Corsair Carbide Air 540 Builds

SimonMaltby

SimonMaltby

SimonMaltby

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Joined
25 Nov 2002
Posts
2,218
Location
Somerset
With this case now starting to become available I though I would share my build feedback and invite others to do the same as and when.

My case arrived today.

DSC06855.jpg


I am going to be trying to build it as a fully water cooled rig running the following components...

Water cooling:
EK 360 Rad at front
EK 240 Rad at top
Corsair SP120 High Pressure fans.
D5 Pump with EK res
Heatkiller 3.0 CPU block
HeatKiller 680 Blocks and back plates
Clear 10mm / 16mm tube
Blood Red Coolant
Chrome Fittings

Components:
Asus Z87 MAXIMUS VI EXTREME Motherboard
Intel i7 4770K CPU
8GB G.Skill TridentX 2666MHz Ram - Or 16GB Patriot 2400MHz
Corsair AX1200 PSU
2 x EVGA Superclocked GTX 680's in SLI
2 x Samsung 840 500GB SSD's in Raid 0

Other:
Red LED's
 
I've not ordered mine yet but plan to do so soon.

No full watercooling for me, going for h100i though (bought already).

Rest of the spec, apart from motherboard and CPU (upgrading to i5-4670k and Gigabyte Z87X-D3H), will be the same as in my sig (with a possible NZXT HUE RGB LED Controller added).

Most of the photos I've seen of completed builds so far have the pump above the PSU.
 
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Ok Pump is in...

PumpWorking.jpg

PumpTop.jpg
PumpRear.jpg

PumpFinal.jpg


Warranty is void already as I drilled a 20mm hole for a fill port :)
As its attached to the Res with a solid fitting I may have issues with vibration, will have to see. The fill port is fixed to the metal of the case under the top plastic cover... I may extend it up and cut the plastic in due course, but for now its hidden and requires removing two screws to get to it.

Think that's enough for tonight.
 
SimonMaltby said:
Ok well the 360 rad fits ok although looking at the space at the top I don't think I can do push pull on the 360 and still fit the 240 in the top. So fitted with singe fans for now.
Click to expand...

i think i saw some one else have there push fans outside of the case, under the plastic outer shell, if you remove the front dust filter that is supplied.

maybe worth a try :)
 
dunny87 said:
i think i saw some one else have there push fans outside of the case, under the plastic outer shell, if you remove the front dust filter that is supplied.

maybe worth a try :)
Click to expand...

Ah brilliant, that works perfectly. Routing the cables will be tricky as there is no gap with the 360 rad, but there is a hole just big enough for the fan cables to slot though i think.
 
If someone could measure the distance apart for the feet from the furthest left to the furthest right I would much appreciate it, I need to know if the feet will sit on a 285mm width shelf
 
Relentless81 said:
If someone could measure the distance apart for the feet from the furthest left to the furthest right I would much appreciate it, I need to know if the feet will sit on a 285mm width shelf
Click to expand...

Hi mate, I posted in the other thread for you yesterday as follows...

The feet are 310mm from outside edge to outside edge, if you sit it on a 285mm shelf, it will use about 1/3 of each foot, you would have about 5mm of each foot in contact with the shelf. The feet are rubber and rectangular so its still a fair amount on the shelf, but far from ideal.
 
Ok now I'm running into trouble :(

I'm trying to use an EK 240 rad top and an EK 360 rad front.
The 360 fits ok, but the 240 will then not fit unless I remove the top fan from the 360, which rather defeats the point of having a 360. Also to use the 360 and the 240 I have to site the 360 feed at the bottom and the Hard drive cage gets in the way :(

This is starting to prove much more complex, I expected an easy build with these two rads and its not at all.

Need to rethink...

What do you guy think, a thinner, stealth 360 instead of the EK or maybe just a second 240, or continue and try harder to make both fit?

UPDATE To above...

Ok sorted something out.
I moved all the fans for the 360 to the front of the case. Does not look quite as special and I can't do push pull on the top fan, but it should still be ok.

Just leak testing now.
 
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Here we go, Build basically complete :)

As I said earlier, I run into some serious issues using both a 360 and 240 Radiators, but solved it by having the inlets of the 360 at the bottom and putting the fans at the front, replacing the dust filter. The only downside of this is that I can't use the right side hot swap drive bay for a full sized drive, although a lap top drive will fit fine.

Anyway here we go with some pictures:
FrontOpenFinal.jpg

TopOpenFinal.jpg

BackPreWires.jpg

OpenFinal1.jpg

OpenFinal2.jpg

Lights1.jpg


Really happy with the build. There are a few things to do:
  • Change the top rad screws from chrome to black
  • Tidy the wiring in the back (there is a reason I did not include a photo :)
  • Get some nice red fan guards or rad guard to make the inside of the rads look better
  • Get a better rear fan

I decided to install my Ivy bridge setup first of all so I and compare temps to my previous case (Fractal Arc Midi). It will not take much work to swap for my 4770K later.

temps are well down on before, even with the fans on silent. The graphics cards idle in the mid 20's and under benchmarking seem to be about 42c, they were in the 70's on air.

So in summary...
This case is not quite as easy as I thought it would be, but after some hard thought and graft, I'm really pleased with the result. My temps are much lower and the case is quieter.

I'm not looking forward to using the Blu-Ray drive in its sideways position.
 
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nice job simon ! the dvd drive sideways on is kinda mystifying aswell only thing putting me off at moment. would it really of mattered if they did it in a normal orientation size wise ?
 
~>Dg<~ said:
nice job simon ! the dvd drive sideways on is kinda mystifying aswell only thing putting me off at moment. would it really of mattered if they did it in a normal orientation size wise ?
Click to expand...

Well, the case is wide as it is and would have to be quite a bit wider still if they allowed enough space for it to sit horizontal and maintain the clean main chamber. I was looking to see if I could locate a slot load Blu-ray drive as this would solve the issue, but cant find anything other than laptop style.

Personally its not a big issue for me. It will work, you just need to be careful when opening the trey with a disk inside. I may switch to a USB external for the few times I actually use a DVD drive nowadays.

I have seen pics of someone that uses the case on its side, so the window is on top and then the drive bays are horizontal. Not for me as I would see the bottom of the case, but maybe an option.
 
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