First watercooling venture in Fractal R6.

[Too Tall]

You should have room for it on the right hand port of the front radiator, if you mount the top rad in the furthers position from the motherboard.

Its all straightforward really, just time consuming.

I'd run a benchmark on your GPU to warm it up before fitting the block, it will help separating the standard heating.

The top left port of the front rad requires a few fittings to clear the top rad and fans, if you do follow the same route as me, let me know and I'll take some pics of the fittings used.

Where are you mounting your rad?

Have you got somewhere for a drain?

 

[Too Tall]

You'll have plenty of room then mate!

I'm using hard tubing. Just starting the bends now, hopefully will go well, still need to decide how I'm doing the cpu runs from the gpu and to the top rad.

The Gpu doesn't quite line up with the CPU ports unfortunately.

 

[Too Tall]

Well I can say that hard tubing is not as easy as I'd hoped. Simple bends are easy enough it's just more inteicate runs .

I need to watch some videos on how to improve.

I'm sure ill get better with time and more practice though.

Got the system up and running yesterday with no leaks.

Hopefully all will be OK when I refill.

@sparkymark75 one thing to be aware of, there is some coil whine on the GPU now, i'm guessing its due to the removal of the stock cooler which was absorbing/dampening the noise.

 

[Too Tall]

Bit bizarre that your RAM would be affected.

Did you apply the thermal pads to all the same items that were cooled by the stock heatsink? I’ve read they make less noise if all the VRM components are cooled.

All sorted now, it was the back plate i think, I trimmed the rubber gasket to improve fit around some motherboard pins and slackend off the cpu block and all seems fine now.

I applied the pads to all positions indicated by the EK manual, no more.

 

[Too Tall]

Onto my next issue with the Mayhems Pastel seperating.

All sorted now, it was the back plate i think, I trimmed the rubber gasket to improve fit around some motherboard pins and slackend off the cpu block and all seems fine now.

I bought some Mayhems Pastel White concentrate and Mayhems H2O (premixed was out of stock).

After a few days i’ve noticed that the white pigment almost seems to be separating from the water leaving pigment in my pipes and bottom of my pump.

Before using the system both radiators XSPC TX360 and EK PE360 I flushed them with running hot water and then again with white wine vinegar to try and clear them of manufacturing debris/flux.

I was surprised at how much debris came out of them!

Following this they were flushed again first with hot water then distilled and finally your Mayhems H20.

I mixed the concentrate as per the instructions and added it to the loop.

This leaves me a few days later with the fluid unfortunately separating.

RGB isnt working properly on the pump either, I cant change the colour and not all LED's work waiting on a response from EK.

@Mayhems

 

[Too Tall]

I'd recommend running the mayhems blitz through your radiators mate.

 

[Too Tall]

Thing is you read of people having issues with that too.

I guess at least you can say you've done all you can to prep.

I used white wine vinegar, so either there's a fault with the liquid or it needed something stronger.

Have you got all your bits now?

 

[Too Tall]

What size is the tubing you've ordered?

I do get coil whine intermittently, I fitted thermal pads in all the locations on the waterblock manual, which matched the original position.

The only areas that was different was the EK back plate which didn't require and pads on the rear of the gou die.

 

[Too Tall]

could you put an extender under the 90 to be able to use the fill ports?

 

[Too Tall]

And I’ve still got the dilemma of using the Mayhems Pastel White or the XSPC clear fluid I have. I really want to use the white but see a couple of you on the forum have had issues with it separating.

I tested my fluid and the PH was 7 according to the litmus paper, so if its not the pastel then its something else in my loop.

I'm going to clean everything and try again and see how I get on.

Just a nause stripping the whole loop.

 

[Too Tall]

The inlet is the bottom port mate

 

[Too Tall]

How can you tell just by looking at it?

I looked on the website .

On my block its the same too, the inlet goes into the jet plate through the fins and then out.

Well it would if it wasn't full of mayhems gunk

 

[Too Tall]

Looking good mate! Did it flow better once you switched the ports on the CPU?

Have you checked the temperature sensor in the HWInfo app?

The Gaming X trio is massive isn't it, especially with the water inlet/outlet.

Hope your fluid stays OK!

 

[Too Tall]

I tilted the case every now and then and ran the pump at high and low speed which seemed to get the bubbles out.

What are you going to do with yourself now your project is complete?

 

[Too Tall]

What sort of temps have you been getting @Too Tall ?

With my rad fans at around 1,000rpm and the pump at around 45%, I’m seeing the GPU between 46-50, the CPU from 60 to 66 and the water around 39c. This was after playing EFT for 3 hours. Do these seem okay?

The CPU was sitting around 70+ but tightening the CPU block dropped those temps.

I'll let you know when I'm up and running without all the gunk in my loop.

Your temps look good to me though. Its the water temperature over ambient that gives the best indication of how your loop is performing i believe.

 

[Too Tall]

Got there after many hours work.

My first ever attempt at watercooling.

Hard tubing was a learning experience, im happy with the bends after a few revisions!

Lots of issues with pastels which to be fair @Mayhems have been brilliant about. I'm running clear liquid at the moment and to be honest I quite like it!

Still got the RGB strip to replace on the res when it arrives.

 

[Too Tall]

Looks stunning mate. I bet it looks even better in person. The camera never quite captures the lighting as well.

Cheers mate, i'm happy with it now.

I redid every bend apart from the straight part from the top rad to the front rad, i definitely got better with more practice.

The barrow bending tool made such a difference.

I'll take more pics when I get 5.

 

[Too Tall]

Sold the GPU now so I'm currently just running with the CPU connected to the loop.

I have however connected an EK XE 360 radiator to the loop externally as a bit of a ghetto project.

Liquid temperatures don't budge from 30 degrees.

Once the 3080ti is released I'll add a GPU back into the loop and see if i can make the hose routing for the external rad a bit prettier on the eye.

 

[Too Tall]

Sounds awesome, I've always wanted to do this, and toyed with the idea for my cupboard build, with QDCs (highly recommended for external setups!). But don't think I will.

AquaComputer do a fab little PCI-E passthrough, as well as some awesome external rads & accessories. I'm a big fan of their kit.

Got any pics, and what fans did you use?

I'm still waiting for my QDC's to arrive, but currently the hoses are going out of one of the PCI slots for the vertical GPU mount on the Fractal R6.

I'm using an EK XE360 & 6 x EK Vardar fans.

I did look at the aquacomputer PCI passthrough but it was so expensivew for what it was.

I'm going to leave it as soft tubing unill i get the 3080 Ti then i'll hardline everything inside the case, but continue to use flexi on the exterior.

I might even make an enclosure for the rad at some point.

This would be a great option for a small form factor build, having all the rads externally.

 

[Too Tall]

Love what you have done there dude. Clear liquid hard tubing looks the biz and the temps sound pretty neat too.

I fancy the project as well and willing to jump right in with hard tubing, as much as I might regret it, but the thing I keep questioning is how much of a pain it becomes to remove something. Is it a total pain in the butt or worth the effort?

Hardline looks much better that flexi in my opinion, but the amount of work to build a loop goes up a notch.

Component removal and replacement is also more difficult, especially with a distro plate etc.

However, in my case once the new GPU is in I can't see a reason i'd want to drain the loop again for a long time apart from maintaining the loop.