Project: Aquasidian (Corsair 800D)

[Nem]

Six months on quick update: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17169359&postcount=209

Finally managed to get started on my new build...

Run down of parts:

Asus Rampage II Extreme
Intel i7 920 D0
Asus Ati 5870
Corsair Dominator 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8
Corsair Obsidian 800D
Crucial 64Gb SSD + Westen Digital 1Tb

Watercooling:

Swiftech GTZ SE
EK 5870 full cover
XSPC RX360
Swiftech MCP655
EK 250 R2 Reservoir
Tygon 1/2" with Fesser Compresion fittings
Thermochill EC6 Blue Coolant

Then to finish it all there are some white cathodes, Scythe Kaze controler, Scythe Jyuni 1900 fans, Corsair Ram cooler. All cables will be sleeved with MDPC-X sleeve and heatshrink.

Mounting the 5870 block:

Pump, Res and Rad mounting:

Motherboard and graphics fitted, all pipework in place:

Two days work so far, and it's gone rather well so far. I have managed to snap on of the res mounting brackets so need to replace that.

I've sleeved a few of the cables for the fans already, also turned the rear case fan around to draw air into the case. Just witing for a delivery from Germany for the rest of the sleeving to finish off the psu cables.

Next stage it to recheck all the pipe fittings and then fill and leak test the system before going any further. These compression fittings certainly look nice, but it's a bit of a task to get them 100% secure, so need to be careful of them I think.

I have also got the waterblocks for the mosfets on this board, but didn't realise you need to also replace the north / south bridge cooling as well. I've not got enough cooling to have all of it in the system so for now I've decided to keep the stock cooling on the mother board and add at a later date.

Will update later in the week with progress

 

[Nem]

How are you finding the case re working inside it? Its going to be my next purchase and im still trying to justify spending £209 on a case lol

Case is stunning. Only thing is it's not actually as big as I was expecting. Not that it's small, and not that it's a problem either, but I've had to really think about how to position the pump as there's not that much room in the lower section with the fan down there also.

My last case was a Coolermaster 110, right before the old skool Coolermaster cases stopped being made, that cost £230 so the price of this was just about bearable

Not seen many builds in the 800D so will keep an eye on this Looking nice so far though. That rad fit up in the roof straight away?

The rad fits straight in, one reason I went for this case was not having to cut it up as soon as I bought it. You will loose the top couple of drive bays tho, although the top one isn't a problem as it's housing the power button nd front pannel sockets. But something worth considering if you wanted a load of cd drives etc etc.

Reviews flying about state you can fit a 360 rad with push+pull slim fans and still have 5-10mm space left from the mobo

I've got enough space between the top of the motherboard and the bottom of the fans currently to get another fan depth in there, with maybe a couple of mm left so it's certainly possible.

 

[Nem]

Maybe it's just the angle of the picture, but it looks like you might have trouble fitting the RAM under that hose? Nonetheless, looks awesome so far

Just the picture indeed. I've tried with the ram fan unit installed and it's fine

 

[Nem]

Couple more pics to show how the pump is mounted and the pipe routed behind the motherboard wall. There is a good inch of space back there, so with that smll piece of the case bent it allows the pipe to not be squashed at all.

 

[Nem]

First fill an leak test didn't go well Fluid coming out of both the cpu block inlet and outlet! Not the pipe connection but the compression fitting to the block. But it was as tight as possible to screw it in.

Had to part drain the system and remove both fittings to have a look. Seems that the O ring on the compression fittings are not large enough to seal them to this cpu block. Had a brainwave and looked at the fittings supplied with the block (which I've not used at all) and they had O rings which were twice the size on them. Changed them over to the compression fittings and put it all back together, refilled and for the last 30 minutes they seem ok. I've currently got a towel and kitchen roll laid out to look for any leaks with a micro torch aimed at the cpu block to make it easier to see.

