Graphics Welder

[Mysterae_]

Thanks for the comments folks, it's good to know that people are reading liking what I'm doing .

One thing I was aware of early on was when the mesh side panels are fitted you won't see all the water cooling goodness that's inside the case. Some internal illumination may help but that'll only be when the PC is powered on.

In it's previous form the case drew air in through the mesh panels and exhausted it through the top of the case. As I'm changing that to drawing air in through the top of the case and exhausting it out through all the holes in the main panels, the mesh panels are no longer required. I can't leave them as gaps so I'm replacing them with some tinted acrylic.

Testing a rough cut...

Happy 100th image!

I'm considering doing something to cover up the backside of the PSU as it's label is showing and it's upside down too.

I think the tint of the acrylic is just right and I'm looking forward to seeing it with some illumination and of course some coolant running through it!

 

[Mysterae_]

I prefer it with the mesh panel on the side. Looking forward to see what it looks like with some lights on though.

It does look good with the mesh and gives it a more stock and stealth look. However I prefer the acrylic panels as not only do you see the water cooling at all times, I like the wrap around glossy connection it provides around the case. I chose tinted grey acrylic so it would blend in with the colour scheme rather than going totally clear.

In a bad case of design creep I'm toying with the idea of modifying the top and bottom covers so that more acrylic is exposed. The red lines in the image below indicate my proposed cut lines.

Not quite convinced myself yet!

 

[Mysterae_]

Been on holiday for 2 weeks and i see you've made some substantial progress! Looks amazing maate, just wow!

Indeed, I'm cooking with gas as they say!

Another day, another mod, this time to sort the air cooling for the case itself and tackle the issue of the power cable for the 4090.

Take two unsuspecting fans...

...and butcher them!

This solves the problem with the fans hitting the 4090's power cable.

It also provides a guide or tunnel for the airflow to be more directed.

Something else I wanted was the fans to be closer to the top of the case so that it would draw from there and not escape too soon out the sides.

To provide a level of filtration I fitted the self-adhesive mesh filters that Phanteks thoughtfully provides with the Evolv Shift XT to the top cover of the case.

Looks good through the top cover too.

Almost finished, well this part anyway!

 

[Mysterae_]

I thought you was using the fan shroud to create a ducting tunnel but nice mod. Have you looked at the noctua foam mods for ducting? It would help finish and channel airflow abit better to stop recycling internal case air by getting rid of any potential gaps between the top of the case and the fan itself.

Thanks, I had seen the Noctua foam mod and it did cross my mind funny you should mention it. Due to the way the top of the case slides in to position I didn't want anything to rub against it although I may look in to it again if the temperatures and noise levels aren't acceptable. I also think it may draw air in from the unfiltered sides, path of least resistance and all that!

 

[Mysterae_]

Time to turn my attention to the radiator part of this build.

The radiator is a Watercool MO-RA3 PRO 4X180 that I used in my previous build. MO-RA is short for Monster Radiator and you can see why, it dwarfs the case of the PC:

Before I can use it I need to do some much overdue maintenance such as flushing out the old coolant and cleaning any debris that's collected in the fins of the radiator.

The fans of the radiator are SilverStone AP181 180mm which I'll be keeping but rewiring them to be controlled by the Aqua Computer D5 Next rather than an Aquaero that I've used in the past.

It's a bit minging between the fans and fins but not too bad considering it was 7 years ago when I last cleaned it.

Radiator fins cleaned and flushing out the old coolant by closing the loop and running the pump at 12V. I'll give the fins a proper clean with some compressed air later.

The old Aqua Computer Aqualis pump and reservoir (that is attached to the radiator in the image below) is to be replaced with an Utilitube 150 with a D5 Next pump controller. This means I don't have to run any comms or power cables back to the PC unless I want pump and fan speeds via USB, the D5 Next will be autonomous and powered by a separate 12Vdc PSU.

A few more things to do before I can connect the rad to the PC but almost there!

 

[Mysterae_]

Halfords Deionised, the best stuff i've ever used!

10 years with that coolant and never let me down.

I think 10 years is actually how long that coolant has been in the radiator for the previous build!

I like to use the de-ionised water and a little bit of automotive anti-freeze to give it a bit of colour and as a final measure to kill any bacterial growth in the loop. Works for me!

