PC update, watercooling addition, modding and repainting.

Ucof

Ucof

Ucof

Associate
Joined
27 Feb 2009
Posts
1,250
Location
Wales.
Spec list:
  • Case: Silverstone Fortress FT01
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-2550K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
  • MoBo: Asus Sabertooth Z77
  • GPU: MSI HD 7970 OC 3072MB GDDR5
  • PSU: EVGA 850W Supernova G2
  • RAM: Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Sport Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V
  • HDD: OCZ 120GB Agility 3 SSD, 120GB Crucial M500, 500gb Seagate
  • Heatsink/ Fan: Gelid Solutions Tranquillo Rev.2
  • Sound: ASUS Xonar D2X

Original build thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18017143

Hi all!
They time has come for me to jazz up my PC a bit, so I’m going to try and add watercooling to the existing setup, attempt my hand at cable braiding, add some lighting and even a bit of spray painting.

My CPU temps are fine, idling at around 33 degree, but it is my graphics card that I’m concerned about – when playing BF4 on Ultra, the card regularly hits almost 90 degrees. Apparently according to MSI, this is fine, but I’m still not keen on it. As such, the primary objective for this build, is to cool the video card.

I’ve made a few mockups in GIMP so you can see how it could look, but to tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure. I definitely want a neon Green and black colour scheme – if someone could offer a few opinions on what looks good/ bad and offer a few suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated! Original Gimp XCFs are available via trust.

Side:
PC.png


Front:
PCFront.png



So why not just run a pump/res -> GPU -> rad loop? Well, therein lies the problem – due to having a heatsink and fan on the CPU, there’s very little room to get the GPU pipework in. Which, then makes me think that it would make sense to watercool the CPU while I’m at it, and get some extra space in the case.

Parts bought:
  • Pump/res: XSPC single loop dual bay res + D5
  • Cable modding: 10m of 3mm black/ green cable sleeving, 6mm (3:1 shrink) pre-cut heat shrink, PSU modding tool, 10m green/ black 1mm waxed cotton
  • Misc: Green LED power switch, green led for res colouring, white under coat spray, neon green spray paint, 5m of 5050 RGB Led strip, 2 aluminium RAM heatsink spreaders

Parts wanted:
All watercooling parts, except for the above pump/res

Mods in mind: Case painting, cable sleeving and braiding, paint RAM heatspreaders, de-sticker PSU, RGB lighting

So... over to you guys! Any ideas or suggestions on what you would do or would like to see?
 
pedaars - My first thought had been clear acrylic, but then the idea of the 90 degree bends made be reconsider, due to possible flow restrictions. Do you know if these make a major difference to the flow rate?

jimbaw - seen, thanks, will have a think :)
 
Ucof said:
pedaars - My first thought had been clear acrylic, but then the idea of the 90 degree bends made be reconsider, due to possible flow restrictions. Do you know if these make a major difference to the flow rate?
Click to expand...

Unfortunatly not I have no experience with watercooling at all yet its something I will be dipping my toes into in the future. I have seen a nice neon green build on a different website that was acrylic tube and it looked amazing very eye catching
 
Have been cable sleeving for the last 3 days, fitting in around family time.
Fingers are bloodied and bruised.

Hopefully an update with pictures at some point tomorrow. Progress has been made!
 
Am I happy with the cabling? - yes, mainly – the fan cables look good, but after the physical pain of doing the MoBo cable, im starting to get bored by it, though still have the molex and video cables to go!
My fingers still hurt today - I didn’t realise how much force was going to be needed to pull the cables out, and seeing as the sleeving tools are only thin, they badly hurt my hands when having to push with them.

Anyway, here’s the update!

I received a box of bits from these guys:
Axonlogo.jpg

Contents:
1x 10m UV Green cable sleeving
1x 10m black cable sleeving
100x 6mm 3:1 heat shrink, individually pre-cut
1x Cable modding tool kit
2014-09-01171650Copy.jpg


In addition to that, I bought 2 black RAM heat spreaders, some 1mm thick waxed cotton string in black and UV Green, one can of white primer and one can of UV green spray:
2014-09-03172334Copy.jpg


Annoyingly, when I ordered the waxed cotton, I must have bought 2 different colours; one seems to be UV green, the other is lime green!
2014-09-03172352Copy.jpg


So that was the shopping, on with the modding!

First up was the RAM heatsinks – primer, green, installation.
The first two steps went great!
2014-09-03172415Copy.jpg

2014-09-03174354Copy.jpg


Now, I think that in my haste, I didn’t let the paint dry properly before respraying,, and when I did respray, I think it was too close (even though it was held at the instructioned 12 inches away). Either that, or the spray is a bit funky – they looked OK, but I didn’t get any pictures.
When I tried to install them, I found out that my RAM already has factory fitted heatspreaders. I didn’t fancy trying to pry the OEM ones off, only to damage the RAM, so ended up putting the RAM heat spreader mod on the backburner. I’ll probably come back to this again at a late date.

Next up was to spray the XSPC logo on the front of the double bay res. This went quite well, though in hindsight, I think masking tape would have been more responsive when cutting, than the parcel tape that I used. I’ll remember that for next time.
Taping up:
2014-09-06142717Copy.jpg


Cutting out:
2014-09-06143800Copy.jpg


Primer white coat:
2014-09-06144612-1Copy.jpg


“Finished” result:
2014-09-06174732Copy.jpg

Yes, it looks a little tatty and unfinished in that picture. I ended up going round the logo again with a scalpel and then my finger nail, as well as a fine pin. It will need a small internal touch up with some black paint. I am quite happy with how it looks after the tidying up.

Here is a colour comparison of the UV Green paint and the UV Green cable sleeving. Seems to be a good match!
2014-09-06184306Copy.jpg


On with the sleeving of this mess!
2014-09-05215705Copy.jpg

First up is the HDD activity light cable:
2014-09-05221158Copy.jpg

It went quite well, I thought, for my first foray into sleeving! I won’t be sleeving the other two cables as I don’t use them (I have turned my top mounted reset button in to the power button, and I don’t use the power LED as I can generally tell when my PC is on, with the rest of the other LEDs in the case!)

Here’s the other end of that cable:
2014-09-05221205Copy.jpg



Next came the hardest cable, I (4 days later I am still working on!) had to do; the motherboard cable.

First up I needed to remove the current sleeving, the heat shrink and the cable ties:
2014-09-06205257Copy.jpg


Removing the sleeving revealed an issue that I have not seen other people had to deal with! Capacitors and double wires!
2014-09-06205309Copy.jpg


This was a nightmare and I had to develop a clever way of making them all neat, I’ll show how I did this in a further post. Here was the first draft:
2014-09-07200326Copy.jpg


OH NO! Disaster!:
When cutting off the original sleeving, I managed to snip through a cable:
2014-09-06205532Copy.jpg


Thankfully I have a soldering iron and it was quickly repaired:
2014-09-06215956Copy.jpg


Heatshrink protection:
2014-09-06220129Copy.jpg


Recently fed snake impression:
2014-09-06220604Copy.jpg



That’s about as far as I am so far, I’ll hopefully finish the MoBo to PSU cable tonight and do a picture of the finished article. I should also get some instructions on how I did the split wires and capacitor sleeving, and how to get all the heat shrinks to the same length.
 
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