Lian Li PC- O11 Razer Edition Build with first time water cooling

[davetherave2]

So after much procrastination I finally decided it was time I upgraded my case and given my slightly spec'd up system over recent months/years the system needed a case it deserves.

After 14/15 years of faithful service with numerous builds in it I thought it was time to retire my trusty CoolerMaster Stacker ATC-01 full tower case.

While doing this build I thought it would also be a good time to wet my whistle in the water cooling world and it has been a eye opener so this build log will be both about putting things into this case and a my observations as a first time water cooler so that people in a similar position may learn from my mistakes.

The system that will be going into this case is as follows:

Intel I7-5820K
Gigabyte GA-X99-SLI (Socket 2011-3) motherboard
4 x 4GB TeamGroup Elite 2400Mhz Ram (Quad channel kit)
Inno3D RTX 2080 Twin x2 OC
1 x Samsung Evo 850 500GB (SSD)
1 x Samsung 830 Desktop 128GB (SSD)
2 x 4TB HGST 3.5" SATA drives
Coolermaster Real Power M1000 PSU

Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic Razer Edition


Now for the water cooling components (All EK Water Blocks - unless otherwise stated):


1 x EK-Velocity RGB Intel CPU Water Block Nickel + Plexi
1 x EK-CoolStream SE 360 (Slim triple) Radiator
1 x EK-XRES 140 Revo RGB PWM (inc pump)
3 x EK-Vardar EVO 120mm RGB Fan
6 x EK-ACF Compression Fitting 10/16mm - Black Nickel
1 x EK-Cryofuel Solid Electric Purple 1 litre Premix fluid
1 x Filling Bottle
1 x EK-Duraclear Tubing 16/10 - Clear 3M
1 x XPSC Heavy Duty Host Cutter
1 x EK-ATX Bridging Plug (24 pin)


So I thought while I was at it and to try and give this a clean look I would also go with some cable mod cable extensions for both the psu and my sata cables

1 x CableMod ModMesh Cable Extension Kit
6 x CableMod Right Angle SATA 3 Cable

I will be showing the build process in a series of photos and my learnings as part of this build as going from air cooling to water cooling has been an eye opener indead.

Although I have started this build I will add photo's and more details as I go when they have backed up google photo's.

I already have a number of things I have learnt while doing the initial system transfer so that is where I will start.

 

[jonathan_phang]

Following with interest not only due to the case, but also looking to take first steps into watercooling too. Appears simple in concept to looking forward to hearing about your initial experiences.

 

[HungryHippos]

Don't forget to get some pics up of your kit before install

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Heads up, replace filters with aftermarket ones!

I used 4 of these

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/demc...for-360mm-radiator-black-black-cm-034-df.html

Stock is quite restrictive

 

[davetherave2]

so here are some early photo's i took prior to the build just so there is something to look at.

Water cooling items.






The case itself when it arrived




Now prepare yourself.

Vomit incoming in 3, 2, 1

Spoiler: I did warn you :D

I have more pics that I will upload tonight and add some info around what I am trying to do before i complete this build.

I certainly have been learning a lot as I have been going along, even though I have built loads of systems just none focused on neatness and presentation.

 

[davetherave2]

So better late than never I guess.

So I actually started this build on tuesday evening (12/3/19) and after I did the initial unboxing and unhooked my existing setup to do the system transfer which hasn't really been off ever in the last 4 years other than the occasional part upgrade.

So first things first was to unhook the massive Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 heatsink from cpu and had that heart stopping moment of trying to find the spanner to undo it as thing is massive and unwieldy thing I was presented with this being left on the cpu:




So to give you an idea of scale when it comes to the cooler and the new water block here we have a side by side:



As you can tell from the amount of dust that is the heatsink i haven't been too great with the maintenance of the system and even though it has been a great cooler I am both sad and relieved to see this old girl getting retired she has served me well over the years keeping my system nice and cool and quiet.

So after doing a bit of clean up on the cpu and removing the left over arctic silver that was still left on it which surprisingly wasn't like concrete as I was expecting it to be it was time to place it back in the socket and apply the new thermal grizzly paste that came with the waterblock:



So this is probably where I may differ to many people and the "application" of thermal paste. Since I started building pc's I have always been a "spreader" of paste rather than using either the dollop or cross application.