 

[Mysterae_]

i think PC looks great but having miniitx pc with a massive radiator attached kind of defeats the purpose for me

I understand what you're saying but for my application it's makes a lot of sense.

By moving the heat and the fan noise from the PC on your desk to another location means you can have a small PC on your desk. You can cram in a lot more demanding hardware in to smaller footprint rather than having a giant monolith of a PC next to you. Sure, you can put your PC on the floor but I like to see my hardware as I appreciate the aesthetics of them. I also position the external radiator on my window sill so that I can exhaust the heat out the room thereby keeping the temperature of the room and the PC down.

 

[Mysterae_]

The image below is titled, "Why you take so long hooman?!".

Well... it's a mixture of having the parts, having the time and encountering a few snags on the way!

I wasn't happy with the method of previously mounting the Aqua Computer Aqualis reservoir/pump and mounting the new Utilitube would give the same problems. I discovered that Watercool do a mounting bracket for the Mo-Ra3 which was a good solution. So ordered that and modified it to suit the mounting of the Utilitube.

The screws holding the Aqua Computer supplied mount to the Mo-Ra3 bracket had to be shortened a little from what's shown below.

A much tidier mounting solution now.

I don't want any cables between the Mo-Ra3 and the PC itself if I can avoid it but the D5 Next of the Utilitube needs power. I decided power was to be supplied by an external power brick that supplies 5V and 12V both at 2A. This gave the challenge of mounting it to the Mo-Ra3 and routing the power cable.

Magnetic tape was the perfect solution .

At first I was concerned that the magnetic tape would cause the PSU to malfunction but it doesn't interfere at all.

The magnetic tape is surprisingly strong and holds the PSU firmly in place.

Took the feet off the Mo-Ra3 and drilled and cut a channel in each to route the power cable from the PSU to the D5 Next.

Wired the power cable to a SATA power connector as required for the D5 Next. You'll also notice I changed the fittings for the tubing to more modern and shiny ones.

With the Mo-Ra3 and the Utilitube plumbed in a loop with themselves, fans wired and power available I could fill with coolant and run it independent from the PC to get any air out of the radiator.

Then I ran in to a problem with the D5 Next and those damn fans...

 

[Mysterae_]

looks good mate. I really like the Mo-Ra3 and how you have tidied the cables

Thanks, it was a particular aim with this build .

On to the problem with the D5 Next and the SilverStone AP181 fans that are mounted to the radiator. Long story cut short - the D5 Next can only control the speed of PWM fans and the AP181 are (you guessed it!) not PWM fans. Bugger.

The longer story - When the D5 Next first turned on all was great - the pump works as intended, it's reading the temperature of the coolant and the fans were spinning, albeit at full chat. Adjusted the speed of the pump just fine but the fans would only run at 100% or not at all when set to 0%. No matter much how I adjusted the power preset, temperature set point or configuring a curve controller, the fans would be running at max speed.

It says 5%, but it's not really!

The first clue, still being given almost full voltage when set to the above 5% power preset.

This wasn't a problem with my previous build as the fans were controlled by an Aquaero 6 XT, but that used voltage regulation to control the speed of the fans. The D5 Next has no voltage regulation for fan speed control and only utilises PWM control. I obviously wasn't aware of this, doh!

So I need new fans after all. It's slim pickings when it comes to 180mm fans (especially on OCUK) and intentionally avoiding the RGB variety I've decided on SilverStone AP184i PRO fans. Just when I thought I was done buying stuff for this build!

 

[Mysterae_]

I love the pipe work, is it copper? have you ever had any problems?

Thanks, yes it is chrome coated copper tubing, the type that you can bend without it cracking.

The only problem I had with it were the fittings as they can be a bit loose. They don't leak, it's just that they can be a bit of a pain to position accurately and do sag a bit. If I ever do copper tubing again I'd look for better fittings.

 

[Mysterae_]

I understand. I went through my itx phase and I went back to a bigger PC (o11 dynamic) but I still have media pc i nr200p. There is something about the small form factor that is appealing.
Depending on the size of your room I understand how taking heat away from the PC can be beneficial but will that not hit you back in the summer?