The colour of this Thermochill Blue liquid is perfect for the Aqua theme

 

[Nem]

Looking good. I had a similar problem with an old northbridge block, the o-rings simply werent making a proper seal. I ended up using some wierd plastic barbs that came with the block to solve it, after much horror of my first water leak! haha

But like you said, that colour is pretty nice for your build Whats the little stanley/tripod/keyring thing? lol, sorry if its obvious but Im well confused by it

The tripod is just a torch, without the camera flash it was a little dark in there so was keeping an eye on the cpu block with it.

 

[Nem]

Last update for today...

 

[Nem]

Thanks for the advice

Pretty sure the cpu block is correct, the brief piece of paper which came with it said about orientating the block along the axis of the cpu locking lever which on this board is verticle currently.

I'll have a look at the other parts you've suggested and see hwo it would work

 

[Nem]

Nice build, but more importantly where did you get that little tripod torch from? It looks really cool!

PK!

Was from B&Q, really useful little light indeed

So I've ordered the EK x-top for the pump, so I'll halt the leak testing until that arrives and I can change the loop around, seems like the best idea

 

[Nem]

Quick update...

I've now got the EK pump kit for the MCP655, and also the rest of the cable sleeving from MDPC-X. So I'll get some work done on the piping and see how far I get with the rest of it. Hopefully some more pictures tomorrow or Sunday.

 

[Nem]

Right, new piccies!

I've fitted the EK Pump kit which allows you to have the inlet and outlet on the same direction. Basically lets me use both of the pre-fitted grommits in the middle case floor instead of having that long pipe up the back side of the motherboard tray.

I did try the layout suggested above, having the radiator go back to the res top inlet, but I was just getting too many bubbles from the water dropping back in and the pump was just pushing froth around the loop. Also the pipe from the res down to the pump wasn't great and at the point of kinking.

So after draining it all for the 2nd time, and a couple of pipe changes later we have this:

 

[Nem]

Next stage now complete. 24 / 8 and two 6 pin psu extention cables sleved and heatshrinked!

Tomorrow should see psu fitted along with fan / temp bay panel, optical drives and possible even get to boot it up!

 

[Nem]

Hi, they are indeed braided, as are all the s-ata power and data cables, front panel connector leads etc etc.

The psu cables which are braided are just extension cables from ocuk:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-021-AK&groupid=701&catid=48&subcat=

Same for the 8 pin one, and the two pci-ex 6 pin ones (but they were bought elsewhere as OCUK didn't have them).

The braid itself is from MDPC-X:

http://en.mdpc-x.com/ - they only sell the braid, I'd linked to it before on here as they don't sell anything which OCUK does it was ok before.

Trust me on this one, you need the tool which they sell for removing the psu pins. I've tried other ways and failed miserably and had to buy a second cable as I magled the first one. With the tool they just pop out with no problem and go back in and clip in place. It's a lot of money for a tool, but there really is no better way

So latest news is that the psu was installed last night, along with the optical drives, sleeved the s-ata data and power cables and installed them also. All that is left now is to pop in the memory and cpu and then connect all the wires currently hanging out the back just need to decide if I can make it all tidy or to just connect it all and put the side on and not open it again, lol!

Will update with pics this evening!

 

[Nem]

Just a question about the pump mount, I have the mcp655 and I'm pretty sure that the pump has to be moounted vertically, i.e. with the outlet straight up, not as on the side as shown there.

Hi, the only thing to make sure is that the inlet is not upwards as in the water has to go against gravity and into the pump, this may cause the pump to run dry if there is air in the loop. With the inlet horizontal or on top the water is always going towards the inlet to keep the water supply.

But... if you look at the pics further down you can see I've now changed the pump front to the EK top which has the inlet and outlet on the same side, to basically aid in the pipework. I wasn't happy with the pipe bending on the oulet in the above pics. I think over time it would start to restrict and also I was worried about it being behind the case side, even tho it seemed to not get squashed with the side on.

 

[Nem]

Well after a long evening, it lives!

That cpu temp was after it had been sat in the bios for about 15 minutes, after an hour it was at 38DegC, but I've yet no idea if thats good or bad?