My reasoning for this is purely to ensure I get an even spread of paste across the chip.

I like to apply a pea sized blob on the centre of the chip and then using a piece of card like to spread it out across the chip to ensure I get an even thin layer on the chip ready for the contact plate of the cooler being applied.


This may not be the "approved" way of doing it but it is the way I like to do it and I have never had a problem with a system doing it this way.


So after doing this initial prep work it's time to apply the water block, simple enough I thought until I looked in the box and went "where are the instructions for this" I think this is an area that EK seem to be poor in their offering with most of their items it seems to be go to the website and hope they have a manual there.

So the first thing I did lucky was find the manual on the product page for the waterblock here:

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/EK-IM/EK-IM-3831109810309.pdf


so looking at this to make sure I didn't have to do anything like removing back plates or attach the correct pegs for the block I noticed it talked about the "jet plate" and that I needed to use J2 plate for my chip (2011-3) so this i thought would be a nightmare of a task to do but was actually an easy thing.

Using the provided alan key it was a simple case of undoing the 4 hex nuts and then popping the contact plate off the bottom to reveal the jet plate sitting in the middle of the block.

So just to check which plate was installed (again EK if you do us a favour and either print on the plates which one they I lined them up to see which one had a slightly smaller hole as I was meant to be using the 0.8mm one and to my eyes they looked exactly the same width with no difference in width at all.

So i popped the originally supplied one back into the block and then made sure that I screwed everything back into place correctly while also ensuring that everything was back in it's correct place and as tight as I could make it without over-tightening the screws.

Once I had that put back together again it was time to insert the pegs as then attach the block to the mainboard.



Again this was an easy enough process it was a case of getting each screw cap on the pegs initially with a little bit of tension and then applying more rotations to the end caps to ensure i had an even amount of pressure being applied to each post plus as the springs started to tighten up they would tell me if I was over-tightening with a little whine at me.. I kept doing this until i was feeling physical pressure and push back of not being able to apply any more force.

So once I had the block installed it was time to pop the ram back into it's Quad Channel configuration and then screw it into the case.

The nice thing here was that the standoff pegs were already in the correct space and then ensuring the IO shield was installed prior to the mainboard being installed I simply had to screw this into the case like so:



more to follow hopefully this evening.

 

[HungryHippos]

Compressed air is really good at clearing this kind of thing down, looks like you could use a blast of that on the motherboard.

Unfortunately compressed air is strangely expensive! at least a few £ a can normally, and it doesn't last long.

I made sure to give mine a good spray down with the compressed air prior to installing into the new case as I didn't want to have dust floating around in it before I even began!

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Looking good

 

[jonathan_phang]

Loving that water block. Looks so nice. Will be good to see how it all turns out. The case really is nice. Cant wait to start to play around with the lighting etc.

 

[davetherave2]

Compressed air is really good at clearing this kind of thing down, looks like you could use a blast of that on the motherboard.

Unfortunately compressed air is strangely expensive! at least a few £ a can normally, and it doesn't last long.

I made sure to give mine a good spray down with the compressed air prior to installing into the new case as I didn't want to have dust floating around in it before I even began!

Yeah I did have a can but managed to empty it out when i did the last set of maintenance on the old case and replacing some icy dock fans.

So to continue the build. (this was from wednesday night's activities)



graphics card in place and now it's time to add all the cabling.

Now this is where I probably made my first mistake. I was so concerned with trying to get the cabling nice an tidy I still hadn't installed the hard drives or anything else. So spoiler alert what you are about to see in the next series of images I have had to undo. I will explain my reasons behind it.

So first things first I wanted to make sure my PSU would fit in no problems and then also route some of the cables that were modular into areas that I knew could be filled with cables:





(again seems i need to run the dust buster through the psu to get rid of that additional dust build up. )

All I can say I have been extremely happy with this cooler master M1000 Real Power PSU. It has served me well for at 10/12 years and is still going strong.




