Modular.

Cenedd · 21 Jan 2023 at 16:55

Hadn't spotted they were 4-pin. Do they need to be? In 3-pin if that's any good to you I've got:

2 Noctua NA-RC12 (150 Ohm nominal)
2 Noctua NA-RC10 ( 50 Ohm nominal)
Unbranded and unbraided (but almost certainly old Noctua):
- Five 50 Ohm
- Two 75 Ohm
- One 80 Ohm
- Six 150 Ohm

I've also got six extensions in 4-pin with the waxed fabric tube Noctua use if you wanted to sleeve them yourself to match or convert 3-pin to 4-pin.
All available gratis (if they're any help) at the astounding speed of Royal Fail

ALXAndy · 21 Jan 2023 at 17:22

They are 4 pin, so I will have to cut the EK things.

I will see how it goes first dude. They don't need extending thankfully. And besides, I would not sleeve anything in there either. That box is purely just for cooling.

ALXAndy · 22 Jan 2023 at 14:58

OK so after a 5 hour gaming session I can confirm it all works as it should. Temps are still quite high though, 68c on the GPU in PUBG. Around 52 in Portal RTX. UE really is punishment for a GPU tbh. That said it was over a 3 hour session, and I did have the rad back on in the room.

However, no orbs. And no crashes. And no memory under clock needed. So the FPS were actually really good. I was also surprised to see the 11400F also reach 69c. I guess it has something to do with the GPU temps, but then Rocket Lake is hot AF and it is 6c 12t. I also noted that when I set the XMP to 3000 the FSB is 103mhz, so the CPU also runs slightly overclocked. Overall performance was really damn good in PUBG tbh. I was very surprised. I can actually play Portal RTX too at 1440p and with the settings I used get 55 FPS.

Monkey Puzzle · 23 Jan 2023 at 20:03

ALXAndy said:
Update 54 - "No I lied, still one more day".

So last night I finished up wiring and finally joined the two boxes together. At which point I filled and burped it. This wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but god my hands were killing me from squeezing the fill bottle. Took about oo, 30 mins?

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

I then installed Windows.

And ran a few tests last night. GPU seems very happy now.

So this is where we are at today.

Nothing has been assembled yet.

And there is a good reason for that. After a lot of testing I can not get those 6 Bitspower fans to produce anything I consider to be livable noise levels WITHOUT the pump stopping. Which is a big issue. I built this thing because I was tired of the noise, not because I wanted more. So, thinking on my feet last night I bought these.

Which are quite expensive. So I did not want to buy 6 of them, so I got these with them.

X2. So I will use the noise reducers (two) into those, and then connect the fans to those. I should then be able to crank up the pump without worrying about the fans sending me crazy.

Must say the coolant looks really suss in the filling bottle.

Would you be better off just jiggling the fan pins around to 7v mod them? (Presume they're not PWM?)

Ah they're 4pin/PWM - can you just run a splitter from fans to a motherboard header?

Cenedd · 23 Jan 2023 at 21:53

They're also in a separate case and run off a 12V-only power supply. His only choice is a resistor for each fan to drop the voltage or to put a buck converter in between the 12V line and the fab to drop the voltage for all. They work quite nicely and are adjustable - I have two in my 3D printer electronics box to drop 24V to 12V for fans and 24V to 5V for the Pi (OctoPi) and nothing has blown up so far!

ALXAndy · 23 Jan 2023 at 22:49

The cooling box uses a variable power supply.

The problem is the fans are extremely noisy. So by the time the pump pumps the fans sound like a typhoon. Hence why the fans are getting resistors, so I can crank the voltage and speed up the pump without going deaf.

ALXAndy · 28 Jan 2023 at 14:33

Right it sort of did and didn't work.

Fans were too slow, and resistors were getting very hot. You know how when something starts to drag on and becomes annoying? yeah, me too. Have ordered three more. It's awesome with them on, but obviously I did not have enough. Sadly all I could get fast were 3 pin, so I will have to chop them about tomorrow.

I just want this done and out of the way, as I have a lot of work left to do on my AV system when I get home.

ALXAndy · 28 Jan 2023 at 15:28

Quick piccy of that. Coolant is strange, seems to change colour a lot in light.