I've still got a lot to do yet, but couldn't wait to get it turned on and make sure it was all going ok so far

Job list looks like this:

Resleeve the power cable for the RAM cooler unit,
Spray paint the cases of the DVD drives black,
Try somehow to make the 24 pin cable look tidier,

Then I've got some white strip cathodes I'm hoping to fit in somehow, I want some basic white light in there, but not too much, and not so that you can see the light source at all. The cathode wires are already sleeved so they just need placing when I can work out where. I definitely need one to light up the res

I'm also thinking of some sort of support for the gfx card, it's definitely bending over at the front end, just some sort of thin metal tube to wedge from one of the power connectors to the middle case floor to prop it up will do I think.

I'm also looking again at fans, I've found a lovely fan for the case rear but it's only in 120mm and not 140mm as is now. There are holes to fit a 120mm fan in that place, but I'm not sure of the effect of the smaller fan. The current 140mm one is sat at 900rpm and really doesn't feel like it's doing that much. Also the fans on the rad were meant to be the 1900rpm ones, but I got sent the 1200rpm version instead, and I didn't notice on the packets untill after I'd sleeved them all, doh!

Anyway, after a few more bits sorted I'll get some more, and maybe final, pics up in a few days time.

 

[Nem]

Thankfully all that range of Corsair PSU's have the blue sticker, but as with everything on this build, the parts were chosen not only for their performance but their colour as well

Decided to do a couple more pics...

 

[Nem]

I've had blue cathodes in my last pc, and it just makes everything blue (to state the obvious), but you loose the clarity of the other colours / chrome bits in there.

I've got some white cathodes, 30cm and 10cm long to see how it works. Currently I've put a single 30cm one in the top fixed to the radiator fans but I'm not sure if it's too bright now Going to try a 10cm one up there instead to see how that looks later tonight, and a 10cm behind the res also.

I may even try a LED strip instead, as they offer a more 'crisp' type of light which may provide the look I'm after.

Going to pop the hard drive in tonight and get Windows installed, make sure everything is working as it should. Then finish off the last bits over this week as I can.

Still also looking at fans. I think this would be perfect for the case rear:

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_photo.php?pno=suscool121&area=usa

Still trying to decide if it's worth it just for the look by going from a 140mm down to a 120mm as the suscool one is. There are already holes in the case to take a 120mm instead which helps of course

 

[Nem]

Think I've sorted the lighting out. Decided to ditch the 30cm cathodes as they definitely put out too much light. Instead I've used all 4 of the 10cm ones, one mounted vertically behind the res, one at the bottom lower rear of the case mounted vertically next to the expansion slot screws, and the other two fixed across the case to the fans on the radiator...

Thoughts?

The only thing I'm thinking is the one behind the res is too much, and possibly needs to be an LED plus in the bottom res socket to shine up into the liquid?

 

[Nem]

I've finally got Windows 7 (64-bit) installed after a few issues with the S-ata cables. I'd got them too tightly bent behind the motherboard tray and 2 had snapped on the connections

Anyway, bought some new (better) ones and resleeved them, and this time they are just mounted straight accross and under the res area through to the drive bays.

So, next problem is temps. Just sat in the bios the cpu is at 35deg C and in windows using RealTemp it's saying about 40deg C. I ran a quick stress test from within RealTemp and the cpu maxed out at 60deg C, which sounds very hot to me. Also this isn't with any load on the gfx card which will add a lot more heat to the loop when I do any 3d Bench's

I then tried the "easy oc" function in the bios which lets you select either 2.9Ghz of 3.2Ghz for the cpu. Selected the 3.2Ghz option which worked without any problem, but in windows the temps were 45 - 50deg C, and under load hit 75deg C.

So I'm more than a little miffed that the temps seem so bad. Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Nem]

Nice build!! You've got almost exactly the same hardware as me!!

Question. Did you take off the red bits off the mosfet and VRM heatsinks?

Yup, the red didn't go with the theme so just unscrewed them