So once I got the psu in place I started to route the cable mod extensions from the mainboard and gpu and tried to bend them into positions that made them look at least vaguely neat.




Now this is the first time i have worked with these or any kind of cable mod extension set and my initial thought was amazing these will look so cool but after a bit of teasing I am still debating if I should keep them.

My reason for this is that they don't really bend how I would have liked. this may be down to the coating on the cables being stiffer than I was expecting and I was expecting them to be a bit more malleable. Plus it may have been due to the way they are wrapped in the packaging and they just need to be worked with a bit to get them to a bend position that I am comfortable with.


After doing this initial placement as well as wiring up the hard drives (which i will come back to)

I then decided to prep the radiator for assembly.

So even though I think these come "pre-flushed" at the EK factory from the various you tube videos that I watched it seemed that doing your own pre-flushing can be a beneficial thing to do.

So you can either use the Mayhem Blitz cleaning Kit (which i didn't order and this seems more geared to cleaning the system from existing use as opposed to a new build (feel free to correct me if I have that wrong)

So the simplest and cheapest way to do this required the following additional items:

Distilled water
Distilled white Vinegar/ distilled malt vinegar (depending on who makes it) - essentially they are the same from what I could tell. As long as you get the clear stuff you should be fine and seemed to work ok for me.

So using a glass jug I placed about 100ml of vinegar to 400ml of water and then heated it up in the micowave for 30 - 60 seconds and then pouring this heated solution into one of the rad's open ports I filled it until i could the level rising inside and then applied the included stoppers onto the rad and then gave it a gentle jiggle from side to side to get the fluid moving inside for around 20 seconds and then emptied.

I repeated this "cleaning" process 4 times and then after doing this used the distilled water to then flush this mixture out and repeat the process 4/5 times to ensure that any remnants of the previous flushing attempts had left the system and left the rad to dry for a bit.


After the drying process had completed it was time to attach the vardar fans. Now this is where I think I may have got lucky in terms of how I have mounted the fans as the whole push/pull thing and the way the fan is facing confuses me everytime.



So given that the rad is going to be facing upwards so from my understanding is that the fans should be pulling air up through the rad and out the top of the case (as that's how i have mounted the rad)

My first mistake of many in this build was not paying attention to how I was going to mount the rad relative to the 6 cables I had coming of the fans (3 pwm, 3 rgb) and had those running on the inside of the case facing the window. So it was a case of unscrewing the rad, unscrewing the fans and then re-positioning the cables so they were hidden behind the rad.

While mounting the fans I ensured that I applied even pressure to the long screws provided and then when I felt resistance to stop. The last thing I wanted to do was get anywhere close to puncturing the rad with the fan screws. I'm not sure how likely that is but I just made sure I took my time and when the fans told me they were tight enough then I stopped.



So after this I then started to install all the hard drives into my system (Or at least 4 of my existing drives as there really isn't the placement for 10+ drives like I had in my old case due to the hot swap bays)

So i decided to install my 2 ssd's at the bottom of the case via the provided brackets and installing 2 4TB drives into the bay above the psu., which can be removed for a second psu to be put in.

This is where I made another mistake I had tried to route so many of my other cables like usb headers, power switch, front audio etc that it was tough to get the sata power cable and sata cable through the opening and connected. This is probably where a more modern psu would help with having just one connector on the psu cable it would have been so much easier to install these as they are really snug against the bottom of the case which meant remounting these bottom drive caddies was a bit of trial and error until they fitted back correctly and required some additional rerouting to make enough space.



So this was how I left it on wednesday night with some cables still needing to be tidied up but the main components fitted together but with one problem.

I had no way of mounting the EK pump/res combo so decided to make it easy on myself to get the 120mm standing bracket so that I could mount the res at the front of the case either on the floor or on the side rad position.

So this meant I had to stop the build so that I could order the additional parts.

 

[davetherave2]

So as mentioned I needed to order some additional items for my system.