You over-estimate the summers we have in the Highlands . I think (and hope) that the two T30 fans at the top of the case blowing down will be enough to cool inside the case. The radiator fans will run a bit higher to maintain a good water temperature, at least that's the theory. My last build had temperature sensors for the water temperature both in and out of the radiator so the delta could be obtained and acted upon, this build doesn't have that (only water temperature of the D5 Next reservoir) so a simple curve controller will be set up for the fans vs water temperature.

5 hour pressure test passed .

 

[Mysterae_]

A quick mod to the repurposed ARGB strips from the Shift Evolv XT's infinity mirror, adding some magnetic tape to it so that it can be repositioned later to get the best lighting effect.

And the other one...

Finished the final plumbing of the D5 Next Utilitube with a novel reverse S bend .

Finally have fluid going through the computer .

It'll be a while before all the micro-bubbles are out the system.

 

[Mysterae_]

It's alive!

I'm actually using it to post this .

Temperatures are excellent from what I've tested so far, the 13700K hasn't gone above 80C and the 4090 hasn't exceeded 50C yet. The GPU core idles at 25C, that's with the fans of the radiator at a manual 7V (couldn't tolerate them at full speed, still waiting on the other fans) and the case fans at a whisper of 40%. That's with the chassis exposed as above, things may change once the rest of the case is fitted.

It'll be a while until all the bubbles have gone from the tubing and the GPU block, annoyingly.

I really need to tone down the lighting.

 

[Mysterae_]

That looks absolutely stunning. Personally I think the lighting looks really good and I imagine with the side panels on it will tone it down a bit.

Thanks, a bit of toning down is what I'm hoping! See a few images below to see if it does...

Clean build mate, so very clean! Need to bring it to me for a photoshoot.

Thanks, although I'm not sure if you're serious but I'm probably a bit far away anyway! Some glamour shots would be cool, I'll see what I can do with my "proper" camera and use something to reduce the reflections.

Talking of said reflections, I had been mulling over solutions for mounting the clear acrylic panels that I had made. The acrylic is 3mm (too thin would flex too easily) and bending it to wrap around the sides like the existing mesh panels wouldn't have been possible, at least not accurately. More magnetic tape to the rescue!

How about a nice cuppa' tea to give some scale and reflect for a bit.

Nice, a bit stealthy. How about some lighting?!

CPU side:

GPU side:

Liking it so far, some experimentation on the right colour is needed though.

Unfortunately I couldn't show it with the front monitor panel switched on because the HDMI cable I have is too girthy and wouldn't sit right nor be routed easily. So a thinner HDMI cable is on order.

You might have noticed this power extension strip in one of the images earlier:

This is a "One-Click" power extension that when a load is detected on the 'master' socket it turns on all the other 'slave' sockets and conversely it turns them off when no load is detected on the 'master' socket. I'm using it to turn on the PSU for the Utilitube/pump/fans of the Mo-Ra3 when the PC is turned on. I'll have other devices plugged in to it too such as monitor, amplifier and maybe desk lights.

Still on the to do list are those damn radiator fans, only two have arrived so far. They don't have daisy chainable connectors so a splitter is required to run all four from the D5 Next. I could cut and splice the cables as I did with the previous fans but nah, I'll keeps these as standard and just get a splitter.

The specification for these fans:

So close to being done...

 

[Mysterae_]

Looks great makes me want to get back into watercooling.

Thanks, you should do it!

looks really nice mate. I like the one click power lead. Ideal for an external pump

Thanks, I used one of those as I didn't want to run power from the PC to the radiator.

Still deciding to have a USB cable between them (D5 Next controller) to monitor the radiator's fan and pump speeds.

 

[Mysterae_]

yeah that would be handy I guess. Would that need to connect to an internal usb header ?

Not necessarily - as long as you wire the end of the cable with a USB 2.0 connector correctly it'll work with an external USB port.

I've used this in the past with other Aqua Computer devices when I wanted to connect it to update it's firmware but not leave it connected permanently.

 

[Mysterae_]

I was wondering if there were adaptors available

Ah, my misunderstanding. There are many adaptors available to change the header on the motherboard to a female USB (header usually has 2 USB connections) but I'm not so sure if there is an adaptor for the Aqua Computer cable. That would need to change it from the header connection to a male USB but would be a bit janky looking, much better to make your own and to the desired length.

 

[Mysterae_]

Great build!
This is my first visit so I mostly looked at the pictures .

