First Watercooling - NIGHTMARE

mike gunnz said:
@ the OP All part of the learning curve. The mistakes you make now you won't make again. And yes its expensive but if you stick with it then it'll payoff.

You can always sit the D5 on the midshelf or get a bay res that can house the D5, but thats more money again.
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+1 it is the best place anyway on top of a soggy sandwich, to the op unlucky it can be a pain when you first start. One word of advice, stay away from compression fittings the first time you build get some 1/2" fatboy barbs and 7/16" id tubing can't go wrong, if your overly worried get some worm grips to go on the barbs.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
I honestly don't know how you have managed to screw up what is a relatively simple wc combo...sounds to me that you did zero research and are now paying the price with your wallet
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The compression fittings on my block - to be fair, the ones I bought were cheap and fat, never gave clearance a thought! The ones on the res should fit, and EK should have checked their fittings, that is the real annoyance!
I assumed like everyone says that I could make the small diameter tubing fit over the D5 barbs. Obviously I couldn't make it stretch that far, so decided to upgrade to 1/2" ID tubing instead! Plus, I like the bigger piping.

I could easily have put the D5 in the centre compartment, but I don't want to! :p. So some modding is required on that front. And I damaged the rad myself, and also didn't like the silver colour.

I could have made everything fit, but I would not have been happy with the results.

I have heard scare stories about compression fittings, but that just comes across as bad fitting components to me. I have tested these, and see no issues. It all fits very well, and I much prefer the look of them. Plus, it will be thoughrouly leak tested before I even install the motherboard!
 
I win :p.

Changed the top for the EK-D5 top and used right angled fittings. Now it fits underneath :D. Res may need to be moved when the board is put in, may not!
I used a forster bit in my pillar drill to elongate the spot facings on the EK res and tidied it up with a file. Works like a charm now. New rad looks excellent in the case. Its all done and dusted. All assembled, just trying to get all the air out. I can still hear it when the pump starts up.

Its now leak testing for a day or so. The components are no where near it. Of course, I am unable to do anything at the kitchen sink, but meh. Who cares :D.

I have however, inadvertently bought EK everything (Apart from the Laing D5 and the tubing)! Even the fittings are EK as they are black and skinny. It was never planned that way. I will get a pic on when its out of the kitchen.
 
Ah FFS!

There are hairline cracks in the plastic reservoir, however, since I had to modify the base and top to accept the fittings, I will not be able to RMA! I have sent EK a ticket to see if they can help!
The cracks only appeared after 3-4 hours of testing.
 
Steep learning curve

I kept having to order extra parts as I built my loop. Planning and research are essential to minimise the pain but until you get your hands on everything and try to install a few parts you just don't know if its going to work. Its worth it in the end though so stick with it. I use compression fittings and I haven't had a problem...yet...
 
You have some bad luck mate:(, tbh I worry that once you got it fitted with the luck you've had it will blow up your system, if me maybe go back to air cooling why you still got a system:D
 
I think this is where many go wrong. My first water-cooling system had a 240v pump inside a res that had the fittings pre-installed, Tygon was all that was available, Black Ice Xtreme rads had build-in barbs - they couldn't be changed - and the Whitewater came with the same size barbs. The only question was how much tubing to buy.

The second rig used a heatercore with an Eheim pond pump.

Even now, I'm just as likely to use a T as a reservoir and since none of my cases have windows, I don't worry about looks.

Focus on function, not looks. Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Water-cooling evolves, it doesn't spring fully-formed into perfect life.
 
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