The additions I purchased where the following:

1 X EK Water Blocks EK-AF Ball Valve (10mm) G14 - Black Nickel
1 X Cooler Master Master Accessories RGB Fan Controller
1 X EK Water Blocks EK-UNI Pump Bracket (120mm FAN) Vertical
1 X Cooler Master Triple RGB Splitter Cable for RGB Fans and Strips
1 X EK Water Blocks EK-AF Y-Splitter Rotary 2F-1M G1/4 - Black Nickel
1 X EK Water Blocks EK-CSQ Plug G1/4 (for EK-Badge) - Black Nickel
1 X EK Water Blocks EK-AF Extender 6mm M-M G1/4 - Black Nickel
1 X IcyBox 2-Bay Docking and Clone Station for 2.5" 3.5" SATA HDD USB 3.0 (IB-120CL-U3)

So I looked at the majority of water cooling systems and it looked like a good idea to add some method to drain the loop when it comes to doing maintenance (plus a number of users here suggested it when I was planning this custom loop)

So I ordered a Y-piece, an extender to connect the drain tap and then some end caps to close this off while not in use and prevent any potential leaks.

In addition to this I also purchased an additional RGB Hub due to my motherboard not having an RGB header on it and a splitter cable so that I could connect all the additional RGB enabled devices i had.

Otherwise I would have just had all these extra cables just being in the way and doing nothing. Not exactly what I wanted.

The nice thing with the coolermaster fan controller is that it just connects to a space USB 2.0 header port on the Mainboard and as I had a spare one it seemed like a sensible option. Plus the added bonus here was the controller is magnetic so no need to screw it in to anything which made fitting it into the case super easy.

So with these extra parts I was now in a position to start completing this build.

So I decided i was going to attach the pump/res combo to the bottom of the case as it seemed the most sensible place (this ultimately changed to be attached to the back side panel)




with the drain port now attached


(Now this is on the out port of the loop which I am still not sure if that is right and if it isn't then I will need to shift over to the in port of the res when I do my first fluid change - maybe someone with more experience can confirm if this is the correct setup)

Once I had this fitted I realised that i needed to twist the res round a degree or two to make it easier to access the tap and prevent it from potentially touching the graphics card.


Having only ever seem EK products in either videos or as product images I have to say I was blown away with the quality of the products and the attention to details they take in making every aspect of the product pleasing to the eye




So with the core of the cooling loop it was now time for the fun bit. Cutting the tubing and then leak testing the system.

Given it was my first time doing anything like this I was impressed I didn't completely botch this process up.

I only ended up ruining one piece of tubing that I cut as I cut it slightly to show by about an inch.

The first piece I did cut too short going from the res to the water block but was able to salvage that piece and use it to connect the block to the radiator. Otherwise it would have been two pieces of tubing that I would have wasted. (good job I got 3m of tubing just for such an event)

So I didn't do any measuring as such I eyeballed the tubing that I required and decided after the first mishap to cut the tubing slightly longer than I needed and then cut small parts of it as I needed to get to a length that would work. This worked fine apart from the return tube from the radiator to the res where I cut just slightly too much off and it would have been a struggle to fit the tubing onto the connector.

Which leads me to my part which I didn't expect was the amount of force I had to use to put the tubing onto the connectors. With a bit of gentle persuasion I made sure they were connected securely and then tightening the collar to ensure a tight seal. Again this was just ensuring it was finger tight and ensuring that I wasn't over tightening it.

Trying to take of a piece of tubing when it is connected to a fitting is a real pain and found that using a flat head screwdriver to ease the tube of the connector was the only way I could remove it (this happened with the botched piece of tubing I did.

With that all said and done and ensuring all the fittings were connected and tight it was time to prep the loop.





So with paper towels in position covering as much of the hardware as possible. it was now time to add the fluid.

So of I go to open the EK pre-mixed fluid into my filling bottle and add the first fill of the res (exciting times - moment of truth is something not screwed in correctly)



So for this to be considered Electric Purple I was amazing when I started to fill up and it looks more pink than purple to me which is fine as I actually like the colour of the fluid (I know it's probably not to everyones taste)

So I come to connect the pump to the spare 500W psu I have, attach the bridging pin I have for it and turn it on and then...........

Nothing happening, all that was happening is that the psu was whining like it was in pain so it was quickly switched off and disconnected. Seems that this psu at some point has died since the last time i used it. So meant I had to use my main psu that I had wired up into the case.