Thank you for your first visit . This build log has over 150 images so far and more to come!

Look at the pictures is all I do as well

I think that's what most people do to be honest. Very few stop to leave a comment which is a shame as it provides encouragement and makes the builder all warm and fuzzy inside, well most of the time .

Absolutely serious! Im based in South Yorkshire so if you're close enough can definitely arrange something

Thanks again but I'm in the giddy heights of the Highlands and I don't think this rig will travel well .

I love this build! so in theory could you put the radiators and fans in the loft and just run the tubes down the wall into the case?

Thanks. You can definitely put the radiator and fans in the loft, in fact I've seen a few builds where the radiator pack has been plumbed in the garage. I was tempted to put the radiator pack in the garage but it gets very cold in the winter and hot in the summer due to it's flat roof. I just decided to keep it in the same room where I can keep and eye (and ear) on it.

 

[Mysterae_]

The AP184i-PRO fans finally arrived and wired them up to a 4-way fan splitter.

Caged up to protect fingers and cat's noses.

The fan blades are a bit different from the AP181's. As these are PWM the control of them is great as they can go as slow as 10% before stalling and they move an impressive amount of air at low speeds.

yeah I had a quick search and couldnt find one. Like you say it will look smarter making your own

Well, maybe....

Here's the problem we have, on one side a USB cable with a USB header connector and on the other side a cable with a header and Aqua Computer D5 Next connector.

I suppose you could just use pins or something to simply connect them together but I wanted something a bit more permanent and resilient. It looks okay....ish.

Finally altogether and fettling time .

The display on the front is running AIDA64 control panel with a custom skin I made for this build, a bit more on this in a later post. It might be a bit difficult to see in the image above but temperatures are very much reduced as you'd expect.

Time to fire up a game and see some temperatures in that lovely screen up front .

Running the game Pacific Drive at 3840x1600 with everything maxed and the 4090 gets 83FPS at a core temp of 45C, power draw of 352W and core frequency of 2805MHz. The 13700K runs at an average of 51C with a power draw of 90W, P cores at 5400MHz and E cores at 4100MHz. All good!

But wait. I see a problem.

I'm not talking about the dust on the acrylic side panels (static huh!) but have a look at the Utilisation section for the CPU, in particular the memory bar gauges. It says 9.4GB used and 22.4GB free which adds up to 32GB but I have 64GB installed.

Windows only sees 32GB, the BIOS only sees 32GB and using Corsair iCUE to control the lighting only sees one module. Adjusting the lighting of the DIMMs only makes one eh, dim.

So the DIMM closest to the CPU may be lit but it's not working. After powering off and swapping the DIMMs around the exact same fault is present which indicates that both memory modules are fine, there's something up with the motherboard. I know for a fact that both slots worked before fitting the waterblock:

I remember reading that an improper CPU cooler mount (too tight) can cause memory module faults just like I have here. I therefore had two options - run with one memory module or ....

Take it all apart again and fix it. The pressure tester came in handy here, using it to push air and coolant out the tubing and blocks.

The CPU block has been repasted and remounted, this time not so tight. The memory slots all look perfectly clean with no debris.

The difficult thing is that I won't know if it's been successful until it's all connected and water flowing again. If it's not good, take it all apart again and remount....

Thanks for looking at the pictures!

 

[Mysterae_]

@Mysterae_ looks amazing! Was looking forward to seeing it with the screen

Was it just the brightness of the RAM you were worried about? - the view from the other side looks awesome!

Thanks! I might have just lived with it if it were just the RGB that was faulty but it would have affected it's resell value down the line.

looks really good make. I like the rewired cable. Glad it was a simple though time consuming fix to get the ram recognised

Thanks. I'll post shortly my findings with the RAM situation. Not even tried the cable, so busy with this and other things.

Thaat stats screen looks insane, you could watch a movie on it

You could, and even play a game on it but would be a bit weird in that orientation! You'll see something soon that makes an awesome use of the screen instead of showing stats all the time.

Regarding checking whether the RAM is detected, could you not just power it up dry? - might run a bit hot but I would have thought the block has enough thermal mass to get as far as BIOS to see if they're detected quickly

I thought about that and it might have been what I resorted to should it fail again.

And fail again it did!