaven for about an hour straight. The cpu is the thing that brings the loop temp up though so I'll see what it's like in real life gaming later on tonight.

The NZXT Grid fan controller is a hell of a lot better than the corsair link as well, so far I'd recommend it to anyone thinking of it. I'm considering getting their lighting kit the Hue+ as well.

I'm also going to change the cable kit soon when I can justify spending a little more on the computer, this last month was a big hit on the wallet, almost as much as the entire build was last time round! But when I get black cables I'll experiment with a colour for the coolant. At the moment I'm keeping it clear.

I'll try and snap some better pictures of the loop because I'm quite pleased with how it's come out but it's so difficult to photograph!
 
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