So to make it easier to keep turning it off and on again (as this doesn't have a rocker switch) I disconnected all the cables, unscrewed it from the case so I had it next to me and then I could pull the power lead out during the filling process.

So take 2, connect the pump, bridging pin and then success the fluid rapidly starts to flow up the tubing.



I was shocked at how fast it gobbled up the liquid. I made sure not to leave the pump running once it got to the level you see in the image to prevent any potential damage being caused with no fluid in the res.




SO had to check to make sure everything was filling up correctly and promptly and looking for any potential leaks before the next top up.




So a couple of top ups later we have almost a full loop but this is where I knew I would have potential problems getting the air bubbles/locks out of the system.

This took a bit of time to sort out and I am not sure this is just down to me filling the system wrong or just one of those things that happens. So a bit of case manoeuvring and also rocking in a number of directions I managed to get the blockage out and see everything filling up and flowing as expected.

The degree to which I had to angle the case to get the air out of the radiator was unnerving to say the least.

One thing that I found helped which probably sounds a bit sketchy was unhooking the res from it's bracket and then raising and lowering it to try and help gravity force the fluid round and ensure that the return tube was being fully filled.

After this effort which took some time and numerous attempts to jiggle the air out of the system I finally had success and then could only see small bubbles resting in the system. So while i was doing this I decided to test the RGB on the pump,res and fans just to see what they looked like as I could test this via the RGB controller on SATA power only.







So the last couple of images you can see the little bubbles still left in the loop so doing a couple of things like squeezing the tubing to try and shift them didn't really help (as seen in a couple of videos)

So I just left the system running for a few hours (well overnight - after I was certain the system wasn't going to leak)

I returned to it in the morning and pretty much all this "foamy bubbles" has made it out of the system and there was just the odd tiny bubble left in the return tube.

That's how the system was left for another night ready to be completed the next day.

edit:

One of the big takeaways I had from assembling this is that if I had gone with a couple of suggestions of getting angle fittings it would have made a couple of the tubes easier to fit so I would suggest if anyone is looking to do this type of setup and thinks they can get away with not having them then fine, I have proved you can do it with no angled connectors but it would make like a lot easier if you did have the connectors to make certain routing "cleaner"

 

[davetherave2]

So the last stretch of completing this build.

As I had cabled up and then subsequently un-cabled everything to do the leak testing. It was now time to reroute the rgb cables for the fans and also find a place for the rgb controller.

Now i didn't want to just try and stuff all the cables into the back and hope they were out of sight and out of mind I wanted to be able to have some semblance of order. So using a couple of twist ties and the provided velcro ties with the case I got the bulk of the cabling done and organised as best I could and then utilising space above and below the hard drive cage I tried to ensure any excess cables were hidden away and tied up as best I could.



while also doing this you may notice that the res is now affixed the back side bracket rather than the bottom of the case. The simple reason for doing this was to pull the tubing back inside the case as the return tube would have been squeezed up against the case window and also I wasn't entirely sure I could put the panel back on comfortably.

So had I of look at this as a potential issue before filling up the loop it would have saved some res moving gymnastics to remove the bracket and fit it in it's new position with the res still filled with fluid.



Hiding the numerous wires as best I could behind this panel and routing them as logically as I could.

I even used the sata cables going from the mainboard to the back hard drives as make shift cable ties to try and hold the sata power cables as best I could. I also kept with the cable mod extensions as it allowed me to better work with the power leads and route them into the spare spacing better.

once I had everything is place it was time just to do a final system power up and test to make sure everything was connected correctly:






Then the final part to put the side panels back on and see the case in full effect:




Then a couple of shots of it up and running in it's temporary home until I reorganise my office to see the case in all it's glory:








and just to see what it is like at idle:




at load I am averaging low 50's while playing games like the Division 2 or running a cinebench cpu stress test.

 

[Distracted]

Congrats on the build!

I love that original stacker case of yours, I had one but passed it on to a friend in need and I really missed it for a long time. This was many years ago.

So this meant I had to stop the build so that I could order the additional parts.