LuckyBenski · 28 Jan 2023 at 17:34

ALXAndy said:
Quick piccy of that. Coolant is strange, seems to change colour a lot in light.

You spilled some on your keyboard

ALXAndy · 28 Jan 2023 at 17:36

hah I did. I got those for a tenner, as I could not see the black ones in the dark.

Getting old sucks.

Cenedd · 28 Jan 2023 at 18:57

Have you checked them with a Geiger counter?!
What colour is the carpet in the vicinity of the florescent yellow coolant? Asking because experience

ALXAndy · 29 Jan 2023 at 17:48

Update 55 - "Everything In Its Right Place"

So today I finished the cooling box.

I then remembered I bought some RGB strips. Which turned into an absolute nightmare.

I figured the connector would either be ATX 24 pin side or like most boards, across the top. No no no. This is where it lives.

Um. Um. F*ck? um, f*ck f*ck and double f*ck?

It is close to impossible given this is your view.

And of course nothing can come out now because it is all conjoined with hoses.

After saying f*ck a few more times I decided to investigate. First I removed the GPU's PCIE connector cover and then removed said connector. At this point I could see it. Problem was it was about 20cm away and of course hands don't fit and as soon as you put your German Bands in there you block the view.

As such after saying f*ck yet a few more times I realised I would have to cable tie it to a screwdriver. I then pushed it home, and then after saying f*ck a few more times I got the cable ties off. By this time it was loose, so I gave it a firm shove.

From that point on it was all plain sailing.

After replacing the top I noticed it had this wicked glow across the right side.

Which was why I bought them. Top back on.

I could then fit the side panel back on.

Wicked.

After a lot of rewiring and reworking I had it connected once more. Sadly the audio cable and the power cable need replacing with longer ones, but that I can do.

My mic's tripod imploded about two days before I began the project. However, given it has the right look and right colour on it I am going to make a holder that is integrated into the front corner of the case.

I also sorted the power LED yesterday, as it was on backward and thus did not work.

ALXAndy · 29 Jan 2023 at 19:22

BTW few things to mention, and somewhat closing thoughts because I still need to cover the screw holes and make the mic holder (though that will not happen for a few weeks).

In the end I realised it would be a huge hassle to remove the pump braiding and etc. So, I cut the sensor wire (I was worried it may be shorted and would thus blow up the board), and just connected it to the board. This happened for a reason. I had one spare connector from the PSU left (a molex 4 pin). I was in the middle of making a custom pump power cable in yellow and yet again was distracted by my mother. Only this time? I totally got it wrong and the PSU was cutting out. With no real reference to fall back on yeah, that is why the pump is connected to the board like that.

I found out why I was keen to replace said power supply all those years ago. As soon as you put a load on it it screams. IIRC I put three Titan Blacks on it and was benching when it started. Given it was so long ago I had forgot, so now my friends ask me why I have a helter skelter running in the background. Obviously this is not something I can easily fix, nor would I want to remove all of that work. As such at some point I will look at the service code on the case and find out what model it is. If I can get that correct? I will buy a replacement unit the same and switch out the guts, given it was very easy to take apart. That way I won't lose all my work.

Come spring time? I will start on 02. So I can live with it until then, given at idle and normal use it doesn't make a sound. Closed back headphones maybe?

I have a lot coming up now. Lots of family and personal stuff to endure, so yes, I may leave it for a month or so before I totally complete it. But, as the last update said, everything is now in the right place. And it all does what it should. It still runs very warm in PUBG. It is not uncommon for the heavier maps to make the GPU reach 70c. Especially the new Vikendi, with its tornadoes and all. However, I have not seen one orb, one artefact and it has not crashed once. Given the core is still running pretty close to where it was before? well I can pretty much assume that the water jacket has now stopped the VRAM reaching ridiculous temps. I have not underclocked it at all, and have over 10 hours on it in PUBG now. I would like to think that the devs maybe fixed something, but it was only ever happening to me (we all get crashes but not like that) and it only happened on one of my rigs out of 3 that I use. So it is fair to say? that definitely fixed something.

Overall I am very happy with it. I spent the absolute minimum on hardware, recycled a lot of old gear and have put it to use. I also am very happy indeed with the CPU performance in games. It decimates my 3950x. In fact, it is pretty much as good as my 12700K. Go figure.