I imagine I speak for the majority of builders here when I say, I feel your pain.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Looking good!

I started to fill up and it looks more pink than purple to me which is fine as I actually like the colour of the fluid (I know it's probably not to everyones taste)

Not to everyone's taste?! Black and pink is a killer combo

I would suggest that tubes can still be made shorter so they don't droop as much, but:

- You've already identified that angled fittings will help here, and

- Some tubing runs are quite long. It will get neater when you block up your graphics crd and add it to the loop

 

[davetherave2]

Congrats on the build!

I love that original stacker case of yours, I had one but passed it on to a friend in need and I really missed it for a long time. This was many years ago.



I imagine I speak for the majority of builders here when I say, I feel your pain.

It's part of the reason why i never upgraded my case over the years. It may not have been the best looking case internally to help with cable management but boy could i pack a lot of storage in that thing .

As for the extra pieces some i needed others I got purely to help with "future" tasks. But now knowing what I do I can anticipate that.

Looking good!


Not to everyone's taste?! Black and pink is a killer combo

I would suggest that tubes can still be made shorter so they don't droop as much, but:

- You've already identified that angled fittings will help here, and

- Some tubing runs are quite long. It will get neater when you block up your graphics card and add it to the loop

Thanks for that

I looked at so many you tube videos before embarking on this build and they all either went with a red & black theme (due to being AMD/Radeon based systems) or green & black with the odd blue & black system thrown in here and there.

For me the important thing with the "drooping" tubing was to make sure I had enough length on it to fit comfortably without any undue stress being put on the tubing and the components.

I think when it comes to the angled fittings I will need to figure out where the best place is but I will probably be looking at the rad and pump return loop for starters to make that cleaner looking, but who knows maybe in 6-12 months time I will look to go hard line.

I certainly think I could make do with adding a couple of case fans above the res to help with cooling. Although the air being sucked in is cool to the touch I feel a bit a more airflow in the case would help some what.

I did a "mild" auto overclock last night of 4ghz on the cpu and this is the results:



This was after running aida 64 for period of time and also doing some benchmarking with 3D Mark. (Although the fans seem to ramp up really quickly on the rad and do make a bit too much noise for my liking).

I am sure I could push it more if I wanted.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

air filters are naff with the Dynamic. worth getting replacements

I've got 1 of these- 4 is quite a bit

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 4 x DEMCiflex Dustfilter Set for 360mm Radiator - Black/Black= £19.99

Total: £88.66 (includes shipping: £8.70)


***seems they do a kit for the AIR ! $54 - just ordered mine £38 - but only needed 2 out of the 4 top/side filters as already have one and only the AIR version do you need 4 sides.​

 

[davetherave2]

air filters are naff with the Dynamic. worth getting replacements

I've got 4 of these

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 4 x DEMCiflex Dustfilter Set for 360mm Radiator - Black/Black= £19.99

​

Thanks. I am actually finding that the dust filter on the PSU part of the back panel is making a bit of noise so am going to remove that and see if I still get the same level of noise.

I will see how the current dust filters do and change if required.

I need to sort out a new pedestal/draw set for the case first as I don't have a place to put it on my desk currently so it may be a trip to ikea to see if I can get something sturdy enough for it.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Thanks. I am actually finding that the dust filter on the PSU part of the back panel is making a bit of noise so am going to remove that and see if I still get the same level of noise.

I will see how the current dust filters do and change if required.

I need to sort out a new pedestal/draw set for the case first as I don't have a place to put it on my desk currently so it may be a trip to ikea to see if I can get something sturdy enough for it.

sorry, got it wrong in my typo, just have the one. but ordered some from US for the price of buying 2x 360 filters

 

[davetherave2]

Apologies for being a bit quite on this. Has been a busy week or two getting things prepped for an office rearrange. Taking some inspirations from fellow 'clockers set ups I have been getting a few extra bits and pieces for the office so that I can give this beauty her rightful place.

Hoping to have the big office tear down this weekend and start with the rearranging to get things arranged properly.

Pics to follow I promise.

 

[Cooler running]

Im kinda jelly but also encouraged that this sort of build would be a beginners thing. Very nice.